How to Buy Gifts for a Cyclist

12.16.2005 | 9:35 am

There’s a certain irony in buying a cycling-related gift for a cyclist. Since one of the principal aims of a cyclist is, after all, to be light, any time you buy something for that cyclist, you are in grave danger of weighing that cyclist down.

It’s a terrible, heart-wrenching conundrum, which has no doubt brought you grief and no small number of sleepless nights.

You can stop despairing now. I have a solution.

But you’ll have to wait a few minutes for it.

Announcing the Winners of the Banjo Brothers Bike Bag Giveaway

I really loved the comments for this contest, almost as much as I love the edgy extremeness the knowledge that I fill my tires with flammable gas gives me.

Mostly, though, I just really like to say “flammable gas.”

That said, there were some problems with selecting a winner this week.

Prize For Entry That Was Absolutely The Best Entry But Doesn’t Get A Bag Because He’s Already A Banjo Brothers Dealer

Racer, the owner of Racer’s Cycle Service, has a very lean, spare sense of humor. A week or so ago, I linked to his home movie of him chasing his dog around the shop; the ordinariness of trying to catch up with a dog paired with the brilliant Cake soundtrack made me watch over and over.

Racer outdid himself, though, with his latest. I believe I have watched it more than ten times. Please, click here to watch it now.

“Racer definitely won,” my wife told me when she saw this. I agreed, but the thing is, Racer is a Banjo Brothers dealer. Sending him a Banjo Brothers bag is a little bit silly. Not that I’m opposed to being silly.

“I’ll make a cool bike chain bracelet for his wife,” said my generous and talented wife. “How about that for a prize?”

I think that will do nicely.

Prize for Entry That Was Only Two Words Long But Was Still Really Funny But Doesn’t Get Any Award Because Your Name Explicitly Says You Don’t Want It

KeepYerBag had a genius suggestion for how to take advantage of the newly-discovered explosive properties of the Big Air! canister: “Gu Brulee.” The juxtaposition of the hardiness of mountain biking with the hoity-toitiness of brulee is a hilarious image. But KeepYerBag has said before that he doesn’t bike and has no use for a seatbag. So that’s that.

By the way, nobody gets to leave a comment wondering why KeepYerBag doesn’t bike. I have, in fact, met KeepYerBag, and the reason he doesn’t bike is because he has developed his brainpower to such a degree that he can now levitate (good for short distances and changing lightbulbs) and instantly teleport himself. Oh, and he can also cause people’s brains to hemorrhage at will, so watch yourself.

Honorary Prize For Being An Exceptionally Good Sport About All This

Tony Hollars, the founder and Director of Technology at Genuine Innovations, has been incredibly good-natured about my questions about Big Air! flammability. He has responded to all my email questions, recommending “Dino Foam” as an excellent propane-propelled foaming bath soap, and even answering my pesky question yesterday afternoon, about whether there was a difference between “propane” and “propane propellant:”

The blends used vary from mostly or all Propane to mostly Butane or Iso-butane. Depends on the use and the target pressure for dispensing.

Ours is mostly propane. I suspect Dino Foam is a Butane / Propane / Iso Butane blend due to the slow dispensing rate.

Tony’s award takes the form of my intention to continue to buy Big Air! canisters for the rest of my life.

Actual Prize

Phew. OK. Now on to the actual winning entry for the contest, per Dug, the appointed judging official:

As cycling chemistry graduate students, my officemate Tim and I decided that it was of the utmost importance to research this topic instead of doing less important things like our actual work, so we spent the better part of the afternoon googling densities and what have you. And we may have even consulted a physical chemistry textbook. We learned:

1. Propane is not lighter than air! It is, in fact, MORE dense than air with a density of 1.9kg/m3 versus air which is 1.3kg/m3

2. Your humble rep at Big Air! even told you that it was propane propellant and not actual propane that you are pumping into your tires! [Well, it turns out in this case there’s no difference. So there! — Ed.]

3. Haven’t you ever taken a match to an aerosol can whilst spraying? What kind of pyro are you?

4. If you would like to play around with chemicals and stick some more in your mouth, etc, stop by the lab and we’ll let you have at it. You can fill your tires with a variety of atmospheric gasses we have laying around the lab, including nitrogen, helium, argon, or anything else of your choosing. If we really like you, we’ll let you freeze things in the liquid nitrogen. Just for fun.

As the Fat Cyclist, you would really love our research. We do stuff with lipids all of the time. And we ride bikes. I mean, we are seriously the coolest ever. Really.

—your humble cycling chemists Sarah & Tim

Dug explains why this is the winning entry thusly:

The winner of today’s contest is Sarah and Tim, humble cycling chemists, for a variety of reasons. First, they diss you, multiple times. Second, they will let you freeze stuff in liquid nitrogen (if they like you). And third, they contrapose. That is, they tell you they are “seriously the coolest ever.” And then they call themselves your “humble” cycling chemists. And finally, if you go to their website, their first sentence is this: “The broad aim of our research is to elucidate the structure and dynamics of membrane proteins, fibrous protein aggregates, and other insoluble macromolecules important in biology.” Turns out, that’s my broad aim too. Crazy coincidence, eh?

Congratulations, Sarah and Tim! Email me with the kind of seat bag you want and your shipping address. I’m afraid you two will have to figure out which of you gets the bag, though.

Let’s Go Shopping

Wow, that bit about the contest really got away from me. I was serious (well, “serious” isn’t really the right word) about having suggestions for what to get cyclists as a gift though. It’s remarkably straightforward, really. Get them what they’d otherwise have to buy for themselves in the course of being cyclists.

Here’s what I mean:

• Tubes: Find out what kind of tubes the cyclist uses, and buy a bunch of them. It’s really nice to have a stash of tubes sitting in the garage whenever you need one. This isn’t all that great of an idea if your cyclist friend has switched to tubeless.
• Genuine Innovations’ Microflate: An inexpensive, sturdy, tiny, easy-to-use threaded CO₂ (or propane, as it turns out) cartridge valve. I really don’t understand why anyone would use anything else.
• CO₂ and Big Air! canisters: Make sure that the canisters you buy are compatible with the valve your friend uses.
• Sports food / Sports Drink / Gel: If you know what they eat, drink, or ingest (I have to say “ingest” when talking about gels, because neither “eat” nor “drink” is the correct word), buy them a bunch of it. Be careful you know the correct brand and flavors, though.
• Helmet: This is something many cyclists replace too rarely. Be sure to get the right size.
• Messenger Bag: Everyone needs a messenger bag.
• Entry fee and commitment for support at a race: If your cyclist races, this is a very nice gift indeed
• Socks: Several pair of the same kind, so that as the cyclist wears them out, they’ve still got matching socks.
• Lube: Be sure to get the kind your cyclist has settled on. It’s nice to have a year’s supply of lube sitting in the garage, just like it’s nice to have a year’s supply of tubes in there.
• Shoe cleats: Do you know what kind of pedals your cyclist uses? Buy a new pair of cleats for those shoes. Most cyclists go through a couple pair of these per year, so they’re nice to have.
• A Floor Pump: When getting started with cycling, most cyclists pick out a cheap floor pump. Then they regret it. But while those cheap floor pumps never quite break — allowing cyclists to discard them in good conscience — they never really work great, either. Go to your local bike store and ask the mechanic what pump they recommend for someone who uses a pump every day (road cyclists in particular pump their tires up before practically every ride), and you’ll give a surprising, exciting gift. I am not kidding. Cyclists love a great floor pump.

You see what I mean? Get cyclists the boring stuff — they stuff they make dozens of trips to the bike shop over the course of the year — and you’ve bought them gifts that will get used for sure. How rare is that?

Presents to Avoid

There are things you want to be careful of when buying gifts for cyclists:

• A Bike: In principle, this is one of the coolest of all possible gifts. However, bear in mind that most cyclists have something very specific in mind for what their next bike is. If you don’t know what it is and don’t have a clever way to find out and are dead set on your present being a surprise, don’t get your cyclist a bike.
• Jersey: Your cyclist already has too many.
• Shorts: There are too many sizes and types. Unless you have specific instructions as to the correct kind to get, you’ll get the wrong ones.
• Shoes: Same thing as the shorts.
• Glasses: Same thing as the shoes.

Oh, by the way, just in case anybody is curious: Racer says there are a few size medium Fisher Paragons still in stock.

You know. Just in case you were wondering.

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An Open Letter to Lance Armstrong: Suggested Changes to Your Screenplay

12.8.2005 | 9:52 am

FROM: The Fat Cyclist
TO: Mr. Lance Armstrong
SUBJECT: Minor Changes to Your Screenplay

Dear Lance,

First off, thanks for letting me be one of the first people to see the screenplay you’ve just completed for your autobiographical movie. I loved it, and am absolutely positive that every cyclist in America would love it too. Cyclists will flock to this film, just as it’s written; they’ll love this window into your world, as well as the drama and pageantry that swirl around the Tour de France. In short, I feel confident, Lance, in guaranteeing that every single cycling enthusiast in America will go see this movie when it comes out.

Which is my gentle way of saying, Lance, that as written, your movie would be a complete and total disaster.

There are only about 6,000 cyclists in America, Lance. And this statistic is no less alarming even when you take into consideration that I just made it up. My point is: if you want this movie to succeed, you need to punch it up. Make it Hollywood-friendly. Give it some heat.

Here, then, are my suggestions for a rewrite of your screenplay, if you’d rather it be a summer blockbuster than an anonymous direct-to-DVD bust.

Change the Name
Yes, Lance, I know that your book, It’s Not About the Bike, was a huge success. But that book was for a different audience. Specifically, it was for an audience of people who know how to read. For a movie, you can’t go telling people what it’s not about. That would be like serving your head on a platter to the critics. I mean, can’t you just hear Roger Ebert opening his review of your movie saying something like, “Lance Armstrong’s movie tells us it’s not about his bike. That’s all well and good, but I wish he would have taken the time to decide what it is about.” (Note to Roger Ebert: I have copyrighted the preceding sentence. Hands off.)

So, then, what should you call the movie? I have a few suggestions:

• Ride: People love one-word titles. They’re easy to remember. Also, it’s both an imperative verb and a noun, so it both describes what you do and what the film is. It sounds strong, confident. Manly. This is my number-one recommendation.
• The Cyclist: This title makes it sound like you are really the only cyclist in the world. Everyone else is just a pretender. There’s also a decent chance that many people will mistake “Cyclist” for “Cyclone,” and we’ll get a fair number of tickets purchased by the disaster-film crowd. Hey, let’s not be picky; let’s get butts in seats any way we can.
• Lance Loves Sheryl: This one’s risky. If you call it this, we’ll need to make sure that the movie trailers emphasize the love story aspect of your movie. The only way we’ll get a greater than .000001% of the female audience for this film is if we make them think it’s a romantic comedy.

Pump Up the Plot
Your life makes an inspiring story, Lance. Born into a humble, one-parent home, you showed great initial promise as a professional cyclist. Then you got cancer, but suffered through the treatment to emerge a stronger, more disciplined rider. Once you started riding in the Tour de France, you caught fire and won seven times in a row - showing a drive and consistency that is perhaps unmatched in the history of sport.

This kind of storyline is what we in the biz call a “non-starter.”

You know what they’re going to do when we pitch this movie, Lance? They are going to tear us to shreds. Here are the easy questions they’ll ask, and how I propose we revise your screenplay so we can be ready for them:

• Where’s the villain? Of course, cancer is the real villain in your life, but that doesn’t exactly work on film, does it? We need someone who is doing his level best to thwart you - not just in racing, but in your personal life. I suggest Jan Ullrich is the right character for this role. We’ll have to tweak his personality a little bit since Ullrich is in fact one of the nicest guys in the whole world, but the motivation part’s easy: with each loss to you, Ullrich becomes more and more bitter, until he (let’s say in 2002) he snaps and vows he will stop at nothing - nothing!!! - to defeat you. He commences a campaign of underhanded tactics all geared toward securing the top spot on the Tour de France podium.
• You mean once he starts winning, he just keeps winning? There’s never a serious doubt that he’ll keep winning? I’m sorry, Lance, but the first act (early promise) of your screenplay is incredibly ordinary, and the second act (enduring cancer treatment) makes you seem more like of a movie prop than an exciting film protagonist. We can tell those parts of the story in about twenty minutes anyways. Then there’s the third act: Tour de France champion. It goes like this: You win the Tour de France. Then you win again. Then you win again. Then you win again. Then you win again. Then you win again. Then you win again. It gets a little predictable, Lance. Think about this for a second: Rocky lost in the first movie, and that’s the only one that was any good.
• At the end of the movie he just RETIRES?! I’m sorry to use bold, italics, all-caps and excessive punctuation, Lance, but that’s the way they’re going to say it. I can’t think of a more anticlimactic end to a movie than retirement. I suggest that in the movie, after your final tour you vow to fight crime, or you discover a cure to cancer while celebrating in a hotel, or something. Remember this Hollywood axiom, Lance: Any scene featuring a retirement must be followed with a scene wherein the newly-retired person is gunned down by his enemy. See any cop movie that has ever been made for an example of this.

Character Consolidation
I’m sure you don’t have trouble telling Floyd Landis from Roberto Heras from Tyler Hamilton from Jan Ullrich from Ivan Basso, even when they’ve got their helmets on. You probably can also identify every team immediately, with just a quick glance at what they’re doing.

I promise you, though, Lance: The movie-going audience, will be completely baffled by all these different people and uniforms. They will wonder, “How come there are so many people in this race? Didn’t some get eliminated in semi-finals?” And you know what? They’ll never figure out that there are several teams, with domestiques (Mr. Midwest: “Domestique? What’s a ‘domestique?’”) riding in support of captains.

So here’s what we do. First, we get rid of all but about seven racers, and five of them will be anonymous - their job will be to wipe out, drop off the back, acknowledge your superiority, and whatnot. We’ll consolidate Floyd, Roberto, Tyler and Ivan into one all-purpose competitor, who we will call “Henry.” Henry will not have a last name, and will communicate mostly through the medium of sweat.

Tactics Made Easy
As part of the general simplification of cycling for the moviegoing masses, we’ll simplify tactics. We won’t show you drafting along behind your team for 99.8% of a given stage, for example, because John. Q. Movieviewer would say, “How come Lance can’t beat that guy?” Instead, we’ll show you just shooting off the front at the beginning of the stage, and then staying off the front.

People will get that.

When you think about it, Lance, the whole idea of “stages” is fairly problematic. I mean, say you’ve never watched pro cycling before, and you come to this movie. It shows a guy coming in 20th or so, day after day. Maybe he wins one or two stages. Then, at the end, they say he won the whole thing. “No he didn’t,” Mr. Nascar Dad will reply. “I saw him lose over and over.” So we’re going to tweak the results a bit. We won’t go and actually say you won every stage in the movie, but we’ll only show the stages that you do win. That ought to do the trick.

Miscellaneous Changes
There are a few other little things we’ll need to change, Lance. Nothing big:

• Costumes: I think you’ll agree that cycling uniforms look, well, silly. I’m in consultation with one of the hottest costume designers in Hollywood - she did both Daredevil and Pirates of the Carribean. She’s going to start from the ground up. I promise, you are going to be blown away by her designs. Think high-gloss leather with a chamois.
• Location: Americans are very patriotic right now, Lance. Being a Texan yourself, you know that. What if the “Tour de France” became the “Tour de Freedom” and went from Alaska to Hawaii? That would rock.
• Podium Ceremony: Girls in knee-length dresses, giving you a peck on the cheek and a stuffed lion? I don’t think so, Lance. I’m thinking full on rock-concert-level celebration, with Vegas showgirls doing the honors.

I’ve sent a copy of your script - along with these suggestions - to a top-notch team of Hollywood script-doctors, Lance. They asked me to give them some latitude as they wrote, and I figured you’d have no problem with that. I’m excited to see what they come up with.

Like I said, Lance, with a few tweaks here and there, we’re going to have a great film that stays true to your story and the sport.

Kind Regards,

The Fat Cyclist

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