Christmas Bikes And Trees

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.  

Deck The Halls With...

Two weeks from today is Christmas Day.

I'll admit, I don't do much holiday decorating.  Part of it has to do with time constraints:  The holiday season coincides with the end of the semester. So, while other people are stringing lights and hanging globes and stars and such from trees, I'm grading papers, reading exams and explaining to students why they're not getting credit for a course in which they didn't attend half of the sessions and turned in the whole semester's work on the last day of class.

All right, I'll stop whining.  I didn't do a lot of decorating even when I wasn't teaching.  When I do have time, I'd rather ride, read, write or see people than to spend hours putting up things I'll have to take down a couple of weeks later.

Still, I sometimes like looking at other people's work and even admire some of those really over-the-top displays you can see in those New-York-City-in-name-only neighborhoods.

Then, of course, there are ornaments related to bicycles. Basically, they fall into two categories:  those that are made to look like bicycles and those that are made from parts of actual bicycles.  The latter category includes the sub-genre that might be called 1001 Uses For Bicycle Chains:

When ordering, be sure to specify 12, 11, 10, 9, 8/7/6/5 speed or 1/8".

In the category of ornaments that look like bikes (and riders), here are some interesting ones:

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Now, this one isn't specifically a Christmas ornament:

but I believe it conveys the sentiment of this season:

Boxing Day And Big Box Stores

Today, the day after Christmas, is known as Boxing Day throughout the English-speaking world--except, of course, in the United States.  Here, after our so-called War of Independence, we decided to toss out everything British.  But somehow or another we managed to keep the class system, although we did away with the titles.

All right, enough political ranting.  I mention this holiday because I recall how, the first time I heard about it, I wondered whether people went to see fights or, perhaps, whether they fought each other.  (I'll bet some people fight, especially spouses and other family members, after something or another that didn't go as planned on Christmas Day!)  Perhaps South African officials realized other people thought as I did when, in that country, the holiday was re-named  Day of Goodwill in 1994.

 


In other countries, particularly England, Canada and Australia, stores offer huge discounts because most people wouldn't enter a store otherwise--unless, of course, they are exchanging gifts.  Our stores do the same, but they're simply called "Day-After-Christmas sales".

It seems that those big retail events are as much a part of small mom-and-pop stores as of "big box" outlets.  And they're part of just about every sector of the retail industry, with a few notable exceptions.

One of those exceptions is, of course, the bicycle retail industry.  The "big box" stores might offer big discounts on bikes purchased in boxes, but even those price reductions usually aren't as great as those for, say, bed linens or kitchenware, let alone Christmas decorations, gift wrapping and cards.  And small bike shops might offer relatively small discounts--say, 10 or 20 percent, in contrast to the 50-75 percent reductions typical for holiday-related items--on bicycles or even high-quality components.  Sometimes prices are slashed on bike accessories, such as computers, but the selection tends to be small.

 

When I worked in bike shops, people used to ask me why they couldn't find the sorts of sales they were accustomed to seeing on items like luggage and home electronics in bike shops.  The not-so-short answer goes something like this:  Profit margins on bicycles are fairly small.  Paradoxically, high-end bikes actually have even smaller margins than those on bikes sold to the masses.  

One reason for that is that the more you buy of something, the better a price you can get on each unit--and a bike shop simply cannot buy in the volume in which departments stores make their purchases.  In fact, even some mom-and-pop stores buy their wares in greater quantities than most shops will buy of any given model of bike.  The obvious reason is, of course, that bikes take up more space than most other items sold in most other kinds of stores.   

But even on components, few shops make mass purchases of, say, Campagnolo Record Ergo shifters or Dura-Ace cranksets.  That is because the market for such items is still small, and because those companies, and others, change their offerings more frequently than in times past (I still remember when Campagnolo and other European manufacturers made, essentially, the same derailleur or brake or other item for decades!), a shop might be stuck with a high-end item for years, or even for the life of the shop itself.  While such items might make for nice showcase displays, they don't add to the store's bottom line. 

If you do see large day-after-Christmas--or Boxing Day-- discounts on bikes or parts, you're most likely shopping online.  Companies like Performance and Chain Reaction Cycles buy in far greater quantities than any local shop ever could and therefore get better prices, which allows them to offer lower prices to customers.  In fact, an industry insider once told me that Performance actually buys whole boatloads of Shimano components and has them trucked directly to their giant warehouse.

Anyway--I avoid shopping for anything on the Boxing Day, St. Stephen Day, the Day of the Wren, the first day of Kwaanza or whatever you call 26 December, just as I avoid it on Black Friday.

My Christmas Lights Tour

Perhaps your city has a Christmas Lights Tour.  If it doesn't, and you've never heard of the concept, give you a brief description.  You buy a ticket, get into a bus or van that takes you past the most beautifully or ostentatiously decorated houses.

And trust me, the stereotype about the most over-decorated houses belonging to Italian-Americans is mostly true.  As you can tell from my last name, my heritage (most of it, anyway) comes from the "boot".  That makes me an authority on such things.  Really!  Oh, and my family's house would have been part of one of those tours, had anybody come up with the idea of running them back then.

I don't think I will ever put so much time and effort into stringing lights and putting up props that will be taken down a couple of weeks later.  Also, even if I were to become rich, I wouldn't want to pay the electric bills the owners of those houses run up.  But I can look at them---from my Brooks saddle.

You see where this is going:  I did a "lights" tour on my bike.  I didn't stray very far from my place.  But I put in a couple of hours of riding to see these:

First, I pedaled to 2179 25th Avenue in Astoria.  I first discovered this place during the first Christmas season I spent, six years ago, in my current place.  

I am alwas amazed at how the owner of the house manages to turn the front into a collection of little Christmas dioramas.

Wherever I start, and in whichever direction I go, every "panel" seems more wonderful and elaborate than the last.  

Hey, you can even watch the umpteenth rerun of "Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer"!:

I would say that the owner of this house certainly gives the neighborhood a gift every Christmas:

From this place, I rode to "thirty by thirty":  the corner of 30th Street and 30th Road:

The four-colored lights look simple. But I like the way they're arranged.  From the front, they give this house an almost-Asian look:

Finally, back to my block.  Interesting, isn't it, how two adjoining row houses can have such different styles of decorating:

Reflecting Phantoms and Sting Rays

Some Christians celebrate today, the 6th of January, as the Epiphany.  It's the day after the Twelfth Night of Christmas, so this day is often regarded as the end of the Christmas season.

While some folks take down their Christmas trees and decorations the day after the holiday, or on New Year's Day, I've known many others who put away their holiday decorations on this date.  Also, many decorations in public places like shopping malls and town squares are removed on or around this date.

Such places include the Atlas Park, about 10 kilometers from my apartment.  It's an open-air mall very similar in design to European Village of Palm Coast, Florida.  Both opened around the same time:  just in time for the financial crisis of 2007-2008.  But while EV was built on previously undeveloped land, AP was constructed on the site of Atlas Terminal Industrial Park, which once housed General Electric, Kraft, Westinghouse and New York Telephone as well as other manufacturers.

I don't know whether any Christmas decorations were ever made there.  In the confines of ATIP, however, a company made functional objects that could have served as tree or window ornaments:

If you're of, ahem, a certain age, you might have ridden a bike equipped with those reflectors.  You might still have them, or these:

Gulco "6 pie" reflector, above and below.

6

Schwinns and other bikes from the 1940s through the 1970s came with Gulco reflectors.  Sometimes the company's information was engraved on the metal backing:  Charles Gulotta Company (hence Gulco) of Glendale, New York.  

We all know that modern reflectors and lights do their jobs better than their earlier counterparts.  But you have to admit, those old lights and reflectors had style, or at least character, you just don't find in the new stuff.

Bikes from the 1940s and 1950s used the "bubble" or "jewel" reflectors, while Sting Rays and "muscle" bikes from the 1960s and 1970s came with "2 pie" or "6 pie" reflectors.   All fetch premium prices on eBay.  So does the special bracket that attached "6 pie" reflectors to "banana" seats on Sting Rays.

The small "jewel" reflectors were sometimes attached to the end of leather strips wrapped around hub shafts.  Hipsters and other urban fixed-gear riders sometimes replicate those "hub shiners" on their new machines.

Gulotta/Gulco didn't make reflectors only for bicycles.  The smaller ones were often used to attach license plates to cars and motorcycles; other "shiners" were also found on boats, trucks and other vehicles.

During the 1970s, Japanese bicycles found popularity among American cyclists.  Much about them was equal or superior to their American and European counterparts:  the lug work was often cleaner (at least on the lower- and middle-priced bikes), the SunTour and Shimano derailleurs were easier to shift and more precise and the bikes  represented better overall values for the money.  The Cateye reflectors that came with Fujis, Nishikis, Miyatas and other Japanese bikes were brighter, lighter in weight and sturdier (or at least less delicate).

I tried to obtain information on how long Gulotta/Gulco continued to manufacture.  All I could find were reports that "Charles Gulotta Co Inc" was first registered as a business name in 1925; a trademark application was filed in 1960, approved the following year and renewed in 1981 and "dead/cancelled" in 2002.  So, my guess is that Gulotta/Gulco was making reflectors--though, possibly, not bike-specific ones--into the 1980s, and possibly the 1990s.  By 2000, Atlas was no longer functioning as an industrial facility.

If you're restoring a Schwinn Phantom or Sting Ray, it simply wouldn't be complete without the right reflector--made in my neighborhood, more or less!

The Kids Aren't Riding: Why That Matters

Depending on where you live, you might think that this is a great time to be in the bicycle business.   More and more adults are pedaling to work and for fun.  And wherever you look, new bike shops are opening, the online business be damned.

At least, that is the picture you'd see in certain urban areas and, perhaps, some inner-ring suburbs.  And most of those adults you see riding are relatively young and well-educated.

It is among that demographic in areas like Boston, Portland, San Francisco and Seattle that one sees bicycle culture flourishing.  On the other hand, in areas where people are poorer, older and less educated, one sees few adult cyclists, and nearly all of them are male.  As often as not, they are riding machines "rescued" from basements and junk piles, and seem to be held together by duct tape.

Those older, poorer and less educated people aren't the ones who are driving the bike business.  They don't buy new bikes or even spend spend money to refurbish old ones, and they certainly aren't the ones buying hand-tooled leather-and-oak craft-beer bottle holders. If they go to bike shops, it's because their bikes have problems they can't fix themselves.

I am not conjecturing:  I see such riders on my way to work or any other time I venture out of Hipster Hook and into the outlying areas of my city.

Those folks are not fueling all of those bike cafes serving Marin Macciatos or Linus Lattes.  Nor is another group of people.  The reason is that the cohort I'm about to mention doesn't ride at all.  At least, fewer and fewer of them are.

I am talking about children and adolescents.  While sales of adult bicycles and accessories are on the rise, that of bikes and related items for kids is plummeting.  At least, that's what industry analysts are saying.  They are genuinely worried about the future of the children's bicycle industry.

Time was when bikes for kids were the "bread and butter" of most bike shops.  I can recall such a time:  Shops were busiest in the Spring, around the time the school year began and during the weeks leading up to Christmas.  In fact, shops often had "layaway" plans for kids' bikes, in which the buyer paid for the bike over a period of time.  It was sort of like a "Christmas Club" for bikes.  

(I remember having a Christmas Club when I was a child and adolescent.  Nearly all banks offered them.  If I recall correctly, I opened my first one for a dollar a week when I was about ten years old.  When I started delivering newspapers and other work, I increased the amount I saved.  Do banks still offer such accounts?)

Even though most shops have at least a couple of kids' bikes for sale, not many seem to be sold.  Instead, I reckon, most such bikes are sold in department stores.  In a way, I can understand the reasoning:  Most parents can only, or want to, pay as little as possible for a bike that the kid will outgrow in a couple of years, if not sooner.  And, since there are more single-kid households than there were when I was growing up (I have three siblings; we weren't seen as a large family), there's less of a chance the bike will be "passed down".  

Aside from changes in the family structure, there is another compelling reason why kid's bike sales are falling:  Fewer and fewer kids want new bikes for Christmas or other occasions.  Instead, they want electronic toys.   I would also imagine that other outdoor activities are becoming less popular with young people for this reason. 

Finally, I will offer an observation that might help to further explain the decline of the children's bicycle industry:  Today, many kids are discouraged or even forbidden from venturing outside by themselves, or even in the company of other kids.  These days, when I see kids under 14 or so on bikes, they are accompanied by adults.  The days of kids going out and exploring on two wheels seem to be over.

So why should readers of this blog care about the children's bicycle industry?  Well, we might be keeping the adult bicycle industry thriving.  But how often do we buy new bikes?  After a certain point, we don't buy a whole lot of accessories:  When we have what we need (and want), we tend to stop buying.  

Also, in a point I don't enjoy bringing up, none of us is going to be around forever.  So when we go to that great bike lane in the sky, who will take our place?  Will today's adolescents ditch their X-boxes (or whatever they play with now) and climb over two wheels?  We should hope so; so should the bike industry.

A Ride To Glaciers And Fog

 Golfes d’ombre: E, candeur des vapeurs et des tentes,

Lance des glaciers fiers, rois blancs, frisson d’ombelles

So what did my Christmas Day ride have to do with Arthur Rimbaud’s poem about vowels—specifically, the lines about “E?”

Well, he likened the most-used vowel to the color white and used images of royalty and glaciers to convey the feeling of the sound and its character.

And, for a moment, I thought I was looking at a coastal glacier like the ones people see during cruises to Antarctica.

Of course, I was nowhere near the southern continent: I was on the South Shore of Long Island, and it wasn’t cold enough for even a white Christmas, let alone a glacier.

So I did another Point Lookout ride before spending Christmas evening with friends.  Then on the holiday we don’t celebrate in the US—Boxing Day—I took a late-afternoon ride to Fort Totten. It’s just past the Throgs* Neck Bridge, which spans the meeting-point of the East River and Long Island Sound. 

The convergence of those bodies of water, and the way Queens, Westchester and  Nassau counties, curve around it, probably made it a strategic point and the reason the Fort was built. (The Army Reserve still uses a small part of it; the rest was decommissioned and became the park it is today.) The differences between the currents of those two bodies of water and the terrain that surrounds them may account for the interesting light that illuminates —and fogs that shroud—the area.

So, my Christmas rides treated me to different kinds of lights, including the ones people strung along their trees and homes.

*-The Throgs Neck Bridge connects Fort Totten, in the Queens neighborhood of Bayside, with tbe Bronx enclave of Throggs Neck (the locale of the New York Maritime Academy) I don’t know why the name of the bridge is spelled with one “g” while the Bronx neighborhood gets two.  

What Boxing Day Delivers

There are some English customs and holidays that have endured in every current or former crown colony--except for the US.

One of those holidays Boxing Day.  Today's the day.

For those of you who aren't familiar with the Anglophone world outside the US, this isn't a day when people watch, or get into, fights. (Lots of people do that on Christmas Day itself, especially after copious quantities of, ahem, eggnog were consumed.) 

Actually, this holiday had its origins with servants and others who had to work on Christmas Day. Their masters or employers gave them the following day off and sent them off with Christmas boxes for themselves and their families.  So, the families of many maids, butlers, cooks and the like had their "Christmas dinner" on this date.

These days, it seems to have taken on an identity like that of Black Friday--the day after Thanksgiving--in the US.  People take advantage of the sales in big-city department stores as well as smaller, family-run operations.

But, at least in the UK, it also seems to be a popular day for bike rides of all types.  A quick Google search revealed everything from lunch rides for families to spirited club rides--and even a cyclo-cross race or two.

Hearing the term "Boxing Day ride" might conjure up an image like this:

I can imagine that rider being one of those servants or other helpers who just got the day off.  And the recipient of one of those boxes just might be this young man:

out on a family ride, of course!

Other Decorations Can't Hold A Candle To This!

I know that during the four-plus years I've been writing this blog, I've written a few Christmas-themed posts.  I have shown bicycles used as props for Christmas lights and other decorations and, a couple of days ago, an ugly Christmas sweater with cycling reindeer.  A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a diatribe against buying your kids (or the kids in your life) department-store bikes for Christmas.

Now, I'm assuming that some of you, my dear readers, are Jewish--or, at least observe Hanukkah in some fashion. I haven't forgotten about you.  How could I, after coming across this?:

This, and other menorahs, can be found here.

Hanukkah, of course, commemorates the victory of an army of Jewish Maccabees over a Greek occupying force that vastly outnumbered them.  The Maccabees thought they had enough oil to last only for one night, but their menorah burned for eight days and nights.

Given the role that bicycles have played in the military, it's hard not to wonder how things might have turned out if one side or the other had bicycles. For that matter, would Moses have had to spend forty years wandering the desert if he had two wheels and two pedals?

All right:  I'll stop before I start offending anyone's religious senibilities (if I haven't already done that).  Happy Hanukkah!

All I Want For Christmas....

I stopped believing in Santa Claus when I got a bicycle for Christmas.

It's not that I didn't like the bike.  If anything, getting it made me like it even better--and made me more anxious and sadder.  Why?  Well, it was way too big for me.  Like most kids, I wanted to be like grown-ups--or, at least, kids who were older than I was.  The prospect of being able to ride my new Royce Union three-speed (with 26" wheels) tantalized me as much the dream of ascending Mount Everest intrigues and excites mountaineers.

All right... The fact that I got a bike I couldn't ride didn't make me doubt the existence of Santa Claus in the way I would later doubt the existence of God because I have the kind of mind and spirit I have in the kind of body I have.  Rather, I found my faith in Jolly Old Saint Nick dashed a couple of years earlier, when I was walking down Fifth Avenue (in Brooklyn) and saw four Santas--one black, another Puerto Rican--on the same block.

Anyway...I'm sure many of you got bikes that didn't fit, or weren't right for you in some other way, for Christmas.  I'm also certain that many of you found, under your family's tree, a two-wheeler you could hop on and ride immediately.   (Of course, if you lived in one of those places that typically were blanketed with snow during the holiday season, you had to wait a few weeks or months to ride.)  That, I imagine, is still--what with all of the electronic toys available--many a kid's fantasy.

I also imagine that some of you, when you were wee lads or lasses, found three-wheelers under your family's tinsel-wreathed evergreen boughs.  I have vague memories of riding a trike but, as best as I can remember, it wasn't a Christmas present.  In fact, given my family's circumstances at the time, it might have been a hand-me-down from a cousin or neighbor, not that I would have known the difference.

Somehow I don't imagine that as many kids dreamed of getting trikes as getting bikes.  But, if any kid had such fantasies, somehow I don't think it would run to something like this:




If anything, I'd bet that some parents with deep purses or pockets fantasize about buying something like the Vanilla Trike because, well, they could. And I suppose that even the best-heeled (best-tired?) of them wouldn't let their kids ride it.  First of all, it's an object d'art--or, at least, a piece de l'artisanat.  It belongs in a curio cabinet or on a coffee table, not on a sidewalk or in a park.  Second, what kid would know or care that he or she is riding a bike with a hand-brazed Chromoly frame, Brooks saddle, Campagnolo headset and Phil Wood hubs?




Not exactly your typical doormat, is it?

Of course, it's beyond a mere indulgence.  Still, I don't want to seem as if I'm mocking it or resenting anyone who can afford it.  Hey, if I could spend $10,000 without blinking an eye, I'd buy one, too.  Even if I never could ride it.  Even if it's not something I fantasized about when I was a kid.

How A Stolen Bike Became The Gift That Gave Back

By now you know that I have a soft spot for people who, in whatever ways, bring bikes to kids who couldn't otherwise afford them.

Most of the stories I've posted so far are about individuals or organizations who restore old bikes that might otherwise have ended up in a landfill.   Some started out as one-person operations and mushroomed into local non-profit organizations.

Well, today I'm going to tell you about a kid who gave his bike to another kid, and whose family helped out that other kid's family at the holidays.  And there's a particularly interesting "twist" to this story.

Fifty years ago, on Christmas Eve 1967, 18-year-old William Lynn Weaver was walking around in his neighborhood, the Mechanicsville area of Knoxville, Tennessee.  He saw another boy gliding down the street on a bike.  "Boy, that looks like my brother's bike," he thought.

When he got home, he asked his younger brother Wayne whether he knew where his bicycle was.  "It's down on the steps," he replied.  Except that it wasn't.

William Lynn Weaver with his brother in 1963.

Well, Mr. Weaver tracked down the kid who took his brother's bike--to an unlit shack in an alley--and planned to confront the kid.  But his father, who accompanied him, told him,"Just shut up and let me talk."

He knocked on the door.  An elderly man answered.  Inside, the shack was cold and dark, with only a single candle for light.  It turned out that the thief was indeed the old man's grandson.

He and William took the bike and walked home.

The father told the mother, who was cutting a turkey, about the incident.  She said nothing, but packed up some of the food.  Then "my father went to the coal yard and got a bag of coal," William recalls.  Then his father looked at his brother and said, "You've got another bike, don't you?"  The brother nodded, and the three of them returned to the shack with the food, coal and bike.  

The father handed over $20--not an inconsiderable sum in those days--and said, "Merry Christmas."  The man broke down in tears.

William Lynn Weaver today.

As William explains, his family wasn't as badly-off as the boy and man who lived in the shack, but they didn't have much, either.  "My father was a chauffeur, and my mother was a domestic," he explained.  "That Christmas, I don't remember what gift I got, but I do know that [giving to the boy and his grandfather] made me feel better than any Christmas I've ever had."

Ah, the power of a bike...

He's Back--And He Has A Story!

Kids always want stuff for Christmas.  When I was growing up, bikes were usually high on the list of things kids wanted "Santa" to leave under the tree.

That has changed.  The days when bike shops could round out their yearly profits with Christmas bike sales (mainly for kids) are long gone.  It seems that even department and toy stores don't sell a lot of bikes at Christmastime, as video games and other electronic toys top "wish lists" today.

Whatever we wanted as kids, our wishes change as we get older.  For one thing, those of us who cycle as adults usually buy our own bikes: We become more particular about what we ride, and it's hard to get someone else, even if he or she is inclined to give a bike as a gift, to buy the right one for our style of riding--and, sometimes, even our sense of style.

Then again, for most of us, Christmas becomes less about getting stuff.  If anything, we start to care more about other "gifts", which can include experiences or simply knowing that someone is alive and well.

I feel that way about Alan Snel.  I have never met him, but I enjoyed reading his blog Bicycle Stories.  

Nearly two years ago, he was struck and nearly killed by a driver in--where else?--Florida.  That driver didn't get so much as a ticket for leaving Alan with a concussion, spinal fractures and a knee that had to be drained of blood.  

He posted several times after that, talking about his move back to Las Vegas (where he'd previously lived and worked) and projects in which he'd gotten himself involved.  Then, after a post about the Interbike show in September 2017, there was nothing on his blog.  I'd hoped that his absence was a result of plunging himself further into the advocacy work in which he's long been involved.

Turns out, that was the case.  He's been writing a book about his road to recovery--which was fueled by his involvement in the budding Las Vegas sports scene-- and is now promoting it.  He even got time on a local TV station:



I'm so glad he's back.  He's been through so much. But, really, what can stop a man who taught his mother to ride a bicycle when she was 64 years old?

And what more should we want for Christmas than to hear a story like his?

(Ironically, when I saw this segment, it was preceded by an ad for a personal-injury attorney!)

Bikes On Boxing Day

They play cricket, rugby and football.  They drink tea and like their beer.  They use the metric system and words taken from French with their original spellings.  

What countries am I talking about?  Ireland, New Zealand, Austrailia, South Africa, Jamaica, Trinidad and Barbados, Guyana, Nigeria, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales-- and England.

What else do they have in common?  As you've probably discerned, they all speak English and are, or were, part of the United Kingdom.

You've also probably noticed an exception.  That would be the good ol' you-ess-of-ay.  We spell it "color"; they spell it "colour".  (George Bernard Shaw once quipped that England and America are two countries separated by a common language.)  Their meters are  3.2808 feet.  (Shakespeare's was iambic pentameter.)  And while deluded young Yanks play a game in which they gallop terribly against each other's bodies and call it "football", what all of those other countries, with the exception of Canada,  call "football"--soccer to the Yanks--will always be America's sport of the future, as more than one wag put it.

And, oh yeah, most of us in the USA drink coffee and concoctions of chemicals and fake foam they call "beer".  Some drink tea and artisanal or microbrewed beer but are the majority only in certain precincts of Boston, Brooklyn, Portland, San Franciso, Seattle and a few other cities in the US.



And today, the day after Christmas, is the day the after-Christmas sales start.  But in all of those other countries--including Canada--it's Boxing Day.  The holiday is said to have begun centuries ago when wealthy people gave gifts (hence the "box" in "boxing") or money, as well as the day off, for being of service on Christmas Day.  It grew to include tradespeople, artisans and workers receiving said gifts from customers or employers.  Perhaps it could be said that such gifts were the original Christmas bonuses.

And, of course, brick-and-mortar, as well as online, retailers--including bike shops--hold sales.  

On this day, I find myself thinking about the British annd French people who  have been donating bicycles and supplies, as well "wellie" boots, ponchos and other items of clothing to refugees living in the squalid "Jungle Camp" just outside Calais, the French city closest to England.  Somehow I think that what they (some of whom participated in a bicycle ride for the residents) are doing is entirely in the spirit of this day.

(Note:  The article I've linked is followed by some of the most uniformy hateful comments I've ever seen.0

Bicycles On The 14th Day Of Christmas

I hereby declare today the 14th Day of Christmas. 

Why?, you ask.  Well, for one reason and one reason alone:  so I can post another Christmas bike photo.

Actually, it's not technically a Christmas bike photo.  At least, it's not intended as such.  But it's hard to deny the austere, if stark, northern Yule beauty of this Negatone image, which was taken on the main campus of the University of Michigan by "Image MD".

Merry Christmas Bike

I hope you are enjoying a holiday.

Since today is Christmas, I thought I'd share some images of the most Christmas-like object I own:

Yes, I've been doing some work on the Mercian King of Mercia I bought a few weeks ago.  For one thing, the sew-up wheels are gone:  I actually sold them on Craigslist.  In their place are a set of wheels with classic Campagnolo Record hubs with modern Mavic rims and DT spokes:

One reason I decided to use those hubs is that the rear one allowed me to employ an old trick:

The rear dropouts are spaced for 126 mm, as were most road bikes of the KoM's era (1984).  I rearranged the spacing on it so that both sides are even.  The good news is that I have a wheel with no dish.  The bad (depending on your point of view) news is that the right side spacing will allow me to use only 5-speed or Ultra (narrow)-6 freewheels---which is what I'd planned to use anyway.

And it allowed me to use the lightweight Open Pro rim.  It's actually a very strong rim for its weight, as Mavic rims tend to be.  Also, for a rim as narrow as it is, it can accommodate fairly wide tires--like the 700X32 C Paselas that adorn them now.

Probably the next most-significant change I made was in the derailleurs.  Getting a Rally derailleur was nice, but I actually like this one better:

I saw more than a few otherwise-all-Campy bikes equipped with Cyclone derailleurs from the mid-'70's to the mid-80's, so I don't feel as if I'm committing some sort of sacrilege.  With that change, I also swapped out the Campy shifters for ratcheted SunTour levers.

One more Campy part went from this bike to my parts box:  the pedals.  They don't seem to have been ridden much at all, so I wrapped them carefully and am saving them for "future reference."  The MKS platform pedals--my current favorites--bear enough resemblance to classic platform pedals like the Lyotard Berthet (#23) or the ones SR made that they don't look out of place on this bike. 

The fellow who bought the sew-up wheels also took the deep-drop Cinelli bars that came with the bike. (What such deep drops--or sew-ups--were doing on a touring bike, I'll never know.)  And I sold the stem--which had too long of an extension--on eBay.  In their place, I installed another favorite--Nitto Noodle bars with an NP (formerly Pearl) stem.  The Noodles bear enough resemblance to randonneur -style bars that I can justify (to myself, anyway) them on a bike like this.

If you saw my original post about this bike, you probably noticed three other changes:

The brake cable housings were cracked.  I like to replace cables on secondhand bikes anyway.  As luck would have it, I found these gold braided housings on eBay.

And I had to remove the leather sleeves that were stitched on to the handlebars in order to remove the brake levers.  Perhaps I will re-stitch them onto the new bars some day, but for now, I wrapped them with Tressostar brown and green cloth tape.  I also replaced the original Campagnolo gum rubber hoods, which were dried and cracks, with new items from Rustines.

Finally, I replaced the Avocet saddle with--what else?--a Brooks Professional.

This will give you a taste of things to come:

This bell bracket came from Velo Orange and will sport one of those lovely brass Japanese ringers.  And, of course, I will add bottle cages, a pump and a front rack for a bag.

Funny, isn't it, that a bike--which can be ridden all year round--can look as much like a Christmas ornament as anything that's hung on a Fraser fir.