Bike Movies

Recently I posted asking about movies with bicycle chases in them. turil pointed me at this site. I had seen it before a long time ago--it's created by a former Boston Critical Mass regular--but I hadn't looked at it too much. The video files were simply too large for the internet connections I used in the past, and the videos themselves are very long; not the kind of thing you just glance at, at work.

They fit the bill for capturing the visceral thrill of urban cycling. Most of the videos are of incredibly dangerous and asinine street races, where the cyclists race one another through the city streets; needless to say, road rules are not always followed. Red lights are blown through, with heavy cross traffic in process, sometimes the racers opt to travel in the oncoming lane, and one time a car was struck and a car-on-bike chase resulted. In the cyclist's defence, it was a drinking race, and he had consumed at least a forty-ounce and a couple shots when he accidentally smacked the rear-view mirror with his elbow.

I haven't even seen them all--it would take all day--there's one that advertises "one funny crash," and one trip along the Great Wall of China I haven't watched yet. I did see the cyclist's ride into the Red Sox World Series celebration, wherein exuberant stupidity meets the police state, and (my favorite so far) a ride on the frozen surface of the Charles River. Hey, it doesn't freeze evey year, you gotta ride on it when you get the chance, right?

There's also less thrilling, but interesting, footage of the Critical Mass ride involving a 1500 pound trailer fully loaded with a performing rock band, pulled by two strong cyclists on a tandem. I appear in that one, on the margins in my yellow visibility vest and scruffy beard.

The video quality on most of these is better than you'd expect. In most cases the images are taken with a helmet-mounted camera, which lends the videos a very immediate, in-the-action feel. After all, the camera was definitey in the action.

I'm going to go shopping with my bike trailer now, and it's going to seem so sedate.

365 Urban Species. #073: Witch's Butter

Urban species #073: Witch's butter Tremella mesenterica



Witch's butter is a striking fungus that always elicits a reaction. That reaction is not always positive ("eww!") but I think it deserves a closer look. Get close so that you can see that light is passing through it, see that it is a genuinely translucent organism, like a jellyfish. Touch it (go on, don't be a baby!) and feel that it's not gooey, but a firm gel. Now would be a good time for me to tell you that its scientific name translates to "trembling middle intestine."

Of course, what we can see is not the entire organism. The orange jelly part is the spore-producing body of a much larger, but unseen fungus. Most of the creature is invisible, feeding on the mycelium of other fungi. In fact all members of the Tremella genus are parasitic on fungi in the genera Peniophora and Stereum. Since these are wood-digesting fungi, witch's butter is always found on dead wood. You can find witch's butter at almost any time of the year, but it prefers cool wet days in early spring and early fall.

( More pictures )