raiyi kma saft

Reflecting upon habits that have helped me survive the act of bicycling many hundreds of miles through various cities, I have settled upon three basic rules, which are provided below (next to their corresponding acronyms):

raiyi (ride as if you’re invisible) Motor vehicle operators - especially ones who are in a hurry or looking at their mobile devices whilst driving - are not looking out for and don’t give a fuck about cyclists. Persons who move themselves across the phaltscape balanced atop a few tubes of metal, skin-to-sky, would do well to ride in the center of the lane, stay out of blind-spots, and always wear brightly flashing lights - day and night.

kma (keep moving, always) Bicyclists who stop within a lane to check a map or ask a passerby for directions are liable to get struck by a passing car. When you’re riding a bicycle, keep moving, always. If you come across a traffic jam, don’t sit there waiting for it to unfuck itself - mount the curb or seek out a side route, even if this adds distance to your journey. Bicycles were invented to let people move themselves around swiftly, not as a wheeled seat upon which to wait around for others to get their shit together.

saft (stay away from traffic) Prefer side routes, alleys, bicycle paths, empty lots, sidewalks &c. to roads frequented by cars. If motor vehicle operators in your city tend to cut in just behind you, missing your rear tire by inches as they slot into your lane, avoid them like the plague. Even slight contact can send a velocipedist sprawling onto the road - and under the wheels of the tailgating two-ton slave’s chariot.

This is not an exhaustive list; it covers the most fundamental rules for surviving whilst bicycling in an urban environment, only. Always wear a helmet, especially around moving cars. Unless you have no soul, yield to pedestrians. And slow down, for the love of love - death awaits us all.

[ americanifesto / 場黑麥 / jpr / urbanartopia / whorphan ] ​

Vicente v. Ord

This author is barely back a week from Los Angeles, and already he yearns for the runs. The velocipedist who reads this blog will recognize the Ord Run from previous writings: it starts at Marukai Market in Little Tokyo, heads up to Hill and Cesar E. Chavez, and mashes Sunset all the way over to where that boulevard hits Vine. Old man Ord, however, has a new companion, the San Vicente Run (i.e. Santo Viczenzo), which starts at where Wilshire crosses the 405 freeway and approaches Hollywood from the west, either via Elevado or Santa Monica Boulevard.

Both of these runs the author would make regularly, never ever standing to pedal, on an L.A.-made, fixed-gear, gray Retrospec bicycle with bright green wheels. He surfed Bay Street and the Venice Breakwater, hunted urban art from the Palisades to Elysian Park, and ran the runs whenever he was able to – during rush-hour or at 3 am, under skies clear and smoggy, his heart bursting joyfully with every passing foot, flashing spoke, and humming tire. And the Boba Fett nods he received from other smog-sledders (!!!), each glance-and-dip a barely perceivable acknowledgement of his worth as a self-respecting street cyclist, each quick look grudging recognition of the toughness commonly found among persons who mash California's sun-burnt boulevards.

Someday, I will once more reside in the fine Golden State, and run these runs whenever my heart desires, but, until then, be well in my absence, fair Angelinos, and mahalo.

mentiri factorem fecit – 場黑麥

on phaltscape etiquette and standards

The urban bicyclist may differ from her fellow mashers in appearance, dress, and hairstyle, but she will share with them standards of smog-riding etiquette as extensive as those of any other professional affiliation. Since it would be inconvenient to list every standard common to the smog-rider, let us examine a few of the more practical matters. To avoid making the drivers trapped in their smoking metal boxes jealous, she keeps all evidence of her bursting exuberance hidden from sight. In order to inform the people around her of her whereabouts, she will sound a series of war-whoops and signaling-whistles piercing and attention-getting enough to prevent unnecessary collisions. She rides with proper stance – shoulders pulled back and chest thrust out – so as to isolate the workout to her lower body while allowing her eyes to scan the environment calmly and with keen interest. In order to stay upright and aboard her smog-sled, she is able day or night to repair and maintain it anywhere and in any weather, and although her conveyance will look dusty and well-used, it will be in good working condition, as she has always on hand tools and spare parts.

Beyond the practical matters just listed, there are spiritual standards common to the urban cyclist. Within his brains is an extensive collection of those routes that are the smoothest, that have the least motor-vehicle traffic, and that allow him to avoid running into pesky and annoying police officers. So as to keep his body in good working condition and to avoid the irritability and dangers associated with dehydration, he drinks regularly of green coconut water, or of other beverages rich in electrolytes. An honorable and virtuous being, he will carry his smog-sled when it can carry him no longer, and since he knows that bicycling is a dangerous activity, he lives peacefully knowing that death is rushing by inches from his tender flesh-bag of a body.

Here are presented but a few of the standards of smogriding – may you discover more, and establish a few of your own.

場黑麥 ioanni elymucampus fecit

on phaltscape-withdrawal and dating | encyclopediamericanifesto

  Modern sociologists look with pity upon the smogrider who attempts after years of absence to re-enter the dating scene while she is suffering from withdrawal from the phaltscape, but you and I shall examine her more favorably. For reasons mechanical, spiritual, or otherwise mysterious, she is not riding smog regularly; thus, she is distressed. With her smog-sled sitting dormant, her hands are less calloused, her cheeks have lost their rosy hue, and cheer has fled her moods. This is not an isolated phenomenon: from the urban cyclist orphaned within the last few years to the gear masher with layers of parents, any person who is kept away from something she loves (such as smogriding the phaltscape) will approach potentially romantic meetings gingerly, and with hesitation.

  The physiological reasons for the smogrider's hesitation are clear – since they no longer bathe regularly in endorphin blasts triggered by rigorous exercise, his brains are cloudy and sluggish; lacking their hard and churning labor, his muscles atrophy, and his limbs twitch and jump about at random. Additionally, his speaking is as difficult to understand as his morals are to justify (which we speculate is caused by changes to the physical make-up of the cerebral cortex triggered by conscious epigenetic manipulation). Compared to the physiological reasons, however, the psychological reasons for the smogrider's romantic inability are less well known. Rumors tell that in the hours leading up to his rendezvous he descends into a period of existential crisis that lessens only long enough for him to scream self-loathing obscenities. Other unconfirmed data show that upon meeting his date, the smogrider panics and bears his soul without compunction (from which point onward no modern girl will give him the sex), and that by the end of the date he is on the brink of total personal despair, his failure all but assured, his time and his money surely wasted.

  Denying someone what they love is a crime both cruel and heartless, but keeping whorphan from him phaltscape reek downright of madness.

  場黑麥 ioanni elymucampus fecit