Risk Management – Bike Snob NYC

As many of you noted, a cyclist in Washington state was recently attacked by a cougar:

There is now a Gofundme for the victim, and it’s a harrowing read:

As all the news outlets note, such attacks are quite rare, though you may recall that back in 2018 a cyclist was fatally attacked in the same area:

It was big news at the time, and CNN gave it the full treatment, with wildlife experts and a wincing anchor and everything:

[CNN anchor reaching out to milk the teats of tragedy.]

Shockingly, as yet CNN has not milked either tragedy further by attempting to link them both to climate change.

Here in New York City and the surrounding area you’re even less likely to run into a dangerous animal. For example, it’s been years since there was a rabid coyote loose in Yonkers:

And while I’ve run across the occasional bear, the closest to my home I’ve ever seen one is 90 miles away:

Perhaps the greatest irony of being a cycling citydweller is that the hundreds of motorists I interact with on any given day pose a much higher threat to my well-being than any of these creatures. When I saw that bear I stood there until it disappeared, trying not to soil myself; and yet I’ll think nothing of riding on a busy road where I’m constantly one text-messaging driver away from going to that great Gran Fondo in the sky, go figure.

Then there’s the increasing threat of falling victim to the micromobility revolution:

New York City saw 21 ebike deaths last year, which means we’ve reached a morbid milestone in that ebike fatalities and ebike fire fatalities now kill roughly the same number of people:

I mean holy crap:

One reason for all these fires is that food delivery riders use ebikes with substandard batteries, but fortunately the city is holding the delivery apps accountable:

Nah, just kidding, the city is footing the bill:

I realize smuggies in the rest of the country still think ebikes will save society from motordom and stop climate change, thereby ending unpleasant weather and cougar attacks once and for all, but if New York City is any indication you can expect more car traffic than ever, plus a complete forfeiture of your bicycle infrastructure with deadly conflagrations as an added bonus. Really, at this point the only net positive has been than thieves no longer care about regular bicycles:

Anecdotally, stolen bikes often wound up being sold to delivery workers, so now that delivery workers no longer ride regular bikes I suspect the black market for them has mostly dried up. I mean I’m sure there are a handful of artisanal bike thieves left who know there’s a specialized market for your gravel bike or whatever, but you don’t hear nearly as many tales of woe about how someone’s precious Surly was stolen from outside of the bar, and I’m guessing the shift to ebikes for delivery work is the reason why.

As for me, I seek respite from the hectic pace of urban life in the forests of suburbia, where I can pretend I’m deep in the wilderness, yet I’m extremely unlikely to encounter either a dangerous animal or an inflammable ebike battery:

Sure, you may encounter a pink bicycle:

But it’s not even a hot pink, instead it’s more of a strawberry yogurt:

I must say I’m extremely pleased with the Faggin, and I daresay it represents the apotheosis of the dirtbag road ethos–though I did perform a gratuitous upgrade by adding a Dura Ace rear derailleur:

This of course was a competitor in the Classic Cycle 21st Century Friction Shifter Shootout:

The problem I encountered with it in the Shootout was that it was a bit too short for the 29-tooth low gear I was using for the test, but there are no such problems with the tighter gearing on the Faggin:

I’m even pairing the Dura Ace derailleur with a Record hub, which would explain any fissures you may have encountered in the space-time continuum. Plus, I recently learned that later Record hubs can accept freehub bodies from Campagnolo and Fulcrum wheelsets, which means I could potentially create a Shimano-splined Record hub:

That sucking sound you hear is the universe turning itself inside out. I may have to get one of these things, if only to turn the Faggin into a rolling Shimagnolo fractal that mixes components from both right down to a microscopic level.