Another New Addition (!)

No, I didn't buy another Mercian.  (Having four is almost an embarrassment of riches, really!)  Rather, my "new addition" was installed on Vera.

She, like many other bikes built at the same time (early 1994) she was, has low-rider rack mounts on the front fork.  Vera is, if I remember correctly, the third bike I've owned with those mounts.  However, I've never before used a low-rider, or a front rack of any other kind.

Had I kept Marianela, she would have gotten a front rack.  I've had handlebar-mounted baskets on other bikes but felt they mounted too high, which worsened the bikes' road-handling.  Given that most of the bikes I've used as commuters had more relaxed head angles and, hence, less responsive steering, than my road bikes, that was no small consideration.


So, I decided that I was going to mount some sort of fork-mounted rack on Vera.  I really wanted to use the lowrider mounts.  However, I was willing to consider other ways of mounting the rack.


I first considered the Velo Orange front racks because the materials and construction looked good, and their prices were relatively reasonable.  However, the VO Randonneur front rack wouldn't have worked, because the legs are too short to reach the low-rider and are not adjustable.  (Constructeur rack legs like the ones on the VO Randonneur mount higher on the fork than lowrider bars.)  


I also looked at the VO Pass Hunter.  Its struts bolt onto cantilever/V-brake bosses, which Vera has.  It's a somewhat larger and beefier version of the old Mafac racks that bolted onto the centerpull brake pivots.  Although I would have preferred to use the lowrider mount, I wasn't opposed to using a brake-mounted rack.  However, I wasn't willing to do something else the Pass Hunter would have necessitated:  drilling out my front fork crown.  

That crown is drilled and tapped for 5mm bolts, like the ones used on most water bottle cage and rear rack braze-ons.  The Pass Hunter has an integral mounting bolt that's meant to fit in a hole large enough for a brake pivot bolt.  I simply didn't have the heart to drill out that nice classy fork crown.


So, that left me with two other options, apart from getting a custom rack.  One would have been to buy one of the front racks made for mountain bikes:  They mount on the cantilever braze-ons but have an adjustable strap (like the kind found on Blackburn-style rear racks) through which the brake bolt passes.  The rack is cheap, and looked sturdy enough, but wouldn't have looked good on Vera.

So, with a sigh, I resigned myself to spending the money on a Nitto M-18.  I know, from using other Nitto parts, that their quality is second to none.  And, often, their prices aren't, either.  However, I was lucky enough to find a really good deal on one from Tree Fort Bikes in Ypsilanti, Michigan, which also matched another retailer's price on another item I bought at the same time.  


Still, the Nitto had the same problem as the VO Randonneur:  the struts weren't long enough to reach the lowrider mount. Luckily, the struts are replacable with longer ones that Nitto makes.  It seems that Rivendell is the only retailer that carries those struts (Even the Japanese retailers didn't have them!), so I placed my very first order with Riv.


The struts are really made to attach to a front dropout. 

So I cut them, and within fifteen minutes, I had the kind of rack I wanted on Vera.

It, like the Pass Hunter and Randonneur, is really intended as a handlebar bag support.  But I plan to use a basked on it or simply to strap my purse or shoulder bag on it when I ride to work.

What If They Had Bicycles?

Some of us have cycled for so long, or done so much cycling, that we simply cannot imagine our lives without it.  So, it's hard to remember that, even though the bicycle has a longer history than most forms of transportation, it's still a recent invention.

Knowing that, I found myself wondering what some of the most important, wonderful and cataclysmic events in history, literature and art would have been like if bicycles had been available.

One of the first events that comes to mind is this:

Now I find it ironic that the culmination of the greatest technological advances of the time made the world stand still for a day. I know; I remember that day:  20 July 1969.  Everything, it seemed, was closed--and everywhere you looked, you could see the lumescent gray and silver shadows bobbing from television screens through windows.  Quite possibly more people heard this phrase--"One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind"--at the moment it was uttered than heard any other phrase at the exact moment it was spoken. 

I was eleven years old at the time.  It was hard not to be mesmerized by those (literally) otherwordly images; even adults forgot whatever else they'd been doing so they could see an event that, until then, had been in the realm of fantasy.

Now I wonder:  How would history (not to mention the Space Program) been different if Neil Armstrong had a bicycle to ride in the low-gravity atmosphere of the moon. (If nothing else, there would have been no excuse for using carbon fiber!)  What if those lunar footprints had been, instead, tire tracks?

What if the battles of antiquity had been led by generals or muses on two wheels?

Or what if the people of Concord heard the cry  "The British Are Coming!" over the whirr of two wheels?

Wouldn't you love to see that on the next Tweed Ride?

Speaking of Tweed...Imagine how fashion could have changed if the bicycle had come along earlier in history:

Now she's definitely someone who could have benefitted from having a Mercian!

A Helmet Meets A Name

Last year, I contrasted the two places in which I'd been teaching in terms of the number and kinds of bikes parked by them.  Since then, what was my second job became my main job.  And, at my now-main job, all of the racks are full on nice days, and one can find some bikes parked on campus even in the winter--except when there's a foot of snow on the ground.  On the other hand, at my now-second job, my bike is usually one of only four or five parked on campus.


What's just as interesting at my main job is that sometimes I'll see signs that some faculty or staff member is  riding to work:  He or she is carrying a bag that is obviously intended for use on a bike.  Or he or she is wearing cycling shoes.  Or, most commonly, a helmet is dangling by its straps from his or her fingers.


Yesterday, on my way to my first class, I crossed paths with a helmet-toter as I climbed, and she descended, the stairs.   "Elena" works in one of the offices that provides services to students;  she accompanied the director of her department. I'm guessing that Elena is within a few years, in either direction, of my age, and she has been cycling to school or work, she said, ever since she was an undergraduate at a nearby college.  

It was one of those conversations in which we talked about one thing and another before we learned each others' names.  They were surprised to find out that I, indeed, am the name that they've seen any number of times on the college's online "Community Dialogue."  What surprised them, I don't know.  Perhaps I don't look like the opinionated  and, if I do say so myself, passionate person they've seen in my comments, criticisms and responses on eCollege.  


The director had to go to a meeting, but Elena and I continued to talk about some of our "war" and horror stories about cycling to the campus, and generally.  It was good to know that I'm not the only cyclist on campus who believes that the bike racks, as they're set up, are impractical.  She said she'd spoken with campus officials about this and other matters.  I offered to help in any way I could to encourage more people to cycle to and from campus, and to make it more convenient and safer for them to make such a choice.


Now that I think of it, we could start some sort of organization for cyclists on campus.  There are certianly enough of us for that.  I wonder, though, how long it will take for us to get together if anyone else is meeting his or her cycling colleagues in a way similar to the way I met Elena yesterday.