BikeSnobNYC Quotes & Sayings

Drinking and cycling is like drinking and flirting - it's pretty likely you're going to wind up hitting something, and the results are probably going to be ugly. — BikeSnobNYC

After leaving Egypt, Moses and his people endured a forty-year commute, starting with a truly epic crossing of the Red Sea (which made getting through the Lincoln Tunnel at rush hour seem like traipsing across a country bridge in a sundress on a spring afternoon). — BikeSnobNYC

Really, in a lot of ways being a cyclist is like being a vampire. First of all, both cyclists and vampires are cultural outcasts with cult followings who clumsily walk the line between cool and dorky. Secondly, both cyclists and vampires resemble normal humans, but they also lead secret double lives, have supernatural powers, and aren't governed by the same rules as the rest of humanity - though cycling doesn't come with the drawbacks of vampirism. Cyclists can ride day or night, we can consume all the garlic we want, and very few of us are afflicted with bloodlust or driven by a relentless urge to kill. — BikeSnobNYC

But surely the commute that defines the era was Noah's voyage aboard his eponymous ark, and to this day it remains the most epic commuting story ever told. As most people know, God felt that Earth had essentially "jumped the shark" (or "raped the angel" as they used to say back then), so rather than try to fix it, He instead decided to simply wash everyone away in a great flood and start over from scratch
just as you might do to your computer's hard drive if it has a really bad virus. So God spoke to Noah and commanded him to build an ark, aboard which he'd carry two of every animal in the world ... Thus was born humankind's lust for gigantic vehicles, for God's instructions to Noah were basically the world's first car commercial, and the sales pitch was this: Large vehicles are your salvation. — BikeSnobNYC

Telling cyclists to get out of the road is like telling women to get out of the voting booth and go back into the kitchen, or telling Japanese-American people to Go back to China! — BikeSnobNYC

A typical city dog is neutered and doesn't have much interest in reproducing. However, that's not true of its owner, who will use the dog as an integral part of the pickup process. (Humans are the only animals that use other animals to facilitate mating. Have you ever seen a monkey use a squirrel to pick up another monkey?) — BikeSnobNYC

Now, as a non-Amish person in the twentieth century who is not a part of the aging and thus noncoveted seventy-five-plus marketing demographic that views things like cell phones and iPads with that quaint, old-people mixture of astonishment, fascination, confusion, and abject fear, I spend as much time pawing my cell phone as members of the postpubescent marketing demographic spend pawing each other and themselves. — BikeSnobNYC

Any cyclist will tell you that one of the things they value most about cycling is what it does for their heads. It cleans out the clutter. Cycling allows for reflection. It simultaneously offers time to mull over problems and to escape those problems. It's both meditative and contemplative. Whether you're weaving through traffic or climbing a long country road, the effect is the same. Your body's working, and your mind is working. And when those two things start working in concert, other aspects of life can start falling into place too. — BikeSnobNYC

There's hardly anybody who hasn't owned or at least ridden a bicycle at some point in his or her life. I mean, sure, you do come across people occasionally who never learned how to ride a bike, but it's rare and a little unsettling. It's like meeting Someone who can't operate a washing machine, or a thirty-two-year-old guy who never learned how to pee standing up. You smile politely, you pity them silently, and then you move on down to the other end of the bar. Despite — BikeSnobNYC

In light of this, I say that the definition of a cyclist needs a qualifier, and that it should be: (1) a person who rides a bicycle even when he or she doesn't have to; (2) a person who values the act of riding a bicycle over the tools one needs in order to do it. — BikeSnobNYC

The concept of marketing is almost as old as humanity itself ... suffice it to say here that it took almost no time for a wily serpent to sell Adam and Eve on a shiny apple from the Tree of Knowledge, at which point they became not only the first humans but also the first marketing demographic, and God expelled them from the Garden of Eden for being total consumerist dupes. (p. 40) — BikeSnobNYC

Cyclists aren't just hobbyists or lifestyle athletes; in many ways we're actually a different type of being. We're people with wheels. Really, in a lot of ways being a cyclist is like being a vampire. First of all, both cyclists and vampires are cultural outcasts with cult followings who clumsily walk the line between cool and dorky. Secondly, both cyclists and vampires resemble normal humans, but they also lead secret double lives, have supernatural powers, and aren't governed by the same rules as the rest of humanity - though — BikeSnobNYC

Then, there he was, and the moment I first laid eyes on him he looked familiar. Hey, you're the guy from the sonogram! — BikeSnobNYC

Bikes are for riding; they're not car hats. — BikeSnobNYC

But cycling is less a hobby than it is a discipline with the potential to transform you. It brings balance. — BikeSnobNYC

For them, it's not about the riding; it's about the bike, and the riding part is simply their way of fondling their possession. They keep their bicycles clean all the time, they fear scratches like they're herpes, and they don't ever ride in the rain (or as they call it, "water herpes") so their bikes won't get dirty or rusty. They're like the people who collect toys but don't remove them from the package so as not to diminish their value, or who swish wine around in their mouths without swallowing it, or who never get around to having actual sex because they're too into sniffing high-heeled shoes while dressed as Darth Vader. These are not cyclists, they're bicycle fetishists. In — BikeSnobNYC

The Amish can resist Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, pornography, ice-cold margaritas on tropical beaches, designer drugs, fast cars (actually, all cars), thong underwear, American Idol and sneakers. But they can't resist the bicycle. This is because the bicycle is a Truly Great Invention. A — BikeSnobNYC

Yes, everybody's angry when it comes to commuting, and in a society in which racism is no longer acceptable, prejudice based on transport has rushed in to fill the void. — BikeSnobNYC

And yeah, this is definitely not Portland, since even though I'm in a city, and even though it's very damp out, I don't see any mountains in the distance or anybody riding a tall bike while juggling. — BikeSnobNYC

Hard work makes you stronger and learning your limitations allows you to overcome them. — BikeSnobNYC

Everything about riding a bicycle compels you towards beauty. — BikeSnobNYC

Some of the more smug cyclists live in eternal hope that humanity will somehow realize the error of its ways and reject the automobile altogether ... This is not going to happen ... never in the history of the world has humanity forfeited an invention that makes our lives profoundly easier, as the car does. Nobody ever said, "This newsprint is making my fingers filthy. I'm going back to smoke signals." TV was supposed to rot your brain and ruin your eyes, but instead of going away it only got bigger and flatter, and we now have like four hundred channels instead of three. And airplanes are still the world's preferred mode of very-long-distance travel, even though terrorists still try to fly them into buildings and we now have to be dismantled into our component atoms, sifted through, and reassembled in order to board them. So if we have yet to jettison these abominations, why would people give up their cars either? — BikeSnobNYC

Two thousand years ago Archimedes famously said, "Give me a large enough lever and a place to stand and I will move the world!" Well, nobody ever gave him that lever, and that's why the world is still in pretty much the same place now as it was then: between Venus and Mars, orbiting the sun, and crawling with idiots. — BikeSnobNYC

The ark was like a portable computer hard drive and Noah was a one-man Geek Squad, and he dumped God's most important files onto it before he zorched the virus-ridden computer that was the world. — BikeSnobNYC

Even if you never, ever ride the bike it will still age. So you might as well ride it while it's pretty and enjoy the process of making it ugly. — BikeSnobNYC

There are many ways to define what it means to be a geek, but certainly one definition has to be, Someone who does something normal people do, only while wearing special pants and talking about it constantly. — BikeSnobNYC