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GET THE LOOK

© Dr. Behooving

A free to download eBook type thingy, presenting funny moments from

BehoovingMoving.Livejournal.com

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FORWARD

Last night, my minions, my rest was rather less peaceful, hardly 9 hours in total. I kept

wondering what I would do, if ever I were threatened with legal action for my blogging

irreverence? Surely, I would have little choice but to quickly purge my blog, of all its

slanderous treasures. And what record would I have then, of my funniest funniness?

Oh no indeed. It may as well all have been written in Harappan, Latin, or French

(pardon, bad example: there are of course people around still, who can read Latin).

So shall and merrily be… omg white boy… what I am trying to say, is that I have

decided to archive some of the funny bits from my blog, over here in an eBook,

published on some little site called ISSUU, where I doubt even Hans Blix would

consider looking for dirt. (One shudders at literacy standards these days. It’s spelt

“issue” folks. Iss-ee-you, if you need to be told how to say it as well.) This shall be a

book of funny stuff about cycling.

Oh and I suppose publishing posts from my blog as an eBook, does occasion some

fiddling with this ISSUU self publishing site, that looks rather awesome, and is of

course free. When born into old money—money that Daddy’s fibbing accountant insists

no longer exists—a gentleman is inclined to mistake anything free, for the remains of

his former estate. I shall thus avail myself of ISSUU, sell add space in an extended

version of GET THE LOOK, and make it all back Daddy, I promise.

Dr. Behooving, Tangiers, 2011.

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Get the look: Florentine Gigolo

Here's a look to woo any thrice married bourgeois with cliched visions of writing a

cookbook or travelogue from some short term holiday rental in Florence. Beneath their

classy pretensions we all know women like these are hopelessly easy. Ride up behind

her with the look I'll describe, accidentally crash into her, then pretend you're Italian:

"Elora! Mumma Mia! I so sorry American lady."

When she tells you she is definitely not American (and after all, why should she be,

you're pedaling along Hunter Street Mall), apologise profusely, that where you come

from, Florence, you meet so many Americans, all trying to sell you some water colour

they have just painted of the Duomo, in the style of Cezanne, that you take any

beautiful well dressed woman to be American. Again you are sorry, for on closer

inspection, this women clutching her newly bruised elbow has a certain grace, and

sense of restraint, that Americans lack.

Within an hour, you will be back at hers, examining acrylics she did in high school, in

the style of Cezanne, and saying you really could find buyers for these. You are in

Australia purchasing indigenous art, to take home and sell in your gallery. I'll guarantee

she will end up giving you more money than this little outfit will cost.

Even better than the real thing...

For the slicked back hair you can simply use water. Irish linen blue suit (must have

working buttons): $1500. Matching leather through shoes, briefcase and belt: $800. Silk

bow tie, somewhat askew: $100. Argyle socks in Indian cotton (she'll scan every detail,

don't skimp): $30. No need to shave or do anything about coffee breath. Today you're

Italian!

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Announcing the 2011 Behooving Moving Hot Cycling City

Each year at Behooving Moving we send our editors, all keen urban cyclists, to cities at

the vanguard of this crazy cycling revolution gripping the world. Their task: find the

world's number one cycling hot spot for the forthcoming year. Then, over a few bottles

of cheap Dutch beer and those Danish short breads that come in kitsch tins, we get

together here in the office and analyse each city in terms of the unhindered access to

tarmac it provides the lover of all things urbane and bikish.

Keen cyclists will be relieved

to learn Copenhagen was

canned by our experts this

time around. The blue lanes

have become way too

congested with slower than

slow riders, while drivers there have become rather territorial about their precious car

lanes—or "qwert asdfgh zxcvbn", as they say in Danish. Stupid, stupid language.

Meanwhile, a life achievement award went this year to Los Angeles. Recognition for

having paved an actual river for cyclists, has been long overdue, our judging panel

decided, and when LA has done something about the John Travolta wannabes, drag

racing cars there, LA might even win the Hot City. Our runner up for the Hot City this

year is the Ukranian city of Prypiat, once a model soviet new town, now awaiting

confirmation that it's safe to go in after Chernobyl; very much tarmac, and just a few

deer and catastrophiliac tourists to have to contend with. To be worthy though of our

highest of honours, a Behooving Moving Hot City must be some place with exiting

cuisine (other than huge mutant Ukranian catfish), colourful people (pink, blue, the

whole spectrum), architectural icons (no matter how plagiarized), massive weird

shaped hotels, and acre upon acre of wide open tarmac via which the keen urban

cyclist might explore said alien wonders.

From Left: Los Angeles River Cyclepath, Rush Hour Prypiat, and three photos of this year's winner. No, it's not Paris. It's not Brazilia either. Can you guess?

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Pyongyang, North Korea, has all this and more! Oh, and the cycling will leave you

breathless, literally breathless, since there is no place at all giving a sense you have

reached it. You will just keep riding past everything until you drop from exhaustion. And

just look at all that wide empty road, waiting for Behooving Moving readers to

commander to our ends.

From Left: Pyongyang says welcome; Exiting and challenging cuisine; North Korea's unnervingly friendly and colourful peopleoids.

The series of events leading to Pyongyang's present state of velo-deliciousness, began

with a humble diplomatic gift, of the kind nations exchange every day. A decision by the

Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) in 1987, to ban the Lotus 108 from competition, had

left the British government with such an arsenal of banned bikes, it set about giving

each of the world's 194 leaders, a Lotus 108 as a present. The story goes that Kim

Jong Il so loved his, that he rode it for hours, in such delirium that he never took note of

the brake lever position. He just assumed there would be rod brakes, like on all bikes

he had ridden. He ran into a stationary car, and while dusting himself off formed his

grand vision: a totally paved nation, without any traffic.

If he has seemed ever since to be deliberately pissing everyone off, that isn't quite true.

He just wants to piss off any country with whom trade might lead to car acquisition

among his exclusively foot-using people. Compare the images above with any you will

find of Portland or Copenhagen, and you will have to admit, his thinking is genius, and

Pyongyang is hot! It's one thing to provide separate bike lanes, but to actually get rid of

the cars altogether... now that deserves praise. The footpaths are busy, but roads wide

enough to land planes on are completely deserted, by Kim's design. We judge these to

be the widest separated bike paths anywhere in the world, operating at less than one

millionth of their cycling capacity.

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Just like Paris, only without any cars.

A word of warning though. They may not be so empty for very much longer. Photos

below show North Korea has herself joined the arms race, with attempts to develop her

own monocoque carbon bicycles. As yet, these are still being built using steel, but we

showed these photos to Lotus designer Mike Burrows, who for a whole minute just

stared aghast. "Just months before we developed the Lotus," he said, "we started

perforating our baskets." Yes, the principles of wind resistance are now known to North

Korean scientists, with the development of banned weapons now just a matter of time.

From Left: Flying Pigeon enrichment facility in North Korea. King Jong Il inspecting North Korea's Lotus 108s.

Knowing they may soon be a monocoque power, is giving North Koreans a new sense

of confidence. They are looking at photos smuggled in over the border from China (old

ones, admittedly), and are wanting mobility too. By 2012, thousands of North Koreans

are likely to be time trialing Kim's ultra wide bike paths on full carbon rigs. You may

look at the two lonely cyclists in the last two photos below, and think they're just idol

rich kids, showing off their fancy news toys. Here at Behooving Moving, we think this

could just be the start of a bike craze, on the scale of crazes in Asia. 2011 is the year,

we say, to beat the rush and ride Pyongyang.

From left: what North Korea know about China; Pyongyang Cycle Chic.

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Small wheel loonacy

Believing in small wheels seems rather like believing in anything for which there's no

proof (psychology, god, my Primrose's headaches): it marks the believer a wee little

bonkers. I know Alex Moutlon once satisfied himself that his small wheel bike required

2% less energy than an actual bike, the latter most likely a Huffy from K-mart, with

20psi in the tires and a parachute draping behind. Speaking with sobriety though, no

untattooed man could swear on god's book that small wheels have any place in Cycling

Creation, spare the following 5 dispensations:

1. beneath dwarfs,

2. beneath children,

3. beneath bowler hats,

4. on bikes smuggled into your luggage, or

5. beneath Alex Moultin, who I must say looks smashing.

Beyond that, this madness must stop. You must stop extending your small wheel bike

each time you breed. There's actually a law against aborting them after they're born.

And please stop riding uphill. Sooner or later you will have to ride down, and have you

ever roller skated ahead of a truck? And this business of trying to look like a cyclist with

one of these things—why not just blow raspberries, twisting the right grip, and pretend

as well that you're riding a Harley? You're embarrassing us, even those of us who may

be quite drunk as we grapple with problems that some may find trifling.

"My small wheel bike changed my life [into one great long info-commercial]."

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Gatherings, races, mug lairing for photos as though you're still 60: all this must end.

And finally, you need not go on justifying your moment of mad spending with the 101

uses we might not have thought of, I don't know, like slicing spam in your spokes, using

it as a tent pole, etc.. Sir, it is a scooter with pedals, not the world's greatest gizmo.

Get the look: "Grown Ups" from when you were a kid

This time I’ll show you how to look the way grown ups did when you were a kid. I'm

taken back to the late seventies when the imposition of random breath testing sent

many an honest drinking man to his shed, or a bike store, to equip himself with new

drinking wheels. The look is defiantly suave. It says, Our cars you may take, but never

our pride. The best news is, it's a look you too can add to your cycling repertoire, for

under $400. A fixie alone would set you back twice that amount, plus hundreds more

for the costume. Here's how!

1975 Raleigh Sports: $300. Period tweed suit with monster lapel: $36. Short back and

sides: $32. Complete the look with that scowl you remember men having whenever

people like you were keeping them from drinking or gambling. If seeking authenticity,

add a hip flask of whiskey to sip to stay warm.

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You and the law

My darlings, the law is an ass. And an ass is a creature that cannot ride a bicycle. Take

heart though, as the principle of common law here in the motherland's colonies, means

we are beholden only to juries of our own peers: fellow cyclists1Thus I tender the

following guiding principles to the cycling community, that we may apply these as

yardsticks when judging each other:

Alcohol The legal blood alcohol limit for cycling, is as for dancing. Thus anyone who was

dancing well upon leaving the nightclub to go cycle home, may proceed with a clear

conscience.

Helmets A complex scale determines when a helmet is to be worn, taking into account age,

speed, proximity to hazards and a further 15 lesser factors. To illustrate, a 4 year old

hurtling down a steep hill should be wearing as many as 4 helmets (according to the

scale, and according to steepness), while an adult returning from Food Works on the

footpath, with a loaf of bread and 2 liters of milk, would actually be offending his or her

bicycling peers if they did wear a helmet.

Speed When determining minimum and maximum allowable speeds, cyclists should first

estimate the average speed of all users heading along the same route as themselves.

Consider a pathway winding through a public park, on which 10 pedestrians are

strolling at 2km/h, and 1 other cyclist is riding at 20km/h. The average speed, for all 11

people using that path, is 3.6km/h (10x2 + 1x20 ÷ 11). Now here is the principle by

which our peers are to be judged:

S = s +/- 201 Alas, Dr. Behooving knows nothing, really, about common law. It's just a cool word I found and have used ever since.

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S: min and max allowable speed. s: Average speed of all present users

On any shared thoroughfare, a cyclist should not ride more than 20km/h faster, or

slower, than the average speed being set by other users currently using that

thoroughfare. Where the average speed is 3.6, the speed limit will be 23.6. Conversely,

if a cyclist wishes to occupy a road lane in which hundreds of drivers are moving at

60km/h, the cyclist will need to ride no slower than 40km/h; that is until such a time as

the cyclist has lowered all those drivers' speeds to 40km/h, whereupon the cyclist can

drop to 20km/h; that is until the drivers are all doing 20km/h, whereupon the cyclists

can stop mid lane for a scratch. When the cars have all stopped as well, the cyclists

may, if they so desire, ride in the other direction at 20km/h, whereupon the drivers will

realize what a mistake they have made heading out in such an unwieldy 4 wheeled

contraption.

To reiterate, these are not laws, but principles I wish to put out to the cycling

community. If you would like me to attend court on your behalf, as a cycling peer expert

witness, please email for a schedule of fees.

The parable of the cyclist who fixed things for everyone.

A public health advocate, an environmentalist, a transit planner, and a keen cyclist, are

walking along when they come across a discarded sleigh with three empty harnesses

(one might call that a troika).

From left: a public health advocate, an environmentalist, a transit planner, and a keen cyclist. (Thanks to Australia's Opposition Leader for modeling). On right, a troika.

The public health advocate promptly jumps into the sleigh, and says, "You guys pull

and I'll steer." A week later they're all worn out from delivering cheesy posters about

riding tandems and flying kites, and notice no one is riding tandems or kite flying these

days. It seems no one wants to look like the geeks in the posters. And of the handful

still riding tandems, the stokers are defiantly smoking.

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The environmentalist pushes his way on board the sleigh. "No more cutting down trees

for your posters! Let me do the steering." A week later they have walked around

seeking, and finding, a carbon neutral fuel for the cars. This fuel is so cheap and

plentiful, the roads now have ten times the traffic. Their nation is stuck at the wheel,

eating fast food.

"Get out hippie, I'm driving," the urban transit specialist says. So they all drag him

around for a week, as he borrows heavily to spend money on trains. Only when their

country is broke, choked with green cars, and littered with posters do they look to the

cyclist and remark that he has next to no pulling power anyway, so may as well steer

for a while.

Within a week the cyclist has relegated the cars to a handful of roads. The other streets

are filled with fit cyclists with money to spare, and all the car parks have been turned

into farms. The public health advocate, transit planner and environmentalist wish that

right from day one, they had lent their pulling power to whatever best suited the cyclist.

You have just read a sample of GET THE LOOK, the hilarious new book by me, Dr.

Behooving, blogger behind BehoovingMoving.Livejournal.com. In the event that lots of

people download it, I will sell advertising space to online Viagra merchants and

Nigerians posing as mail order brides from the Philippines, to fund the release of

something much longer; perhaps even funny. So if you want to read more, please

share the link with your friends.

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