The scholar and critic Cleanth Brooks probably did more than anyone else to champion a generation of Southern writers that included John Crowe Ransom, Allen Tate, Robert Penn Warren and, especially, William Faulkner.
In spite of their correspondence, which spanned more than half a century,Brooks and Faulkner supposedly met only once. That meeting lasted several hours. It is said that they did not talk about literature, or even anything else related to the arts, culture or history. Instead, being true Southern men of their generation, they talked about fishing and 'coon hunting.
So why, you're probably asking yourself, am I mentioning these things on this blog?
Well, I found myself thinking about the story of the Brooks/Faulkner "summit" after meeting "Velouria", the author of the Lovely Bicycle! blog, during the weekend of the New Amsterdam Bike Show.
I discovered her blog--which, at the time, had been running for a few months--when I was recuperating from my surgery nearly three years ago. I left comments on some of her posts. An exchange of e-mails ensued and, within a year, with her encouragement, I started this blog. (Now you know who to blame!;-))
Most of the e-mails we exchanged, interestingly enough, had little or nothing to do with cycling. Although her upbringing, and much of her early adult life, could hardly have been more different from mine (or so it seemed), we both have had unusual (in different ways) circumstances that, I believe, have led us to see many things in ways that are very different from that of most of our peers.
When she came to New York, we rode, albeit briefly. And, of course, she was here for the show. So it was natural that we talked, at least a little, about bikes and bicycling. However, I would not say that it dominated the weekend. Over dinner at Uncle George's and over coffee, we talked about, it seemed, everything but bikes. I won't get into specifics, but I will say that I found the discussions stimulating because she seems able to get past the hyperbole and cant that too often passes for informed opinion, even among so-called intellectuals. (Trust me: I have lots of experience with them!)
You might say that my meeting with Velouria was an inverse of the one between Brooks and Faulkner: Two men who knew each other via intellectual circles talked about sport, while two women who met via sport talked about culture--both the upper- and lower- case "C" varieties.
Take a look at this rim decal on an Electra touring bicycle:
Now look at this Mavic decal from the 1960's:
Don't get me wrong: I prefer the graphics on many older bikes and components to their modern counterparts. (The fact that I ride four lugged Reynolds Mercians and buy stuff from Velo Orange should tell you something!) But I have to wonder about the impulse to create "genuine reproductions."
I'm not trying to slam Electra: I like a lot of what they displayed at the New Amsterdam Bike Show. In fact, if I were in the market for a touring bike and didn't have my Mercians, I might well consider buying what Electra is offering.
For another example of something that seems as if its makers are trying to out-retro every other kid on the block, take a look at this fork decal:
Compare it with these Reynolds fork decals from the 1980's:
As I said, I like much of what Electra is doing and wish them well. I just hope they don't get embroiled in some silly dispute with another company over who has the rights to copy some design that hadn't been in production for decades.
Now, for something that was decidedly not retro at the show, I offer this:
The show was sponsored by KLM and, not surprisingly, Grolsch beer was served. All attendees who were of legal drinking age were offered two glasses "on the house."
Let's go back to the future. Actually, let's go back to the time when the movie by that name was on the big screens.
Around 1984 or 1985, it seemed that there was another new brand of imported (usually German, Dutch or Belgian) beer being served every week in the bars and restaurants of Soho, Back Bay and the Mission District. Likewise, it seemed that new brands of bike clothing were appearing in bike shops with the same frequency. That meant, of course, that there were a number of new lines of shorts, jerseys and such at the bike shows.
After a while, though, they started to look the same. Don't get me wrong: I did develop some favorites, based on fit, looks and other features. However, by that time, most bike clothing was being made from Lycra, and was meant for racers or wannabes. And, save for a couple of domestic brands, most came from Italy.
Now let's fast-forward to the present--to this year's New Amsterdam Bike Show, to be exact. Given that the show was held in downtown Manhattan, it was all but inevitable that clothes would be featured. (And, yes, there was a bicycle fashion show.) But the threads were not the kind you'll see in the pro peloton, or even in a local race. Instead, they were made for "real" cyclists.
In other words, they were made for people who ride to and from work, or to shop, go to art openings and such--or for sport and recreation. The makers of those vetements were also thinking of people who will ride regardless of the time of day or weather.
One of the most fascinating exhibits, to my eye, was that of Vespertine. Designer (and company founder) Sarah Canner was showing vests and sashes that, in daylight, don't look anything like what construction workers and traffic patrol officers wear. Most interesting of all were a vest with a feather boa and a sort of short trench jacket that one could wear to an office or art opening. They have reflective threads sewn that are not noticeable in ordinary light but, when headlights shine on them at night, glow brighter than almost any other reflective material you've seen.
I have been told that reflective clothing that looks like ordinary street wear has been available in Portland and San Francisco for several years. But Vespertine, based only a few blocks from the New Amsterdam show, might bring the shine to the Big Apple.
Until recently, rainwear was just about as hip and fashionable as reflective wear was before companies like Vespertine came along. Now, it seems, Cleverhood ( in Providence, Rhode Island) is doing for rainwear what Vespertine is doing for reflective gear: making outerwear that is practical for cycling and other outdoor activities, but can be worn when off the bike or trail.
There were other clothing exhibitors, but I'll mention just one more: Twin Six of Minneapolis. Part of the reason I'm including them is that Twin Six's Mark Fischer is one of the more interesting people I met at the show. But his products are also worth mentioning: caps, cycling jerseys, T-shirts and other bike-related apparel. The main reasons to consider Twin Six are that their stuff seems well-made and (more important to you, I'm sure!) that they have their own sense of style. You won't find the "billboard" graphics that dominate the team kit of major (and many minor) races. Their prints and colors are also found on their messenger bags and water bottles, which I did not see at the show but are shown on their website.
In "What I Carried In The Original Messenger Bag"--one of my early posts on this blog-- I talked about a role the eponymous bag played in my life.
It may have been the only bag I owned at that time in my life. Or, I may have had one or two others. Truth is, I didn't have much I could have carried with them.
Even so, I was always looking at bags in stores and on street vendors' displays. After I quit messengering (I know, such a word doesn't exist, at least not officially!), I went to work for American Youth Hostels. At the time, they operated an outdoor equipment store and mail order service from the Spring Street headquarters in which I worked. One of the first things I did after getting my first AYH paycheck (which, believe me, wasn't much) was to buy a shoulder bag that I hadn't seen anyone else carrying.
These days, I seem to end up with more and more bags, even after self-imposed moratoria on buying new ones, and after giving away or selling ones I have. Even so, I'll look at more bags, as I did today in the Brooklyn Industries outlet store where Lakythia and I stopped during our ride today.
You might say I have a bag fetish. It seems that other cyclists share it. I say that after seeing how much time and space is devoted to discussions of them on various online fora, and the numbers of them available. Plus, it seemed that at the New Amsterdam Bike show, which I attended yesterday, there were almost as many displays, and more makers, of bags than bikes.
There were the classic, traditional saddlebags from Brooks, which also showed a couple of modern shoulder bags, tool rolls and other bags now in their line. There were also the icons of cordura cartage--namely, messenger bags and backpacks from makers like Timbuk2 and Chrome.
A company called Truce is making some interesting-looking bags--including long backpacks that seem inspired by rock climbers' rucksacks--in just about any kind of bright color you can imagine. Their name and palette seem to be a rebuke or parody of the pseudo-military imagery other companies try to invoke.
At the other end of the spectrum, literally as well as figuratively, Elektra is offering canvas panniers that mimic, in many ways, the Berthoud bags--which, in turn, are modern renditions of the French panniers of old.
So, tell me, dear readers: Do we, as cyclists, have an obsession with bags? Or was the high number of them displayed at the New Amsterdam show just a passing fad? Or could it be that there really is much greater interest in--and, thus, a bigger market--for bags because more cyclists want to use their bikes for transportation and in other practical ways?
Today I did something I haven't done in nearly three decades: I attended a bike show. Specifically, I went to the New Amsterdam bike show in SoHo.
Naturally, I found myself making comparisons to the last show I attended, seemingly a lifetime ago. That one was held, as the New York Bike Shows were for two decades, in one of the most unloved major buildings in the history of this city: the New York Coliseum at Columbus Circle. It was one of those boxy "International" style buildings constructed during the 1950's as part of one of the most cynical and duplicitous pieces of urban planning in the history of American cities, courtesy of Robert Moses.
On the other hand, this year's New Amsterdam Bike Show was held in Skylight Soho, a renovated loft building that is part of a neighborhood that, around the same time the Coliseum was built, was nearly bulldozed for another one of Moses' schemes: a cross-Manhattan expressway that would have connected the Holland Tunnel with the Manhattan, Brooklyn and Williamsburg Bridges. It was one of his few ideas that, fortunately, never came into fruition.
All right, so you're not reading this blog for history lessons and half-baked ideas about architecture. So I'll talk about some of the differences between the two shows, and how I was a different person at the time of each of them.
At the old bike show, the emphasis was on racing and touring bikes. Mountain bikes were new; I think there was an exhibit or two of them. But I don't recall any displays of utility or transportation bikes, which seemed to comprise the majority of bikes I saw at today's show.
Also, most of the companies that displayed at the old show were the "old school" names of the industry. While a few American framebuilders and manufacturers exhibited, the majority of those who set up at the show were from Europe or Japan.
![]()
On the other hand, most of the companies that showed their wares today were from North America: mainly from the East and West coasts of the United States. There were quite a few frame builders, a few manufacturers of bikes and even more smaller operations that made everything from purselike bags that attach to handlebars and racks to reflective clothing that looks just like stuff someone might wear to an art opening. I'll talk more about some of those products in a future post. While I liked some ideas and products better than others, I was glad to see all of those (mostly) young artisans, manufacturers and entrepreneurs: The stuff they're making might entice someone to ride his or her bike instead of a car to work or shop, or might entice someone else to ride a bike, period. In contrast, most of the stuff at the old show had been made for decades and, through all of that time, was liked and disliked by the same people for the same reasons, and would entice no one into cycling for sport or recreation.
I mentioned that most of the people with interesting new ideas and products are young or youngish. This is another departure from the old bike show, in which many of the companies were represented by the patriarchs of the families who started and owned them. And, yes, all of them were male.
In fact, the only females I saw at the show back in the day were the wives, girlfriends and daughters of the men who exhibited or attended. I take that back: One bike company had a group of young women in lycra (which was new in those days) and high heels pedaling their bikes on a trainer.
In other words, the women were props and accessories. I was neither. Now there were female artisans, entrepreneurs and sales representatives. And I got to speak with one author. I hope to be an author. I can hope for that.
Another difference between then and now is one that has to do with circumstances of my own life. When I attended all of those years ago, I went with some guys with whom I worked in the bike shop, the owner, his wife and some of his friends. I had known them for several years, but now I haven't been in touch with any of them for at least two decades. Today I went to the New Amsterdam show with someone I had not met until the other day. However, I have corresponded with this person for nearly three years. I'll tell you more about that in a future post.
At the old show, I didn't meet anyone I already knew. At today's show, I saw Charlie from Bicycle Habitat (who had an exhibit) as well as owners and employees of other bikes shops whom I knew at least in passing. Plus, I met someone I hadn't seen in about a dozen or so years. She has been a sales rep for one of the few big bike manufacturers I saw at today's show. The last shop in which I worked sold those bikes, so she was in the shop pretty frequently.
What did I say to her? "My, you've changed!" All right, that was a joke. In reality, I passed by her table a couple of times before we caught each others' glances. In a split-second, I did an FBI-style age-progression image in my mind and realized I was looking at an older version of the rep I knew all of those years ago. Then she took a longer look at me. "Should I know you from some place?"
The real question wasn't whether or not she should have. The real question was the way she knew me--and I knew her.
Finally, at the old show, I think one or two cyclists' organizations may have set up tables. But they didn't have nearly as active a role as the organization at today's expo. One--which I never would have imagined back in the day--is a group of women who take social and training rides. I signed up. Back in the day, I never would have done that.
.JPG)
