A Bicycle Mayor And An American In Denial

The United States is the most technologically advanced nation in the history of the world.  Aspiring scientists come here for training and research opportunities that far exceed those of any other country. 

Yet we have a President who, essentially, says those scientists don't know what they're talking about.  Of the recent report on global warming, which he claims to have read, he says, "I don't believe it."

I guess I shouldn't be surprised that my native country would elect such a person:  After all, we have more people--and a larger percentage of our population--who deny evolution, insist that the Book of Genesis tells the literal truth of our origins, assert that the Earth is 6000 years old and even believe that there were dinosaurs on Noah's Ark--than any other "advanced" country!

I suppose that something else shouldn't surprise me:  Wells Griffith, El Cheeto Grande's "adviser" on energy and climate, stood before an audience in Katowice, Poland and touted fossil fuels as the solution to our problems.

Now, Poland still burns a lot of coal, basically for the same reasons other countries use it:  It's cheap, and they have a lot of it.  But even there, as in other European countries, there is a consensus among leaders and everyday citizens that such a practice can't continue if, well, they want to have Katowice, Poland or this planet for themselves, their children or their grandchildren.

What also makes Griffith's pronouncement particularly tone-deaf (I guess I can't fault him for losing his hearing when he works for the shrillest President we've ever had!)  is that in Katowice, a summit dubbed "Paris 2.0" was in session.  And he audience he addressed was part of it.

That conference is a follow-up to the Paris Climate Agreement of three years ago.  Our previous President, Barack Obama, was one of the leaders in the effort to get nations all over the world to agree to reduce their emissions dramatically.  Most of the other signatories to the Paris agreement are still on board with it. But now we have a President who wants nothing more than to build a wall--as if it would keep out people who want to come to this country any more than it would keep countries and people--including citizens of the country he wants to seal off--from bringing environmentally sound practices into their homes, workplaces and other aspects of their lives.

Grzegorz Mikrut

Oh, and while he's cycling through advisers and cabinet ministers (Maybe that's why the unemployment rate is so low:  Look at all the vacancies he's created!), Katowice appointed someone to an office that exists in cities like Amsterdam, Sydney and Sao Paolo.  Meet Grzegorz Mikrut, the Bicycle Mayor of Katowice. 

Anna Luten of Amsterdam, the world's first "Bicycle Mayor"

Fitting, isn't it?, that he should assume this post just as a representative of the US is channeling his boss's denial of science--and common sense.

If We Were Them...

If the United States were the Netherlands....

There are all sorts of ways you could finish that sentence.  Here's one:  It would have four billion people.

Yes, you read that right.  The 'States would would have more than twelve times its actual population of 325.7 million folks.

That's because, on average, about 4000 Dutch people live on a square mile of their country's land.   In contrast, only about 85 Americans live on an average square mile of their nation.

What's really interesting, though, is that if you were to randomly pick 4000 Dutch citizens, it's likely that 840 of them would be living below sea level--and about 2000 would inhabit land one meter (just over three feet) or more above sea level.

When you know these facts, it's easy to understand why the Dutch are among the leading countries in the move away from fossil fuels:  Decades ago, their policy makers heeded the warning that El Cheeto Grande refuses to believe. They understood that rising sea levels--a result of climate change exacerbated, if not caused, by fossil fuel usage--would essentially wipe out much of their country.

That, in turn, also makes it easy to understand why the Dutch have invested, per capita, more than any other country on bicycle infrastructure.  Dutch policy makers realized that it not only made sense, it was a matter of survival, to get as many people out of cars, and as many cars off the road, as possible.  One way to do that is to make it relatively easy and safe to go to work, school or just about anywhere by bicycle.

It also helps that because Dutch people are packed in so tightly, so are their cities.  In the Randstad, the largest Dutch cities--Amsterdam, Rotterdam, the Hague and Utrecht--are all but joined at the hip in a way that makes the Northeastern US Megapolis seem like a stretch of the Mojave Desert.  Thus, cycling is feasible even for people who are not athletic.

So it should come as no surprise that there are about 23 million bicycles in a nation of 17 million people--1.3 bikes for every person.  

But even in a country where, it seems, everyone cycles everywhere, more than half of automobile trips are of less than 7.5 kilometers (about 5 miles).  To be fair, many of those trips are because, well, people just don't have to go as far to get wherever they're going.  On the other hand, transportation planners agree that the best way to reduce automotive traffic is to eliminate as many of those short car trips as possible.

That is why the Dutch government has just announced plans to spend an extra 245 million Euros on bicycle infrastructure Steintje van Veldhoven, the State Infrastructure Secretary, had already pledged last year.  The money is earmarked for such things as improved bicycle parking in public areas, and more city-to-city cycleways.

Ms. van Veldhoven says she hopes to get an additional 200,000 Dutch people on bikes--and, one assumes, out of their cars, at least for those short trips.

Now, if the US were the Netherlands, she would be trying to get about 4 million Americans on bikes--and spend about 10 billion dollars, in the effort.  That's cost is less than that of a couple dozen F35 fighter jets--or Trump buildings.

Where Your Next Bike Might Come From

In a couple of earlier posts (See here and here, I examined some of the ways in which the new tariffs on Chinese goods could affect cyclists and the bike business here in the US.

Some American bike firms, like Brooklyn Bicycle Company, are deciding whether to absorb the price increases or pass them on to customers.  Others, like Detroit Bikes and BCA, are calling for even higher tariffs and extending them to all imported bikes.  

Trek and Kent--two bike companies rarely mentioned in the same breath, let alone the same blog post!--are contemplating yet another strategy which, really, shouldn't come as much of a surprise.

Trek is, arguably, the most prestigious mass-market American bike brand.  (Specialized and Cannondale are probably Trek's chief competitors for this title.)  Their highest-priced bikes are still made here, albeit with imported components.  The rest of their bikes are made by sub-contractors that include Giant, which also sells its bikes under its own name.

Kent's offerings, in contrast, are at the bottom of the market and found, not in bike shops, but in big-box stores like Walmart and internet retailers.  Some are sold, under license, bearing the Jeep, Cadillac and GMC brands.  Although some of its bikes are assembled in South Carolina, their frames are made in China and Taiwan and assembled with components made in those countries.

So...Is Trek returning to its roots by returning its manufacturing to the US?  Well...no.  You're not going to see a revival of those nice lugged steel frames they made in Wisconsin during the '70's and '80's.

Likewise, Kent isn't going to build a factory in Parsippany, New Jersey (the location of its headquarters), or anywhere else in the good ol' You-Ess-Of-Ay!

No, they are not going to do what El Cheeto Grande told all of those laid-off blue-collar workers in Ohio and Michigan and Pennsylvania companies would do in the face of tariffs.  Instead of making their wares in the country Trump thinks he can Make Great Again, they are talking about shifting their production to a country that isn't getting a tariff wall built around it.

If you are European, what I am about to say next will come as no surprise:  That country is Cambodia.  

The Southeast Asian kingdom is already the biggest supplier of bicycles to European Union countries.  Most of the country's bike factories are in the north, near Vietnam--which some have called "the EU's China." If you buy, say, a backpack or jacket in Europe, it's more likely than not to have been made in Vietnam, just as the new bike is likely to be from Cambodia.

It will be interesting to see whether other American bike companies make similar moves.  If anything, wages in Cambodia, Vietnam and other countries in the region are lower than they are in China. And some Cambodian bikes are already coming into the US--though, in far smaller numbers than bikes from China or Taiwan.

What's He Protecting?

The moment anyone with power uses the word "protect", I reach for my trusty frame pump.  Not only does it get my tires up to pressure in a pinch, it's great for swatting away stray dogs and other threats and nuisances.

You see, I've come to realize that any powerful person who thinks he or she can "protect" anyone or anything he or she hasn't met is delusional or lying.

And so it is with El Cheeto Grande.   He's passed another round of tariffs because he's, once again, got his knickers in a twist over China.  

Of course, the tariffs will not "protect" American industries because...well, they don't exist anymore, if indeed they ever did.  

(Besides, all you have to do is look at Smoot-Hawley to realize that tariffs almost never have their intended consequences.  But that would be the subject of, not just another post, but another blog--or a book!)

To wit:  Back in the Clinton administration, I tried to put together an all-American bike.  Of course, I did it on paper.  Frames and forks weren't hard to find, though they were almost always more expensive than imports.  Ditto for the Chris King headset, as great as it is. Yankee-made handlebars, stems and seatposts were available, but they were mainly "boutique" items.  

The other components, on the other hand, were a lot more difficult to find.  Sun was making its rims, and Wheelsmith its spokes, in the USA.  And there were a number of small companies fabricating hubs here in the USA, such as Phil Wood and Chris King.  They, of course, cost far more than even Dura Ace or Record stuff, but at least they kept my exercise going.

That is, until I tried to find tires.  To my knowledge, none have been made here since Carlisle ceased production, apparently some time in the early '80's.  Goodyear, Firestone and other rubber companies had exited the non-motorized trade long before that.

OK, I thought:  The tires are just one part (or two components, depending on how you look at it.). Surely, I could make the rest of the bike into a Yankee Doodle Dandy.

Then I tried to put together a drivetrain.  Mind you, this was during the days when it seemed every 25-year-old in California or Colorado who had access to a lathe was turning out lightweight (and very expensive) cranksets and derailleurs in a rainbow of colors.  I thought cassettes would be my next hurdle but, as it turned out, some company--in Massachusetts, I think--was making titanium bits--including cassettes.  

Eight speeds were the standard at that time.  If you remember anything about Shimano's 8-speed equipment, you knew that not everything was interchangeable between gruppos.  Namely, a Dura Ace hub would take only Dura Ace cassettes--not Ultegra, 105 or any other.  Turned out, the titanium cassette was made only for Dura Ace--which, I supposed, made sense, given what Dura Ace and titanium equipment cost.

(Aside:  Shimano's 9-speed stuff was interchangeable.  So Dura Ace hubs could take Ultegra cassettes, which weighed a bit more but cost about half as much.  And the standard 9-speed Dura Ace cassette was made of titanium, which pre-empted aftermarket stuff.)

But there were no chains made stateside.  Back in the day, the baloon-tired coaster brake bikes had American chains; however, as far as I know, no derailleur-compatible chain has ever been made here.  Nor were any pedals, save for the rubber-block variety found on said wide-tire "bombers".

Oh--and there were no American-made saddles.

Today it would be even more difficult to put together an all- (or even mostly-) American machine.  And almost very few bike accessories are made here.  Yet they are all subject to tariffs.

And it's all but impossible to find some items made anywhere besides China.  Almost anything electronic--lights, computers and the like--come from Cathay.  

So do helmets.  Interestingly, they have been exempted from tariffs.  It's ironic when you realize that one of the rationales for the tariffs is to protect against intellectual property theft--and nearly all helmets are designed in the US!

Of course, bicycles are far from the only things to be affected by the tariffs.  I'm not sure I'd want to be a farmer who raises corn, soybeans or hogs right about now.  But I have yet to hear anyone explain how any job or industry will be "protected" in this country.