Bike Lane Trash

If you live in a "progressive" city you probably have at least one lane of traffic that is dedicated as a "no killing bikers" zone. Which is a pretty grand idea, because we love it when we are not killed. While most of us here at Bike Smut are pretty experienced, bike lanes can offer some comfort in a bustling city especially in a high speed zone with lots of traffic. Still we generally prefer to "take the lane" over riding in just a rigidly defined space. We can see the benefits for new bikers to feel more at ease in the "no killing bikers" zone, but tragically it all too often becomes a "double parking" zone or a "car door opening in your path" zone.

Those behaviors, while frustrating, are somewhat forgivable. Car doors do need to open SOMETIMES and although getting the doorprize award by jumping out into the traffic of an unwitting biker is pretty obnoxious there is something even more distasteful about leaving your refuse in a place designed to keep vulnerable people safe.

Thankfully our friends in LA have devised a cleaver stickering scheme, to let the businesses know that their actions could have real ramifications (like ram-you-off-the-road-and-into-a-pile-of-garbage-cans-ifcaions).

This is a vast improvement over our previous attempts to communicate these ideas with the offenders.

Oh, and of course there is New York's plucky reply.

Happy tails!

Mini Bike Race Now In Bristol!

IT IS SO FUCKING ON!

Get in our way and we will CRUSH YOU

Block a cyclist with your fancy car, get demolished by a tank. It's really that simple.

From the Guardian:

Drivers who park in cycle lanes would normally worry about receiving a fine or perhaps having their vehicle towed. They probably do not expect to have their car crushed beneath the wheels of an armoured personnel carrier which has the local mayor at the controls.

But car owners in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, may be choosing their parking spaces a little more carefully after the city's mayor, Arturas Zuokas, drove over – and wrecked – a Mercedes in a stunt to serve as a warning to anyone who thinks about parking illegally.

...

"In the past few days, expensive cars have been illegally parked in almost this exact place – a Rolls Royce and a Ferrari," says the mayor's narration to the video.

"What should the city do about drivers who think that they are above the law? It seems that a tank is the best solution."

We concur, Mayor Zuokas. Roll on, roll on. Our own team of bike porn scientists is currently hard at work in their secret underground laboratories deep beneath the DIY Bike Fest in Scheveningen, The Netherlands, perfecting the design of a pedal-powered bulldozer that will be capable of accomplishing all of this vengeful justice, but with the unmatched power of human muscle motivation. Soon to come to a bike porn film screening in your town?

Until then, the visual satisfaction of Vilnius:

Bikes Kill Old Porn - part I

Regular readers know our opinions about bikes and sex. In our mind they are the peanut butter and chocolate of our generation. A taste combination so pleasureful that we have been debating casting for our own version of "Willy Wanker and the Chocolate Factory"

But A recent turn of events from Denmark has made our pedal pumping seize.

According to THE INTERNET (pft) the oldest porn store in the world is liquidating its stock and closing its doors forever.

What is the dastardly thing that is the cause of this turn of events?

BIKE LANES!

According to the shop owner, it’s the effect of the recession, increasing shop rents and bicycle lanes that have influenced the company’s financial downturn the most.

This is the big one people. This is what we have been training for. This is why we have a stockpile of interns. Expect more on this story as it develops including scathingly unimportant investigative journalism and vastly overreaching summarizations.

Stay tuned...

Bikes too Sexy

It is the job of a people to define what is and is not appropriate for a given community. That is the nature of obscenity law.

That being said we have mixed feelings about the "action" going on in the Hasidic Jewish district of South Bedford in Brooklyn.

Fighting the shame associated with just having a body, never mind a (partially) NAKED body is significant. Such is the nature of Bike Porn. Becoming as comfortable on your bike as you are in your skin seems perfectly natural.

But this news story does bring up an interesting idea, where does the "as bare as you dare" bike ride's freedom of expression end? Can we really say that cat suits are the end of the line? Would a crotchless rekelekh be less disturbing?

With bikers fearing a San Francisco style loss of momentum and Brooklyn Hasids wondering how much leg is Kosher, both sides are left wondering, "when will it end?"

We consulted with a number of bicycle religious representatives about this issue please stand by.

UPDATE: Lee is a Fossilosopher and frequent naked bike rider... so we are certain that publishing his views on this website is totally Fair and Balanced reporting.

I don't know if the Hasidim are really more evil or hypocritical than other neighborhood activists who try to stop bike lanes, but they are so off mainstream, the whole thing looks really weird. Do you know about their religious practice? The men dance to pray (as do Fossilosophers). They come from a mystical movement of 18th century Poland.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baal_Shem_Tov

I think the Hasidim in NYC (or maybe this is one loud Hasid) are making a show of their folly in front of the world and i think they feel disrespected and misunderstood as a group and have developed a siege mentality. So this will multiply the misunderstanding
- Lee of Vancouver, BC

Thanks Lee.

So will the disrespect they feel increase and what do you think might happen if they continue to feel more under siege?

Their ritual of dancing to pray leads us to believe that perhaps there is some sort of connection between all things. Imagine... Kevin Bacon is a sexy bicycle messenger in "Quicksilver" MEANWHILE he is told he cannot dance because of religion in "Footloose".

So would these women's protest carry more weight if they said they decided not wearing clothes while riding a bike was a ritual?