Bike Hugger 

Workbench mug

A workbench mug full of bits and pieces is like a bike time capsule. It’s filled to the brim with quick release springs, spacers, lock rings, a valve extender, PowerTap cap wrench, and more. Spill the contents out, assemble them in order, and see a timeline, including some Manitou MTB schwag. Can’t remember where that mug originally came from, just that it’s there on the bench in the bike shop.

Cover

After riding Velib all over Paris, my mind changed on city-wide bike share. Go big or go home was the declaration, meaning if you’re going to deploy a successful share, do it across a city so cyclists can ride from one station to the next. And that’s what NYC has done like Paris, Montreal, and DC. After software delays and flooding delays, NYC Bike Share is live and happening now. So significant a change for the city, it made a New Yorker Cover. In an interview, the illustrator Marcellus Hall said, “I’ve only been ‘doored’ twice and continues to explain how he survives managed to survive for fifteen years as a cyclist in the city.

I’m very careful. I look into the side mirrors of the parked cars to see if there’s movement inside. I ride only on the left side of the street because there’s less of chance of a passenger getting out than of a driver. Actually, I read it in some cyclist publication that, as a cyclist, you’re allowed to take up a whole lane and sometimes, I even do that—though it’s a risky proposition. I’m not one of those hard-core bike freaks; it’s just a good way for me to get around in the city

It’ll probably prove the best way and to his point, the last time I rode in NYC, our group got attacked. There’s only so much space there and while they’ve added 350 miles of bike lanes, “I hope nobody gets hurt,” Mr. Liu told the NYT.

But this is thousands of bicycles on the streets of Manhattan, used by people who haven’t ridden bikes on the streets of Manhattan.

True and they figured it out in Paris and London, where Boris bikes led to an economic boom. After all the complaints, expect they’ll figure it out in NYC too.

Meme-band value drops

Seen at a garage sale.

Nibali in the Mist

Recovering from what I repeatedly called the Worst Giro Ever and complained about tired narratives, the Cima Coppi stage was epic. What fans expect in the mountains and even if we couldn’t see Nibali’s face suffering in the cold, wet, snowy fog. Cycleboredom recaps the stage and reminds us that the sport endures, despite how self-destructive it is.

Then Vincenzo, like so many Grand Tour champions before him, rose from the saddle to stamp his authority on what was already his. Watts per kilogram wasn’t the preferred measurement as the distance to his rivals grew, it was panache per square inch. The tifosi’s already intoxicated mindset was whipped into a frenzy along the switchbacks of Tre Cime di Lavaredo as Nibali emitted raw, unrefined panache in a pheremone-esque fashion.

If you missed the entire 3 weeks, here’s a recap in 140 characters

Giro Recap: brightly dressed, emaciated men pedaling bikes were thrown onto the roads of Italy like bets at a roulette wheel. 1 of them won.

— byron@bikehugger (@bikehugger) May 15, 2013

Cargo Cut

That’s Guy Browne on a trip to Mattick’s Farm. 22 miles of bakfiets fun and we noticed how cut his calves are, even when the bro is riding cargo.

Cargo cut.