A Reptile Tan From A Spider Saddle?

Now I'm doing something that I've done during the past few winters:  Buying and selling on e-Bay.


If you browse for more than a few minutes, you're bound to find a few ridiculous things.  Then again, people actually buy (and collect!) 8-track tapes, pastel-hued leisure suits and bike parts with designs that were obsolete the day they came out (e.g., derailleurs like Campagnolo's Valentino and Gran Turismo and almost any of Huret's.)


Funny how the worst ideas can become "collectibles."  What's even funnier is that there are people who don't want to merely collect them; they actually want to use them!


So, while someone may want to add this item to his collection, I'm sure someone out there would actually ride it:

I suppose that if I were riding bikes very different from the ones I have--and if I were a different sort of rider, or a collector--I just might want this saddle.  Actually, part of me wants it simply because it's one of the strangest bike components I've ever seen.  But I wouldn't ride it.  


This reminds me of the crochet-backed cycling gloves I just bought.  If you've worn them before, you know about the "reptile tan" you get on the back of your hands when you ride with them.  Hmm...Could something similar happen to your backside if you ride this seat?

Have You Seen This Man?

Would you allow him on your bike?

Out Again And Iced

Yesterday I rode my bike to work for the first time in nearly a month.  The day started with light rain that ended just as I was about to set off.  The 42 F (6C) temperature was milder than it's been most of this winter.  And, as if I could perform some sort of meteorological manipualtion, the skies began to clear as I began to pedal.  By the time I got within a few blocks of my main job, I was pedaling under sunshine.


And the day grew brighter--but colder.  Early in the afternoon, when I rode to my second job, the temperature had dropped enough for me to notice the wind, which was stiffening, through the sleeves of the sweater I wore under my down vest.


(Interestingly, after I parked my bike, one of the security guards asked whether I was cold.  "And how do you ride in that skirt?," she wondered.  I surprised her when I said that I don't feel cold as much below my waist as I do above it.)


All the way to my second job, I didn't see any ice in the streets.  I saw occasional patches of slush that looked like soot-flavored (as if there were such a thing) Slush Puppies.  They presented no problem, especially with the cyclocross-treaded tires I'd mounted on Marianela.


But when I got to my second job, parking was a bit of a problem:

This is the same bike rack that was full--and in which I saw a Pinarello--every time I rode there during the fall.   So I locked my bike to the fence surrounding the campus.


After my classes there, I rode back to my main job for a meeting with a student.  By that time, the temperature had dropped by at least 20 degrees (F).  Luckily, I didn't encounter ice.  After that meeting (which lasted about half an hour), I started to pedal home. About three miles into a ten-mile trip, I  managed to ride down a street that was glazing with ice.  If I were in the country, I probably would have continued riding.  However, I was near the Queens County Courthouse, and a station of the E and F subway lines.  And, by that time, I was pedaling (with a fixed gear) into a wind that, I would find out later, was blowing at 20 to 25 mph.  Plus, I had a dinner date and didn't want to be late!