As I mentioned on Wednesday, we have a winner of The Contest:Sponsored by The Lube:And all he had to do was lose all his bikes in a Japanese inferno.Actually, as readers pointed out, some of the bikes (or at least frames) may be salvageable:Still, thats a lotta patina, and at the very least a big pain in the ass, plus theres the small matter of, you know, his house, which is almost as important as the bikesmaybe not to him, but probably to the rest of his family.And so I am officially declaring him the winner and awarding him the grand prize, which is one (1) Meh-roica bike:This benefits him because, you know, fire, and it benefits me because I finally get to declare a winnerplus, lets just pretend for a minute I needed to make space for a much nicer road bicycle and was looking to divest myself of this bike anyway:[From here, probably a practical joke, also Id never ride a bike with a hole in the bottom bracket like that, it seems unsafe]It also benefits you because I get to keep the lube, and so I can choose some more contest winners, which I fully intend to do, even if at this rate it will take me several years.Of course shipping to Japan isnt cheap, so if youre feeling munifacent municiple generous as the Sub-Canadian Day Of The Annual Giving Of The Thanks approaches, you are certainly welcome to toss a few coins in the pot to help me with the costs, though I must issue the following caveats:I dont know this person apart from the fact he submitted a bike for the contest and then he emailed a week or two to tell me his house burned down. Perhaps all these images are AI-generated and its an elaborate scheme to bilk me out of a Chris Huber bicycle, which for all I know could be a cult item in Japan and worth lots and lots of moneyI have not vetted this person and dont know if he subscribes to some hateful political ideology such as conservativism, liberalism, or moderatism. I do know that he is originally from British Columbia, but after much soul searching Ive decided he can have the bike anywayIm not creating some kind of charity thermometer thingy that shows how much money Ive collected, so if a bunch of people pitch in a crapload and I wind up with a million dollars I get to keep the change, which seems fair, since conversely if nobody pitches in at all then thats my problem and Ive got to cover shipping the bike to some British Columbian expat political extremist all myself. My point is, if you send me any money, be comfortable with the idea that youre doing it because Im the worlds greatest living bike blogger and an exemplary person, and that the money could potentially go to something other than shipping the bike, such as feeding my kids or buying dental floss or something.So there you go. Sure, shipping a bike to a stranger in Japan who could very well be running the worlds lamest con is a risk, but sometimes youve got to take a flyer on humanity. Once again, heres the link, and Ill keep you posted whether you like it or not.Speaking of things going up in smoke (sorry), what the hell is happening to Bianchi?Jeez, how hard could it be? Seriously, you had one job, Bianchi! Just make bikes this color:[From here]Oh, wait, I guess they still do:But its really not the same in crabon, is it?Oh, well, I guess Im out of ideas. Running a bike company sure does sound hard. After all, a brilliant idea like designing a bike for humans only comes along at most once in a generation, right?And finally, we dont really need to talk about making it legal for cyclists to run red lights, but lets do it anyway:Basically, like every other cyclist (myself included), he thinks he runs red lights responsibly, so therefore whats the big deal?Listen, I get why motorists are frustrated with bikes. Someone on Twitter recently said cyclists combine the arrogance of the driver with the victim complex of the pedestrian. Accidentally get too close to a cyclist while driving, and youll likely get an earful of four-letter words just before watching that same cyclist run a red light.But consider our side: If we collide, youll probably be fine, and we probably wont be. Cyclists are killed by cars all the time.That doesnt give cyclists carte blanche to disregard everyone else on the streets, least of all pedestrians, our natural allies in the war on cars. There are some rules worth following, and Ill admit not everything in my opening confession survives scrutiny. Rolling through an empty four-way stop on The Wiggle, though, hurts no one.Alas, he completely undermines his own argument:To wit:I have a confession to make: I bike through red lights all the time. I treat stop signs as suggestions to yield. When the bike lane is crowded with cyclists pedaling too slowly, I veer into traffic to pass them. When Im on a road with no bike lane, I have no problem weaving between cars stopped at a light to get to the front of the line.As a New York City, its impossible for me to say exactly how many times Ive run red lights on my bicycle. However, if I had to make an educated guess, Id put it at 10,000 times on the low end, and 225,000 on the high end. As for how many times Ive been ticketed for running red lights, thats easier, and while its possible I could be forgetting an incident or two, I can say with certainty that Ive been caught and Summonsed? Summoned? Sommeliered? these three (3) times, as follows:Ticket No. 1: Sometime in the Late 90sI was working as a bike messenger and rolled through a red light. There was a cop standing there stopping cyclists. Im not the sort of person who tries to evade the police, so I dutifully stopped and received a ticket. This, coupled with the theft of my bicycle, is why I netted at best zero dollars during my messengering career.Ticket No. 2: Sometime in the Late AughtsI was commuting to work and I brazenly ran a red light across a busy street. A cop in an NYPD cruiser lit up his sirens. As I say, Im not the sort of person who tries to evade the police, but the streets were pretty busy with traffic, and it did occur to me that if maybe I pretended I thought he had his sirens on because he was responding to an actual emergency and just kept riding then maybe Id inadvertently lose him. This did not work, and he received my exclamation of, Wait, those sirens were for me?!? with skepticism. Ticket No. 3: The Tan Tenovo IncidentSo basically, taking my most conservative light-running figure, Ive been ticketed for it like .03% of the time, and Id wager the writers experience has been more or less the same, since if he had received a significant number of tickets, you can be absolutely sure wed be hearing about it. Because nobodybut nobodymakes a bigger deal over anything than a cyclist who has received a ticket:Meanwhile, as scrupulous as the writer and I both think we are about our light-runnings, its foolish to pretend that many cyclists arent terrible when it comes to yielding to pedestriansand yes, some of you will be tempted to BUT DRIVERS this assertion, but setting that as the bar for considerate behavior is like Pivot claiming an all-electronic road bike that costs $12,000 is a bike for humans. I commute to Brooklyn twice a week, occasionally by bicycle but mostly by subway, and Id say that on pretty much every walk to and from the station in Brooklyn I encounter at least one if not several riders who deserve to be punched in the head, usually because they ride right through a red light or stop sign as pedestrians are crossing without so much as slowing down. And yes, if its legal for cyclists to run red lights and stop signs then it can still be illegal for cyclists to fail to yield to pedestrians, but why remove a handy tool out of the toolbox? Its like getting rid of your crown race setter because you can always just use a slotted screwdriver. If a dumbass runs a light in a dumbass way you should be able to give the dumbass a ticket for it.And yes, Ill certainly allow that the current method of enforcement is silly, that being a cop standing around and stopping the slowest and most compliant light-runners in a single spot while all over the city thousands of cyclists and drivers and people speeding around on all sorts of flammable crap micromobility devices molest pedestrians with impunity. But Im not quite sure how making it legal to run lights helps. The point is, if you refuse to stop at lights, just slow down and check for cops first, youll be fine.