The great NPR bike path vs. alleyway controversy
September 26, 2012 § 10 Comments
It’s been simmering for months now.
One group of idiots wants to take the bike path. Another group of idiots wants to take the alleyway.
And today, it all boiled over.
Advocates for the bike path
The bike path has everything going for it. It allows for a slow and measured pace out to the dickstomping grounds of Westchester Parkway. It provides panoramic views of the beauty that is Santa Monica Bay, with Malibu, the mountain peaks, blue skies, and gently breaking waves as a backdrop. It meanders. It is devoid of angry drivers seeking to start their day with a bit of fresh cyclist roadkill. It’s traditional, and it lets you start your day, whether winter, spring, summer, or fall, with a crisp reminder of all that is good and lovely and wonderful about Southern California. If there’s a swell working at El Porto, you may even get to see one of Dan-O’s Danc surfboards shredding the glassy face of a tidy little beach break.
Advocates for the alleyway
The alleyway has nothing going for it. It’s ugly. Cars dart out of garages and cross streets with only inches to spare. Gnarly drainage culverts whack your rims every few hundred yards. The landscape is a gloomy ass-end of homes and condos, blotting out the sky, the sun, the ocean, and the early morning thongage. The occasional pack of grim-face runners will swoop by, looking like runners everywhere look: miserable and in pain.
Like a cheap whore, the alleyway is fast, boneshaking, and gets straight down to the business of going from the Pier to the beatdown in the shortest possible time. At the end of the alleyway, there’s a short jaunt over to Vista del Mar, where the peloton picks up a mashing head of steam, blasts down Mt. Chevron hill, and pounds it hard all the way to the Pershing death launch.
Why would anyone choose the alleyway?
First, because people are sheep, and they will follow where led, even, and especially, to the slaughter. Second, the bike path is often strewn with sand, which creates ickyness inside the links of $250 Campy chains and fancy Chris King freehubs. Third, although the drowsy morning commuters lurching forth pose certain hazards, the bike path features large numbers of the dreaded pathalete, a species of biker/runner/rollerblader/walker/stroller pusher/surfer/skateboarder/razorer who careens along the narrow strip of asphalt, often threatening to bash head-on into the rolling peloton.
Of course, the bike path is luxuriously wondrous for viewing if you’re on the point, but everyone else (except Hockeystick, who’s always got his head turned sideways) has to focus intently on not crashing due to slowing, extremely tight quarters, and the numerous turns that are studded with sand.
But the biggest strike against the bike path is that it’s pleasant and leisurely, so when the nasty reality of the Pershing bump appears, numerous wankers find their kneecaps blown off by the sudden hard surge.
When the voice of the South Bay speaks
…you listen. And this morning, G$ began the ride thus: “Assembled wankers! Today we ride the bike path! It is spoken!”
No one’s voice has the strength of G$’s, and when he pointed his bike down the path, all but six of the massed riders followed. I headed for the alleyway with SBW Eric, Patricia, Canyon Bob, Jens, Pistol Pete, and one or two others. I wasn’t trying to make a statement, I was trying to fuel a controversy. There’s a difference.
By the time we reached Dockweiler, we could see over onto the bike path from Vista del Mar, and the wankoton was far ahead. Eric and I rolled steady, trying to make up ground, and apparently we succeeded, attested to by his deep gasps and the strings of snot trailing along my upper lip and around my neck. At the Pershing launch site, Canyon Bob sprunted up the hill. Bucks and a handful of others saw us coming and wrongly assumed we were the main group.
Canyon Bob kept mashing, I clung to his wheel, and by World Way ramp at LAX we had a flailaway group that included Chris Stewart, Dan Luzier, Chris Cooke, and four or five others who all died an untimely death by the time we dropped down back onto Pershing. At the turn onto Westchester there were just four of us. The main peloton was far behind and apparently not willing to chase. After a while Dan crawled into the gutter and rolled up in a fetal position. We soldiered on.
One for the record books
Of the many incredible benefits of doing a clusterfuck like the NPR, none surpasses this: If you flail, you can blame it on the lights or on the speeding peloton working together to rein in your heroicism. If you prevail, you can chalk it up to your general greatness and wonderfulability on the bike. Conversely, if you’re in the pack and someone escapes, you can blame it on the lights you had to stop at, or the traffic you had to wait for at the turnarounds, or on the unwillingness of the dawdling peloton to work together to rein in those OTF wankers.
In short, there’s a plausible excuse for everyone, and you can always tell your wife how awesome you were and how everyone else sucked.
Today saw the first time in the history of the NPR that a breakaway stayed away for the entire four laps around the Parkway. The victors chalked it up to their speed, their ability to work together (as Jack from Illinois [not his real name] would say), their canny sense of timing, their hardness into the wind, their incredible ability to endure pain that would destroy mere mortals, and their fancy bicycling outfits.
Grumpy wankers in the peloton saw it differently, as this menu of comments suggests:
Prez: You were off the front the whole time? I thought you had a flat and got dropped.
Black Sheep Squadron: You didn’t win the NPR, dude, you cheated by taking a shorter route.
Hoss: No one bothered to chase. Didn’t you see us soft-pedaling and laughing at you each time you passed on the other side of the Parkway?
Stathis the Wily Greek: We let you have it.
Ol’ Bollix: Dude, you sneaked away on Vista del Mar and hammered before anyone even knew you were gone. Then you ran all the red lights except one, and you only stopped there because of the cop car. Finally, it’s the fuggin’ off season and the only people on the point were the schmoes who use this as their one chance all year to go to the front. What a fuggin’ joke. You guys are a sneaky bunch of cheatbag wanktards.
As I said, there’s a plausible excuse for everyone. Which begs the question, now that the wankoton has seen that a well-timed, well-placed, well-stoplighted breakaway can p*wn the group, when faced with the choice of bike path vs. alleyway on Thursday…
…which one will it be?
Cycling in the South Bay 
I shouldn’t read your posts in the wee dark hours of the morning from whence they are posted. I read the title as “alleycat” not “alleyway.” Here I thought the pot stirring WM had finally lost it in this off-season. “Alleycat? Fuck, the NPR has turned into a fixie race!” Italian made NPR kits are now traded for Italian cycling caps, V-neck shits, and skinny jeans. Facial hair and tattoos are abundant. A steady blur of wheels studded with spoke cards are seen flying along the parkway. The same cast of unfathomably fast wankers is off the front while the usual puds are off the back. Their new excuse, “We had to back off to avoid a mass crash when wanker #54’s chain wallet became ensnared in pudknocker’s bullhorn bars.” Afterwards, back at the CotKU shit-talking erupts around the pussy who showed up with a hand brake on his bike. Maybe I should just have my coffee to get my head on straight and actually read your post.
It read better your way.
It will be the Hudson River Bikeway to the GW and then up the 9W. Oh wait, wrong side of the country, never mind.
Same deal. Right?
Always the same deal.
Pathlete!!!!! Always underestimated…we were terrorized (again!!!) by a pel of razorers…some of which had wheels that spat fire…or the wheels had lights…but I’m pretty sure that was fire…also we narrowly escaped a disaster when a common traffic cone had been maliciously placed (probably) by a cranky pathlete to cause the innocent wanker-letes to scatter and possibly be killed or worse…fall into the sand! BUT! Don the Wolf spunted off the front and removed the impediment…and most wanker-letes never even knew how close to disaster they were!!!! Well done Don the Wolf.
That orange cone sounds a lot more deadly than being run over by a thousand angry dump trucks on Vista del Mar who haven’t yet had their morning meth. Or who have.
Word!!! That cone has a mean streak a mile wide!!!!
Congratulations on your win, big fat cheater. But hey, G$ could have said “let’s walk our bikes down the strand to the beginning of the ride” and we would have obeyed. Everything just sounds more sensible coming out of his mouth.
It’s like the time last year at Telo when King Harold got frustrated with the pack for not helping him chase the break, and told everyone to slow down for the last 3 laps….We did. It sounded like a good idea at the time. These guys are authority figures for some reason.
Someday you’ll be Seth$ or King Seth, but until then, well. Dude, we’re still bros.
I’ll never be king. Or even prince. Just the Wankmeister who always chooses nasty, deadly, ugly alleys when given the choice.
PS: The reason things sound more sensible coming out of his mouth is because he’s sensible.