This took place in July of 2009.  According to TreeHugger, the attempted murder only got a sentence of 120 days because he was apparently such an upstanding citizen and had only a minor break with reality.   Diez is very fortunate that the cyclist was wearing a helmet else he’d most certainly be spending most – if not all – of the rest of his life in prison.

What’s most stunning and cynically unsurprising about this lax sentence is the general perception that cyclists are somehow a nuisance and a distraction.  If a cyclist had turned around and shot a driver because of excessive honking or aggressive driving, it’s unlikely that the court would have shown any leniency – even if the shooter was an upstanding fireman like Diez.

I’m not sure why this perverse attitude exists towards cyclists.  Is it because cycling is considered juvenile and that roads are for cars or some such nonsense?  Cyclists are legally required to ride in the street and are expected to follow the local laws.  Of course cyclists can’t accelerate or maintain a velocity that a car can but there’s more than enough room for a cyclist and a car in the same lane.

Perhaps the frustration emanates from the fact that cyclists are freer on the road.  When traffic is snarled to a halt, the cyclist can move freely and quickly among or next to the stalled traffic.   And, truth be told, it’s quite a pleasant feeling to roll past the traffic.  For once, no one is screaming past and the honks are directed at the bumpers in front and not at you.  Even when the traffic is moving quickly, cycling is much more soothing than driving.  Riding at a brisk pace is an unparalleled feeling and, for me, riding in the freezing rain and snow is a pleasure unlike almost any other.  The active participation in one’s velocity and acceleration makes cycling euphoria that much more intense and even fanciful than any other type of exercise.  Working out and running are all well and good and do provide some natural euphoria but it doesn’t compare to the wind-whipped thrills of high-speed cycling.

I doubt that any drivers consider any of this.  They just think asshole as the cyclist goes by.

Ride safely and ride confidently.  The road belongs to the cyclist as well.

The article states:

“To nab the culprits, police implanted tracking devices in bicycles and left them around the city in the hope that they would be stolen. The thieves took the bait, and the police moved in on the bike theft network.”

It’s quite a clever and simple operation that yielded some impressive results.  The police managed to recover 2,000 bikes from garages that housed the stolen bikes.   The recovered bikes are now being made available to the public in an attempt to reunite the bikes with their bereft owners.

As far as identifying the stolen goods, there doesn’t seem to be a very strict ID procedure.  If one simply fingers a bike as their own, the police are willing to let it go.  One such person “confessed that he was ‘not 100% sure this is my bike. Many parts have been changed. The repair will probably cost more than the bike itself.’”

Better to have the bikes being reclaimed and used than sitting in a chop shop garage somewhere for some shady character to make a fistful of shekels from.   And, lest the obvious not be illuminated, this is great PR for the Tel Aviv police.  It’s a win-win situation.

What continues to baffle, however, is how cyclists fail to understand how simple it is not only for one’s bike to be stolen but how easy it is to protect your bike and its components from theft.

“I’ve had seven bikes stolen. I’m simply happy. I am grateful to these guys,” she said, gesturing toward Ch.-Insp. Shlomo Perry, head of the Tel Aviv Police’s lost and found office, and Supt. Ro’i Amihai, deputy commander of the Horev Police Unit, who were overseeing the operation.

“This time around I’m going to put three locks on it – two on each tire and one on the seat,” said Goveritch. “I can’t bring it up to my apartment on the third floor.”

If you’ve had seven bikes stolen, you’re doing something wrong.  Invest in a top of the line lock; even if the lock costs as much as your bike ($100 for the best bike lock money can buy), $100 once is better than $100 seven times over.  Leaving a bike outside overnight is certainly not a good idea but even so, locking it properly will deter bike thieves.   It’s surprising that bike theft isn’t more prevalent considering how carelessly people secure their bikes.  Draping a chain around a frame and leaving the seat and wheels open for the taking is not effective; it takes just seconds to remove a quick release wheel or seat and post.

It’s certainly welcome news that the police are scheming effectively against the bike thieves but bike theft can be effectively prevented using simple, tried-and-true methods that can save the cyclist the agony of bike theft in the first place.

Should you wish to find out more information regarding the chances of reclaiming a stolen bike, contact Ch.-Insp. Shlomo Perry, head of the Tel Aviv Police’s lost and found office at (03) 680-2135/6.

The bike branding didn’t appeal to everyone, “‘I thought it was a nice idea, but what you get for free looks like you got it for free,’ said Lem, who owns a mountain bike worth NIS 12,000,” but the article states that even he was persuaded to get his bike tatooed.

True, the appearance of an etched serial number may  - prima facie – be a good idea but it’s unlikely that it would dissuade a bike thief from an expensive bike.  If the thief is savvy enough to break locks and the like, then he or she would know how to strip a bike and repaint it or somehow alter the registration number.

Personally,  I think a better lock is the surer way to prevent bike theft and ugly etchings done hastily on the street are not something I’d like to have on my bike.   I suppose, however, it’s a pleasant site to even see the police taking a proactive approach to a very common problem in Tel Aviv.

If you want your bike registered, here are the pertinent details from the article:

“City residents are invited to the local community police station on Trumpeldor Street between 10 A.M. and 7 P.M., where they can have their bicycle registered and engraved with their name and ID number, or any other personal details, for free.”

This clip nicely parodies both the fixie scene as well as the ‘twinkies’ (road cyclists with super-expensive bikes slathered in latex):

Someone would have mapped out the checkpoints  - there would be no course, only checkpoints – that the racers would have to pass in order to finish the race.  Usually, the alleycat would have a theme like Halloween or Thanksgiving or movies or anything and at the checkpoints, the racer would have to perform some act related to the theme.

The New York Thanksgiving race is called Cranksgiving and the racers would have to buy canned goods at certain grocery stores and based on the amount of goods collected, the distance travelled and the speed at which these tasks were accomplished determined the winner.  The collected food would then be donated to charity.

The alleycats were more fun when the number of participants was lower.  Seeing as how these races were not exactly on the up-and-up, it wasn’t so safe to have so many racers careening around Manhattan.  And as the popularity of the races increased, riders who weren’t messengers or who didn’t know how to ride at high speeds through city streets were more likely to cause injury to themselves – or more importantly, innocent bystanders.

One Halloween race, some guy with a helmet cam decided to tag along (they were making a documentary or some such nonsense about alleycats) and wanted to record live footage of the race.   At the intersection of 42nd and Broadway, he ran a light and was greeted with the front end of a sedan.  The footage was amusing – he was unhurt – but it underlines the greater dangers of casual bikers – or in this case, documentarians – competing in alleycats.

As the messenger fad became that much more popular and nauseating, the number of riders at each race ballooned exponentially.   For one race, modeled after the movie The Warriors, racers were in teams of five and had to ride from the Bronx to Coney Island and compete at various points along the way that were based on scenes in the movie.  The expected turnout was about 100; over 600 people showed up.

The race began at dusk in the Bronx and almost immediately, thunder crackle, lightning seethed and torrents of rain pounded the racers.  It was fantastic.  I believe I had six or seven punctures during the race; I had to run to my apartment to get a spare wheel to finish the race.  It was an incredible night and was the apex of the alleycat scene.  Of the 600 or so racers involved, only about 150 finished the race.

The winners were determined by the collective number of points the team members scored at each of the checkpoints.  The checkpoint challenges varied from playing handball in the Bronx to wrestling some giant in Central Park to getting a tattoo in the West Village.  The race ended at dawn on the boardwalk in Coney Island.  It was a truly incredible race made that much more memorable by the inclement weather, the hazy and insane recollections about some bar on Fulton St and the exhaustion that was melted away by the black coffee served on the boardwalk.

Shortly thereafter – six months or a year or maybe before – the alleycat scene became just another hip thing to do.  It wasn’t based on skill and finesse any longer; the new racers and hangers-on sought to instill terror and sped wrecklessly through the city.  For me, the alleycat was primarily about skill and finesse; each racer had to use his cunning and skills garnered from months and years of messengering to win the race.  While the races were underground and anarchic, the race itself was the antithesis of anarchy – skill and presence of mind dominated.

The most dangerous part of riding in the street, however, is at a red light. Waiting for the light to turn from red to yellow and then to green with the roar of the traffic accelerating behind is not only intimidating but dangerous. The best way to avoid getting caught between accelerating cars and rumbling buses is to run the red light before it has the chance to turn green.

This is legally dubious, sure, but it’s safer for all parties involved. Obviously, one must ensure that no traffic or pedestrians are crossing the street perpindicular but if the biker gets a few seconds or so start, the cars don’t come screaming by so frantically.

Needless to say, one must take responsibility for one’s actions and running a red light is entirely on the shoulders of the rider. One must bear that in mind. Altercations between bikers, drivers and pedestrians are all too common, however.

At any rate, it seems that Tel Avivians simply don’t understand the rationale for spending money on a good lock. Having lived in New York City and worked as a messenger for a number of years, it is essential to have a durable and trustworthy lock. There’s nothing worse than coming out of the Cherry Tavern or some other dive and not seeing your bike. As such, the lock of choice for almost all messengers is the Kryptonite New York Lock which now has the idiotic moniker Fahgettabdoudit. I’ve been using the lock for almost ten years and my bike has always been waiting for whether it be a few moments, hours or the morning after.

Most bike stores in Israel carry knock-off locks that range in price from $10 – $40 (40 – 160 NIS), all of which are horrible; I can’t understand why quality locks are not more in demand in Tel Aviv. A co-worker has had two bikes stolen in a couple of weeks (the same model, purchased twice) and yet he continues with the same wretched and worthless lock & chain. While $100 is pricey for a lock, it’s certainly less than $500 twice over.

Continuing this, I’d like to add a section for stolen bikes either in the bike Tel Aviv forum (which has been infested with spam and will have to be redone) or simply add a page for stolen bikes information so perhaps people who have been pilfered can – unlikely at it may be – post information and maybe retrieve their bikes.

I’m trying to fix the maps section; Google has finally released the maps for Israel with street names but apparently there’s some sort of copyright problem with using the street names on websites with the google maps API.  weird; typical though.

The weather is getting cool (for Israel) so it’s a good time to ride.  Some riders in Jerusalem are night riding to explore the city which is always an exciting way to cover a city.  I don’t enjoy riding in Jerusalem because steep hills and track bikes don’t really mix too well.  But when I lived in Jerusalem for a bit it was a pleasant way to see the outskirts of the city and areas I wouldn’t have normally gone.

Tel Aviv is a much more enjoyable place to ride; the streets are flat and fast and there’s always something interesting to see.  Plus, riding in traffic is always a pleasure.

Now that I have my bike back and am riding 5 days a week again I’ll try to be more attentive to the site and make some much needed updates.

I updated the contact form so it no longer requires an email client to send the mail.   Just fill in the comment, press submit and it’s sent.  Please comment freely about site design, suggestions, and any bike-related questions.

And the bad news.

So my bike frame is finally kaput.  My Cannondale Track frame has gone from merely being a frame with an increasingly large crack in it to a frame whose top tube is severed at one end.  And to make things worse, my replacement track frame was supposed to be in my hands on September 8.  Clearly this did not happen.  I’m not really sure where the frame is.  It’s some problem with the importer but I should get the frame by the end of September.  It’s Israel so I’m guessing I won’t be riding for quite some time.  September 2009 maybe.

The Horror:

First, some background: For those who don’t know, tall bikes are part of the nebulous bike culture and residing somewhere in the subculture scene bordering the hipster and fixie lifestyles.

Part of the philosophy of the tall bike movement is to recycle and reuse old bikes and parts and recapitulate them as useful, if unreliable and totally impractical, bikes. The philosophy borders on the preachy when the corporate culture tries to incorporate the insular tall bike culture.  Tall bike riders form clubs and drink a lot and talk about individuality and yada yada but if you want to join their clubs – Black Label or C.H.U.N.K. 666 to name a couple – you must pass a vetting process and conform to their norms.  Sounds great.

Listening to the Best Show on WFMU’s archives, the host Tom Scharpling read a Village Voice article about vandalism in the hipster capital of Bedford Avenue.

Some disgruntled tall bike rider objected to Brooklyn Industries’ use of tall bikes in a window ad campaign and proceeded to scrawl (sponge?) “Bike Culture Not for Sale” in acid on multiple Brooklyn Industries’ outlets.

Despite most of the tall bike clubs unwilling to talk to the press, the Village Voice meets “Darko”,  a member of C.H.U.N.K.,  agrees to meet and shed light on the situation.  The most striking element in the entire article is that Darko is the creative director for the Ralph Lauren website,  a bastion of capitalism and excess.

How is it that directing advertising using all sorts of ploys and gimmicks to sell clothes is acceptable but using a tall bike is not and is seen as sacrilege?

This fad, too, shall pass.

Tom Scharpling dissects the paradox of “Bike Culture Not for Sale” and debates a tall bike enthusiast. Listen here. (tall bike discussion from the 25 minute mark to about minute 60)