Happy Monstertacking!
Details on a weekend of rides and races. Plus, an ex NYPD department chief just admitted cops don't give traffic tickets to people they think might also hate muslims?
Leg Day is a newsletter about the pursuit of joy as a city cyclist. I write about the mundane oddities one encounters while moving around on two wheels, the infrastructure we rely on to stay safe in our car-addicted society, inspiring cyclists I’ve met, and bike events you simply must attend.
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Noticed that there are more people hotlining their way through traffic than usual this week? It’s not just because 60 degree temperatures make cyclists go a little crazy. Talented, hungry fixed gear cyclists from all over the world have descended on the city to compete in Monstertrack, our biggest and most prestigious alley cat race, this Saturday. In a classic alley cat, participants race to visit every location in a provided list before heading to the finish. In Monstertrack, you don’t get all the locations at once. You have to be faster than everyone else to prove you deserve to keep racing. For a good sense of the vibe, watch Terry B’s video following Emma, who ended up winning the WTF category. (Hit 7:55 if you want a heart palpitation.)
The only thing you need to participate is a brakeless bike. You pay your $25 registration fee for the main event online now, or in person at B-Side (where the race will begin) starting at 11 am. The rollout is scheduled for 2:30 pm, so make sure to pace yourself on that bar’s actually insane perpetual $6 PBR and shot combo deal.
The community has gone big this year with supplemental programming. If you visit Principles in Gowanus anytime over the next few days, you can checkout an exhibit of photos from decades of past editions. If your fixed gear bike has wide, knobby tires, checkout the Tracklocross race on Friday in Cunningham Park. For those who’d rather just bike in a loop than have to squeeze themselves between endless slowly moving cars, check out the Monstercrit that’ll happen at Floyd Bennett field on Sunday. For those with no interest in racing, there’s also a bunch of social rides and parties happening all weekend. For the full schedule, check out the pinned post on the Monstertrack IG page. Of course, if you’re a paid Leg Day subscriber, these events are already in your cal :)
Emily Got an ex-NYPD Chief of Department To Show His Whole Ass on Main
File this one in the “I can’t believe this actually happened” folder. Earlier this week, right-wing shock jock Sid Rosenberg—who you might recall referred to Mayor Mamdani as a “terrorist” in front of then-mayoral candidate Andrew Cuomo last October and called Mamdani a “Radical Islam cockroach” on social media earlier this month—tweeted a DM screenshot from a conversation with one of his listeners. In it, the listener claimed that the fact he was listening to Rosenberg’s radio show made a cop that had pulled him over decide not to write him a traffic ticket. Streetsblog engagement editor Emily Lipstein (a day 1 Leg Day subscriber!) noted the exchange and quote tweeted it. She wrote: “cops letting someone get out of a ticket because of assumed political views?”
If I was formerly the highest ranking uniformed officer of the NYPD, who is reportedly being paid $295,000 a year by his city pension, I cannot imagine I’d spend any of my time on X, the everything app. But I am not John Chell, the kind of maniac who probably should have been fired after needlessly murdering Ortanzso Bovell in 2008, or after it came to light that he had committed tax fraud for years or after his aggressive policy of encouraging police to engage in high-stakes car chases that often ended in devastating car crashes.1 Like so many other boomers who rage against safe spaces but cannot stand being questioned on their actions, Chell tweets constantly. And for some reason, he saw Emily’s tweet, which literally doesn’t mention him at all, and felt the need to respond.
“Emily let me clue you into something that has been a standing order for decades - No Doctors, Nurses, teachers and other city agencies. Since I was the Chief of Dept -I altered this to add , Any friend of @sidrosenberg19 was a friend of ours - free pass for Sid’s friends. I did this because I could. That’s just the way it is my precious snowflake,” he wrote."
Emily, who I assume did not wake up believing she would have an insane scoop just handed to her before lunch, responded in kind: “you’re saying it’s been NYPD policy to turn a blind eye to speeding, etc. if the driver listens to a specific radio show or is friends with a cop?” To this, he responded: “What I’m saying is Sid for mayor #2030.” (He can vote for Rosenberg for mayor in 2030 all he wants, but the next New York City mayoral election will be held in 2029.)
There is ample evidence that Black and brown people end up with a disproportionate number of tickets for traffic violations, but to my knowledge, there’s never been a study of the effect of a “Coexist” bumper sticker. And yet, no one I’ve spoken to has been surprised to learn that it was apparently unofficial NYPD policy to be more lenient toward anyone they perceive to be conservative. I know of at least one NYC car owner who, in the past, left a “Blue lives matter” sign on their dashboard to avoid getting a parking ticket. It works!
I suppose I could react to this with anger, but I mostly find it funny. We know conservative ideology is full of hypocrisy, especially when it comes to the fair application of laws. These are people who dance on the graves of justice system bureaucrats, but also literally got people fired for not being sad enough when a bland-looking white guy who made a career about debating college students on YouTube (often badly) was killed. These are people who respond to information that challenges their world view not with a genuine interest in understanding, but rather with deflection and ad hominem attacks. It’s a playbook Rosenberg himself is all too familiar with. After Emily directly asked Rosenberg for comment, he responded predictably by calling her “dumb and annoying.”
There’s more to this story of course, but I’m not going to spoil it. Dave Meyer handled the full write up in Streetsblog, presumably because Emily’s mentions and inbox are a trash fire. Read it!
Hey you! Are you enjoying this newsletter? Would you mind hitting that like button as you’re scrolling onto to other things? It helps me out in ways I honestly don’t fully understand. While you’re down there, could you leave a comment too? Yeah, that’d be tight.
I love bike YouTube, but it can feel oppressively white. Most of the creators that come up on my feed are white, and many of the ones who are not don’t post very often. (Guilty!) Shreddy Pendergrass is one such creator. He works full-time as a director and camera operator, but spends his free time biking all over Los Angeles. Over the past couple of years, he’s started to put energy into making some truly incredible videos about his adventures. These have the kind of production value you’d expect from someone who treats video making as an actual art. The shots are dynamic and engaging, the stories have narrative arcs, and there’s always an incredibly good soundtrack. I highly recommend the video he dropped at the end of last week about his first ever bikepacking trip, which makes Catalina Island look like an actual factual paradise on earth and features a hilarious kicker.
I Love My Readers
Many thanks to everyone who came out for the first ever Leg Day x Nothing Bogus movie ride. We had a blast jalopying our way across the Manhattan Bridge and monopolizing one of the new on-street bike racks on 2nd ave. Also, no one told me “Kiki’s Delivery Service” was low-key a biking movie, I’ll add it to the list!
We’ll definitely run this back in the summer, stay tuned!
Loose Links
Update your MTA app! It’s gotten a complete overhaul. The new version is designed to actually load in the low-data environment that is an underground subway station, features actually useful station maps, and helps you figure out what train car is ideal to get you to the transfer or exit you want. How sick!
Anyone who responded to the crashes at last week’s Milano San Remo Donne with anything other than sympathy for the riders should kindly mind their own fucking business. Great read, as usual, from Cycling Weekly’s North American editor Anne-Marije Rook.
Rally Kat is coming back April 20! Nice news hit from this week’s great Spokes Cast with Jono and Erin! Are you subscribed??
“We Are Cyclists” Really enjoyed the new Shimano film following the “All Bodies on Bikes” crew, even if there are moments where it kind of feels like the Japanese component company is patting itself on the back. Good reminder that the original film is also still on YouTube!
Some bike lane news. The city will turn the existing northbound protected bike lane between Union Square and Prince Street into a two-way lane, which will make going Southeast through downtown a lot easier. The city has also announced it’s finally putting a protected bike lane along Ocean Ave to complete the circle of lanes around Prospect Park. Most people are happy about this, though Doug Gordon of The War on Cars pointed out that it sucks they got took the area for the lane from existing green space, rather than to remove a lane of parking.
Cyclist Amanda Servedio was killed in one of these in October of 2024.