Poor Robert Sullivan. All he seeks is a city free of intermodal conflict. Yet, the coiner of the term "schluffing" seems only to have managed to fire up angry mobs of pitchfork-wielding commenters with his biking etiquette piece in last Sunday's Times. Now Bike Snob NYC, a well-regarded blog among fixed-gear fetishists and owners of $8,500 Serottas, has put forth a devastating critique of Sullivan's instructional video. The Snob narrates:
Here's some guy on a bike who was unable to resist the sidewalk's sirencall. He is "schluffing" by standing on his pedal and pushing his bikealong as if this is somehow better than moving ten feet to the left andactually riding the thing...
As he approaches the women, he dismounts and stops "schluffing," as though he has any dignity left to preserve...
The video points out the importance of the dismount, or "transition."In this sense, I suppose "schluffing" is similar to cyclocross. Perhapsa better name for it would be "dorklocross."
Yeah, that would be a better name... if you're one of the dozen or so New Yorkers who even knows what cyclo-cross is.
Bike Snob also adds that Streetsblog is the web site he visits whenever he experiences "a sharp, inexplicable craving for smug self-righteousness." Being as how the self-described Snob is one of the small handful of people in this world capable of getting smug and
self-righteous about the coupling of disc wheels and aerobars with mountain bike pedals, we've got to assume he's visiting
Streetsblog pretty regularly.
So, here's my message to you, Snob: Watch your back. By triangulating your photographs against Streetfilms footage taken at last year's Great NYC Commuter Race, the Livable Streets Initiative's forensic video unit has positively identified you. We know who you are. We have pictures of you. And we are prepared to unmask you before your legions of inarticulate commenters.
OK, who is going to leave the first comment? Woot! Woot!
