How to look your best whilst cycling to work

Questions non-climber won't give a shit about: should you place your own quickdraws on a redpoint? If you fall off and pull your ropes, should you strip the gear as well? And if you do so, have you then blown the ground up? These are things that 99.9% of the population really don't care about. It's the same with cycling - although there it might be only 99.3%. So Campagnolo, not Shimano. Obviously. If that's not so obvious check this rather good guide to cycling etiquette that got posted on UKC last week. But it is very roadie. For those of us who do most of our miles on the way to work and back through urban settings, unfortunately these rules just aren't practical so we, on UKC, tried to come up with some for the urban-commute cyclist:

1) Wear cycle clothing - you're gonna smell and this will make you take a shower and change when you get to work. Think of your colleagues. Plus you look cooler.
2) Thinking of colleagues, don't wear lycra shorts. Baggies are the only acceptable leg wear. If cheap, wear cycling shorts under a pair of normal shorts.
3) If you don't get sweaty enough to need a shower on arrival at work, you're not a proper cycle commuter. Move house further away from your office.
4) Always wear eyewear - reflective wraparounds are best - cars will always win against bikes in a collision but you must NOT let the driver know that you realise this. See the whites of their eye, don't let them see yours.
5) Satchels and courier bags are good, rucsacs make you look like a mountain biker. Fine at the weekend in the woods, but not for commuting - we gotta look more hip when others are looking.
6) leaving the reflectors on your wheels or bike because the bike shop put them there is a no no.
7) wrapping your bike lock around your waist makes you look like a tit.
8) Don't EVER, EVER, EVER wear reflective tabard, or any other neon reflective accessory. Total punter giveaway. Small silver strips (or similar) on courier bag acceptable.
9) No d-locks attached to frame, or worse, the chain stay.
10) Panniers. Very practical, very naff.
11) Roadbikes are cool (but please note rule 2), real mountain bikes are not. Again, fine for the weekend in the woods but not commuting thank you. People who only ride expensive mountain bikes in the city are the SUV-drivers of the cycling world.
12) Cyclo-cross bikes are extra cool.
13)Whateverbikes professional couriers ride are always going to be cool, even if it is likely to kill the rest of us (fixers with no brakes etc).
14) there is very fine line between a cool hybrid and a non-cool hybrid, but suspension on commuting bike is always a no-no - it suggests your heart isn't really in it and you'd prefer to be on a comfy bus.

There was a wee bit of discussion on some of these; I begged exemption on rule 6 on the basis that it is dark in Finland for half the year and hence reflectors seem like a good idea. And Lummox wanted an exception on 14, the no suspension rule, for on the basis that this beauty only has a little, tiny bit. If you commute and have any other suggestions - please leave a comment.

Anyway, spotted on Pinch Flat News, this picture of Barak Obama breaking just about everyone of these rules:


That looks somewhat uncomfortable but fortunately, for Barak if not the environment, once he wins the presidency he'll ride around in the back of something that looks like a car but is actually a tank, surrounded by dozens of similar vehicles and cop cars, and he won't need to ride to work anymore looking so un-hip. Pinch Flat lays out pretty much everything that is wrong with the picture. I'm frankly disappointed that his team that is so focus grouping everything else about Barak's image let him out on that ugly steed. So if the Obama campaign wants a cycling image consultant, I'd happily take the job.

Phrase of the day: Push-Polls

Whilst we're on the subject of oven-chips (see below), lets talk about John McCain*. I've noted before that he has hired for his campaign team some pretty dodgy geezers, but McCain has been sinned against more than he has sinned in terms of hard-ball electioneering. McCain's attempt to the be the Republican party candidate for the Presidency in 2000 faltered during the South Carolina primary against the then Governor Bush. This contest was notoriously spiteful with the Bush campaign being accused of various dirty tricks, most famously spreading rumours that McCain had fathered an illegitimate black child. Even though this wasn't true, the fact that it swung the primary in Bush's favour perhaps says a lot about the type of people who vote in Republican primaries in South Carolina; Strom Thurmond country after all.

I've always wondered how you spread a rumour like that. Did Karl Rove sit in lots of bars saying "Pssst! Buddy! Have you heard John McCain..."? Nope. As I heard yesterday via Radio Open Source, the way it was done was via "Push Polling". I wasn't familiar with the term so looked it up:

A "Push Poll" is a telemarketing technique in which telephone calls are used to canvass vast numbers of potential voters, feeding them false and damaging "information" about a candidate under the guise of taking a poll to see how this "information" effects voter preferences. In fact, the intent is to "push" the voters away from one candidate and toward the opposing candidate. This is clearly political telemarketing, using innuendo and, in many cases, clearly false information to influence voters; there is no intent to conduct research.

From: "A Press WARNING from the National Council on Public Polls"

In the South Carolina case, McCain's campaign manager writing in the Boston Globe described the process as:

the "pollsters" asked McCain supporters if they would be more or less likely to vote for McCain if they knew he had fathered an illegitimate child who was black. In the conservative, race-conscious South, that's not a minor charge. We had no idea who made the phone calls, who paid for them, or how many calls were made. Effective and anonymous: the perfect smear campaign.

Mother Jones has a good article on push-polling here.


*As segues go this is a bit lame and might only make sense to Brits. If you don't get it (and/or don't have anything better to do with your life for 45 seconds or so) click here.

Rudy Giuliani

Rudy Guiliani, former mayor of New York, is currently the front runner for the Republican party nomination to contest the 2008 presidential election. He is currently leading John McCain by 25 points in the polls. Yet he remains plagued by suggestions that his convoluted business and personal life will eventually catch up with him. Lexington - the Economist's US editorial page - has this great comment on Rudy:

"Absolutely not," was the response of Ed Koch, another former New York mayor and a political rival, to the suggestion that Mr Giuliani is a racist. "He's nasty to everybody"

The Economist March 10th 2007 (p.52)

Dirty Politics: The New Republic on McCain's unsavoury team

This is a bit of a U.S. politics geek post - but if you know what the New-Hampshire-get-out-the-vote-blocking scandal was, or remember the "Call Me Harold" ad, or indeed just enjoyed Tom DeLay getting arrested (see mugshot left), you're sure to be interested. One man connects all three, he's called Terry Nelson and he is now working on John McCain's presidential campaign. Everyone likes McCain even if they don't agree with him because he's made a career of being an honest, straight-talker. So the New Republic enjoys pointing out that McCain keeps ducking the question of why he has hired this guy. Read the whole profile from TNR here. Every campaign needs a hardman/woman who will go out and do all the dirty stuff for them, but that person normally manages to stay out of the headlines and definitely shouldn't become an issue that their boss gets questioned on. Let's see if Mr. Nelson becomes a hindrance rather than a help for McCain.