RR: Darkest Suburbia

CC says:

<snip>

Quoted message said:

I haven't smacked a single car with my palm all week.

Enjoy it while you can. ;-)

Steve

[email hidden] (Corvus Corvax) wrote in message
news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

So it's over. We are no longer Manhattanites. Welcome to Buffalo. We were in a pub tonight having
dinner, and we were chatting with a friendly bartender. I explained that we had just moved in from
the city. He explained at some length how he had lived in the city for fifteen years, and rattled
off all his old neighborhoods, names which meant nothing to me. Still a terminally clueless
Manhattanite, I asked, "Which borough is that?"

Heh. He didn't mean the same city.

For the linguistically inclined, "Buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo" is a grammatical
English sentence.

I ride to work this morning, about 6 1/2 miles, on the fix. I've been commuting in all week, and
hardly see another rider on the roads, much less anybody on a track bike. I'm already missing the
Manhattan thing, where I would see at least one or two other riders running fixed every time I
went out. No matter. We will be ambassadors of Manhattan fixie culture to the savages.

Quoted message said:

this bovine placidity. I'm clipping along at 19 or 20 on a four-lane suburban arterial. A street
like this, out where Jimbo and Carla live, would inspire fear in the hardiest rider. In Buffalo,
the cars drift down the highway like lily pads on a quiet stream. Dull. Stultifying. You couldn't
pick a fight with these people if you tried. They just stare. I think human-powered vehicles are a
strange and wondrous sight to them. I smile at them and line up with the cars at the stop light
and I signal my turns. I am Mr. Polite And Vehicular. I haven't smacked a single car with my palm
all week.

Quoted message said:

CC

Welcome to Hell and lake effect.

JD

[email hidden] (Corvus Corvax) wrote in message
news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

So it's over. We are no longer Manhattanites. Welcome to Buffalo. We were in a pub tonight having
dinner, and we were chatting with a friendly bartender. I explained that we had just moved in from
the city. He explained at some length how he had lived in the city for fifteen years, and rattled
off all his old neighborhoods, names which meant nothing to me. Still a terminally clueless
Manhattanite, I asked, "Which borough is that?"

Heh. He didn't mean the same city.

For the linguistically inclined, "Buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo" is a grammatical
English sentence.

I ride to work this morning, about 6 1/2 miles, on the fix. I've been commuting in all week, and
hardly see another rider on the roads, much less anybody on a track bike. I'm already missing the
Manhattan thing, where I would see at least one or two other riders running fixed every time I
went out. No matter. We will be ambassadors of Manhattan fixie culture to the savages.

Quoted message said:

this bovine placidity. I'm clipping along at 19 or 20 on a four-lane suburban arterial. A street
like this, out where Jimbo and Carla live, would inspire fear in the hardiest rider. In Buffalo,
the cars drift down the highway like lily pads on a quiet stream. Dull. Stultifying. You couldn't
pick a fight with these people if you tried. They just stare. I think human-powered vehicles are a
strange and wondrous sight to them. I smile at them and line up with the cars at the stop light
and I signal my turns. I am Mr. Polite And Vehicular. I haven't smacked a single car with my palm
all week.

Quoted message said:

CC

P.S. -- Enjoy Denver, Anthony.

The local riding scene will fill you in on Ellicotville. It's about 50 miles south of town on Route
219. The "Pale Ale Trail" near Holliday Valley and Hollimont ski resorts was the site of one of
IMBA's epic rides last year. For your sake, I hope we don't have a winter like last.

Quoted post said:

Originally posted by Corvus Corvax
In Buffalo, the
cars drift down the highway like lily pads on a quiet stream. Dull. Stultifying. You couldn't pick a
fight with these people if you tried. They just stare. I think human-powered vehicles are a strange
and wondrous sight to them. I smile at them and line up with the cars at the stop light and I signal
my turns. I am Mr. Polite And Vehicular. I haven't smacked a single car with my palm all week.

CC

P.S. -- Enjoy Denver, Anthony.

Yeah kinda strange isn't it?
You could always head up to Toronto for some urban cycling experience... Oh wait forget it they are bike friendly... Nothing like LI/NJ drivers up there either!
Hey enjoy the peace and quiet!

Jimbo(san)

Corvus Corvax said:

So it's over. We are no longer Manhattanites. Welcome to Buffalo. We were in a pub tonight having
dinner, and we were chatting with a friendly bartender. I explained that we had just moved in from
the city. He explained at some length how he had lived in the city for fifteen years, and rattled
off all his old neighborhoods, names which meant nothing to me. Still a terminally clueless
Manhattanite, I asked, "Which borough is that?"

Heh. He didn't mean the same city.

For the linguistically inclined, "Buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo" is a grammatical
English sentence.

I ride to work this morning, about 6 1/2 miles, on the fix. I've been commuting in all week, and
hardly see another rider on the roads, much less anybody on a track bike. I'm already missing the
Manhattan thing, where I would see at least one or two other riders running fixed every time I
went out. No matter. We will be ambassadors of Manhattan fixie culture to the savages.

Quoted message said:

this bovine placidity. I'm clipping along at 19 or 20 on a four-lane suburban arterial. A street
like this, out where Jimbo and Carla live, would inspire fear in the hardiest rider. In Buffalo,
the cars drift down the highway like lily pads on a quiet stream. Dull. Stultifying. You couldn't
pick a fight with these people if you tried. They just stare. I think human-powered vehicles are a
strange and wondrous sight to them. I smile at them and line up with the cars at the stop light
and I signal my turns. I am Mr. Polite And Vehicular. I haven't smacked a single car with my palm
all week.

Quoted message said:

CC

P.S. -- Enjoy Denver, Anthony.

I lived in Binghamton, NY for about 2 years. I spent several weeks in Grand Island on business on a
couple of occasions since moving out west. It was as bad as Binghamton. If Buffalo is nearly as bad,
I'ld start checking out monster.com right away. Good luck.
--
Craig Brossman, Durango Colorado (remove ".nospam" to reply)

"Corvus Corvax" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

So it's over. We are no longer Manhattanites. Welcome to Buffalo. We were in a pub tonight having
dinner, and we were chatting with a friendly bartender. I explained that we had just moved in from
the city. He explained at some length how he had lived in the city for fifteen years, and rattled
off all his old neighborhoods, names which meant nothing to me. Still a terminally clueless
Manhattanite, I asked, "Which borough is that?"

Heh. He didn't mean the same city.

For the linguistically inclined, "Buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo" is a grammatical
English sentence.

I ride to work this morning, about 6 1/2 miles, on the fix. I've been commuting in all week, and
hardly see another rider on the roads, much less anybody on a track bike. I'm already missing the
Manhattan thing, where I would see at least one or two other riders running fixed every time I
went out. No matter. We will be ambassadors of Manhattan fixie culture to the savages.

Quoted message said:

this bovine placidity. I'm clipping along at 19 or 20 on a four-lane suburban arterial. A street
like this, out where Jimbo and Carla live, would inspire fear in the hardiest rider. In Buffalo,
the cars drift down the highway like lily pads on a quiet stream. Dull. Stultifying. You couldn't
pick a fight with these people if you tried. They just stare. I think human-powered vehicles are a
strange and wondrous sight to them. I smile at them and line up with the cars at the stop light
and I signal my turns. I am Mr. Polite And Vehicular. I haven't smacked a single car with my palm
all week.

Quoted message said:

CC

P.S. -- Enjoy Denver, Anthony.

Will, you and the lovely Jeanette are welcome to join us for some riding whenever Jim and I go back
to my hometown. We are planning a big ride up in Humber Valley for Labor Day weekend.

- CA-G

Can-Am Girls Kick Ass!

Craig Brossman <[email hidden]> wrote

Quoted message said:

I lived in Binghamton, NY for about 2 years. I spent several weeks in Grand Island on business on
a couple of occasions since moving out west. It was as bad as Binghamton. If Buffalo is nearly as
bad, I'ld start checking out monster.com right away. Good luck.

Strangely enough, I find that these old forgotten rust belt cities like Buffalo or Pittsburgh or
Cleveland can have an astonishingly high quality of life. Real estate and groceries are cheap, the
air is clean, people are friendly, the pace of life is very relaxed. As long as you can make a
steady living, you can live really well. However, unlike Pittsburgh, Buffalo never had any kind of
economic revival after the steel mills closed, and downtown is postively post-apocalyptic. But right
now, that's ok with me. Even in Manhattan, I preferred dive bars over the high-zoot lifestyle
anyway. Mostly. The forlorn, decayed city suits my mood these days, and I think I can be happy here.

But, man, people here are amazingly fat. Not as bad as Wisconsin, but still pretty bad. That's one
thing I really, really miss about Colorado is the women. Colorado has the best looking chix in the
country. Lean, atheletic, slightly hippie. I'd love to live in Durango, but you know what? If
everybody who wanted to live in Durango actually moved to Durango, Durango would suck. Look at
Denver. Or Aspen. I would rather live in Buffalo than be yet another one of those [censored] yuppies
who builds his McMansion outside some lovely little town in Colorado and then gets all up in arms
over all the other yuppies moving in and building McMansions. (This is hypothetical, of course, as I
can't afford a house like that anyway.) It's enough for me that guys like you and JD live there.
I'll come up and ride next summer.

CC

[email hidden] wrote .

Quoted message said:

The local riding scene will fill you in on Ellicotville. It's about 50 miles south of town on
Route 219. The "Pale Ale Trail" near Holliday Valley and Hollimont ski resorts was the site of one
of IMBA's epic rides last year. For your sake, I hope we don't have a winter like last.

Thanks. I'll check it out.

CC

Craig Brossman <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

Corvus Corvax said:

So it's over. We are no longer Manhattanites. Welcome to Buffalo. We were in a pub tonight
having dinner, and we were chatting with a friendly bartender. I explained that we had just
moved in from the city. He explained at some length how he had lived in the city for fifteen
years, and rattled off all his old neighborhoods, names which meant nothing to me. Still a
terminally clueless Manhattanite, I asked, "Which borough is that?"

Heh. He didn't mean the same city.

For the linguistically inclined, "Buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo" is a grammatical
English sentence.

I ride to work this morning, about 6 1/2 miles, on the fix. I've been commuting in all week, and
hardly see another rider on the roads, much less anybody on a track bike. I'm already missing
the Manhattan thing, where I would see at least one or two other riders running fixed every time
I went out. No matter. We will be ambassadors of Manhattan fixie culture to the savages.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

this bovine placidity. I'm clipping along at 19 or 20 on a four-lane suburban arterial. A street
like this, out where Jimbo and Carla live, would inspire fear in the hardiest rider. In Buffalo,
the cars drift down the highway like lily pads on a quiet stream. Dull. Stultifying. You
couldn't pick a fight with these people if you tried. They just stare. I think human-powered
vehicles are a strange and wondrous sight to them. I smile at them and line up with the cars at
the stop light and I signal my turns. I am Mr. Polite And Vehicular. I haven't smacked a single
car with my palm all week.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

CC

P.S. -- Enjoy Denver, Anthony.

I lived in Binghamton, NY for about 2 years. I spent several weeks in Grand Island on business on
a couple of occasions since moving out west. It was as bad as Binghamton. If Buffalo is nearly as
bad, I'ld start checking out monster.com right away. Good luck.

Just wondering what was "bad" about your stay in the area?

Corvus Corvax said:

Colorado has the best looking chix in the country.

I dunno... I've had my head turned more than a few times by the ladies down here... No, not in the
city limits, but out in the county, Collierville, Germantown, etc., Day'um!

Clyde_in_TN <[email hidden]> wrote in news:N3_Ua.95066
[email hidden]:

Quoted message said:

Corvus Corvax said:

Colorado has the best looking chix in the
country.

I dunno... I've had my head turned more than a few times by the ladies down here... No, not in the
city limits, but out in the county, Collierville, Germantown, etc., Day'um!

ya gotta love those southern women... I moved all over the US before learning the most beautiful
ones were right here at home in Mississippi.

--
- Chris - www.skokatt.com
_____________________________

People say I'm cruel. But I have the heart of a small child. In a jar. On my desk.

[email hidden] (Corvus Corvax) wrote in message
news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

[email hidden] wrote .

Quoted message said:

The local riding scene will fill you in on Ellicotville. It's about 50 miles south of town on
Route 219. The "Pale Ale Trail" near Holliday Valley and Hollimont ski resorts was the site of
one of IMBA's epic rides last year. For your sake, I hope we don't have a winter like last.

Thanks. I'll check it out.

CC

This will help wnymba.orgwnymba.orgOpen ↗

Skokatt <[email hidden]> wrote

Quoted message said:

ya gotta love those southern women... I moved all over the US before learning the most beautiful
ones were right here at home in Mississippi.

Southern chicks? Oh, please. Southern women make me utterly despair. All of these chicks who would
otherwise be perfectly attractive pile on the makeup and mascara and get these freakish helmethead
hairdos and generally make themselves into Stepford sorority girls. Bleccch. A nineteen year old
woman doesn't need to trowel on the makeup to look beautiful, and it doesn't make a thirty-year-old
look nineteen, just kind of desperate and pathetic.

I stand by my assessment of Colorado.

CC

Corvus Corvax said:

Craig Brossman <[email hidden]> wrote

Quoted message said:

I lived in Binghamton, NY for about 2 years. I spent several weeks in Grand Island on business on
a couple of occasions since moving out west. It was as bad as Binghamton. If Buffalo is nearly as
bad, I'ld start checking out monster.com right away. Good luck.

Strangely enough, I find that these old forgotten rust belt cities like Buffalo or Pittsburgh or
Cleveland can have an astonishingly high quality of life. Real estate and groceries are cheap, the
air is clean, people are friendly, the pace of life is very relaxed. As long as you can make a
steady living, you can live really well. However, unlike Pittsburgh, Buffalo never had any kind of
economic revival after the steel mills closed, and downtown is postively post-apocalyptic. But
right now, that's ok with me. Even in Manhattan, I preferred dive bars over the high-zoot
lifestyle anyway. Mostly. The forlorn, decayed city suits my mood these days, and I think I can be
happy here.

But, man, people here are amazingly fat. Not as bad as Wisconsin, but still pretty bad. That's one
thing I really, really miss about Colorado is the women. Colorado has the best looking chix in the
country. Lean, atheletic, slightly hippie. I'd love to live in Durango, but you know what? If
everybody who wanted to live in Durango actually moved to Durango, Durango would suck. Look at
Denver. Or Aspen. I would rather live in Buffalo than be yet another one of those [censored] yuppies
who builds his McMansion outside some lovely little town in Colorado and then gets all up in arms
over all the other yuppies moving in and building McMansions. (This is hypothetical, of course, as
I can't afford a house like that anyway.) It's enough for me that guys like you and JD live there.
I'll come up and ride next summer.

CC

I guess I wasn't very specific. You are very correct, no/low crime, cheap everything ... But,
exercise to most folks I knew in Binghamton was going out for wings and beer, on a heavy workout
they would up the bump it up to non-filter cigs. Good, friendly people, just not a very outdoor
oriented or athletically inclined. And the weather was always damp.

--
Craig Brossman, Durango Colorado (remove ".nospam" to reply)

Quoted message said:

Craig Brossman <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

Corvus Corvax said:

So it's over. We are no longer Manhattanites. Welcome to Buffalo. We were in a pub tonight having
dinner, and we were chatting with a friendly bartender. I explained that we had just moved in
from the city. He explained at some length how he had lived in the city for fifteen years, and
rattled off all his old neighborhoods, names which meant nothing to me. Still a terminally
clueless Manhattanite, I asked, "Which borough is that?"

Heh. He didn't mean the same city.

For the linguistically inclined, "Buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo" is a grammatical
English sentence.

I ride to work this morning, about 6 1/2 miles, on the fix. I've been commuting in all week, and
hardly see another rider on the roads, much less anybody on a track bike. I'm already missing the
Manhattan thing, where I would see at least one or two other riders running fixed every time I
went out. No matter. We will be ambassadors of Manhattan fixie culture to the savages.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

this bovine placidity. I'm clipping along at 19 or 20 on a four-lane suburban arterial. A street
like this, out where Jimbo and Carla live, would inspire fear in the hardiest rider. In Buffalo,
the cars drift down the highway like lily pads on a quiet stream. Dull. Stultifying. You couldn't
pick a fight with these people if you tried. They just stare. I think human-powered vehicles are
a strange and wondrous sight to them. I smile at them and line up with the cars at the stop light
and I signal my turns. I am Mr. Polite And Vehicular. I haven't smacked a single car with my palm
all week.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

CC

P.S. -- Enjoy Denver, Anthony.

I lived in Binghamton, NY for about 2 years. I spent several weeks in Grand Island on business on
a couple of occasions since moving out west. It was as bad as Binghamton. If Buffalo is nearly as
bad, I'ld start checking out monster.com right away. Good luck.

Just wondering what was "bad" about your stay in the area?

Sorry, I realize I was not very specific. I replied to Mr. Corvax, but I will add, that I was fresh
out of graduate school, with money for the first time in my life. Newly married, just spent 2 years
out west in graduate school, also for the first time in my life. I grew up in Reading PA and went to
undergrad near there. When I got to the west, enjoyed the outdoors, the activities, the people, I
knew it was the place for me. I took the job in Binghamton for several reasons, but all of the
sudden I was back in that "rust" belt lifestyle, smoking, no exercise ...The weather depressed me,
the Binghamton area does not have any kind of nitelife, though you can find a corner bar on any
given nite which offers $0.10 wings and cheap beer. Perhaps Binghamton was not so bad, but after my
great experience out west, and all those years growing up in the east, I had to get back. Strangly,
my 2nd (and successful) wife, who grew up in Allentown PA, feels exactly the same way. We met and
married in Boulder.

I've read your posts and believe that you live in Erie. My younger brothers spent several years
there. I don't know if the town was that bad, but they are in construction and complained about the
snow and cold all the time. They have lived in Mesa AZ for 8 years or so now and haven't looked
back. So does my mom. My dad lives here in Durango near
me. Maybe it is genetic.

Maybe too much information 🙂

--
Craig Brossman, Durango Colorado (remove ".nospam" to reply)

Corvus Corvax said:

still pretty bad. That's one thing I really, really miss about Colorado is the women. Colorado has
the best looking chix in the country. Lean, atheletic, slightly hippie. I'd love to live in
Durango, but you know what? If everybody who wanted to live in Durango actually moved to Durango,
Durango would suck. Look at Denver. Or Aspen. I would rather live in Buffalo than be yet another
one of those [censored] yuppies who builds his McMansion outside some lovely little town in Colorado
and then gets all up in arms over all the other yuppies moving in and building McMansions. (This
is hypothetical, of course, as I can't afford a house like that anyway.) It's enough for me that
guys like you and JD live there. I'll come up and ride next summer.

CC

I have to agree with everything here. Women in Colorado; what always amazes me (but shouldn't) is
how good looks have no age boundries here. Women for 16 to 60 look great, very atheletic, I see them
on the trails all over town. Probably the same is true for men as well, but it is never my focus 🙂I
like to describe Mrs.
B. as one of those beautiful, athletic, "older" women, but of course I am bias.

You are welcome anytime, just let us know whey you'll be here, we'll roll out the red carpet, but of
course it will be up hill to 11,000 feet.

--
Craig Brossman, Durango Colorado (remove ".nospam" to reply)

[email hidden] (Stephen Baker) wrote in message
news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

CC says:

<snip>

Quoted message said:

I haven't smacked a single car with my palm all week.

Quoted message said:

Enjoy it while you can. ;-)

Steve

Yeah, well CC, I'll remember to feel sorry for you next time I dodge a jaywalking pedestrian left,
get doored by some dolt leaving a bike-lane-parked taxi on the passenger side, flip ass-over-[censored] to
auger into 6th Ave, and have my leg run over by an yellow H2 driven by a NJ resident talking on
their cellphone. Go ahead, get soft. NYC will should still be here if you decide your adrenal gland
and fright/fight/flight response is atrophied. You guys always have a couch in Brooklyn. /s

"Corvus Corvax" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

So it's over. We are no longer Manhattanites. Welcome to Buffalo. We were in a pub tonight having
dinner, and we were chatting with a friendly bartender. I explained that we had just moved in from
the city. He explained at some length how he had lived in the city for fifteen years, and rattled
off all his old neighborhoods, names which meant nothing to me. Still a terminally clueless
Manhattanite, I asked, "Which borough is that?"

Heh. He didn't mean the same city.

For the linguistically inclined, "Buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo" is a grammatical
English sentence.

I ride to work this morning, about 6 1/2 miles, on the fix. I've been commuting in all week, and
hardly see another rider on the roads, much less anybody on a track bike. I'm already missing the
Manhattan thing, where I would see at least one or two other riders running fixed every time I
went out. No matter. We will be ambassadors of Manhattan fixie culture to the savages.

Quoted message said:

this bovine placidity. I'm clipping along at 19 or 20 on a four-lane suburban arterial. A street
like this, out where Jimbo and Carla live, would inspire fear in the hardiest rider. In Buffalo,
the cars drift down the highway like lily pads on a quiet stream. Dull. Stultifying. You couldn't
pick a fight with these people if you tried. They just stare. I think human-powered vehicles are a
strange and wondrous sight to them. I smile at them and line up with the cars at the stop light
and I signal my turns. I am Mr. Polite And Vehicular. I haven't smacked a single car with my palm
all week.

Quoted message said:

CC

P.S. -- Enjoy Denver, Anthony.

What 'bourough' are you living in? I grew up in Hamburg, NY about 15 miles south of Buffalo. Anyway
go out and get a 'Beef on Weck' and a beer. Pile lots of horseradish on the sandwich and you'll know
why folks in WNY are so fat. ;^) Get down to Ellicotville and check out the biking scene. Very nice.
Good brewery downtown too.

Mike - It ain't from chicken wings. (I would know!)

[email hidden] (supabonbon) wrote

Quoted message said:

Yeah, well CC, I'll remember to feel sorry for you next time I dodge a jaywalking pedestrian left,
get doored by some dolt leaving a bike-lane-parked taxi on the passenger side, flip ass-over-[censored]
to auger into 6th Ave, and have my leg run over by an yellow H2 driven by a NJ resident talking on
their cellphone.

What, and you didn't get a ticket? Talk about getting soft...

CC