{"id":242377,"date":"2026-05-08T13:22:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T13:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/08\/be-afraid-be-very-afraid\/"},"modified":"2026-05-08T13:22:00","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T13:22:00","slug":"be-afraid-be-very-afraid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/08\/be-afraid-be-very-afraid\/","title":{"rendered":"Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid."},"content":{"rendered":"

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Generally speaking, I don\u2019t go in for the whole \u201cThe world is falling apart and humanity is doomed\u201d thing. Life is an ugly business, it\u2019s human nature to be afraid, and the sense that we\u2019ve somehow fallen from grace and are being cosmically punished from our misdeeds is so deeply ingrained in us that it\u2019s the basis for the world\u2019s most popular religions. Sure, there\u2019s scary stuff in the news, but if you really do think we\u2019re somehow worse off than ever I bet you\u2019d feel differently if someone offered you a one-way ticket in a time machine.<\/p>\n

Still, even I can\u2019t ignore the sense of impending doom that\u2019s in the air right now. In fact, it\u2019s feeling downright apocalyptic out there. For example, \u201chalf the peloton\u201d has been \u2026smitten? \u2026smited? \u2026smote? by a manure-borne illness<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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If you thought conditions aboard the MV Hondius were unsanitary, just try a race in the Ardennes:<\/p>\n

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Lotto said the riders may have been contaminated by cow manure on the Ardennes course, with wet roads causing excrement to be splashed on to riders.<\/em><\/p>\n

Although the exact cause has not yet been confirmed, campylobacter \u2013 a type of bacteria responsible for gastrointestinal infections \u2013 is suspected to be the source.<\/em><\/p>\n

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If any of you have ever raced bicycles in New York City this will immediately sound familiar to you, as each lap of Central Park takes you through a stretch colloquially called \u201cHorseshit Alley,\u201d so-called because of the leavings of all the carriage horses, which you breathe deep into your lungs as you attempt to make your way to the front for the inevitable bunch sprint at the top of Cat\u2019s Paw.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know if carriage horse manure also contains campylobacter, though that would be a great name for a new Campagnolo gravel group below Ekar, which also sounds like a bacteria:<\/p>\n

\"Cyclist<\/figure>\n

By the way, I told the AI to generate \u201cAn advertisement for the new Campagnolo Lobacter electronic gravel bike drivetrain,\u201d and instead of giving me a messed-up image with dyslexic syntax as usual, it gave me the image above and asked me for more notes, so I told it to add that text. Horrifyingly, it pretty much nailed the Gravelista, right down to the dainty tattoos. Now I\u2019m truly frightened. I liked AI a lot more when I could laugh at it.<\/p>\n

Anyway, if that wasn\u2019t apocalyptic enough, the same article mentions that an Eddy Merckx monument has been vandalized<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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Not just vandalized but [intern, find me a dripping-blood font<\/strong>]\u2026decapitated:<\/p>\n

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The Brussels municipality was alerted on Wednesday morning by local residents that the head of the sculpture, created by Stefaan De Croock, had been torn off.<\/em><\/p>\n

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This is clearly a sign of the End of Days, though in the unlikely event that this is non-Biblical in nature I wonder if the police have spoken to Roger De Vlaeminck.<\/p>\n

Frightened yet? Well, earlier this week we met<\/a> \u2018shroom-addled e-bike enthusiast Paul Stamets, the one-man Ben & Jerry\u2019s of Fungus, who was recently featured in a promotional video for Specialized\u2019s line of electrificated Levo line of bicycles:<\/p>\n

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The idea may have been to open the doors of perception, but instead they seem to have unlatched a trap door causing the bottom to fall out, and now Specialized is slashing prices like Crazy Eddie<\/a>*:<\/p>\n

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*[You\u2019ll get the Crazy Eddie<\/a> reference if you know what Horseshit Alley is.]<\/p>\n

Yes, prices across the entire industry are falling, falling, falling\u2013to [Intern, find me a flaming letter font<\/strong>] HELL<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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Please note I\u2019m not telling you to buy a Lynskey or not to buy a Lynskey. Comments on this blog range from \u201cGreatest bike I ever owned\u201d to \u201cThey break if you fart near them.\u201d All I\u2019m saying is they\u2019re practically half-off<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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I mean there are closeouts on brand new bikes everywhere you look<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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It\u2019s spring and demand for bikes should be at its highest, yet it seems like you can\u2019t find a bike that\u2019s not discounted by at least a One Thousand American Fun Tickets\u2122<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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Are things really that bad for the bike industry? Is it possible for it to survive when they\u2019re taking a grand off the price of a bike like it\u2019s the reflectors? There\u2019s even desperation in the used market, where sellers on Craigslist seem to be resorting to propaganda<\/a> in order to convince you to buy a bike:<\/p>\n

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I assume that was posted by whoever is selling this:<\/p>\n

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Maybe the Apocalypse has already happened. It\u2019s the only reasonable explanation for that bike.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Generally speaking, I don\u2019t go in for the whole \u201cThe world is falling apart and humanity is doomed\u201d thing. Life is an ugly business, it\u2019s human nature to be afraid, and the sense that we\u2019ve somehow fallen from grace and are being cosmically punished from our misdeeds is so deeply ingrained in us that it\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":242378,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6804],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-242377","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=242377"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242377\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/242378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=242377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=242377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=242377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}