Boom De Yada

This commercial brought a smile to my face.

Decision on Landis Coming Monday

I first saw this on Yahoo Sports, but TBV pointed me to the actual time of the announcement. Looks like 10:00 am on Monday. You'll find it here.

Be Like Idaho

Or at least their rules for bicycles. According to Cyclelicious, San Francisco will consider changing California law to allow cyclists to treat stop signs as yield signs and red lights as stop signs. Idaho already does this.

Wouldn't it be nice if we could do this in Illinois? Legally, I mean.

Why Jon Stewart Rocks

Because he says things like this:

What I’m saying is that they [the News] should take in the fruit and entrees that are presented by politicians and the corporations that process it, and come up with turds of wisdom, if you will. You either bring clarity or you bring noise. The media should be filters, and they can only be that if they exercise editorial judgment. It infuriates me when people say, 'That’s elitism.' No, it’s not. That’s expertise. That’s like saying to doctors who diagnose people, 'You’re being elitist, telling me I have heart disease. I don’t want to hear that. I want to eat cake and ice cream.'

and:

You know, nineteen guys with box cutters brought down the Twin Towers. Are we supposed to go to war until there’s not nineteen guys that want to do damage to us? One day, two assholes throw pumpkins off an overpass. And now when you drive down the highway and go past an overpass, you see those giant ten- foot chain-link fences. Two vandals out of millions of people can fuck up your way of life in ways you can’t even imagine. There’s no way to fool-proof the world. You cannot out-engineer crazy.

Read the whole interview here.

Crackdown

The Daily Herald reports "Barrington Hills cracking down on cyclists." Lake Forest is also, as we were pulled over on Old Elm just west of Ridge for riding three abreast (we were) and obstructing traffic (we weren’t). I got off with a written warning. More on this in another post.

As for the linked article, I have to say that the tone continues to be that cyclists are wrong, motorists are right.

"Each weekend, packs of several dozen bicyclists ride throughout town, sometimes as fast as 30 mph."

"It's a problem," he said. "This is not you and your wife out for a bike ride."

Does having your wife along on the ride somehow make riding through Barrington Hills OK? How about your girlfriend? I'm just askin'.

"[Sgt. David ] Kann said clusters of cyclists are sometimes longer than an 18-wheel truck and can be intimidating to drivers."

Reminds me of the opening of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy:

"Have you any idea how much damage that bulldozer would suffer if I just let it roll straight over you?" said Mr. Prosser.
"How much?" asked Arthur.
"None at all," Mr. Prosser replied.

"By stepping up enforcement, Kann said, police are not trying to dissuade riding in the village. 'We just want them to follow the rules of the road,' he said."

Not a word in the article about stepping up enforcement of drivers passing too close to or intimidating cyclists.

So, let's be careful out there.

Sleep Quiz

What's the best way to beat afternoon sleepiness?

1) More sleep at night
2) An afternoon nap earlier that day
3) Caffeine

Obviously, the answer is...

Such a Deal

Chainlove is like woot for cyclists! Except that unlike woot, which has only one deal per day, Chainlove continuously posts new deal throughout the day. WooHoo!

My Gruppo Goes to 11

The rumor mill has it that for 2009 Campy will have a "Super Record" gruppo with 11 speeds. Really, do we need 11 cogs? I used to enjoy ripping on my Shimano-equipped friends with their puny 9-speed cassettes while I had 10 on my Veloce-equipped rain bike. Yeah, that's right, Veloce had more speeds than Dura-Ace. Well, for a little while anyway. But now, I have lost all interest in cog-numerical superiority and the uniqueness of my carbon-fiber shift levers. Yes, the introduction of the 11-speed gruppo has made me reevaluate what is important. It's not the equipment, constantly upgrading in an effort to have the latest and greatest stuff. It's the beauty of the ride. The flow of a finely tuned paceline. The camaraderie.

Or, maybe it's the clothing.

Saturday Annoyance

Yesterday. Saturday. Beautiful day for a ride. Got about 60 miles in. Decided to continue to enjoy the day with a little alfresco brunch in downtown Highland Park. We're settled in and about to order when we hear advertising blasting from a National City points truck (pictured above). This guy drove back and forth along Central Avenue a number of times with speakers blaring...something. It was hard to make out. I assume that I wasn't the only one annoyed by this making me wonder how successful this promotion could have been. First, their name, color and font confused me. It reminded me of National Rental Car, but this was National City. Then I couldn't make out most of what was being broadcast from their speaker. I figured out that it must be a bank since the few words I was able to make out related to banking. So this is my first exposure to the fact that there is a bank called National City. Which leads me to think that the association I am going to have with the brand, National City is annoyance. Great first impression.

Of course, they just might be so successful that they can afford to waste diesel at nearly $5.00 a gallon to get their misguided message across. Or that they are so successful that they don't mind pissing off potential new customers. There is also the irony that the truck is painted green.

Lucky for us, his shift must have ended just as our food came. So the morning ended well.