The World's Fastest Man: A Century Before Usain Bolt

I haven't owned a television in about six years.  I do, however, listen to a fair amount of radio, mainly the local public and independent stations.

One program to which I listen pretty regularly is "Fresh Air," which is something like a radio version of 60 Minutes dedicated to the arts or contemporary issues.  A couple of nights ago, "Fresh Air" featured Dave Davies (no, not the Kinks' guitarist) interviewing journalist Michael Kranish, whose latest book just came out.

The World's Fastest Man:  The Extraordinary Life of Major Taylor, America's First Black Sports Hero documents, not only Major Taylor's athletic exploits, but his contributions to the cause of civil rights.  He was, arguably, as dominant in cycling of his era as Eddy Mercx or Bernard Hinault were in theirs, and towered over his sport the way Michael Jordan, Martina Navratilova and Wayne Gretzky did in their primes.  But, perhaps even more important, he was as unflinching in the face of discrimination as Jackie Robinson and Muhammad Ali were more than half a century later.



I haven't yet read the book, but I plan to. One reason is that, from what I gather in the interview, Kranish's book shows how bicycle racing was the most popular sport in America and much of Europe and Australia during Taylor's time.  Also, he seems to cover in greater detail the discrimination he faced, not only from restaurants and hotels that refused him service, but also from other racers who sometimes even tried to injure him before or during races.  Finally, during the interview, Kranish mentions business ventured that failed--including one from which a white competitor stole his idea after no bank would finance him.

You can listen to the interview here:

I'll See You In (Or With) Ashtabula!

I'll look for you in old Honolu-la
San Francisco, Ashtabula
You're gonna have to leave me now, I know
But I'll see you in the sky above
In the tall grass, in the ones I love
You're gonna make me lonesome when you go.

That last line is the title of the song, from Bob Dylan's "Blood on the Tracks" album.  Like most of his work, you listen to this for the lyrics:  I am only the 1,798,345,467th person to praise his songwriting skills.  And I actually like listening to him because he has a, shall we say, unique singing style--though I also admit to liking, quite a lot, Madeleine Peyroux's cover of this song.

Anyway, I can't help but to think that Bob was enough of a rhymester to write the song just to show someone--himself, perhaps--that he could use "Ashtabula" in a verse.  I'm sure it wasn't easy:  Witness the alteration to the name of Hawaii's capital to make the rhyme.

I can't help but to wonder whether some NPR producer wanted to do a story about the town just to be able to say the name a few times.  I mean, it's almost impossible not to sing it--even if you're reporting about the town's woes.

The hard times were indeed part of Jim Zarroli's report.  So is its rebirth, though not as the factory town and port it once was.  Instead, on those Lake Erie waterfront sites where ships unloaded iron ore and loaded steel pipes and other industrial products onto ships, waiters and baristas now fill glasses and cups with artisanal beer and coffee.  Rather than sending manufactured goods into the rest of the United States, and world, Ashtabula now attracts weekend tourists from Cleveland, Pittsburgh and other nearby cities.

But, if you have been reading this blog--or just about anything else related to cycling--you might associate Ashtabula with something neither Jim Zarroli nor Bob Dylan mentioned.  For that matter, I don't think many of the day- or weekend-trippers think about it, either.

1964 Schwinn Varsity with Ashtabula cranks and forks

I am talking about bicycle fittings--mainly cranks, but also fork blades and other items.  If you have an old Schwinn with a one-piece crank, the arms were probably forged in Ashtabula.  So were the forged flat-bladed forks and solid stems found on some Schwinns.

It was once common to refer to all one-piece cranks (used mainly on American bikes) as "Ashtabula", just as "Scotch tape" is used to denote all kinds of clear plastic adhesives and disposable facial tissues are often called "Kleenex."  But, "Scotch tape" and "Kleenex" are brand names used by particular companies.  So, not all clear adhesive tapes are "Scotch", and not all facial tissues are "Kleenex".  Likewise, not all one-piece cranks are "Ashtabula".

The Ohio company that made those fittings for Schwinn started out, perhaps not surprisingly, as a maker of iron hulls for battleships.  Later, they made anchors for aircraft carriers.  This heritage may have gone into making those cranks and forks, which weighed a ton (or tonne?) but were practically indestructible.  

Other one-piece cranks were heavy, too, as they were almost always made of steel, or even iron.  But, as someone who worked on more than a few bikes back in the day, I can tell you that the real Ashtabula stuff--which was usually stamped with "ABS" was, if not lighter, of significantly better quality than similar parts found on other bikes, which were usually found in department stores.  The threads on those Ashtabula Schwinn parts were almost uniformly even and clean.  The cheaper one-piece cranks and forks, usually found on department-store bikes, sometimes had bad threads and would need replacement.

So, my advice to Bob, Madeleine or anyone who wants to look for his or her lover on a bike with a one-piece crank is this:  Make sure that crank is an Ashtabula!  Otherwise, you might not make it to Ashtabula--and find the love of your life!

How Many Ways Can He Say, "Everybody Else Did it?"

It was like being ready for a knife fight, but everybody had guns.

I have to admit, it's a pretty good turn of phrase.  Still, the intent of the person who uttered it is suspect, at least in my mind.

Lance Armstrong (You just knew it was him, didn't you?) was talking about embarking on his career as a professional racing cyclist.  Now, if he'd been talking about how his competition was much better than he'd imagined--something many an athlete, or person in any number of areas of endeavor, experiences upon becoming a professional--I'd've enjoyed the description.

Instead, it was a rationale for why he took drugs and did all of the other unsavory things he did en route to seven Tour de France victories.  He says, in essence, that he didn't start out with the intention of doping but soon discovered that just about everyone else in the peloton was "juicing".

Stephen Dubner, who interviewed him for the National Public Radio program "Freakonomics" asked him whether he could have won those Tours without the wonders of modern pharmacology.  "Well, it depends on the other 199 (Tour de France riders) were doing."  When Dubner pressed him further, he confessed, "Zero percent chance."

Now, Dubner admitted to his sympathies, which came through in the interview:  He was willing to give Lance the benefit of the doubt until he finally confessed.  Even then, Dubner wasn't ready to villify Lance completely:  For one thing, even the most ardent cycling fans have acknowledged, for decades, that riders were taking one thing or another to shave of seconds on a mountain climb.  Also, Dubner seems willing to cut Lance a break or two for his efforts to "move ahead."

Hear the interview here.

That's more or less how I feel.  I, too, bought into the cancer-survivor-hero narrative, and one of the high points of a 2001 tour I took through the Alps (and in which I pedaled up l'Alpe d'Huez and other Tour climbs) was leaning over the police line and snapping a photo of Lance climbing during the time trial on Chamrousse. (One day, perhaps, I will digitize and post it.) Whatever he might have ingested with his breakfast that day, his ride was awe-inspiring.

I must say, though, that something still bothers me about Lance.  At no time during the interview--or in the more than five years since he "confessed" to Oprah--did he express any sort of contrition for the careers and lives he ruined, not only through his doping, but from his threats and intimidation--which were not limited only to his rivals and teammates, but extended to their spouses and other family members.

Off The Railroad And Onto Bikes: Reading, Pennsylvania

Whenever a city builds bike lanes or starts a bike share program, there is resentment.  As often as not, it's voiced as a class argument:  Cyclists are seen as young, rich and "privileged", and that poor working blokes are subsidizing their fads and fetishes.

One reason for this, I believe, is that most urban bike lanes have been built, and most bike share ports installed, in central downtown areas or in nearby areas where the young and affluent (who, as often as not, come from someplace else) congregate.  As an example, here in New York, the first Citibike ports installed outside of Manhattan were placed in the Brooklyn and Queens neighborhoods closest to Manhattan:  the "Hipster Hook" communities situated directly across the East River and at the ends of bridges.  You won't find many marked paths or  Citibikes in East New York or South Jamaica, or even in relatively affluent (but further from Manhattan and less hip) areas like Mill Basin and Fresh Meadows.

What is often forgotten, however, is that in neighborhoods like the South Bronx and East New York--and in cities like Newark--there are people who ride to work, or wherever else they need to be, not because it's fashionable, but because they can't afford any other way besides walking.

They don't have the funds or a credit card to buy a new Linus "Dutch" bike or a Trek Chelsea.  The bikes they ride, in fact, may have come from tag sales or dumpsters, or been given to them.  Those machines may have parts that were not intended for them:  For example, a wheel may have been replaced by one of a different size.  And those riders aren't stopping in the trendy bike cafes for Marin Macchiatos or Linus Lattes.  If anything, they might be holed up in the local Dunkin' Donuts, if they can afford even that.

The communities in which they live have low percentages of people who ride to work.  Part of the reason for that is, well, a lot of them don't work:  They lost jobs and weren't able to find others, or they didn't have jobs in the first place.  

Many of them live in areas where there is little or no mass transit--and, even if it was available, it would be a strain on their budgets, if not financially out of reach altogether.  Or the nearest bus stop or train station is, say, a 45-minute walk away (as is the case for some residents of Red Hook, Brooklyn).  That makes it difficult, to say the least, to keep appointments with doctors, government agencies and the like, let alone get to work on time and have any time left for anything besides commuting and working.

Reading resident Harrison Walker doesn't own a car and bikes everywhere.

Almost everything I have said in the previous four paragraphs can be said about the city of Reading, Pennsylvania and its people.  Once a thriving railroad hub (If you've played the classic version of Monopoly, you've bought and/or sold the Reading Railroad!) situated halfway between the anthracite coal mines of central Pennsylvania and Philadelphia, this city was beset by many of the problems older industrial cities like Detroit and Cleveland experienced when their industries died or moved away.   

Five years ago, the New York Times published an article declaring Reading the poorest city (of 60,000 or more people) in the United States.  More than 40 percent of its residents were living below the Federal poverty line.  Things seem not to have changed much:  While the official unemployment rate has dropped, at 8.3 percent it still is three percentage points higher than the national average.  And, of course, that number doesn't include the people who gave up on trying to find a job or whose unemployment benefits ran out--or those who returned to school or entered some sort of retraining program after they could not find jobs in the industries in which they had been working.

Those un-, under- and never-employed Reading residents make up most of the city's cyclists. "Reading's poor, and a lot of people who live here are poor," explains Dani Motze of ReDesign Reading, a nonprofit group that's trying to revitalize the city.  "[S]o bike riding is how they get from place to place."  

The demography of Reading's cyclists may be a reason why the city hasn't attracted the attention of urban planners involved with cycling infrastructure--until now.  Craig Peiffer became the city's zoning administrator a few years ago.  He was shocked at what he found.  "As a planner here in Pennsylvania," he relates, "I've seen smaller towns--significantly smaller towns--where they were already putting in designated bike lanes."

He and a colleague decided they were going to make Reading a more hospitable place for cyclists. However, their aim in doing so would be different from what has motivated officials in other cities to make them more "bike friendly."  In those communities, bike amenities are often used to attract outsiders--especially affluent millennials and sustainability advocates.  "Other cities have used biking because biking is cool and hip," declares Brian Kelly, executive director of ReDesign Reading.  He has no problem with that, he explains, but that is not the point of what he, Peiffer and others are trying to do in Reading.  

Jason Orth, manager of the Reading Bike Hub, fixes a bike for a customer.

Instead, they are--in addition to working on acquiring the money for bike lanes--making cycling more affordable and convenient for the city's residents.  Bike racks have been installed on all of the city's buses.  The city has also launched a bike-share program.  But, perhaps most important of all, it opened Reading's first bike shop. Unlike the bike boutiques of trendy neighborhoods, the Reading Bike Hub, in addition to conducting safety workshops, sells used bikes and affordable parts--and loans tools.  "If I were to go buy this tool, I'd have to go to Sears,"  says Harrison Walker, who rides his bike "everywhere".  The tool he had just borrowed from the Hub would "probably cost upwards of $20 just for this one wrench," he observes.

I am glad that the folks at National Public Radio, where I learned of Reading's programs, were able to see and communicate some of the challenges faced by people who are forced to rely on their bicycles for transportation.  It is only with such knowledge that American cities can make bicycles a viable transportation option for all of their citizens.

They're (We're) Taking Over!

What will I do when I'm no longer a minority?

All right...That sentence wasn't a cheap trick to get published in some right-wing think tank's house organ.  After all, in at least one sense I am not a minority, although I may become one if I live long enough:  I am white.  And, naturally, I don't see this country or any other developing a majority consisting of transgenders or transsexuals, contrary to Janice Raymond's most fear-addled fantasies.

So, to what "minority" am I referring?



Bike commuters, who else?

As I've mentioned in other posts, I can recall days, weeks and even months when I saw no one else riding a bicycle to work, or for any other purpose.  Such was the case even along the thoroughfares of Hipster Hook, where there are now, probably, more bicycles per capita than in any other place in the United States. 

Back in those days, the American media all but ignored cyclists and cycling.  Occasionally, some newspaper's sports section would include a line or two about the Tour de France or a race that passed, literally, in front of the doors of the editorial offices. 

I never, ever would have imagined hearing a story like the one aired today on National Public Radio.  It reports on the increase in bike commuting around the US.  Not surprisingly, small- to medium- sized cities with colleges or universities in temperate climates (i.e., Davis CA and Boulder CO) had the highest percentages of their populations riding bikes to work. Also not surprising was the fact that Portland OR has one of the highest rates among larger cities.




What also didn't surprise me--unfortunately--was the socio-economic makeup of bike commuters:  We are mainly people at the bottom of the income or the top of the education ladder.  Real progress in making places more bike-friendly--which is to say, developing a culture of cycling, not merely building bike lanes--will happen only when cycling is embraced by people in the middle.  That, by the way, is how almost anything becomes mainstream:  When middle classes embrace it.

Another facet of the report that confirmed my observations is that fewer people cycle to work in the South than in the rest of the country.  Some have said that it has to do with the long, hot summers.  I think that's one part of the story:  For a variety of other reasons, Dixie has developed more of a love for the internal combustion engine than us Yankees or folks in Seattle, Portland or Minneapolis--or even, for that matter, Detroit--have ever had.  Have you ever noticed that most NASCAR drivers--including the sport's elite--come from somewhere between the Potomac and the Rio Grande?

Cycle-commuters probably won't become mainstream--let alone a majority--any time soon.  But we are becoming more visible and numerous (Yes, cycling increases your sexual vitality!) in my part of the world.  What will we do?