Mid-Life Cycling:

They Weren't Wearing Bike Outfits

2012-03-07T23:07:00.000-08:00

On my way home tonight, three guys stumbled off a curb and nearly tumbled in front of my wheel. I would have cursed at them, but they were dressed in very gaudy outfits that were somewhere between robes and dresses. And they wore wigs, or what looked like wigs.

Instead of yelling at them, I thought, "Hmm...They look like they're doing a Chasidic version of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. Or maybe La Cage Aux Folles. The loud but lilting music that echoed off the houses made it seem even more like a campy drag revue.

Turns out, I wasn't too far off. At sundown, a couple of hours before I left work, the feast of Purim began. Some people refer to it as "The Jewish Mardi Gras," which also isn't too far off.

It commemorates the deliverance of the Jewish people from destruction in the ancient Persian Empire. Hamman, a high-ranking advisor to King Ahaseurus, conceived of the plot, which is revealed to the king by Esther, who became his favorite concubine and, finally, his wife. Until the moment she tipped the king off, she did not reveal her Jewish identity.

It's a complicated but fascinating story, which is related in the Magillat Esther, the only book of the Torah in which G-d* isn't mentioned by name. However, everything about the story, including Esther's concealment of her identity, shows G-d working in mysterious ways and in various guises.

That is one of the reasons why people wear costumes for the feast and it is the only day on which the prohibition against men wearing women's clothing is not observed.

Hmm...Imagine if I'd run one of those guys over. Can you just see the next day's New York Post headline: Wrong Place, Wrong Time or Wrong Clothes: Chasidim Dragged Under Tranny's Wheel. Or something like that.

* I am using the name of G-d in the way an Orthodox or Chasidic Jew would.

Before Nashbar

2012-03-06T18:37:00.000-08:00

Ou sont les neiges d'antan?

If you've seen "The Glass Menagerie," you might recall seeing "Ou sont les neiges" projected on the stage. It's comes from a line in Francois Villon's Ballade des Temps du Temps Jadis (A Ballad of Ladies of Times Past), which is part of his Testament.

When you're around anything long enough, you might start to wonder where its "snows of yesteryear" have gone. There is the bike on which you took a particularly memorable or important ride, or some part or accessory you liked but hasn't been available in ages.

Also, as in any other endeavor, some cyclists miss the old catalogues and brochures. Sometimes people think everything was better in the "good ol' days"; the truth is, the forgettable stuff is mainly, well, forgotten. But it's hard to deny that some things had a style that simply can't be emulated (without seeming to be a parody, anyway) today.

A while back, Bike Snob wrote a post in which he said, in essence, that even if the world were to end and you were in an underground bunker, a Nashbar catalogue will find its way to you. Of course, he was being his snarky self, but we all know that snark works only when there's at least an element of truth in it.

Believe it or not, I can remember a time when Bike Nashbar catalogues weren't as difficult to evade as bill collectors or Inspector Javert. In fact, in those days, the catalogues, and the company itself were very different.

For one thing, it was called Bike Warehouse.

They indeed offered some of the lowest prices on bike-related stuff, as they do now. However, in those days, they sold mainly current-model, high- (or higher-) end equipment, such as Campagnolo Nuovo Record components, SunTour Cyclone derailleurs and rims from Super Champion, Mavic and others.

If I recall correctly, Bike Warehouse was the first mail-order company from which I purchased any cycling equipment. I had just begun reading Bicycling! magazine on a regular basis, and Bike Warehouse advertised in it. Like many other people, I was drawn in by their selection and prices.

Plus, believe it or not, they had a particular kind of quirky charm that you don't see today.

This page comes from one of their 1976 catalogues. By then, they'd been in business a couple of years. Even if I didn't give you a year, you probably could have guessed the era from which it came by its graphics. Actually, those graphics were even a bit dated by that time.

There is one aspect of that catalogue that added to its quirky charms but which, alas, I cannot render on this site. You see, those early Bike Warehouse catalogues were printed on newsprint. Almost no newspapers in those days had color, as the technology was prohibitively expensive. So those early Bike Warehouse catalogues had all of the black-and-white glory of a pre-WWII film.

As the saying goes: Ils ne font pas comme eux pas plus.

Bike Lanes Don't Make People Ride More

2012-03-04T23:07:00.000-08:00

I have long suspected that the construction of bike paths and lanes has very little to do with how much cycling people actually do, at least here in the US.

Of course, my belief was based on nothing more than my own observations and experiences. One thing I've always noticed is that racers and dedicated cyclists tend to ride whether or not there's a bike lane, or even a well-paved road that doesn't have much traffic. (The latter category includes routes departmentales, on which I did much of my cycling in France.) On the other hand, there are lots of people who say they'd "love" to ride to work or for pleasure, but feel that "it's too dangerous" or that it's inconvenient. Such people never seem to be swayed--with good reason, I've come to realize--by the construction of a bike lane, even if it takes them door-to-door from their homes to their workplaces or wherever they shop or entertain themselves.

Don't get me wrong: I appreciate the efforts of governments to improve conditions for cyclists. As an example, I am very happy that lanes were constructed on the Queens side of the Edward I. Koch/Queensborough/59th Street Bridge. I often cross that bridge. Its entrance at Queens Plaza is also a conduit for traffic to and from the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway and Long Island Expressway. Getting to and from the Bridge could be, until the construction of the bike lane, a harrowing experience.

On the other hand, I've seen a lot of poorly-conceived and -constructed bike lanes that were actually more dangerous for cyclists than the nearby roadways. Or, they simply went from nowhere to nowhere and were therefore not practical for any cyclist who actually had to go someplace.

To be fair, we have a lot of impractical bike lanes and paths in the US because we don't have the history of cycling that many European nations, Japan and other places have. Or, to be more precise, our cycling history was interrupted for about three generations or so. The result is that American transportation experts and urban planners are still learning things their French, Dutch, British, German and other counterparts have long known.

Funny that I should mention the Dutch. They have long been seen as the avatars of bicycle commuting. It's been a while since I've been to Amsterdam, but I'm told that one still sees bikes everywhere in that city. In spite of the increasing numbers of Dutch who drive, the bicycle remains one of the, if not the, main means of transportation in that city.

I'm thinking about what I've just mentioned because I've stumbled over some studies that argue, in essence, that what's happened over the past two decades in Amsterdam parallels what I've seen in New York and other parts of the US. That is to say: Ridership has almost nothing to do with the construction of bike lanes and paths.

According to the studies cited, the (relatively small) increase in the number of cyclists over the past two decades has as much to do with the increase in population (fueled more by immigration than, shall we say, the noncycling recreational activities of the Dutch) as anything else. There has also been an increase, however slight, in the length of cyclists' commutes and the distances ridden for other purposes. The authors of the studies in question argue that the increase really has had to do more with the warmer-than-normal weather in the Netherlands during that time than it's had to do with other factors.

Of course, one can find flaws in that argument. The most obvious is that other nearby countries (e.g., France) have also seen unusually warm weather, but no increases in cycling, during that time. Also, whatever increases in population the Netherlands have seen are mainly a result of immigration from the Middle East, Africa, Indonesia and Suriname. If anything, those immigrants are actually less likely, for a number of reasons, to ride bikes to work or weekend picnics than the descendants of longtime Dutch people.

Still, the argument that bike lanes and paths have little or nothing to do with whatever increases in cycling or the number of cyclists are quite plausible, especially if you understand what motivates cyclists to ride. One might say that there simply isn't that much room for cycling to grow in the Netherlands, which is one of the most bike-intensive nations on Earth. There, even more than in other places, bike paths won't have much impact on who rides and doesn't ride, and when they ride and don't ride.

Still, I think that those studies hold important lessons for American planners. One is that simply constructing bike lanes isn't going to get people to forsake their cars and pedal to the Home Depot. Rather, there has to be a cultural as well as a physical infrastructure that supports cycling as a practical alternative to driving. That is what the Dutch have long had and the US will need another generation or two to develop, if indeed such a thing will develop on this side of the Atlantic.

Real Bike Porn

2012-03-02T23:55:00.000-08:00

Usually, when cyclists talk about "bike porn," we mean images of drop-dead beautiful bikes with sinuous lines and lustrous colors.

However, I discovered a site called "Bike Porn" in which the term takes on new meanings. It doesn't have pictures of Paola Pezzo and Filippo Pozato in non-cycling positions. It's all about art. Really.

On Our Heads

2012-03-01T19:48:00.001-08:00

I'd been cycling about a decade when the issue of helmet-wearing became, as Cardinal Dolan might say, one of the "settled questions" of the cycling world. By that time, even old-timers who'd been cycling--and, in some cases, wearing "leather hairnets"-- before I was born were wearing the "tortoise shells" that Bell and a couple of other companies made.

I started thinking about those days when I saw this photo:

We all know that the lovely young lady would be safer in a helmet. But she certainly wouldn't look any better. In fact, this might be one of the few times in my life that I speak in favor head scarves.

Hmm...I don't know anything about Sharia law, so I don't know whether she could wear a helmet over her scarf. Now I'm thinking about a guy with whom I used to train. He wore a helmet over his yarmulke; when I was "drafting" him, I could see the fringes of his tallit dangling below the hem of his jersey.

I wouldn't see anything wrong witht that young lady wearing a helmet, as long as its color doesn't clash with that of her scarf. I don't know whether the imams would share my opinion, though.

Why I Stopped Wearing Lycra

2012-02-26T14:07:00.000-08:00

After I had been cycling a few years, I began to see lycra clothing. That was around the early 1980's. It seems that everything people of my generation have grown to hate, like synth-pop and techno music, shoulder pads and big hair, started around that time.

It was truly a case of apres lycra, la deluge or something like that. The old wool and cotton jerseys had their own distinctive styles: Although they bore the names of sponsors, and were quite colorful, they could never be mistaken for anything but bike jerseys. They were not billboards or movie trailers, or imitations of other kinds of clothing (including team jerseys from other sports).

I stumbled upon a page showing just how awful bike clothing graphics have become. I think they've become so garish because lycra holds more different kinds of colors and dyes, and is easier to work on, than cotton or wool. Anyway, here is my vote for the worst jersey--actually, the worst bike outfit--of all time:

And I certainly wouldn't want to wear the uniform of this team:

If I ever get married, I forbid my husband from wearing this:

And I promise not to wear this on our honeymoon:

Into The Wind, Again

2012-02-25T21:32:00.000-08:00

In places like southern Italy and Greece, spring began a couple of weeks ago. At least, it usually begins about the middle of February or thereabouts.

Here in New York, winter began yesterday. At least, that's how it seemed. We've had only a couple of cold (by the standards of NY winters, anyway) days, and practically no snowfall since, ironically, the end of October.

However, today the temperature dropped from its early-morning high of 45F (8C) to a couple of degrees below freezing. As the temperature dropped, the wind picked up speed so that it was blowing steadily at about 20MPH and gusting to 50.

I did a couple of errands on Vera today. Of course, that meant parts of the ride were absurdly easy, while other parts felt like a series of still photographs

From: http://brucefong.wordpress.com/2012/02/20/9272/

.
It got me to thinking of a couple of times when I spent entire days riding into the wind. One in particular was particularly grueling.

Provence is noted for its mistrals, which come literally out of the clear blue sky. One day I learned that the mistral, as we say in the old country, actually lives up to the hype.

I had been pedaling out of Arles after, of course, visiting everything that had to do with Van Gogh. Perhaps it was endorphins--I'm pretty sure that the effects of the wine had worn off--that caused me to see something I hadn't seen, or at least noticed, before in my life: The air was so clear that everyting seemed almost surreal. The lavender fields were no longer simply plants growing from the earth, and the windows and grain fields didn't merely reflect the bright sunshine: They all became forms of light and wind that filled me so that I felt, for a moment, that I was not inhabiting a body, much less riding a pannier-laden bicycle; rather, I was a wave of that light and wind.

And then, in a seeming instant, I was pedaling into a wind that whirled like the mirror image of a cyclone. There were moments when I literally could not pedal at all; for much of the rest of the time, I moved slower than the snails in the ground. I stopped in a solitary boulangerie in the countryside, in part for a respite from the wind and in another part to feed myself so that I could continue to pedal into it.

As tasty as the bread was, I couldn't digest it; my entire body, it seemed, had formed a knot. Over the next two hours, I think I pedaled about five kilometers. Even though I was young and in really good shape, it seemed like an accomplishment, given the relentless wind and that I seemed to be making one climb, however short, after another.

Finally, I ended up in a town called Brignoles. I had never even heard of the place; I don't think it was even mentioned in the guides. What it had, in addition to a castle and narrow cobblestoned streets, were a some shops and a cheap, clean place to lay my head.

When I set out the following day, the once-again-clear skies were preternaturally still, as if the winds of the previous day had never blown.

Bike Electronics, Then And Now

2012-02-24T18:40:00.003-08:00

One of my favorite cycling blogs, along with Lovely Bicycle! and Girls and Bikes is Urban Adventure League.

Today's UAL post is typical in that reflects the creativity and humor of the blog's author, Shawn. The post contrasts bicycle touring electronics of the 1970's with their counterparts today.

Actually, "counterparts" isn't quite an accurate term. For one thing, cyclists today use many more electronic devices, on as well as off their bikes, than we did "back in the day." I never had a transistor radio attached to my bike, but I carried one on rides that lasted more than a day. They were the best one could do for weather reports and such.

As for lights, the post accurately depicts their state in those days: bigger and boxier. What it doesn't, and couldn't, show is that they were also far less effective than today's lights. Halogen bulbs were available only in the larger sizes used in headlights for motor vehicles; they were not yet re-sized and otherwise modified for bicycle lights. And, if I'm not mistaken, LED's hadn't been invented.

One of the better lights I used was made by British Ever Ready Electric Company (BEREC).

It took, if I recall correctly, two D batteries, which meant that it weighed a seeming ton. But it did provide a brighter and broader beam than most other lights available at that time. Plus, it came with hardware that allowed you to mount it in a variety of positions (including the built-in fork mounts found on most bikes sold in Great Britain at that time) and to remove it when you parked. The latter, of course, was a useful feature for commuters who had to leave their bikes in urban combat zones as well as for cycle-campers.

BEREC also made what was, for that time, a nice, if heavy and clunky, tail light:

At the time this light was made, the only available flashing tail light was the Belt Beacon. It was a great light, even by today's standards, but it was difficult to mount and rather flimsy. (I broke two before giving up on them.) On the other hand, the BEREC tail light, like the headlight, was solidly constructed and gave a good beam.

The other alternatives, in those days before halogen and LEDs, were Wonder battery lights as well as various generator-powered lamps. Wonder lights were bright, given the standards of the time, though not as bright as the BEREC lights. They also were much lighter and more streamlined. However, they took a battery that only Wonder made. If you were in France, that wouldn't be a problem, as it and the lights were made there and most shops in the country stocked them. However, their availability was more sporadic in the States, which meant the batteries were considerably more expensive than the D-size batteries that powered the BEREC lights.

The first pieces of bicycle electronics I recall seeing that didn't have to do with lighting were computers that measured distance, speed and, in some cases, cadence. They also measured the time elapsed on your ride. The first such computer, to my knowledge was marketed by CatEye in 1981.

Looking at it makes me think of the portable phones the Miami Vice cars. They are to today's "smart phones" as incandescent bulbs are to LEDs. But they, like this original Cateye and the Commodore personal computers, were the the highest technology of their time.

What I'd really like to see are LED head lamps with the style of 1890's carbide bike lights.

I think there'd be room in it someplace for a cycle-computer with all of the modern functions!

Good Fences Make Good Bikes?

2012-02-23T19:02:00.000-08:00

I am old enough to remember when just about all bike frames were made of steel tubes.

Actually, that statement is a bit misleading. Long before I started cycling--or was even born--bikes were being made of all sorts of materials. Aluminum bicycles may have become popular during the 1980's (largely due to Cannondale) and titanium during the '90's, but bicycles were built from those materials--and others-- nearly a century earlier. Even carbon fiber appeared on the scene further back in cycling history than most people realize.

The problem with aluminum, titanium and carbon fiber was that until about 25 years ago, nobody (in the bike industry, anyway) knew how to use them. So frame tubes of those materials were of the wrong diameters and were overheated or otherwise improperly joined. That is why the Lu-Mi-Num bicycle of the 1890's, and the Speedwell and Exxon/Grafton frames of the 1970's, are displayed in museum halls and on collectors' walls and not ridden on the roads.

There also been bicycles made from bamboo and other woods, and a myriad of other materials. Now, a Brazilian artist/inventor is making bicycle frames from recycled materials, including shampoo and beverage bottles.

And then there is this bike:

After the cops took down their barricades, this guy rode off into the sunset, I'm sure.

Soho Fixie

2012-02-22T22:27:00.000-08:00

Today, after classes, I had a physical therapy session. My therapist is literally down the block from Grand Central Station. I actually enjoyed the session, but I'm also happy to know that next week's session will probably be my last.

Afterward, I took a spin down to Bicycle Habitat. When I went there a couple of weeks ago, I got to chatting with the folks there and forgot why I went: for the free touch-up on a pair of wheels they'd built for me. Well, today I got that done.

While waiting for my bike, I wandered around Soho. About a block and a half from Habitat, I spotted this bike in the process of being locked to one of those Soho boutiques that operates from an old factory building:

The bike itself is a good, though not terribly unusual, one. However, I liked the way it looked on the railings and brick, and in front of that window.

Vishnu, its owner, was locking it up when I arrived on the scene. He was very gracious, if in a bit of a hurry. So he was happy to let me photograph his bike. However, he had already locked his bike before I asked whether I could photograph him. That's too bad: He's not a "hipster" or wannabe; he is a very handsome, youngish man who happened to be stylishly (though not self-consciously so) dressed. Oh well. I'm glad I got this photo, even if I could only get it on my cell phone.

Downhill With Animals

2012-02-21T20:49:00.001-08:00

Auburndale, in Queens, is one of those neighborhoods you've never heard of unless you've lived in it. It's also the sort of neighborhood people don't normally associate with New York City: Along its quiet, leafy streets, late-model sedans are parked in front of detached houses not unlike those found in suburban Long Island.

One thing that makes it even more unusual for a New York City neighborhood is that people actually let their cats roam free in their yards. As sometimes happens, one scampered across my path. However, this time I very nearly had black and white fur entangled in my spokes. I don't recall the last time a cat came so close to my wheel.

It got me to thinking about other "near misses" involving animals I've had on my bike.

Two of the scariest such incidents, as you might imagine, happened along mountain roads. In the first, Jonathan, with whom I took a lot of rides during my college years, had just crossed back into New Jersey, near Flemington, from Pennsylvania.

According to the US Geological Survey, there are no mountains in New Jersey: High Point, near the point where New Jersey, Pennsylvania and New York State meet, misses that designation by something like ten feet. Even so, in that part of New Jersey, there are some steep climbs--and descent. The reason for that, as I understand, is that many of the roads in those hills were built during the American Revolution and were simply paved over in macadam and, later, asphalt. Because roadbuilding techniques weren't as advanced, and because roadbuilders didn't have dynamite or modern machinery, they usually followed the path of least resistance when building roads.

Jonathan and I weren't feeling much resistance as we barreled down those old roads. As we were about to begin one descent, we saw a "Deer Crossing" sign. One of us--I forget which--said something like, "Wouldn't that be some shit if a deer crossed in front of us."

Well, you can guess what happened. Worse, that deer crossed near the bottom of the hill--after we, of course, had built up speed. We must have been riding 50 MPH (80 KPH), or close to it: That was the speed limit and we passed two cars that were at, or possibly above, the limit.

That deer bolted a hair or two in front of the tip of my nose, or so it seemed. Those of you who are physicists can calculate the damage that would have ensued had a cyclist travelling at 50 MPH crashed into an animal that weighed a few hundred pounds more than my bike and I weighed. You don't have to be a physicist to know which party would incur the damage.

The next time I had such a close encounter on a downhill, it was a bit more exotic, and dangerous, to say the least. Earlier that day, I'd crossed the border from France, just southeast of Pontarlier, into Switzerland. It seemed that for the previous couple of days, I'd been pedaling up and down inclines, so I wasn't surprised when I did both immediately after crossing the border. And, because my bike was laden with full panniers and a handlebar bag--and I was a mile or so above sea level, you can imagine how fast my wheels were spinning.

Well, about two-thirds of the way down, I flatted--on the front tire, naturally. Imagine your bike going "thump, thump, thump" at what seems to be twice the speed of sound. All you can really do is to continue riding in a straight line, as any sudden stop or sideways movement will send you into a nasty tumble!

And, as I'm trying to keep my bike in a straight line and my shoulders from flying apart with the vibration, what should cross my path but one of the world's rarest species: an Alpine Ibex. At least, I'm very sure that's what it was. That night, I described it to the hostel-keeper, who said it most likely was. Still, she was as surprised as I was: An ibex, from what she said, very rarely goes near a roadway because he or she usually sticks to the steepest rocks, which is where they find the herbs on which they subsist.

Somehow, I always imagined that Ibex going back to his Ibex buddies that night and having a good laugh: "Those silly humans think they're such good climbers." On the other hand, I don't think deer have such a sense of humor. In any event, I didn't hit either one--or the cat that crossed my path today.

Say Hello To Marley

2012-02-20T19:28:00.000-08:00

Did a little bit more riding than I did the other day, without pain. I think I'll be ready to resume regular riding soon.

Yesterday, though, I didn't ride. I was welcoming the newest "addition" to my family.

Stephanie, who rescued Marley, brought him to my place yesterday. So, naturally, I spent the day home so I could welcome him and ease the "transition." Actually, Max is taking it pretty well.

Right now, my new family member seems to have two speeds: sleep and "charge!" As soon as we released him from his carrier, Max tried to play with him. And, all through the day, Max tried to make friends with him. It's been a bit more than a month since Charlie died, and Max seems to have been starved for feline attention ever since.

As my new friend is a "rescue" kitten, I can understand the nervousness and skittishness he felt yesterday. I can also understand his need for sleep.

When Stephanie kept him in her apartment, she called him "Charlie." Not only is that the name of my recently departed; it is also the name of a cat--also gray and white!--I had before him. So, I think I'm going to rename him. For now, I'm calling him Marley. I've read and seen "Marley and Me," but more important, I have recordings of just about everything Bob ever did. My new friend doesn't particularly remind me of him, but I figure neither of us can go wrong with that name. Plus, I like the sound of it.

Speaking of sound: I thought I heard a mouse squeak. Turns out, it was Marley crying. I've raised only one other cat from kittenhood--my first Charlie--and remember him crying that way, too. What do they say? Big boys cry because they are always, at heart, little boys.

I don't know whether I'll ever try to carry Marley in a basket. I never tried that with Max or my second Charlie because they were big when I adopted them. However, I took my first Charlie on a couple of rides when he was still small. When he got bigger, he wasn't too keen on riding in a basket. But, his being home was one more thing for me to look forward to at the end of every ride! That's how I see Max's presence now, and how I will most likely see Marley's.

In The Saddle Again, With Or Without Yogurt

2012-02-18T20:50:00.000-08:00

Oddly, I think that might have been the reason why I didn't feel any pain in my knee. Riding fixed forces you to spin at a more or less even pace; sudden power surges are difficult and even dangerous, especially in traffic. Now, my ride was flat, but still, I felt good about it.

Perhaps even odder, the pain I felt was around my lower back. I'd been doing some excercises the physical therapist recommended for loosening up the muscles in my leg and hip. Then again, those exercises had been about the extent of my physical activity until today's ride. So, perhaps, my body still has to re-adjust to normal activity.

Well, I'm glad I got out, anyway: It was a mild day for this time of year. So my ride was pleasant, even under a threat of rain that didn't materialize until I got home.

However, there was one disappointment. Along the way, I hoped to pick up some fresh Greek-style yogurt from Kesso Foods, which makes the stuff. Alas, they were closed by the time I got there. I knew they closed earlier on Saturday, but I didn't know how much earlier. Oh, well.

Fage yogurt is nice, but Kesso's stuff is like creme fraiche by comparison. Even people who dislike yogurt will eat Kesso's: I think yogurt-haters dislike the slimy texture of other kinds of yogurts sold in stores. Kesso's sells the stuff plain, or with various toppings. (My favorite is their sour cherry with almond slivers or crushed walnuts.) They also sell various Greek and other Mediterranean foods that you won't find in your local Pathmark or Safeway.

All right..enough about culture for now. I did, as a celebration, treat myself to one of my favorite takeouts: The King of Falafel and Shawarma. Life is good, again.

P.S. I'll soon have more posts about the bikes of my past!

Today I took my first ride since going down last Thursday. It was a short ride--only about seven miles. But I did it on Tosca, my fixed-gear bike.

Before Martina, There Was Nancy

2012-02-17T18:11:00.000-08:00

Every once in a while, an athlete comes along who completely dominates his or her sport, at least during his or her career. I'd say that in my lifetime, there were four such athletes: Eddy Mercx, Martina Navratilova, Wayne Gretzky and Michael Jordan.

(With all due respect to Lance, I think Eddy was the most dominant cyclist because he won every type of race that existed while he was competing. Like Mercx, Bernard Hinault and Miguel Indurain also won the Tour de France and a variety of other races. However, they never seemed to have the same aura of invincibility Mercx had in his prime.)

Of the four, perhaps Navratilova's timing was the most fortuitous. She came along during the 1970's, when women's sports first started to achieve anything like a wide audience, and was at her peak during the early and mid 1980's.

Recently, I learned of another great athlete who may have been on the other side of the mirror from Navratilova.

Nancy Burghart accepting the trophy for her 1964 National Championship from USI President Otto Eisele Jr.

Nancy Burghart (now Nancy Burghart-Haviland) won eight US National Championships during the 1960's. She was one of the most versatile riders of her time, as she also won pursuit and sprint championships. Nearly any time she mounted a bicycle, people expected her to win, much as they did when Navratilova entered a tennis court.

Some would say that Burghart had the misfortune of racing at a time when relatively little attention was paid to cycling, and to women's sports, in the US. However, she garnered great respect from both the men and women in her sport, and even got some overseas press, which was no small feat in the conditions I've described, and in the absence of the Internet and 24-hour news cycles.

During Burghart's career, the traditional cycling powers of Europe and Japan did not take American racing very seriously. However, one could argue that, even then, American female cyclists were among the world's best. In countries like France, Italy and Japan, bicycle racing, and the media that covered it, were focused almost entirely on male racers. This could only have stunted the development in women's racing in those countries. On the other hand, bicycle racing in the US during the three decades after World War II was entirely an amateur affair. Some have argued that this is a reason why male and female racers were on more or less equal footing, and may have been what allowed women's cycling to gain more prominence in the years before Greg LeMond won the Tour de France.

In my research, I found another interesting detail about Ms. Burghart: She was born and raised in the Jackson Heights section of Queens, barely a couple hundred pedal spins from the Kissena track--or my apartment. That track, of course, is where any number of American racers have trained as well as raced. And it's also where the trials were held for the 1964 Olympic team.

In 1957, when she was 12 years old, she won the Girls' Midget title. Her twin sister Melissa also competed in the race, and others Nancy rode and won. It would have taken plenty of determination for an American boy to pursue a bicycle-racing dream at that time: Imagine what it must have taken for two girls!

From what I've gathered, Burghart-Haviland now lives in Maine. Given her role in cycling, and American sports generally, I am surprised she isn't better-known.

Times Square For Two

2012-02-15T19:17:00.000-08:00

Today I went to my physical therapist. It was strange, in a way: I had gone to him in the summer and early fall of 2007 for another, non-bike related, injury. But, it seems, a whole lifetime has passed for me since then!

Anyway, he did a few tests, had me do some stretching exercises (My pelvis has become rigid during my inactivity), iced my knee and gave me a printout of the exercises I should do at home.

I could actually feel my knee getting better--or at least giving me less pain--through the course of the session. I've scheduled another session for last week, and he believes I may not need another after that.

His practice is literally around the corner from Grand Central Station. So, after the session, I went for a walk through the area: by the Chrysler Building and New York Public Library (two of my favorite buildings in this city) and into Times Square, the theatre district and Restaurant Row. Along the latter, I saw this curiosity locked to a parking meter.

It reminded me of the difference between a tandem and a two-seater. People often use the terms interchangeably. But this bike shows me that they're two different animals, so to speak. To me, the bike I saw today is a two-seater. It's not a bike built for two, which is more or less how I would define a tandem. Also, the rear rider is a passenger, not a "stoker," or someone who pedals along with the "captain," or rider in front.

That said, I don't mean to denigrate the bike. It's a rather nice Marin mountain bike from, I'm guessing, some time in the early '90's. I feel confident that my guess is educated, for I had a Marin mountain bike around that time.

Anyway, the way rear setup is interesting: A threadless stem is clamped around the seatpost, and there is a "platform" on top of the Blackburn-style rack in the rear, as well as "guards" along its sides. I suspect that the usual passenger is a small child.

Interesting as it is, I'm not sure I'd want to ride the rear or have anyone else ride it if I were pedaling.

Bending It, Though Not Like Beckham

2012-02-14T22:54:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow I'm going to see the physical therapist about my knee. It actually feels better now: At least I can bend it, if not "like Beckham."

I must say, though, that it was weird to see a cycling colleague park her bike as I got off the bus. And, of course, she asked why I wasn't on my bike, though not in a condescending or sarcastic way. "I was really worried to see that you didn't ride in," she said.

Tonight her husband came by to accompany her home. We have ridden together a few times, and I was sad to miss out on that tonight. Then again, it is Valentine's Day, so maybe they wanted and needed the time to be together,without distractions. I must say, though, with her in his life, I don't know how much of a distraction I can be!

Anyway...I'll try not to whine too much more before I'm on my bike again!

For All Seasons

2012-02-13T22:21:00.000-08:00

Today I had the day off from work. (Happy Birthday, Abe!) However, I am still not quite ready to ride. So, I spent the day reading, doing some course-related work, I installed the new handlebars, brake levers and shifter on Vera. I'm not finished, though: I still have to install new cables. I'll probably do that after work tomorrow.

And I did a little web-surfing. The last couple of days have seemed, well, wintry: The temperatures have been below freezing and the wind has gusted to 30 MPH. After the spring-like weather, we've been having, it seems frigid. However, it can't compare to what I saw on Alaska All Season Cycling:

2012-02-11T23:49:00.000-08:00

Since I'm not Eric Rohmer, I'm not going to make this post about Le Genou de Justine. And it may not be the bee's knees, either. Where did that expression come from, anyway?

Anyway...My knee doesn't look particularly bad: a couple of cuts and some swelling. As my doctor said, it feels worse than it actually is. Still, I don't think you want to look at it. So, instead, I'll show you what happened to Vera:

Thankfully, the real damage isn't to Vera herself--well, not to the frame, which is to the heart and soul of the bike. The front wheel is only slightly out of true; the rear is unscathed. All else seems fine, except for the handlebar. The right side is bent downward, and there are stretch marks at the point where the main body of the bar meets the center sleeve. It had actually been bent more; I bent it back as much as I could so I could ride the bike home. But, of course, I'm not going to take any chances with it. I once broke a handlebar and I was fortunate not to have broken anything else!

I'd been riding the bar--a Nitto Jitensha--for not much more than a month. It had the nice, solid feel of the Nitto drop bars and stems I ride on Arielle and Tosca. And they gave me a good position--upright, with a somewhat leaning-forward attitude--for commuting and city riding. They were a bit wider than other city/upright bars I've ridden, which gave me a bit more steering power, but were a bit more difficult to maneuver in tight spots. That brings me to the one and only complaint I had about the Jitensha: Given its width, I expected the grip area to be longer. Plus, the hand position it affords is something of a cross between that of a flat bar (which I find is hard on my wrists) and that of the flats or "hooks" of a dropped or "moustache" bar. I like the drop/moustache position better. But that, and my liking of a longer grip area, are my personal preferences; if they're not yours, the Jitensha is a nice bar for commuting and other kinds of urban riding.

I've decided that I'm going to replace it with a bar on which I've ridden more, and like: the Velo Orange Porteur. It's the same bar I've been riding on Helene, and I rode it on another bike on which I commuted for a time. However, I'm not going to use it with inverse levers, as I have on Helene, because they won't work with the brakes that are on Vera.

Finally, when I install the Porteur bars, I'm going to try a shift lever I found on eBay. More about that later. Now all I have to do is heal my knee. Will Eric Rohmer make a movie about that?

A Fallen Woman (On Her Bike)

2012-02-10T21:03:00.000-08:00

Had a bit of a mishap yesterday. On my way to work, a driver pulled out of a parking lot and into the street, about twenty feet in front of me. I made a panic stop. Fortunately, the driver and I didn't collide. However, I took a tumble.

Except for a bent Jitensha handlebar, the bike incurred no damage. However, my left knee hit the pavement. So, it's swollen and bruised, and I feel pain when I bend it. I feel it when I bend to sit down, but not once I sit down. However, it's painful to cross my legs.

I've been to the doctor. He said, "It feels worse than it actually is." That's good to know. A few days of staying off it as much as possible should heal it, he says.

So, if we get the snow, sleet, hail, slush and everything else the meteorolgists have forecast for this weekend, I won't mind, really. I'll read, write, play with Max and do some cooking. Maybe I'll make some soup: I haven't done that yet this "winter."

Oh well. If I get some miles in before the season starts, at least I can be in something like reasonable shape. Meantime, I'll keep on posting!

MAMILS

2012-02-09T16:17:00.000-08:00

It's about a year old. I'm linking it because it describes the very antithesis of what I want in this blog, or for my life.

The BBC News item talks about Mamils--Middle-Aged Males In Lycra. According to the article, those men are trying to fight back the passage of time--and divert themselves from the mundanness of their lives--with expensive racing bikes and overpriced team bike wear.

What I am going to say next may seem to reflect my own biases as a cyclist. I'd say it's better--for those men and for everyone else--that they're riding bikes, even if they're over the top, rather than squiring around girls half their age in sports cars. For one thing, cycling is better for their health, even if they're not climbing Mont Ventoux. For another, a man who has the discipline to train and who will ride long distances or intense sprints, let alone up mountains, can be something of a role model to his kids and others in his life.

Plus, as expensive as the bikes and team kit are, they're still far less expensive than new red convertibles or services rendered, if you know what I mean.

The only real problem I have with men like that is that many of them leave their wives alone on weekends and at other times. Then again, men (and not only those in midlife crises) do the same thing, and worse things, when they abscond with their female accessories in their racy new cars. For that matter, golf, fishing and any number of activities in which men engage leave a lot of lonely wives in their wake.

Still, I'm glad I didn't become a MAMIL. Why do you think I'm Justine, and not Nick, now? ;-) Perhaps now I can call myself a MAWRIH--a Middle Aged Woman Riding In Heels.

Suicide Machines

2012-02-08T22:12:00.000-08:00

I don't want you to infer anything about my current state of mind from this post. Its topic just sort of happened when I stumbled over something on eBay.

I haven't seen one of these in person for some time. Apparently, Simplex- made this front derailleur--commonly referred to as the "suicide" front derailleur-- almost to the beginning of the "bike boom" of the early 1970's. When I first started riding distances, as a teenager in the mid-1970's, I actually saw a couple of them, They were ridden by cyclists whose bikes were made before I was born and who most likely started cycling some time before my parents were born.

If you don't like downtube shifters, you'd hate this derailleur because you actually have to bend over enough for your head to touch the top tube of your frame (if it's a diamond-style) in order to turn the lever.

Probably the one good thing about it was that it eliminated the stretch and flex of cables that are used on nearly all shift levers. On the other hand, modern designs have made that flex less of an issue.

Other companies, including Campagnolo, made similar front derailleurs. But it is most associated with the French manufacturer SImplex because they invented it and it was the most prevalent type of front derailleur during the 1940''s and 1950's, when Simplex ruled the derailleur world in much the same way Campagnolo, SunTour and Shimano would in future decades.

If you were riding this "suicide" front derailleur, there would have been a good chance that you were riding another "suicide" part--a stem.

Track racers--particularly in the days of the Six-Day Races-- used these stems, which were usually made of forged steel, because different events called for different riding positions. I've known a few people to ride them, and nobody was hurt from them. That may be due to the fact that they were all highly experienced and trained riders who knew enough to keep the pinch-bolts tight, or had someone else do it for them.

Sometimes shops and teams used "suicide stems" for fitting and positioning purposes. Usually, after the shop's fitter or team's trainer figured out the right position for the rider, the stem would be replaced with a solid one in the proper size.

If you were riding a "suicide stem," you may also have been riding on Cinelli's M-71, a.k.a., "Suicide" pedals.

Introduced in 1971, they are the forerunners of modern clipless pedals. However, they have one distinct disadvantage vis-a-vis Look, Time, Speedplay and SPD's. Those pedals are like modern ski bindings: When you step into them, they click and grab your cleat. To disengage, you turn your heel outward and your foot away from the bike. On the other hand, to get out of the Suicide Pedals, you have to bend over--in a very similar way to which you would have to bend for the "Suicide" front derailleur--and flick a lever on the pedal. I simply can't imagine using these pedals in a peloton and, I believe, nobody ever did.

If you were riding "suicide" pedals, front derailleurs or stems, chances are you weren't riding this item:

During the bike boom, many people bought bikes with dropped bars because they were fashionable. Most, who weren't cycling much beyond the local park (if they cycled at all) found they didn't like riding in a bent-over position. So, brake-maker Dia Compe invented these levers to fit on Dia Compe's road levers, and similar ones like those from Weinmann.

Why were brake extension levers bad? Well, they cut down on how far you could pull a brake lever, which cut down on the amont of leverage you had when braking. Also, the hardware that connected the so-called "safety levers" to the regular levers tended to come loose quickly and often, which led to the risk of those levers coming off altogether when they were used in an emergency.

Do you know of any other bike parts nicknamed "suicide"? We are going to use them to build the velocipedic equivalent of Bruce Springsteen's "Suicide machines"!

Sunset Pinup

2012-02-07T18:53:00.000-08:00

Today is Charles Dickens' 200th birthday. Although I can't connect it to anything I've posted here, I thought it is worth mentioning.

And exactly one year ago yesterday, I wrote what has been, by far, my most widely-read post to date: "Which Bike Was Pinned Up?". All those people read it because of my wit, erudition and knowledge of bicycling. Right?

On the other hand, yesterday's post, "When All Ways Lead To The Sunset" may not ever be as widely-read. But writing it, and putting up those photos I took, felt good.

Now I am going to do the seemingly-impossible, thanks to a serendipitous discovery on the Internet. I mean, how can you not love this?:

When All Ways Lead To The Sunset

2012-02-06T22:12:00.000-08:00

Today I did something I don't normally do: I rode Tosca to work. I had no particular reason; I didn't have much to carry today, so I thought it might be fun.

And I took a slightly different route home from the one I'd been taking. I had just passed through Flushing Meadow-Corona Park when I saw how I was going to ride the rest of the way (well, most of it, anyway) home:

It was enough to make me ride alongside the railroad tracks. The tracks are lined with, well, what one expects to see along railroad tracks: some warehouses and dirty, sad-looking dwellings facing the concrete barriers by the tracks. But even they, and the wires over the tracks, felt serene, bathed in the simmering orange light:

As you know, my bikes are very well-trained, so Tosca knew exactly what to do.

And, yes, by the time I got home, everything was just starting to turn to dusk. And Max, my dusty orange cat, greeted me.

Real Football

2012-02-05T20:03:00.000-08:00

Today is Super Bowl Sunday. So, being the sort of person I am, I am going to do something fairly subversive: I'm going to post about the "other" football, a.k.a. soccer.

How does that relate to cycling?, you ask. Well, I didn't think it did, except that they are both sports that make extensive use of a person's legs. However, I found a connection between cycling and football, believe it or not:

Bicycle Football World Cup, 2010

Believe it or not, this is a UCI-sanctioned sport. That, of course, proves the NFL has nothing on the UCI!

Banana At The End Of Christopher Street

2012-02-04T21:45:00.000-08:00

If you are of my or Steve's or Gunnar's generation, you probably remember when bananas were "energy bars." That's what we ate during rides before there were Power Bars, Clif Bars and such.

If you're of our time, you might also remember the movie "Bananas." That came out a couple of years before a Presidential adviser tried to tell people that a dip in economy was a "banana."

But if you're a cyclist of our generation, apart from the association with the original cycling snack, you probably connect the word "banana" with "seat."

From about the mid-1960's to the mid-1970's, banana seats were found on a variety of kids' bikes on which kids did "wheelies". I'm thinking of the Schwinn Sting-Ray and Apple, Orange and Lemon Krates as well as the Raleigh Chopper and other bikes.

Those bikes, and seats, had all but disappeared by the early 1980's. There are several explanations as to why. There were rumors circulating (Remember, this was before the Internet!) that there were lawsuits involving people who got hurt when seat struts broke. That seems plausible enough, given that, as often as not, those seats were carrying two kids at a time, and those seats weren't designed for that.

But the more widely-believed reason for the disappearance of banana seats were the rise in popularity of BMX and, later, mountain biking. Smaller seats and lighter frames are better suited to those kinds of cycling, for a variety of reasons.

Also, the kids who rode those bikes simply got older. Some of them moved on to road or mountain biking, but most put bicycling aside altogether once they got their drivers' licences.

I understand that banana seats are enjoying something of a resurgence in popularity. Today I saw one where I wasn't quite expecting it:

Susan says she "loves" the banana seat on the rear of her otherwise utilitarian Giant hybrid bike. I can only imagine what it's like to pedal from back there. Come to think of it, I'm not sure I'd want to. I also don't think I'd want to pull a "wheelie" on that bike!

Anyway...I've seen bananas at the end of Christopher Street--just not banana seats!

Is It English Or American?

2012-02-03T18:37:00.000-08:00

Today, if someone has heard of AMF, he or she is most likely a bowler. AMF remains one of the main manufacturers of pin-setting machines and other equipment used in kegling.

However, not so long ago (I say things like that to make myself feel young!), AMF was actually one of the world's largest bicycle manufacturers. Around the same time, they also manufactured Harley-Davidson motorcycles. But AMF bicycles never inspired the sort of loyalty that HD motorcycles have long enjoyed, and with good reason. Most AMF bikes--which were sold under the "Roadmaster" name--were sold in department stores and were inferior even to other department-store brands like Murray and Columbia.

Roadmaster was a free-standing bike brand before AMF took them over in 1950. A few years later, AMF would sell another line of bikes made for them in England--in Nottingham, no less. You may well have seen one of those bikes, sold under the name "AMF-Hercules". I saw a pretty fair number of them when I was growing up.

Those bikes bore all of the hallmarks of an English three-speed: the same kind of lugged frame made from mild steel, the steel sidepull brakes, handlebars, stem and cottered cranks--and, most important, the same Sturmey-Archer three-speed hub.

In fact, if you stripped away the AMF-Hercules decals and badge, you'd probably think you were looking at a Raleigh, Rudge, Robin Hood or one of any number of other English three-speeds from that time.

However, the AMF-Hercules bikes differed in a few details from their Anglo peers. It seems that AMF marketers thought that the bikes would sell only if they were given some of the same baroque flourishes found on American balloon-tired bikes (like the Schwinn Phantom and Hollywood) of the time, which in turned echoed the fulsomely-fendered and lushly-chromed cars of the time.

I mean, look at that chainguard. Would any bike maker in Albion come up with something like that? Or look at the two-toned seat and matching bag. I don't recall seeing anything like those in the Brooks catalogues!

So...Was it an English bike trying to be American? Or was it an American bike in the body and soul of an English bike?

Future Shock Today

2012-02-02T17:59:00.000-08:00

Someone--I forget who--once told me, "Anything you do in a car, you can do on a bicycle."

My grandmother once told me, "Be careful of what you wish for; be careful of what you believe in."

Never did it occur to me that those two statements could actually converge. Now I realize that it was bound to happen, given that I wished to believe the statement that opened this post. If I do say so myself, that statement been true in my life: I've never owned a car and have no wish to own one.

But I never realized just how true it could be until I came across this:

Who would have thought it possible to take the same obnoxiously loud stereo systems some young men have in their cars and transplant them onto bicycles? The Future Shock Bike Crew, that's who.

The Crew consists of unofficial founder Nicholas Ragbir and his sister Jessica, and of Bhimraj brothers Anil and Travis. They emigrated with their families from Trinidad and Tobago to the Richmond Hill neighborhood of Queens--about seven miles. or a quick run on Tosca, from my apartment.

I've actually seen them on the streets. Unfortunately, I was on my way to or from work, or was weaving through traffic, so I have never had the chance to talk with or photograph them. However, I recently found a page devoted to them on the Worldwide Cycling Atlas.

I wonder how long those young people keep on "pimpin' out" their bikes with stereo equipment and "peddling" their music through the neighborhood. Their exploits involve DJ'ing and engineering as well as cycling. Who knows: They might develop whole new genres of cycling, entertainment or technology. Whatever they do in the future, I hope it's as much fun for them as what they're doing now!

Sheldon, Aaron and Bob

2012-02-01T20:23:00.000-08:00

Today was an unusually warm day for this time of year. Because of a scheduling oddity, I didn't have classes today. So, I took Tosca out for a ride through some of the landmarked areas of Woodside and Jackson Heights, as well as the promenade along that starts near LaGuardia Airport and goes to the World's Fair Marina.

Then I had an appointment in Manhattan, to which I rode Vera. I changed bikes because I changed clothes: from sweats and trainer shoes to a skirt, blouse and dressier shoes.

After my appointment, I took a quick swing down to Bicycle Habitat, from which I ordered Tosca, Arielle and Helene as well as some of the components I hung on them and other equipment I use with them. Hal wasn't in, but I did see two employees I hadn't seen in a while: Aaron and Sheldon.

Sheldon is an old riding buddy whom I didn't see for about a decade or so until I bumped into him in the shop not long before my surgery. I don't think I'd seen him since some time in the fall: I think I showed up on his off-days or -hours.

Aaron, like Sheldon, has been working in the shop for some time. He doesn't want me to publish his photo. However, he said I could publish photos, and write about, of one of his bikes, of which I'd only heard before today.

It's a nice Bob Jackson from, I believe, the '70's. He's outfitted it with contemporary components: The only "period" pieces are the SunTour ratchet shifters and Cyclone rear derailleurs. I can understand using those: I used them myself, back in the day.

I remember, as a teenager, seeing Bob Jacksons, Mercians, Ron Coopers and the frames of some other English builder--I don't remember which, except that I don't think it was Jack Taylor--in a catalogue somewhere.

I knew that the best racing bikes were believed to be those from Italy and a few American custom builders. The English made some excellent racing frames, too; in my heart of hearts, I really wanted one of those--or one from a French constructeur--even more than an Italian bike. I would eventually ride, and race, on a couple of Italian bikes, but I really liked the ride qualities of those English frames (I got to try a few that belonged to customers in shops where I worked.). Plus, the Italian racing frames always seemed gaudy to me, even in my youth; I always felt that my "bike for life" would have the meticulous lugwork and other detail of those English builders. Their workmanship impressed me more than what I saw on the Italian bikes.

The only braze-ons the frame has are for the water bottle cage (on the downtube only) and a "stop" for the shift lever band. That was typical on bikes of that time: at least a couple of bikes I owned were so made.

That frame is at least thirty years old, and it's not hard to imagine Aaron--or somebody else--riding it for another thirty years. I think Bob Jacksons are still being made--although, by this time, I rather doubt Bob Jackson himself is building them. I don't know whether Ron Coopers or Jack Taylors are still being built: I haven't seen references to them in recent catalogues or magazines. At least it's nice to know that Mercian is still keeping up the flame they, and those other builders, kept burning for decades.

The Rise And Fall Of Rapid Rise

2012-01-31T17:59:00.000-08:00

I forget who told me that there's no idea so bad that nobody will try to revive it.

Here's a case in point: low-normal rear, and top-normal front, derailleurs.

On the bikes most of you ride, pushing the right lever forward shifts you to a higher rear gear (top-normal), and pulling the lever brings you to a lower gear. Conversely, pulling on the left lever shifts your chain to the larger front sprocket, and pushing it drops your chain to the smaller, or lower gear (low-normal). The derailleurs I'm talking about do the exact opposite.

It seems that every generation or so, someone tries to revive the idea. Why, I don't know.

This is an early example of the genre: the Simplex Champion de France, circa 1935. Believe it or not, it was a technological marvel for its time, even though it couldn't handle much more than a 22 tooth rear cog and a difference of 8 between the largest and smallest cog.

It is, I think, rather elegant: In particular, the cage shape makes me think of a part of a piano rather than a bicycle. However, the shifts of single-pulley derailleurs are inherently imprecise; low-normal operation only exacerbates the problem.

As one might expect, World War II halted derailleur development and all but stopped their manufacture altogether. The 1950's would see new innovations and experiments, including the pull-chain mechanism (which Shimano briefly revived on its mountain bike derailleurs during the late 1990's) and, most important, a derailleur with a parallelogram mechanism rather than a single arm or cam. However, Simplex and other companies also revived low-normal rear derailleurs.

To be fair, the first modern rear derailleur (and, some would say, the first that shifted well)--the Sun Tour Gran Prix of 1964--also was low-normal. But within two years, Sun Tour abandoned that operating principle, realizing that the slant-parallelogram design (which is found on every derailleur of any quality made in the last quarter-century or so) did more to improve shifting than any other idea or innovation.

However, Sun Tour continued to make front derailleurs that were "top normal" well into the 1970's. I had one such derailleur. It shifted well enough until the spring started to lose its tension. With a low-normal front derailleur, you can sometimes adjust the cable tension to make up for the lack of spring tension. That's not an option with high-normal front derailleurs.

It's also not an option with low-normal rear derailluers. I briefly rode one on my mountain bike about fifteen years ago: a Shimano XTR. Luckily for me, the shop from which I bought it allowed me to trade it in for a more conventional XT rear. The owner of the shop reasoned that the amount of wear I put on the XTR made it depreciate enough to warrant an XT as a replacement.

I'd say that was an example of addition by subtraction: I was happy with the XT, as I was with an earlier version of the same derailleur. On the other hand, I never liked the low-normal XTR, which was one of the most expensive derailleurs made at the time. It never had the firm, postive feel I like when shifting: Even when the gear engaged smoothly and silently after a shift, it always felt as if the chain would slip or jump off the gear at any moment.

Other cyclists with whom I rode--who included hard-core mountain bikers as well as roadies like me who went off-road for a change of pace--felt the same way about that derailleur. And, in looking back at some old magazines and books, it seems that every time low-normal derailleurs come out, the high-mileage and hard-driving riders don't like them. Even less-experienced riders who thought they were the newest and latest thing soon soured on them.

I see that Shimano has given up on low-normal (or, in their lingo, "rapid rise") rear derailleurs, at least for now. I wonder whether they, or any other company, will revive them. Maybe they will in a decade or so, when there's a cohort of cyclists who didn't use rapid-rise and who don't heed this gem of wisdom from Ecclesiastes: There is nothing new under the sun.

Old-School

2012-01-30T18:47:00.000-08:00

Now here's some real old-school lugwork.

There's a "mirror," if you will, of the front fork pattern on the rear stay, near the seat cluster.

I tried to get a better image of it, but it's in a display window. That window is long past displaying anything, with all of the clutter in it.

The shop behind that window isn't much bigger than my living room, so they have to use every available space.

Gray's, on Lefferts Boulevard in Kew Gardens, has most likely been in business for longer than I've been in this world. Bernice,the proprietess is a very sweet woman who's probably a decade or two older than I am. Her husband passed on a few years ago.

One thing that makes the shop interesting--and a reason why I stop in from time to time--is their stock of older parts. Bernice knows what they are, and what they're supposed to fit, but she's not a cyclist herself and doesn't claim to be any sort of bike enthusiast.

She is one of those old-time shopkeepers who, on slow days, chats with people in the neighborhood. Today, a woman who seemed to be a couple of decades older than her was there, and they were just talking about family, the passage of time and such.

It's one of those shops that opened when the neighborhood around it was very different. At one time, Kew Gardens--in which George Gershwin lived and Paul Simon and Jerry Springer were born and raised-- was full of neo-Tudor houses and had an almost-suburban feel. I suspect the shop opened during that time. Later, Kew Gardens was nicknamed "Crew Gardens," for all of the airline personnel who lived there.

Many of the private houses have been torn down and apartment buildings have risen in their place. Now, Kew Gardens is mainly a community of Orthodox Jews and emigres from Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan. Among them, there doesn't seem to be very many cyclists: Just about everyone I see riding comes, as I do, from other parts of Queens or from Brooklyn.

What seems to keep the shop in business is that it's near Forest Park. And the shop is one of the few in the city that rents bikes. A few cyclists I know are familiar with the shop; apparently, they go there for the old parts and the pleasant atmosphere, even if it's in cramped quarters.

Gray's isn't what some cyclists would consider to be a "pro" shop, and doesn't try to be one. It's, more than anything, an old-fashioned family business that happens to deal in bikes. In a way, it's fitting to find an old-school Hetchins there.

Pancake Rides

2012-01-29T12:41:00.000-08:00

This is the time of year for the "pancake ride."

You've probably been on one: You ride to someplace where pancakes (and foods that go with them) are served. And then you spend the rest of your ride burning off what you just ate.

In two of the clubs in which I rode, Pancake rides were hugely popular and, certainly, the winter rides that had the biggest turnouts.

The club to which I belonged when I was in college (Rutgers) held those rides every other Sunday in January and February, if I recall correctly. The rides took us from the urban confines of New Brunswick, New Jersey into the rural areas of western New Jersey. Actually, many of the club's rides did, but the Pancake ride had a particular destination: a firehouse that served pancake breakfasts during the winter. I think the proceeds were used to fund the volunteer fire department located in the firehouse, and that everyone who cooked, served, seated people and did all of the other work were family members or friends of the firefighters.

One of the greatest draws of that ride, apart from the complete lack of traffic outside of New Brunswick on a winter Sunday morning and the bucolic countryside, was what we called The Bottomless Plate. Yes, it was an all-you-can-eat affair. In addition to the pancakes, the house served hash browns, sausage, bacon and scrambled eggs, as well as coffee, tea and hot chocolate. It may not have been the best-quality stuff, but when you're cold and hungry, just about anything edible is delicious and hearty.

As I recall, that firehouse was very welcoming to us. That's particularly surprising given how much we ate: Those of you who are better than I am in math can calculate how much Bis-Quick it took to feed thirty to forty cyclists who'd just cycled twenty or so miles in twenty-degree weather with a wind-chill of about five or ten degrees. Also, I should add that some of us were young (i.e., college age) males, who typically had bottomless stomachs and empty wallets.

These days, of course, I'm not a young male. But all of my changes don't seem to have filled in the bottomless pit in my stomach!

Anyway, I decided, just for the heck of it, to type "pancake rides" into a Google search box. It seems that they're going on everywhere, and they're not confined to winter. Still, I'll probably always think of them as winter rides. I mean, how many other foods feel warmer and cozier after a ride on a cold day?

As Good As A Tree...Or A Colnago?

2012-01-28T21:14:00.000-08:00

One of the most parodied (and most eminently parodyable) poems in the English language is Joyce Kilmer's "Trees."

Hmm...Even though I know it wouldn't have fit the meter or rhythm of the poem, it might've been better if he'd written, "I think that I shall never see/A bikestand as good as a tree."

Certainly a parking meter isn't quite as nice a stand--although it's a lot easier to loop a chain around it:

The paint job tells me someone was trying to make that bike unattractive to thieves. However, if that was the owner's/rider's intention, something else on the bike counters it:

Now, if you're going to so much trouble to make the bike unappealing, why would you announce, in screaming red letters, that it's a Colnago?

Of course, the bike is not a Colnago. (I know; I owned and raced on one and have seen many others.) Could it be that it's some kind of post-modern irony (translation: a joke)? Could this cyclist be saying, "Ha, ha, it's not a Colnago?"

Who'd've thunk it--putting the Colnago name on a bike would make it less valuable? What if people put Mercedes-Benz stars, or blue-and-white BMW shields, on their 10-year-old Hyundais? Would that make them less of a target for car thieves?

Actually, the basket almost made me wish it was a Colnago. It reminded me of the bike someone I met once in Williamsburg (where else?) about ten years ago: a vintage Cinelli track bike (not the ones sold today with the Cinelli label), with equally vintage Campagnolo Pista components and Mavic SSC rims--and a flowered basket strapped to the handlebars.

None of those bikes, though, will ever have a stand as good as that tree on which I leaned Tosca today.

When Hipsters And Hasidim Use The Same Adjective

2012-01-27T15:55:00.000-08:00

From Indigo Jo Blogs

When people on opposing sides of the same issue are using "stupid" as a prefix for the same word, the thing they're talking about can't be good. Right?

I'm thinking now of bike lanes. Both cyclists and the people who hate us, or merely find us a nuisance, use that same adjective in reference to the lanes.

I was reminded of this when I stumbled over a site called "Stupid Bike Lanes" and read articles like this, and the comments on them.

Of course, the velophobes--who include all sorts of (but not all) people whose way of life or business is auto-based--think we're getting in their way of getting to wherever they have to go and believe we're getting "special privileges."

As any number of other bloggers (including yours truly) and commentators have pointed out, the antipathy toward cyclists, particularly in urban areas, is often generational and based on socio-economic or ethnic issues. Here in New York, non-cyclists hold contradictory views of cyclists: the messenger, the hipster, the Whole Foods customer and the simply rich. What reinforces these stereotypes is that those who most vociferously oppose the bike lanes tend to come from what remains of the blue-collar class and groups like the Hasidic and Orthodox Jews who have large families that they transport in vans. So, they are always driving, it seems, from one available parking spot to the next and, as they see it, the bike lanes take away those spots.

The bike lane-haters who are actual cyclists don't dispute those objections, and in fact cite one basic flaw of most urban bike lanes: They run alongside parking lanes and, therefore, directly in the path of opening drivers' side doors. I've been "doored" a few times: on all except one of those occasions, I was riding in a bike lane.

Some bike lanes are badly designed in other ways. The most obvious flaw, aside from the one I just mentioned, is that many of them go nowhere, end abruptly or in the middle of busy intersections, or are so poorly marked so that only those who already know where they are can find them.

All of the problems I've mentioned actually make cycling less safe than it is in the traffic lanes of most streets. And they indicate that those who design them know as little about cycling as transportation, in an urban area, as those who hate cyclists.

Reconciliation

2012-01-26T20:37:00.001-08:00

One of the nice things about being my age is that, if you're lucky, you can start to reconcile all kinds of things that seemed irreconcilable. If you're not lucky, they reconcile themselves, though perhaps not in the ways you'd intended--or one might destroy the other.

Where am I going with this? Well, it's about cycling, but it also has to do with stuff you'd find on my other blog, if you read it. So consider yourself forewarned.

You see, from the time I found out about John Rakowski, I wanted to do something like what he did. He cycled around the world, turning his pedals on every continent except Antarctica. (What would penguins think of some guy with a bike laden with full front and rear panniers, camping equipment and bottles of water anyplace they'd fit on the bike?) He recounted his adventures in Bicycling! magazine during my teen years.

Rakowski was in his early 50's when he undertook his journey, which lasted three years, if I recall correctly. As it turned out, he was living not far from where I lived, in New Jersey, at the time. And, yes I met him, and he signed my magazines.

Well, the fact that he lived nearby and did what he did would have been reason enough for me to take him as an inspiration, if not a role model. But there was another reason--apart from the "local boy" and "cycling" aspects of the story--that meant so much to me at that time in my life.

However, as important as his feat was to me, I never talked about it with anybody. For one thing, no one else in my family, or even in my circle of peers or the neighborhood in which I was living, shared my passion for cycling. It was as if the so-called "bike boom" had passed them all by. Everybody predicted that I would "grow out of" my obsession with cycling as soon as I got my driver's licence. Then again, people said I would "grow out of" all sorts of other things, as if they were tops and shoes.

You may have figured out where this is going: something else I didn't "grow out of." I'm talking, of course, about my wish to be able to wear bike jerseys and shorts with cleated shoes(In that place and time, almost no one had ever seen them.) or skirts and blouses with heels, as a way of life.

The reason, of course, I didn't "grow out of" those desires is that there was more to them--which, of course, I didn't talk about with anybody. Wearing the clothes wasn't the point for me; I wanted to be the person who was expected to wear them--or, at least, a person who wouldn't face opprobrium for doing so.

That John Rakowski was a man, and most cyclists were men, was problematic. How could I want to ride around the world and win the Tour de France and be a woman at the same time?

Today, of course, there are more female cyclists than there were in those days, and women's racing enjoyed a heyday during the late '80's and the '90's. I could not understand why only men should race, tour or participate in most other sports. Title IX had been enacted around that time; however, it would take time for women's sports to gain any momentum because the sorts of sports programs, like Little League and Pop Warner football, that existed for boys didn't exist for girls.

It was a time when many people--including many women--thought sports were "unfeminine." I recall one girl in my high school who was as an even better athlete than most of the boys. Her family, which included three brothers who were athletes, was supportive of her interests. However, some of the teachers and other adults tried to discourage her, saying that no man would want to marry her. I couldn't understand that: She was a very attractive girl who had no difficulty getting dates.

Fortunately for her, she was able to play basketball and a couple of other sports in college. Of course, I would have wanted to be like her. Perhaps I could have been: I played soccer in high school. However, my real passion always lay with cycling, and only a few colleges had teams or even clubs for cycling. To my knowledge, none were for women.

Although I repressed my desire to be a woman then, and for most of the next three decades, I always felt, deep down, that there was no contradiction between wanting to ride the world, and to race, on my bike. What has always drawn me to cycling is the freedom I feel when I ride. I feel as if my spirit is unchained, that--if you'll indulge me a cliche--I felt as free as the wind and as open as the air.

And that, naturally, was what the woman in me wanted. She wanted to be free from what I now realize were the same boundaries that seemed to contain me when I was off my bike. When I say what I'm about to say, I don't mean to aggrandize myself: To be a long-distance cyclist at an age after you were supposed to have a drivers license and a car, you had to be an independent spirit. And, of course, it's impossible to be anything else if you want to live by the imperatives of your spirit rather than the dictates of your school, community and society. That's doubly true if your subconscious or unconscious gender--the one you are when you're by yourself--is different from the one on your birth certificate, and for which you are being trained by your school, church and other institutions.

I wanted to be free--to be Justine, on a bike. At least I lived long enough to know that those things weren't contradictory, and to meet people who understand that. And, just as important,from my point of view, is that I've begun to develop a language to explain my complications, contradictions and complexities. It makes sense to me, which means that I can also make it make sense to others--well, some other people anyway. If they don't understand, or don't accept it, that is all right.

I am Justine, and ride wherever and whenever my time and resources allow. Hopefully, some day, I'll have more of both. For now, living my life and riding my bikes are inseparable, and offer me so much.

Riding Off Into The Sunset Out Your Window

2012-01-25T16:43:00.000-08:00

Yes, I've hit Lotto. Just to prove it, here are photos from my exotic midwinter cycling vacation.

Hey, who wouldn't want to see the sun setting over the ocean on a clear, mild day?

Or see the blue of the sky consumed into the blaze of orange and red and purple, and spreading in waves of deepening blue?

If any of you have not yet entered the workforce, you can look forward to long meetings and workshops. It's not a sign of a character flaw if your mind wanders during them. In fact, I'd argue that if you see what I saw out the window, and you pay more attention to it than to what's going on in the room, it's a sign that you're spiritually healthy.

Just don't tell that to the people who were running the workshop.

I got outside, and on my bike, just in time for this:

In what exotic locale was I?, you ask. Would you believe Kingsborough Community College, at the southern edge of Brooklyn. I took the long way back, so in all I still managed to ride about 40 miles yesterday. And I didn't even have to leave home. Well, not really, anyway!

Disraeli Gears

2012-01-23T22:16:00.000-08:00

"Campagnolo trying to do mass-market derailleurs was a bit like the British Royal Family trying to do marital fidelity--it was never going to work because, although they knew they should do it, they considered the whole idea inherently beneath them."

So begins Michael Sweatman's page about the Campagnolo Nuovo Valentino extra derailleur on his site Disraeli Gears. He says it's about half-complete; I almost don't want him to finish it because so many of his entries leave me in eager anticipation of more.

His pages include his own wry commentaries, as well as photos and technical information, about derailleurs that have been made during the past 80 years or so. Disraeli Gears is arranged by models, brands, countries and decades, as well as by several of his own themes, such as the ever-popular "A Riot of Colour."

Now I'm going to answer the question some of you are asking: Yes, Disraeli Gears is named for the Cream album released in November 1967. According to Ginger Baker, the album got its name when Eric Clapton talked about getting a racing bicycle and Mick Turner said, "Oh yeah--Disraeli Gears."

My guess is that Turner was high when he made that remark. (For that matter, Clapton and Baker probably were, too.) I won't speculate on whether or not Sweatman was high when he wrote any of his entries (or whether he ever was). However, he does reveal one of his food vices in this entry.

Even if all you know about derailleurs is whether or not your bike has one, Disraeli Gears makes for a lot of interesting and entertaining reading.

"D" For "Dahon"; "F" For "Folding Bike"

2012-01-22T14:21:00.000-08:00

Some days, the gray cloudy sky spreads like a shawl over buildings and trees. But today, it's like the proverbial wet blanket.

So, I thought this might be a good day to talk about a bike I owned and didn't care for very much. In fact, it's part of a genre of bikes I'm not really crazy about, but not because I have anything against the genre. Rather, I find the bikes within them are all wanting.

That genre is folding bikes. I've often felt I'd like to have one, even though I'm not travelling more than a couple of times a year. Once, I did give into my curiosity and bought one: the Dahon Vitesse D5.

Part of my rationale for buying it was that I could fold it and bring it into the office I shared at the time. I was indeed able to do that, and folding the bike was easier than I expected. However, the bike was heavier than I thought it would be (I had to climb two flights of stairs to get to that office, and my classes.) though, to be fair, it may have been because of some of the things I added to it.

The bike came in a matte-black finish. It's not exactly my taste, but I think it was the only color choice available. Soon after I bought the bike, I swapped out the stock saddle for a Brooks B72 I picked up on Craig's List. That gave the bike, to which I also added a rear rack, a surprising elegance.

You've heard the term "flexible flyer." That's what some of us called certain bikes like the Peugeot PX-10E (which I'll write about in another post). Well, the Dahon was like a Broken Flyer: When it rolled, it gave a surprisingly nimble ride, albeit on what felt like a broken frame. Again, in all fairness, every folding bike I've tried--even the Brompton--felt like it was pulled apart in the middle. I suppose that if I weren't accustomed to high-quality conventional frame, I might be able to accept that quality. But, after about a year and a half of commuting and running errands on the Dahon, I was still distracted by it.

Another problem I had with the bike was its transmission. The Sturmey-Archer 5-speed hub that came with the bike was one of the most unreliable pieces of bike equipment I've ever had. I never could keep it adjusted; nor could the mechanics at the shop where I bought the bike. Someone suggested that the problem may have had to do with the fact that when the bike was folded, the shifter cable was pulled and twisted. I'm sure that was a contributing factor, but I noticed that even after adjusting the gears when the bike was unfolded, I experienced "ghost" gear changes while I was pedaling. Even changing the shifter from the twist-grip style that came with the bike to a more traditional "trigger" mechanism didn't make the shifts more accurate or smoother.

But the fact that the frame folded wasn't the only thing that made it an unsuitable ride for me. One one of the last commutes home I took on the Dahon, a small pothole I would just barely have noticed had I been riding one of my larger-wheeled bikes swallowed the front wheel and threw me off the bike--in traffic. Neither the bike nor I was damaged, and I sold the former soon afterward.

Perhaps one day I'll get another collapsible bike. But, for now, if I can't take one of my own bikes on a trip (or if doing so is overly expensive or cumbersome), I'll borrow or rent. Then I appreciate riding my own bikes all the more when I get home!

For Someone Who Has To Ride In The Snow

2012-01-21T21:13:00.000-08:00

Today the temperature hovered a few degrees below freezing. But snow fell; about four inches stuck to the sidewalks and streets. Even after the snow stopped, the dampness in the air seeped through everything, it seemed, and made it seem even colder.

I didn't ride today because when I did my laundry and some grocery shopping, I noticed a lot of "black ice." I don't have a pair of studded tires, and I'm not even sure that they would have helped. Plus, Max, my surviving cat, wanted to spend some quality time with me. (Yes, he reads all of the self-help and pop-psychology books.;-))

Plus,I didn't see anyone cycling today, and I didn't see any bikes that looked particularly forlorn, pristine or striking in any other way when parked in the snow. I'd have liked to get a shot of one of the restaurant delivery guys who was carrying General Tso's Chicken and Hot and Sour soup in bags that dangled from the bars of a '90's mountain bike--a Trek, I think--cobbled together with parts from other bikes and stuff that was never meant for bikes.

I couldn't help but to think of my own days as a messenger. I didn't have any cats back then; in fact, I didn't have a regular address: I was living in sublets. I'll bet that delivery guy is living in a similar way. Or, perhaps, he's living in a room with four or five other guys. They might all be making deliveries, too, for other Chinese restaurants, pizzerias, diners and any other kind of place that sells food for people who can't or don't want to prepare it themselves.

I once delivered pizza when I was a messenger. Two slices with sausage, pepperoni, peppers and onions to an office on the 89th floor of One World Trade Center (the NorthTower). Those two slices cost 3.50; the guy who ordered them (or, more precisely, his office) paid six dollars to the company I worked for. I got about half of that as my commission, and the guy gave me a five-dollar tip. In those days, that got me a couple of drinks or smokes. And the man was clearly happy to get his pizza within five minutes of ordering it; the pizzeria's delivery system would have taken at least half an hour. Plus, I think those two slices weren't enough to make the minimum for a delivery order.

The guy I saw today had to have been delivering an order of at least ten dollars. That's the minimum at the restaurant for which he works: Fatima's Halal Kitchen, a Chinese restaurant in my neighborhood. Their food is excellent; you just won't find ribs or pork there. (Here's a slogan for them: Making Hungry Muslims Happy.) On the other hand, they make some really good vegetarian dishes.

Anyway, he has to ride over slush and black ice, which is even more dangerous than rain, snow, sleet or hail. I wonder whether he'll recall or relive days like this. Or maybe he'll forget them altogether. If he does, he probably won't be riding a bike, either.

Vera's Changes

2012-01-20T22:49:00.000-08:00

After losing her saddle and seatpost last month, Vera's had a few changes.

Don't worry: I didn't give her a "fade" paint job or outfit her with carbon components. However, I made a few more subtle alterations to her.

The most obvious, of course, is the Brooks B-67 saddle. I chose it because of another switch I made, which I'll describe. The seatpost is a Kalloy that looks like the Laprade post that was ubiquitous during the 1970's and 1980's. It seems decent enough. However, the main reason I bought it is that, I discovered, Vera takes a 27.0 seatpost. That was the standard diameter for Mercian and most other English bikes until the late '90's or thereabouts. Around that time, Mercian and other makers switched to the 27.2 size Arielle, Tosca and Helene--as well as most other current road bikes--use.

I decided to install the B-67 because, as you may have noticed. i"m riding a more upright bar/stem combination. The flipped-over North Road-style bars (from Velo Orange) I had looked cute on the bike, but I felt cramped on them. The bent-over position felt neither as comfortable nor as efficient as riding on the "hooks" or "drops" of my road handlebars. Plus, I was using it with a Nitto Technomic, which made for one of the flexiest bar/stem combinations I've ridden in a while. That surprised me, as other Nitto stems I've ridden were stiff, and the Velo Orange Porteur bar I've been riding on Helene seems more than stiff enough.

The new bars are Nitto Jitensha, which offer a good upright position for riding in traffic that still has the somewhat-leaning-forward attitude afforded by the bars that used to come on many French mixte bikes during the '70's and '80's.

I paired the bars with a Velo Orange "constructeur-style" steel stem. It's much stiffer than the Technomic it replaced. And I couldn't resist putting that kittie-with-vase decal on the extension.

Then I changed the fenders because the ones I had--Velo Orange stainless steel--didn't fit very well. I had a difficult time removing and installing the rear wheel because the rounded shape of the fender made it fit more snugly in the stays than the current fenders. And, paradoxically, they rattled annoyingly, no matter how much I tightened the fittings.

So, I gave those fenders to a friend who's going to use them on a hybrid with somewhat larger clearances than those of Vera's. As much as I prefer metal fenders, I broke down and bought a pair of SKS Longboards. Although they're supposed to be the same width as the VO steel fenders, they fit much better. And they look better than I expected.

Finally...I all but destroyed the Distortion BMX pedals I had on the bike. The bearings were toast, the axles were bent and the platform was caking. I got a pair of MKS Lambda (the "Sneaker" or "Grip King" model) for 30 dollars. I thought they just might work for commuting and errands. They look strange, but the pedals I had weren't going to win any beauty contests, either.

I'll tell you more about those new parts as I ride them and form, I hope, more meaningful impressions.

A Ton Of...

2012-01-19T18:37:00.000-08:00

When you were a kid, someone probably asked you this "trick" question: Which weighs more: a ton of bricks or a ton of feathers?

The next question is: Which would be harder to transport on a bicycle?

Of course, the question "behind" the previous question is this: Which is harder to transport on a bike: weight or volume?

In all of my years of cycling, it seems that the questions and concerns I've heard about carrying loads on bicycles had more to do with weight. Some are looking for ways to carry less of it, while others are trying to carry whatever weight they need to carry in the most effective and stylish manner. I'd say that my transition from the former to the later parallels my transition from a young male racer wannabe to a middle-aged woman riding to work in skirts and heels and on weekends in casual clothes. I used to do whatever I could to carry nothing, or as little as possible, on the bike. Now I use canvas and leather bags to do the job because I like the way they look.

But, to tell you the truth, I--like most cyclists in the Western/Industrialized world--have thought very little about how to carry pallets of styrofoam on two wheels.

Leaders On Two Wheels

2012-01-17T21:39:00.000-08:00

Last month, French President Nicolas Sarkozy promoted Eddy Mercx to a Commander the Legion d'Honneur.

Can you imagine any American President giving Lance or Greg LeMond the Presidential Medal of Freedom? As far as I know, the only Armstrong to win the medal was Neil. And he got it from Nixon! That's something like being given an ethics award by Bernie Madoff.

Anyway...I think Sarkozy making Eddy a Legionnaire begs the question of what kind of country we'd have with a President who was a cyclist, or who was at least cycling-conscious.

Monsieur Sarkozy is known to be something of a velo aficionado, and has been seen riding on holidays. I'm guessing that other French, and European, leaders liked to tour on two wheels.

During his campaign, Bill Clinton was seen astride his Merlin titanium bike (They were all the rage during the '90's.) but apparently he lost his time or appetite (or both) for riding once he was in office. Jimmy Carter became an avid rider and is often seen astride his Rivendell. However, I somehow can't imagine either of the Bushes, Reagan or Nixon in the saddle. Of course, FDR couldn't have ridden. But somehow I don't think it's much of a stretch to envision Teddy Roosevelt, or even Harry Truman or Eisenhower on two wheels, at least before they became President.

To my knowledge, none of the current Republican candidates for the Presidency is a cyclist. Nor, for that matter, is Obama.

Quite possibly the most famous thing any head of state did with or on a bicycle was when the King of Denmark abandoned his in Tivoli Square when the Nazis decreed that no Jew could own or ride one.

Would this, or any country be better off with a leader who rides a bicycle? I'd like to believe so.

The Little Man On The Little Bike That Didn't Fold

2012-01-16T17:59:00.001-08:00

In Brooklyn, there's a bike/pedestrian separated from the Belt Parkway only by guardrails (and, on two bridges, not even that) and Jamaica Bay by thin strips of sand and, in places, by small dunes, shrubs and, believe it or not, a few cacti.

About twenty-five years ago, when I first started riding there, I saw a little man on a bike that, to my eyes, seemed too small even for him. He'd stopped to pick some prickly pears and other fruits I didn't even know could be picked from plants that grew so close to cars and urban sprawl. He motioned for me to stop and share one of those culinary treasures. It was surprisingly sweet and tasty.

He didn't say much. He never did--not even when, even more to my amazement, he showed up on some organized ride or another that started at Grand Army Plaza.

I haven't seen him in a long time. However, I still recall his small stature, silence and his bike: a small-wheeled, non-folding bike.

Probably the closest such bikes ever came to the mainstream market in the US was when they were marketed as "polo bikes." I think that was during the early 1960's, or possibly even earlier; I know that it predated my active cycling life. In any event, a few years later, in the middle of my childhood, bikes with similar dimensions appeared with "banana" seats and all manner of scaled-down race-car accessories.

But that man's bike looked like a grown-up's utility bike built for a dog or cat. It even had a rear rack built into its frame, fenders and a rather sober paint job. As I recall, the rack even had pegs for a pump. I used to see bikes like it strapped to the bumpers of RVs in Europe 30, or even 20, years ago.

I'm not sure of the wheel size: It looked something like the size that was sold as 20 inches in this country, but with somewhat narrower, lower-profile tires. However, the tires seemed more like smaller versions of the old French demi-ballon tires than what came on the Raleigh Twenty and Peugeot folding bikes.

Not long after I first met that man, I found a bike like his in some curbside trash. After rescuing it, I gave it to one of my riding buddies who was something of a tinkerer and liked novel machines. (If I remember correctly, he owned some version of the MG car that was never sold in the US.) I don't know what he did with it: Not long afterward, he moved to Idaho or some such place.

Somehow I imagine him the way I always imagined that little man on the little bike I met so many years ago: in his own world, making his own way on his own little bike that doesn't fold.

Ride On Ice

2012-01-15T22:40:00.000-08:00

Lakythia and I had planned on going for a ride today. But the temperature didn't rise much higher than my (American) shoe size and the wind gusted to speeds not much lower than my age. So we opted for brunch--dim sum in Chinatown, to be exact--instead.

Now I am going to reveal one of the mysteries o the human race. Or, perhaps, I'm simply going to tell you something you'd always suspected. You've probably noticed that it's usually the men who think it's too warm and the women who think it's too cold. Well, I've noticed that my sensitivity to cold, while still not as acute as that of other women I know, has certainly increased since I started taking estrogen, and intensified after my surgery. Before I underwent my transformation, I was one of those guys who, it seemed. always felt too hot.

It's definitely hormonal. I've read that estrogen increases sensitivity to cold and testosterone to heat. I noticed that my sensitivity to cold increased after my estrogen dosage was increased about three months after I started taking it. And, since my surgery, the level of estrogen in my body at any given time has increased, and most of the testosterone is gone.

At least I know that neither training nor diets, nor anything else, will return me to being someone who cycled in shorts on all but the coldest days. However, I'm hoping that increasing my mileage will bring back some of the strength I lost. I've been told that I would have lost some of the hill-climbing ability I once had simply from age. but I don't want to use that--or the hormones--as an excuse.

Then again, I enjoy my rides more than I did. Perhaps that has to do with the changes, too.

Anyway, if the wind dies down, I think I'll go for a ride tomorrow: It's a holiday. Perhaps I can make it a memorial to Charlie.

Charlie R.I.P.

2012-01-14T15:55:00.000-08:00

I really wish I didn't have to say this: Charlie died last night.

No, I wasn't there when it happened. However, I feel pretty certain that he died some time around 8 p.m.

I was pedaling home from work when, all of a sudden, I burst into tears. I was crying so deeply that I could barely see in front of me, much less control my front wheel.

I spotted an ATM I sometimes use, opened the door and wheeled my bike in. I sat in a corner of the vestibule, my tears rolling from my cheeks, down my neck and onto the collar of my jacket. I don't know how long I was there and I don't think anyone came in to use the machines, in spite of its location in the middle of a commercial strip that remains busy well into the night.

When I thought I had my crying under control (a completely unrealistic assumption after my operation and years of taking hormones!), I wheeled out of the vestibule and stepped over the bike's top tube. I rode about two blocks before I saw a tortoiseshell calico in a store window. Even though she looked nothing like Charlie, the faucet was turned on once again. And my legs developed the firmness of tapioca pudding.

Fortunately, there was a subway station only another block away. When a middle-aged woman starts crying on New York City transport, some passengers will look away or pretend not to notice (or, perhaps, will actually not notice), others will give you the widest berth they can, and one or two will give her looks of sympathy. Now, if you're a middle-aged woman with a bike and a helmet dangling from the handlebar, some will react as if a giraffe got on the train, or like Agent Scully from the X-Files.

A Latina who looked about ten years older than me gave me a tissue.

By the time I got home, Charlie was lying on his side, with his rear legs crossed as if he'd taken a tumble. He may very well have done just that: he was lying on a blanket and sheet I used to leave for him on my sofa, and they--and he--were on the floor. I'm guessing that he might have tried to climb on the couch, and when he clawed the sheet or blanket, they slipped off the cushions. I don't know whether that is what killed him, because he didn't look as if he had wounds caused by such a fall. However, as weak as he was, he may have simply not gotten back up.

Anyway...What's the point of playing detective now? He's gone, and I can't stop crying. He's been in my life for six years. Even though I had two other cats, whom I loved dearly, for much longer, I think I developed a bond with him that I have not developed with any other animal. Part of it has to do with the time of my life in which he accompanied me: He came into my home about two years after I started living as Justine, and was with me through all manner of change in my life. And, he curled up by my side, in my lap, or even on my belly when I was lying down, during those days when I was recovering from my surgery.

That he never showed me anything but affection is all the more remarkable when I consider how he came into my life. My friend Millie rescued him from the street. How such a loving--and handsome--cat ended up on the street is one of those mysteries I'd rather not ponder: If someone abandoned him, I don't want to think about the sort of person who would do such a thing.

When I think about that, I think that in my next life, I'd like to have a farm with a bunch of animals, especially cats. When animals attack each other--something Charlie never did, by the way--they are only doing what they are made or hard-wired (or whatever you want to call it) to do. They are not capriciously cruel, they don't maim or kill for fun or profit, and they don't invade other countries whose citizens never harmed them.

After being, possibly, abandoned on the streets, Charlie was always sweet-natured and never wanted anything more than to be fed, stroked, spoken to gently and cuddled. People sometimes come from far more fortunate circumstances and are pointlessly mean and avaricious. Or they simply think only about their own happiness, others be damned.

As I sit and write this, I have my shoulder bag in my lap. It just doesn't feel right.

The Wind And Back

2012-01-13T13:57:00.000-08:00

When you commute, you think a lot about timing. You know that leaving a few minutes earlier or later might put you into, or keep you out of traffic, on some stretch of your ride. You may also notice a temperature difference. In my case, I had completely different weather than I'd've had had I left fifteen minutes earlier than I did.

When I'd originally planned to leave, rain was falling and the temperature was about to fall below 45F, where it had been (give or take a degree or two) through the morning and the previous night. And the air was still calm.

However, I misplaced a couple of papers and searching for them put me about fifteen minutes behind schedule. By then, the rain had stopped and temperatures below freezing were forecast for my commute home. I can live with such conditions, so I decided to chance the weather.

I hadn't counted on one other condition mentioned in the forecast: the wind. I must have had a steady 15MPH (25KPH) stream at my back for the stretch from Woodside all the way to my job. Gusts of at least double that speed turned my back into a sail by the World's Fair Marina. So, in spite of leaving late, I arrived at work early.

I'm still there now, dreading/anticipating riding into the wind that blew me here.

Classy Commuter

2012-01-11T15:21:00.000-08:00

At this early stage of 2012, it probably wouldn't surprise you to know that most of the miles I've pedalled this year have been on my commutes. That got me to thinking of some bikes I've ridden to and from jobs past.

Here's a bike I haven't thought about in a while: a Miyata three-speed. I'm guessing it was the 1981 model shown in the catalogue page above because it matches, in every detail, the bike I rode for about two years.

It actually was a classy-looking bike: Were I wearing suits to work, I would have had no difficulty riding it--or the ladies' (non-mixte) model were I wearing skirts and heels. However, I was working jobs that had no dress codes, and even by those standards, I didn't dress particularly well.

Still, I recall enjoying the ride of the bike very much. I think it had a somewhat tighter geometry than other three-speeds like the ones made by Raleigh, Peugeot and Schwinn. Equally important, the frame was made out of lugged chromoly tubing, which was considerably lighter than the frames on those other bikes. Plus, most of the components--including the rims, cranks, handlebars, stem, fenders and chainguard--were made from aluminum alloy rather than steel.

Back then, 3-speeds (or any other commuter-specific bikes) weren't "hip:" thus, I was able to buy mine when it was about two years old for about 50 dollars. (If I recall correctly, it sold for about 300 dollars new.)  Occasionally, someone would compliment it on its looks; more often, though, I found myself defending it when someone wondered aloud why I didn't get a racing bike (which I had, in fact, in addition to the Miyata three-speed).  And I enjoyed knowing that I was riding something not many other people--at least in America--were riding.

However, the bike shared one shortcoming with many other Japanese bikes of the time: its wheels. Japanese rims and spokes of that time were heavier but not as strong as their European counterparts, and the Japanese "stainless" spokes often corroded, even on bikes that weren't ridden in the rain and were stored indoors.   Within a few months, I had to re-spoke the rear wheel with a new rim. In fact, it was one of the first wheels I laced myself.

In lacing a new Weinmann concave rim to the hub, I discovered that the largest-gauge DT spokes available were too small for the spoke holes in the Shimano three-speed hub.  Fortunately, I hadn't tensioned the wheel, so it was relatively easy to unlace them and re-fit the hub and spokes with washers between the spoke heads and hub.

Then I discovered that the Shimano three-speed hub simply wasn't as strong or reliable as the Sturmey-Archers on the old English three-speeds. I don't know how many models Shimano made then, but the one I had seemed to be the only one exported to the US. This was in the days when Shimano was notorious for not making spare parts available. So, unless you knew someone with a pipeline to the factory in Japan, you were SOL if something wore or broke down in the hub. And it happened to mine within a year after re-lacing the wheel.

I should also note that those were the days when Sturmey-Archer's quality declined precipitously, and I'm not sure whether SunTour was still making three-speed hubs. Sachs, common on bikes in Germany and Benelux countries, was all but unavailable in the US. So, if I wanted to keep the bike a three-speed, my best option would have been to find a Sturmey-Archer from the 1960's or earlier.   I never took on that project, for someone made an unsolicited offer of 400 dollars for the bike. Being the Starving Artist I was then, I took him up on it.

But having that quick but classy commuter probably had more of an effect on me than I ever realized it would: It's probably the reason I ride Vera to and from work now. She's even quicker and classier than that Miyata could have been.

Ride To, Or To Ride

2012-01-10T14:20:00.000-08:00

Do you ride to go places? Or, do you go places to ride?

Those questions came to mind when, on my way to work, I saw the gull in the photo circling across an inlet from the World's Fair Marina. That bird had about as un-picturesque a view as any could have: Between the Home Depot and the orange-and-white "silo" are auto-body shops, a cement factory, scrap-metal yards and some warehouses, punctuated by garbage dumps. Yet that bird was flying because it needed to and because he/she probably found plenty to eat.

Of course, when we are riding to work, we have a very speicific destination in mind. And some of our other rides are like that. But much of the time, when I'm on my bike, I don't care that much about where I'm riding: I am happy simply to be in the saddle. Interestingly, today I felt that way for at least part of my commute.

I think Vera was rather enjoying it, too.

Chelsea Couple

2012-01-08T14:35:00.000-08:00

People have told me that, given my history and proclivities, I really don't spend much time in Chelsea. Actually, coming from some people I know, that statement is an accusation rather than an observation!

The funny thing is, I used to spend more time there when it was still largely a working-class Irish neighborhood and, later, when art galleries that couldn't afford to stay in Soho moved to the western fringe of the neighborhood. Those times were well before my transition.

Anyway, Chelsea is like a lot of places in that it's very different if you know people there and go into their homes. Otherwise, it's mostly a shopping area with lots of restaurants and the Piers. But, inside the apartment blocks, tenements and restored brownstones, there are all kinds of stories. A few of them can be told by the bikes parked outside:

For those of you more interested in the bikes than in my scintillating social commentary or historical perspective (You know who you are! ;-) ), the bikes are of course both Dutch-style city commuters/commuters. The one on the fence is a Raleigh, believe it or not. The bike leaning against it was made in Belgium by Mechelen (?).

In black, they make for a rather distinguished if bourgeois couple who have their charm. Isn't that what every couple wants to be, at the end of the day?

A Model Cyclist In Chelsea

2012-01-07T22:54:00.000-08:00

Today felt more like the seventh of May than the seventh of January, at least in terms of weather. So, there were plenty of people on their bikes, and some were wearing clothing that wasn't designed to shed rain or snow, or to fend off cold.

One of those riders, whom I met in Chelsea, strikes me as someone who would look absolutely fabulous on her bike in any season:

This sweet and engaging young woman is Andrea Diodati. She's been featured on other bike blogs, she said. I assured her that this one is not like any of the others. After all, how many bike bloggers are like me?

More to the point, how many cyclists have her sense of style? If you want to feature it, she's at electriclovelight.gmail.com. Come on, admit it: You want to write her just to type out that address!

Frosty On A Bike

2012-01-06T15:31:00.000-08:00

Today the temperature reached 50F and I didn't ride.

Why?

I just lost a riding partner...

On The Way: More Memories Of Bikes Past

2012-01-05T16:28:00.000-08:00

I'm going to start making good on a sort-of-promise that I made (or was it a promise I sort-of-made) in the early days of this blog: I'm going to write posts about the bikes I've owned and, perhaps, a few that I've ridden and haven't owned.

My bikes probably won't appear chronologically, or according to any other kind of scheme. However, I do plan to make a list of posts of my bikes past, and make that list available on the sidebar of this blog.

I've been looking through my old photos for some images of my old rides. Now I just need to buy a scanner, or find one that I can use somewhere. I don't have photos of some of my bikes; for those, I'll use old catalogue illustrations or borrow photos from other websites.

If any of you have a time machine, I'll go back and take photos of my old bikes. So far, I figure that I've had about sixty bikes during my lifetime.

In case you're interested, here are some links to posts I've already written about pedals past:

Royce-Union Three-Speed

Nishiki International

Schwinn Continental

Romic Sport-Tourer

Bridgestone RB-2

I don't know how long it will be before I post all of my old bikes on this blog, but I intend to do so. I hope that you'll continue coming here, not just for those posts, but for all of the scintillating wit and wisdom I plan to write in between them.

Not The Way To Commemorate Michael Jackson

2012-01-04T17:37:00.000-08:00

For all of his foibles and questionable behavior, I always thought Michael Jackson was one of the greatest entertainers of his generation. True, he made all of his worthwhile music before he turned thirty. (In fact, I think that was one of the things that caused or exacerbated many of his problems: The only way he could "outdo" himself after those great albums and videos was through outrageous behavior.) But you had to admit: He could always put on a show.

Somehow, though, I doubt he did much cycling, ever. I don't think much he ever did was conducive to pedaling two wheels. And his fashion sense, as interesting as it could be, simply doesn't work when you're in the saddle.

One example of what I mean was his practice of wearing one white glove. For one thing, about the only white articles of clothing I ever wore on a bike were the socks I raced in: Back then, the USCF and the UCI didn't allow racers to wear anything else under their Detto Pietros. Wearing white while cycling simply never made any sense to me; for that matter, I rarely wear much of anything in white because, when I do, I ruin it. Also, when I haven't had much sun, I look sickly in white.

But back to Michael Jackson: Wearing one glove isn't very practical on a bike. Sometimes I ride gloveless, but not when the weather is anything like it's been the past couple of days.

Sometime during my workday yesterday, I managed to lose one of my gloves. By the time I was ready to leave, the temperature had dropped to 18F and a brisk wind blew out of the northwest. The college in which I work is about half a mile from a strip of stores, all of which were closed.

Another few blocks away, there's another strip. By the time I passed it, only a Rite-Aid Drugstore and a Mandee's were open. RA didn't have any gloves, though they had things like electric socks and blankets. That left Mandee's, which had only those too-cute fingerless gloves that has a "hood" you can slip over the fingers--but not the thumb. They weren't much, but I figured they were better than nothing.

So I bought a pair and, every few minutes, brought each hand to my lips and blew hot air (Some people tell me I'm full of it.) over each thumb. Still, by the time I got home, my hands were tingling and my thumbs were numb. I was only too happy that Charlie and Max wanted me to stroke them!

There are lots of good ways to commemorate MJ. Emulating his sartorial style when you get on a bike isn't one of them!

The Best Bike I Ever Lost

2012-01-03T15:56:00.000-08:00

Vera is once again up and running. She got me to work today. I definitely count my blessings that I lost only a seat and post, not the whole bike.

I am making a couple of other modifications to her and, when they're done, I'll show her in her new glory.

Speaking of theft: Yes, I have had bicycles stolen. Four, in fact. Two were "beaters" and I actually got one of them back after the owner of one of the shops in which I worked spotted it when he was riding home. However, another bike that was stolen from me was a high-quality, nearly new, road bike: a 1994 Bridgestone RB-2.

I bought it as a "leftover" at a substantial discount the following year. Most Bridgestones--at least the higher-end models--sold out in most years; I considered myself lucky to get one that was more or less the right size for me. I didn't "need" another bike, as I had high-quality road and mountain bikes, but I got a deal that was simply too good to pass up.

It came in a blue-green (I thought it was more blue) metallic finish that I liked, although I would have liked the plum metallic, the other color choice offered that year, even better. However, for the price I paid, I wasn't about to be picky.

I put a pair of Michelin 700 X28C cyclo-cross tires and rack on it with the intention of making the bike my commuter and winter road ride. That plan worked for about three months, if I remember correctly. At the time, I was teaching at the New York City Technical College (now the New York City College of Technology). The good news was that it was less than five minutes, by bike, from the Park Slope apartment in which I was living. However, the bad news was that it was in what was still a high-crime area of downtown Brooklyn.

The college consisted of a couple of fairly grimy concrete and steel buildings from the years just after World War II that sucked up all of the soot from nearby factories and the cars and trucks entering the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges. Bicycles weren't allowed inside any of the buildings. But nearly every day, I bought coffee and something to eat from a truck that stood just outside the main entrance. The owner told me to park my bike at the parking meter nearest his truck, plainly within his sight. I did that for a couple of months.

Well, one day, he was sick and someone else--a nephew, I think--manned the truck. And, after teaching eighteen- and nineteen-year-olds where to put commas in their sentences, I walked over to the truck, only to find my bike gone.

The young man in the truck claimed to see nothing.

I'd been using the best lock Kryptonite made at the time. They paid the full retail cost of the bike, minus the deductible. After another paycheck or two, I could have bought another RB-2, even at the regular price. The only problem was that they weren't available any more. It was made in Japan and the dollar lost a lot of value against the yen, making the bike, and others built in Japan, much more expensive in the US than they had been. So Bridgestone and other Japanese bike makers (like Miyata and Panasonic) simply stopped exporting to the US. (Other Japanese makers, like Fuji, outsourced their manufacturing to Taiwan and China.)

Because I already had a high-end road bike, a nice track bike and a pretty good mountain bike, I simply used the latter bike for commutes and saved up for a nicer mountain bike, as I was becoming a fairly serious off-road rider. But I missed the RB-2: It was a sweet ride and the time I had it marked the first time in my life I had more than one good road bike.

Getting On My High Wheel

2012-01-02T22:52:00.000-08:00

Has anybody out there ridden a high-wheeler (or, as they were called in England, "penny-farthing")? Every once in a while, I think I'd like to ride one.

Of course, there's one logistical problem: finding such a bike. And then I'd have to get a pair of bloomers. I suppose I could ride in a short skirt, but somehow that wouldn't be in the spirit of riding a bike like the one in the photo.

New Year's Day Rides

2012-01-01T22:49:00.000-08:00

There are cyclists who ride on New Year's Day and don't mount their bikes again until the Spring. I once rode with some of them. We began at six in the morning and were done by noon or thereabouts.

I guess I don't have to mention that I was unattached and didn't drink the previous night. However, I did stay up to watch the ball drop on Times Square. I don't know when I went to bed, but I know I didn't get more than a couple of hours of sleep. Still, somehow I managed to do a century (in miles, not a metric century), which included a few short but fairly steep climbs, to Bear Mountain and back.

The funny thing is that all of us who did that ride were in really good condition, and most of us were young and male, yet it didn't have quite the same competitive spirit one finds on rides like it. n fact, it had less egotism among the riders than almost any ride I did with male riders before my transition. I guess we gave each other "props" simply for being there, even though we knew that some of us wouldn't see each other again for at least another two months.

My ride today was nothing like that. For one thing, I woke up later and ate something like a real breakfast. And I made and received a few "Happy New Year" phone calls, which I avoided on the morning of my long-ago ride. And, well, I'm not in the kind of shape I was in back then. However, it was a clear, mild day, and there was--unsurprisingly--little traffic anywhere.

Plus, I stopped to check out a few things along the way.

This house is about a mile from my apartment. I saw two a man, a couple and a woman walk by with their kids. None wanted to leave. I didn't, either: How often does one see a miniature village, Santa's workshop and a toy store all in one. I can't hope to portray the attention the owners of this house paid to detail, but I will show you some of the more enchanting parts of their display:

This is the part right above where I propped Tosca. She couldn't take her eyes off this place, for reasons visible in the next photo:

While there was no haze in this part of the display, another part had its own misty marvel:

Now, if your idea of a great view doesn't run to castles, you might like what I saw when I left and crossed the RFK Bridge:

The blue domes adorn a Greek Orthodox temple. Seeing them in that landscape of residential houses reminds me, somewhat, of a particular view from the hill of le Sacre Coeur de Montmartre in Paris. Looking down from that hill, you see block after block of fin de siecle and Beaux Arts townhouses and apartment houses, nearly all of which stand three to six stories high. That vista is interrupted by the glass and steel planes and chutes of le Centre Pompidou.

After crossing the bridge, I came face-to-face with a very inquisitive mind:

I heard him meow as I rode by. His eyes pleaded with me to stop. As soon as I got off my bike, he darted to my ankles and rubbed himself around my legs. I hope that he belongs to someone in one of the nearby houses; he simply does not belong on the street. I actually picked him up and he curled around my shoulder for a moment before deciding he wanted to follow the laws of gravity.

Isn't it interesting that dogs sometimes chase cyclists, but cats can be fascinated with bicycles? In a perfect world, they could accompany us on our rides--whether to begin the new year, or to continue a journey.

Old Salt, Or Diamond (Frames) With Rust

2011-12-31T10:21:00.000-08:00

Steve of DFW Point-to-Point has a point: Salt air really is rough on bicycle parts. I should have taken a photo of the bike I rode when I was in Florida. Every time I see it, the spokes and other parts are more corroded than they were the previous time I rode. It seems the spokes get the worst corrosion. At least, that seems to be the case for the non-plated, non-stainless spokes found on cheap bikes like the one I rode.

Whenever I'm in Florida, I see lots of bikes that have so much rust that it's a wonder they still run. Even the more inland areas are affected by salt air, and there are many bikes that spend years or even decades in garages or on porches after their owners stop riding them.

I must say that just about everyone who looked like he or she was riding long miles or doing any kind of training was astride an aluminum or carbon bike. Those riders are young and tend to be more swayed by trends, but I suspect their choice of ride might be influnced by the salt air and humid conditions. A mechanic with whom I worked spent a few years in Florida, where he worked in two bike shops. He told me that he often saw parts rusted clear through, and hubs that rotted on the inside because of the humidity and salt air.

Well, this year is old, too, although it's not rusty. So, as this will probably be my last post of 2011, I want to wish you a Happy New Year and lots of safe, enjoyable and fulfilling rides!

Going To The Beach And Riding To The Ocean

2011-12-29T23:32:00.000-08:00

Many years ago (before many of you were born!), I dated an astrologer. Apparently, I am a Cancerian--or, as some politically-correct types would say, a "Moon Child. However, Astrologer was not politically correct, at least not in matters of pigeonholing, I mean pegging, people's personalities and destinies. So, she told me that I was "such a Cancerian."

Later on, she would remove the "ian" suffix and continue the sentence. But that's another story.

According to her--and everything I've heard or read (admittedly, not much) about the subject since, Cancer is a "water" sign. In fact, Astrologer claimed that Cancer is the "ultimate" water sign and, according to her charts, I was about as Cancerian as one could be.

If nothing else, it was a pretty good rationale, at least for her, for ending our relationship. But that's yet another story.

Anyway, I will concede that there is at least some truth to what she said. I am certainly drawn to water. Not to beaches, necessarily, but to water--wide expanses and endless vistas of it. I am so drawn, in fact, that sometimes everything along the way can seem like the desert.

Now, I've never actually ridden through a desert and, truth be told, never had any desire to do any such thing. This is probably as close as I'll come to it. I can hardly imagine anything that contrasts more with the ocean.

Sometimes, at the end of a bike ride, the ocean greets me: "Where have you been?"

Sometimes I cannot explain; when I can, the answer never makes any sense to someone who's gone to the beach. I know I am a different person when I go to the beach from what I am when I pedal to the ocean.

Another day, I will join them again. After that, I will continue the ride I took today, on my bike, to the ocean.

Christmas, 4512 Miles From Casablanca

2011-12-26T22:48:00.000-08:00

Do you see what I see?

This is what, among other things, I saw for my Christmas Day ride. It ain't Rockaway Beach; that's for sure.

I saw these sights while pedaling along the Atlantic Ocean on Route A-1A from Matanzas Bay to Ormond Beach in Florida. When I got to Ormond, which is about ten miles from Daytona, I encountered something you'll never find in the Rockaways:

This guy thinks it's about time we've been slowed down. And he means business:

Seriously, though, he wishes us all a good holiday!

My Lost Brooks Saddle: It's IKEA's Fault! '-)

2011-12-23T21:01:00.000-08:00

I solved the problem of my lost saddle by taking a trip to IKEA:

This stool was actually created for the home-furnishings chain that, it's said, made and sold the beds on which one in every ten living Europeans was conceived. Hmm...If some couple wanted to get it off on a stool like this, would they have to add the saddle's break-in time to the nine months of pregancy if they want to figure out when their little one would be born?

Thanks to all of you who expressed concern and outrage. May the bike gods and goddesses whisper in Santa's ear on your behalf! And to anyone else reading this: Happy Holidays!

Losing A Seat

2011-12-21T22:42:00.000-08:00

I can't believe it happened again.

I take that back...I can. Things are becoming more difficult, which means that people are becoming more desperate, or simply opportunistic.

Whatever the explanation, I experienced something I thought I knew better than to allow to happen.

I took Vera to take care of some business in Midtown Manhattan: 34th Street, a block from the Empire State Building, to be exact. I locked up the frame and wheels and took off anything that someone could abscond with...or so I thought.

When I came out, after about an hour and a half, my saddle and seatpost were gone. Perhaps the thief wanted the bike and, upon realizing he (All right, I'm sexist.) wouldn't get it, took what he could.

So now I'm out a Brooks B-17 saddle in honey. Yes, I'm glad the thief didn't get the whole bike or, say, the wheels. Still...

Workin' It

2011-12-20T17:59:00.000-08:00

Some bikes look right only when they've got half of their paint missing and look beat right down to their inner tubes.

Well, all right, I didn't see the inner tubes on this one. But I imagine that they have, if nothing else, the feel and scent of a pair of flip-flops swished and slogged through curbside puddles during a summer rainstorm.

But, really, can you imagine this bike--from Worksman Cycles--new? The paint job may have been rather attractive, if in a utilitarian sort of way. Somehow, though, it wouldn't have looked right.

I must say that in my more than three decades of cycling, I've seen only one "virgin" Worksman. One shop in which I worked was an official Worksman dealer. Highland Park Cyclery did a brisk business inside a ramshackle building (which was torn down after HPC moved to fancier digs) at the foot of a commercial strip across the river from the college (Rutgers) I attended as an undergraduate. Some of the stores and restaurants offered deliveries, some of which they made on bikes. Those shops and restaurants already had their delivery bikes--Worksmans, mostly--before I started working at HPC.

So it was something of a surprise--to me, anyway--when I found myself assembling a brand-new Worksman. I didn't mind that: Although it wasn't a bike I'd've bought for myself, it was easy to work on. Plus, one could not deny that it was suited about as well as any product could be to its purpose.

What surprised me, though, was that it wasn't a business that bought one. Rather, he was--as I recall--a married middle-aged man who ran a "consulting business" from his home. He never consulted me about what his business consulted on, but he seemed prosperous and his family harmonious.

He said he'd wanted his Worksman to use as his "human powered station wagon." Later, I saw him hauling groceries, building supplies, books, and even furniture on it. Another thing I find interesting, in retrospect, was that he was looking to become less dependent on his car (which he sold not long after buying the Worksman) at a time when gasoline prices were falling, at least relative to what they were in the days around the Iran Hostage Crisis.

Although I saw that man on his Worksman nearly every day, it didn't seem to wear much. Granted, Highland Park wasn't as harsh an environment as New York or other urban zones for a bike. Plus, I'm sure he didn't subject it to the same kind of abuse as most delivery people did to theirs.

Apparently, in spite of the fact that the bikes never seem to die, there's enough of a market for new ones that the company is thriving, and did even during the leanest of times in the American bike market, and before the current vogue for "cruisers". I guess that disproves the notion that if a product is so well-made that it never needs replacement, the company making it will lose sales and stop making it, or even go out of business. (Some old-timers claim that was the story of Weinmann concave rims and Sun Tour V-GT derailleurs.) In any event, the bikes are being made in the Ozone Park area of Queens, NY, about seven miles from my apartment and just off the route of a few of my regular rides.

Afterword: I was looking up Highland Park Cyclery. Apparently, they've moved up the road into neighboring Edison and have renamed themselves Joyful Cycles, in a reference to 1 Thessolonians 5:16-18. Ironically, Frank, who owned HPC while I worked there, and his wife Wendy were about as antithetical to religious fundamentalism as any two people could be!

The End Of A Ride As I Know It

2011-12-18T22:15:00.000-08:00

Arielle was rather sad.

We went on one of our favorite rides and we saw that it had changed.

The "lookout" point of Point Lookout has been fenced off since the last time we visited. My fence-climbing days have passed; I figure that if I won't do it to help save the planet or some such thing, I won't do it to go and sit on some rocks (concrete slabs, actually) that jut into the water. Plus, I learned in no uncertain terms that I'm not welcome.

As many times as I've ridden here, I don't make a very convincing resident. For one thing, it seems that the locals--if they ride--ride beach cruisers. Plus, my income falls short by a digit or two for living in the village of Point Lookout.

I assured Arielle that nothing is her fault; she wasn't upset with me for going on a ride I couldn't complete. Yes, I rode home--64 miles in all--but I don't consider it a complete ride.

I'd like to hope that the park will be open again in the spring. If not, well, what can I say? Over the past few years, I've begun a new chapter in my life, which includes having found new riding buddies. I guess it's also time for me to find new places to ride locally.

A Cycling Holiday Like None You've Seen

2011-12-14T22:38:00.000-08:00

Between all of the student conferences, papers and exams, and all of the people who have decided that they absolutely must have a meeting about their pet projects, I have to remind myself that this is the "holiday season."

Indeed it is. Chanukkah celebrations have begun, and, of course, the Winter Equinox, Christmas, Boxing Day and Kwanzaa will soon be upon us. I want so much to do a ride for fun...

My current situation got me to thinking about a "cycling holiday." On the other side of the pond, that means taking a vacation on two wheels. But I was thinking of the phrase in the American way: a holiday (what the Brits and other Euros would call a "fete") that includes cycling.

Now here's a cycling holiday you won't see in America or Europe:

Actually, this photo was taken during Yom Kippur. Can you imagine anything like this along the West Side Highway or along I-95?

The Ghost Of A Hipster Fixie (For Bronx Jon)

2011-12-12T21:13:00.000-08:00

If you've cycled in New York, or any number of other cities, you've probably seen a "ghost bike." It's painted white, and is usually an old, donated or discarded, bike. This somber reminder of a cyclist who's been struck or killed by a motor vehicle is locked to a sign post or other structure by the site of the accident, and is accompanied by a small sign.

When I went to meet Lakythia for a ride yesterday, I saw one I'd seen many times before. Not to make light of it, but I couldn't help but to think, "Where else but in Williamsburg?"

The neighborhood is, after all, the de facto home of the "hipster fixie." As far as I know, this is the only bike of that genre to become a "ghost." It commemorates "Bronx Jon":

To Jon, or your family or friends: I mean no disrespect. I'm glad that you've been so memorialized. I think, though, that your memorial may well be one of a kind.

Christmas Bikes And Trees

2011-12-10T21:24:00.000-08:00

For Christmas, a lot of kids dream of finding a bike under the tree. Actually, most kids who got bikes for Christmas--myself included--didn't find their wheels "under" pine branches strung with lights. More likely, their Schwinns or Columbias or Raleighs were beside the tree, or in another location altogether. You have to live in a fairly big place in order to have a big enough space for a tree under which a bike can stand.

Anyway...wherever Santa actually leaves the bike, we still have an image of Christmas that includes a bike under the tree. But I wonder: Has anyone imagined a holiday season in which the bike becomes the Christmas tree?

This is part of a massive display from the Assiniboine Valley Railway in Winnipeg.

Bikes! Trains! Sleds! Trees! Sounds like a Christmas diorama come to life.

Bike Noir

2011-12-07T21:06:00.000-08:00

Really, I don't like to leave my bikes in the rain. But sometimes it's inevitable.

Such was the case last night. I managed to just beat the rain on my way to work. As you may know, one of my favorite games is "playing chicken with the rain." So, I always run the risk of getting caught, or parking, in the rain--or of going to work dry and coming out to find a wet bike.

I guess I shouldn't be so surprised that Vera would take to a rain-slicked night. The raindrops and streetlights bring out her natural glow, I guess.

She likes to show a little leg now and again. Given that she kept going, and got me to work before the rain, I can certainly indulge her!

Into The Corners Of The Evening

2011-12-05T20:30:00.000-08:00

Tonight I took a slightly different route home from the ones I normally take. Part of the reason I did that was to avoid a very snarled intersection I pedaled through on my way in. (Why do they call them "construction" projects when they're tearing things apart?) Also, I wanted a bit of variety to shake myself out of my doldrums, as I've been a bit "under the weather" for the past couple of days.

So, from being under a blanket of flannel, I pedaled into a developing blanket of fog.

Plenty of cyclists, including yours truly, have talked and written about cycling in rain, snow and any number of other weather conditions. But I can't recall the last time I heard or read any mention of fog. I guess there isn't much in particular you can do about it. You don't really need your foul-weather gear, but lights and other high-visibility accessories are a good idea.

I rather enjoy cycling in fog, especially when it builds, as it did on my way home tonight. And, no, I'm not phased by cemeteries: I'm respectful of the dead, and they haven't done anything terrible to me. On two different bike tours I actually slept in cemeteries. I cleaned up after myself before leaving, which may be another reason why I have good karma, or whatever you want to call it, in necropoli. But I digress...

What's interesting about fog is that it develops more subtly than other kinds of weather. Stopping to watch it won't let you see how it gathers or creeps across the land. At some point, you just notice it, like some image that's developed on a screen before your eyes, but at the same time hidden in plain sight. In fact, sometimes you feel the moisture against your face before you see anything. Or, you feel, as I did, what seems to be a drop in the temperature. It felt about ten degrees colder by the time I got home than it did when I started although, according to weather reports, the temperature remained constant at 54F (12C), which is rather mild for this time of year.

Most of the drivers were also going home. Some of their cars turned their lights on automatically, so I wonder just how much, if at all, they noticed the fog developing.

Now I'll leave you with my favorite literary depiction of fog, from one of my favorite poems:

The yellow fog that rubs its back on the window-panes
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap
And seeing that it was a soft October night
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

(From "The Love Song Of J.Alfred Prufrock" by T.S. Eliot)

The Season

2011-12-03T22:13:00.000-08:00

In her most recent post, "Velouria" wrote about what seemed to be the end of her road riding season and the beginning of winter. The signal, for her, came when the group with whom she'd been riding packed it in for the season and she no longer had a fast road bike to ride. Fortunately, she found another group that will continue to ride every week as long as they're not snow- or ice-bound, and the road bike she'd converted to a "fixie" has become a road bike again.

Still, her post got me to thinking about the way the seasons signal themselves for cyclists. Some of us mark the beginning or end of road- (or off-road) riding season with our first or last rides of the year with some group or another of riders. Other cyclists, perhaps, see the beginning or end of their cycling seasons (or mark different riding seasons within the year) as the daylight hours grow longer or shorter. Other cyclists, I imagine, have other kinds of seasonal cues.

Somehow, though, I felt I saw a clear signal of winter's approach the other day, when I managed to sneak over to Rockaway Beach before work: