CO2 Neutral Exhaust Tuning: Welcome to the SDCE#
My neighbor from over there may never have had a girlfriend, but he now has a €20,000 road bike. Since the solemn handover of this two-wheeled sanctuary, he has been knee-deep in the Tour-de-France LARP Rabbithole and is colossally on the pointer of the entire environment. We are not talking about a normal weekend hobby athlete, but about the absolute spearhead of the SDCE (Small Dick Cyclist Extremists).
Every outing starts over there with a fixed ritual: squeezing into aerodynamically questionable lycra suits, putting on fully mirrored glasses that eat half his face, and godless self-talk in aerodynamic posture. He pretends that he is currently conquering Mont Ventoux with his last effort, even though he is actually only driving down the paved country road to the nearest supermarket.
However, the real drama doesn't start until you return. The end of each of his "Tour de Lulu" stages is not announced by a gentle whirring, but by a brutal, mechanical machine gun fire. Anyone who – like Bro in his own perception – pedals with the concentrated power of two alphas would pulverize ordinary materials such as titanium or carbon into fine dust with a single kick. For this reason, and of course only for this reason, the master absolutely needs a freewheel hub made of solid stainless steel.
This 130-decibel return is the CO2-neutral equivalent of the pierced GTI exhaust of an 18-year-old who wants to impress in the village parking lot on Friday evenings. It is the acoustic cry for love of a man who is still ignored by the algorithm even on Tinder.
And because 130 decibels under the open sky is hardly more than a gentle rustle of leaves in the evening wind, this is of course not enough applause. When the heroic stage ends at 9:45 pm, he naturally pushes his carbon spaceship, starved to 1.3 kilos, as far and as extensively as possible through the strongly echoing house corridor over in his house. He could easily carry the light thing into the apartment with his little finger, but no: it is being rolled. Centimeter by centimeter. A cleansing acoustic triumphal march over the tiles. After all, the world must not be spared from today's feat. Look here, you mortal normalos, I've been sweating and surviving! Kneel before my acoustic dominance!
Can we please stop being so incredibly embarrassing with bikes? My own bike has cost a fortieth, purrs quietly like a kitten while rolling and – surprise – his body doesn't even break my freewheel. Even if he were to pump all his imaginary watts into the drive at once, my cheap components would smile away his chicken breast torque tiredly.
Do men really have to carry their small anatomical deficits out into the world so loudly as a replacement sport exhaust? Is this the final evolutionary step of urban masculinity?
Bro should cycle, everything is cool. Cycling is healthy, it keeps you fit and lowers your blood pressure. But it's also fucking possible without telling the complete postcode what an unbelievably crass stallion you are on the saddle. Who knows: If he no longer deafens his environment, maybe a woman will hear him say "Hello".
Thank you for nothing.