All you naysayers can spend $6 and read my riotous words

That’s me! That’s me! I’ve written an awesome interview with Evan P. Schneider, the awesome editor of the awesome “Boneshaker: A Bicycling Almanac.”

Buy a copy now and save it for your great grandkids! Send it to me for a real live autograph! Or just read it, cause it’s great.

Here’s another teaser (without the vowels removed):

…Is a symbol enough? No way. It’s just a symbol. I mean, I can’t eat the word CHEERIOS for breakfast. For god sakes, I’d much rather live in a world in which everybody rides bikes and nobody buys my stickers because they’re just so damned obvious. I’d love to see the day when, riding hands-free, some girl checks her email on her iPhone, clicks on a link her grandma emailed to her, ends up on ZeroPerGallon.com, and is like, “Geez, grandma, the symbolic gesture here is so L-A-M-E,” and then watches the latest Justin Timberlake Jr. video and is like, “That’s what I’m talkin’ about,” and then puts her hands back on the bars to take some wicked tight turns on a crazy descent.

But thanks for calling it powerful, ubiquitous, and semiotically-interesting. I appreciate that. To take a Kindergartener’s approach, “If you love it so much, why don’t you marry it?”

But really: the numbers do speak for themselves. That’s why my stickers keep selling. The loading of anger/contempt/etc. is only done by my words, on my website, and intended as sort of a comfort — a soft welcome mat, or a clean, dry bench in a heavy rain — for bicyclists who visit my website. “Aha,” I hope they’ll say. “This guy understands my situation. He feels like I do. He’s just like me. Except hairier, and taller, and better looking, and more awesome.” (Just kidding about that last part.)

the BFF is my new BFF

The Bicycle Film Festival is always awesome, but I was really excited about it this year. A week before the event, an email from Brendt, the big papa of the BFF, mentioned that, to kick off the festival, Blonde Redhead would be playing at the Independent. Sweet! A little NYC goodness in SF! The email included a link for those unfamiliar with the band… and that’s when I knew my excitement was warranted.

Say what you want about the performance art, or the music, or the temperature of your coffee this morning, but that’s Miranda July doing those poses, and that’s Blonde Redhead making that music, and the thing that brought it all together, or at least to my attention, was bikes. Serendipity doesn’t get any better than that. Huzzah! As Brendt likes to chant wherever he goes, BIKES ROCK!

So I spent the last 143 hours watching bike porn non-stop, and now I can barely feel my fingertips or blink my left eye. I saw a dozen short movies, including”Anima D’ Acciaio” (“Soul of steel”), a crisp profile of Framebuilder and mechanical poet Giovanni “Ciocc” Pelizzoli.

Anima D’Acciaio Trailer Ver5.1 from Cinecycle on Vimeo.

There was also “Made in Queens,” a short, funny window on some New York teenagers turning bikes into 300 lb music machines that topped out at maybe 2mph. But by far the best movie was called “Where are you go,” and it was directed by the illustrious Benny Zenga, who oversees the BFF in Toronto, and made the fantastic short movie “Ski Boys.”

Here’s the really cool part: Benny was in SF for the festival this year, and I couldn’t help noticing that he was riding one of my ZPG Anti Hero skateboards. I’m a fan of him, he’s a fan of me, and while the movies were showing, we made out in the back on a big squishy couch. It was friggin awesome.

Actually, that’s a lie. The couch was very firm. But anyway, “Where are you go,” features some spectacular moments. One subject of the film, a Dutch rider named Jos Kaal, summed up the time on his bike this way: “Sit, stand, drink, eat. You know, look around.” That, to him, was the essence of the 12,000 km Tour d’ Afrique, from Cairo to Cape Town. It was a 4-month endeavor, and another guy compared it to a time warp. There was talk of how such a ride makes you redefine your basic needs, and how, eventually, what was once really exotic can become routine. Another rider summed up the race this way: “It would be great to be home, but there’s a lot i enjoy: the company, the serenity, the riding.” Aint that the truth. My hat is off to you, Benny, for again making the finest movie of the festival.

Hotter in a helmet?

Attention Bikers: Ride your bike to the brothel in Berlin and get 7% off all kinds of sex acts!

I know, I know, I too I was under the impression that the demand for sex (and alcohol) was inelastic. Apparently some idiot/genius named Thomas Goetz, who probably didn’t go to a liberal arts college and instead got a far more valuable education running a brothel, decided to offer a discount, and screw up the whole damn theory.

And I know, I know, I was once under the impression that Reuters actually reported news, but that’s only because I went to journalism school and had a whole bunch of purist old-timey crap shoved down my throat. Most of you probably know way better than to believe that tomfoolery, which is why you’re reading some jackass biking blog instead of your local newspaper. Ha! That was a joke! You probably don’t even have a local newspaper anymore, and hence have nothing to wipe your ass with! Ha! Now it’s sad and funny, like so many things in life…

And I know, I know, the headline of the story — “Take off your bicycle helmet, big boy!” — couldn’t be more flame retardant. The least the Reuters editor could have done is made some dumb pun about riding hard or coming as fast as you can or the village bicycle or any number of other PG-13 sleezeball lines. But no, instead we get hard-hitting neutral verbs like “negate,” “arrive,” and “alleviate.” Shakespeare had the cajones to say it like it is, or at least allude to it. Shit, the spam I get is raunchier, and it’s in Russian!

That’s it. The current “media climate” depresses me too much. I’m going back to putting “everything” in quotes and looking for a life-sized inflatable goat. What, is that weird?

Congrats to me

Hey everyone, check me and my stuff out!!

I’ve moved up from the sticker/patch/belt/shirt making industry to the sailboat-parts industry!

I’m making and selling little aluminum mast steps, so that sailors can climb up their sailboat masts like lizards, or koala bears, as the case may be. Point is, they make it possible to climb a 50 foot metal pole, which is important. I started the company, called Climb the Mast, with my buddy Matt, only two weeks ago. It’s super exciting.

*If you didn’t know, I’m a biker AND a sailor. Yes, I have a sailboat. I bought it with 2 buddies, and we’re fixing it up so that we can sail around the world. No shit! I’m writing about it on our own site and also for Outside magazine’s blog. (If you read really closely, you’ll find some anti-goat propaganda I snuck in there. Devious, huh?)

So I just sorta felt like showing off, spreading the word, and also reminding peeps that I’m preparing to up and leave, head out on the wide blue yonder… and that, as a result, this whole ZPG enterprise is for sale. More details on ZPG soon… but if you think running a small, profitable, bike-friendly business would be fun, or know someone who might think it’s fun, let ‘em know, and get in touch with me!

Fair winds, suckas!

-Jonny

How janky is your bike?

Smart guy and official Brit (he adds U’s and E’s to all sorts of words that would be fine without them) makes some awesome fake-rust stickers, the better to make your bike look a little jankier, and less appealing to thieves. Brilliant!

The most evil map I’ve ever seen

*my favorite thing: “1 dot = 500 goats”

[courtesy of alert reader and fellow goat-hater Peter]