Cyclists must be really young at heart. Wild, adventurous. You know, always looking for that extra something. But is Bike Love real?
Cyclists ride bikes for the simple pleasure of being on a bike. They often go to a bike shop and mistake it for a candy store. They wish for bikes for birthdays, Christmas and any or all other national holidays that can found on the calender. They spend hours outside riding, telling their concerned ones to keep quiet, and that they'll be back on time when they really can't.
They shave their legs wanting to look smooth, aerodynamic, and young. They run red lights frequently after watching James Bond special effects. They use the internet to read Velonews, Cycling News, Cycle News, Bike Radar, Bike Sonar, Bike News and Biker News although they all steal from one another. They constantly pick fights with motorists online, screaming to each other, "this road is mine.... NO ITS MINE..... no its mine...MINE...I pay taxes ...NO YOU DON'T..."
They even have heroes to worship, to emulate and to watch DVDs of. Their Captain Americas and Spidermans are also Lycra donning larger than life figures, minus the undies over the pants. Examples are Lance and his nads, Indurain, Pantani, Merckx, his sons, brothers and cousins...you name it.
Psychologists are calling this peculiar behavior John Cycleman Sindrome. In layman's terms, sinful bike love. It was first discovered in an Irish immigrant to the U.S in the 1880's. His name was J. Cycleman and his passion for the bicycle went beyond all the books.
Lately, this bike love has gotten out of hand, it seems. Copious amounts of attention towards the bicycle have now progressed to Stage 2 of the addiction. Showering, sleeping, and even genital adventures with the two wheeled intruder have increased by 27% alone this year, says a report from The Family Evesdropping Group Of America (or FEGA, a child of the Patriot Act). The 97 page report claims it has brought serious family tensions in its wake, like jealousy, envy and hate crimes. An unassuming survey in the same asked people what they found so goddamn attractive in their bikes that their partners didn't have. Many responded with things of pleasure such as carbon fiber saddles, long Presta valves, curvy frame geometrics, hard spoke nipples and kinky shifter cables and transmission chains. Good Lord!
As if Hollywood divorces are insufficient already, cyclists have contributed an additional 2% to all divorces this year, the same report said. Wait, what if those cyclists who caused 2% more divorce were all from Hollywood? Okay, so the report did not specify that.
As we know, absurdity generally increases by factors of four. Now, national lawmakers are being called on to determine, among other things, the age of consent of a bicycle and what constitutes a rape, restraining order, marital status to inanimate objects and so on and so forth!
Well, guess what. It now turns out that all those perverts who fondled their bikes a little too much could be in trouble for lead poisoning.
In a very dramatic fashion, some 20 or more odd bicycle companies chose not to call Bullshit for a very long time. In other words, they took this odd 97 page report by FEGA on pure faith. Obvious profit motives aside, they claimed they were taking into their own hands the national chastising of such lewd cyclist behavior by adding generous amounts of lead paint in all their bikes. This would curb sexual behavior through the risk of lead exposure. Furthermore, they were imported from China to get, you know, the good quality lead all made to beautiful ISO 9001 specification. You can't get any better lead than that.
The Chinese were delighted! For a long time, the communists wanted to get the world to rediscover this age old toxic pollutant. "A Renaissance in Lead", was what the Chinese Painter Ping Lee called it in his popular book that I can't even pronounce. "Its different, its like a feeling of going back to nature..fresh as earth, " said an enamored Lee.
But it turned out that Mattel poured the paint, so to speak, on the Chinese instead early last year, and business was bound to be doomed.
Until these bike companies came along to form such a partnership for lead. It was a heaven send! Back door sales increased as China happily upped the PPM quantity on all things paint, while bike companies pursued their Anti Bike Love Strategy. The marketing idea was to promote "go green" by selling bikes for the public to ride, while uncompromising on regulating paranoia and an immoral, uncouth and twisted obsession over articles of sporting enjoyment.
But were these bike companies really upto any good? Irony was that curvilicious designs in bad economic times would make bicycles cheaper and provoke riders to buy more, adding to further indulgence in cycling crime, whether beautiful Chinese lead existed in the paint in the first place or not.
When questioned about this obvious consequence by leading UK journalists Harold & Kumar, Pacific Bike's President T. Burp said , "Look, we know that could happen. But the more they come into contact with Lead, the more is the potential for health risks, brain damage, "false balls", liver and kidney problems and so on. Tit for tat to the perverts who commits heinous crimes on bikes. These guys need a life! Family is the fabric of this nation, our culture, our values. You can't take that away. We won't either, neither will our bikes encourage it. We as a company will continue to get tough and LEAD this war on bike pervertism."
Over the past month or so, the paint has been tipped over these manufacturers by none other than a leery Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008. No more lead, they declared! According to a their new legislation, all bicycles and related product beginning early next year must certify and comply with the "below 600 ppm" limit (or 600mg/l of water) of total lead content in paint and surface coatings.
Risk of non-compliance? In the true sense of Governmental Overkill, all non-compliant products will be taken off the shelf next year, banned, waterboarded, and then safely destroyed by AMTI Seeker robots in a remote, undisclosed location...all at the cost of the company and importer.
That's probably bad news for these bicycle companies, considering that the economic crisis has been bringing a crap load of financial upsets in the third and fourth quarters of this year.
Risk of non-compliance? In the true sense of Governmental Overkill, all non-compliant products will be taken off the shelf next year, banned, waterboarded, and then safely destroyed by AMTI Seeker robots in a remote, undisclosed location...all at the cost of the company and importer.
That's probably bad news for these bicycle companies, considering that the economic crisis has been bringing a crap load of financial upsets in the third and fourth quarters of this year.
While bike manufacturers are trying to understand how they must recertify all their products for testing, a desperate appeal has been made to CPSC by some of them, asking it to take FEGA's report seriously, and to reconsider the 'contraceptive' nature of lead in svelte looking adult bikes. In an initial response last month, CPSC firmly declared that familial tensions over the bicycle must be resolved internally, and that lead or Pb is not the solution to supporting wives and kids and men who don't ride. In contrast to the FEGA report, their research analysts claimed that their extensive use and abuse experience taught them that bicycles could never be unintelligently eaten, raped, tortured, teethed with or orally molested. What CPSC says next remains to be heard. We have our ears covered.
Meanwhile, Chinese painter and lead patron Ping Lee continues to promote the toxin in his harebrained TV show "Rare Earth : How Lead Can Renew & Revitalize Life". I can definitely understand how it will renew, as poisoned humans will die off and rot, adding manure to the soil promoting vegetative growth which will then be food for butterflies and cows. Ping's show is banned by all major broadcasters throughout the world.
What does all this mean for the rest of us? While we honor marriage and family, and protect bicycles against misuse by perverts, lets stop pointing fingers at other shady people in the UK and get screened for lead ourselves. We're all born sinners.
11 comments:
I was waiting for an utterly disinformative post like this for a while now. All the tech stuff has been wearing me out a little. ;)
Hey Happy New Year to all!
So Lance Armstrong might surely not have lead? Fifth fruit of his loins well on the way!
Lance is sane enough to have coitus with younger women, not bikes! Also please correct yourself. Its his 4th impregnation.
Lol. Such a weird post.
Xtracycle probably has very little or no lead in their paints, as will do other bicycles. However, they aren't officially certified to this ban. Manufacturers can say whatever they want but I think this certification will ultimately speak for itself in what the material really contains. Kudos to Congress and the CPSC for enveloping consumers better through this standard.
Anon : Kudos to Congress alright but how on earth can they ask the commission to come with such ambitious dates for implementation. They're clearly understaffed and even know dont know what they're supposed to do for a lot of products even now. Its a staggering list of specs and standards they have to go through. I wonder what it'll really take to first add more human resources to the commission before anything else.
I wanted to add one more thing. Its great that they're doing requiring this certification and everything on all products. However, I really really hope that the Commission requires that ALL performance bicycles, helmets etc not covered by the Children's products rules are mandatorily tested by Independent 3rd Party Testing. Easier said than done, I know...but this should go a long way in further boosting consumer confidence.
addicted to the Moskau song. :)
happy new year.
Ahhhh, Victoria Pendleton...
That is all.
OH! Happy New Year, Ron!!
Oh Moskau moskau , come and dance and love the fish...
Happy new year to you ron.
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