Somehow I Don’t Think Kool Herc Envisioned This

 For the 50th anniversary of hip-hop, the world needs….another Epic Rap Battle. 

Just imagine how much more interesting the Presidential primaries would be if Nikki Haley and Ron De Santis rattled off rhymes…oh, never mind. I mean, even if either of them were capable of rapping (or if De Santis were even capable of being anything other than a psycho-sexual-spiritual black hole), I’m not sure I’d want to hear it.

But these guys might’ve been fun, whatever one might’ve lacked In versification virtuosity and the other might lose in translation.

Somehow I don’t think Kool Herc envisioned anything like it.

Humor In Translation

 Someone, I forget whom, pointed out that the French are funny, sex is funny and comedy is funny.  So, that person wondered, “Why aren’t French sex comedies funny?”

To be fair, doesn’t always translate from one culture to another.  But other thing do.  They include some things commonly associated with the French: berets, white shirts or blouses with horizontal navy stripes, mime and, of course, cycling.

So what happens when you combine them?

Perhaps some humor translates, aprés tout.

How An Elephant Got There…

In Animal Crackers, Groucho Marx quipped, “One morning, I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How an elephant got into my pajamas, I’ll never know.”

I have seen one elephant who wasn’t in a zoo or otherwise in captivity.  Even if I hadn’t seen that pachyderm, and even though I am, shall we say, a bit more corpulent than I was thirty years ago, I don’t know how an elephant could get into my pajamas—or on my bike.

Taking One For The Humans

I don't drive.  So, if Marlee has ever been in a car, it was with her rescuer.

And I've tried taking her on rides with me.  If yo have a cat, you know how well that worked out.

Therefore, I have no idea of how she'd react to a pothole.  But she might know a thing or two about how we, as humans, might respond:

(By the way, those photos are not of Marlee.  She's been in other posts!)

This Blog, Explained

 Here is an illustration of the philosophy of this blog—and an explanation of its title:

Cyclist, Covered

 Lately, I haven’t seen many people wearing masks.  I have to admit that I stopped wearing them a while back—until a week ago, when I donned one while awaiting the results of a COVID test. (Negative.) I’d been in proximity to someone who was infected and I was playing it safe. 

I found myself thinking back to the early days of the pandemic, when you hardly ever saw anyone’s face. Even some cyclists covered their noses and mouths. (I carried a mask when I rode and pulled it on when I stepped into a coffee shop or some other place.)

I don’t believe, however, that many cyclists concealed themselves in this way:

Channeling Hinault? LeMond? Mondrian?

 What made it so popular?

It probably didn’t hurt that two cyclists who won, between them, eight Tours de France and a bunch of other races, wore it.

Nor did its design:  With its echoes of Mondrian, it still looks good nearly four decades later. A company that pioneered the kinds of pedals and helped to popularize the kinds of frames nearly all racers—and many wannabes—ride today used a similar design in its logo.

That company is Look.  The jersey in question is that of the La Vie Claire team.  I rode the jersey—and the pedals—in my youth.

I’m not surprised that the jersey is reproduced to this day.  Nor does it provoke consternation in me that an illustrator would be inspired by it:

If You Don’t Jump The Shark, It Will Ride You

Nearly a decade ago (!), I wrote about my old Land Shark bicycle.

I got to thinking about it when I came across this:

You Can Ride It. Really!

 I have long believed that John Milton wrote “Samson Agonistes” for essentially the same reasons why he wrote “Paradise Lost.”  For one, I think he was trying to express his political beliefs.  For another, I think he had a poetic sensibility—almost entirely aural—that he simply had to express.

What is the difference between those two works? “Paradise Lost” is an epic poem, while “Samson Agonistes” is a play of a particular kind:  a “closet drama,” which is intended to be read rather than performed. (I would argue that, like “Paradise Lost,” it—or at least parts of it—has to be read aloud in order to truly appreciate Milton’s poetics.)

There seem to be analogies to “closet” dramas in the bicycle world: bikes and components that are created, not to be ridden, but because, well, someone could create them.  An example is a bike with square wheels, which I showed in a previous post.

But, it seems that someone has actually ridden it:

Clothes Make The Rider

Some cyclists simply cannot imagine wearing anything but Lycra while riding. For a time, I was such a rider.

These days, I don't wear Lycra--though, perhaps, not for the same reason as this rider:

Can you imagine him in an outfit like this?: 

What’s On Their Minds?

 In yesterday’s post, I recalled a bike I rode around the time the  Notorius B.I.G. and Tupac Shakur we’re making their presence known.

I couldn’t help but to think about something else that was popular around that time.  A sinuous profile of a woman interposed on an image of Sigmund Freud’s head appeared on posters and T-shirts with the inscription, “What’s on a man’s mind?” Sometimes the question mark was omitted, turning the query into a declaration.

So, in that vein, the flow of my thoughts turned to this question:  What’s on a cyclist’s mind?

Kids These Days….

 I have never had children.  So, I don’t know what it’s like to teach one’s kid how to ride a bike.

As satisfying as such an experience may be, I imagine it was never easy.  And it probably is even more complicated today:

Why You Don't Want To Take A "Header"

 This is why you shouldn't hit your front brake too hard:

The Chains Of Freedom

 At one time in my life, I knew just enough German to get myself in trouble in Cologne. Still, it’s more than I know now. So, I have to accept it on the authority of someone I know—a German soaker—that Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels didn’t actually write “Workers of the world unite; you have nothing to lose but your chains.”  Rather, the last line is more properly translated as, “Proletarians of the world, unite!”  The second part, “you have nothing to lose but your chains,” was added in a translation Engels approved.

Another aphorism commonly and mistakenly attributed to the authors of the Communist Manifesto is, “The truth shall set you free.” While they may have agreed with it, they—or, at least Marx—would not have approved of its source:  the Bible, specifically, John 8:31-32.

It is therefore interesting to speculate about what they would have made of this:

Somehow I think they would recognize that the bicycle has liberated poor and working people—or, at least, given them mobility and even pleasure.

I know I have always felt freer while spinning my chains!

Will A Belly Rub Bring A Bike Back?

I don't mean to make levity of bike theft.

So why am I making this video this week's "Sunday Funny?"

Well, it has mainly to do with its possible "hero."

I am a cat person, but I have been known to give a belly rub or two to neighbor's dogs.  So I can understand why even a bike thief--one of the lowest forms of humanity, in my book--couldn't keep himself from doing the same for a big, fluffy Golden Retriever.

I laughed because I realized that the pooch, whether he/she realizes it or not, may assist the police if, indeed, they bother to investigate this crime.  Though the family pet may not have stopped the theft, he or she might've delayed the thief long enough for the cops, the bike's owner or someone else to get a good (or at least) better look at the crook.

I just hope the bike is reunited with its owner.  I am sure he or she treasures it, un, almost as much as that lovable canine.

They Couldn't Keep It Clean

When I worked in bike shops, customers brought in bikes with problems I couldn't have imagined.

Note:  "Mudguards" are, to the British, what we Americans call "fenders."

On Their Backs

When I first became a dedicated cyclist—during the 1970s—Schwinn still manufactured a style of frame they called “camelback.” With a curved top tube and, sometimes, twin parallel buttresses, it was found on the company’s balloon-tired bikes as well as some of its kids’ bikes (like the “Krate” series) and some smaller-framed adult models.  Here is a particularly nice example from the 1930s.

I have never owned one of those bikes—or ridden a camel. So I can’t tell you whether those bikes rode like camels—or whether I would want such a ride characteristic.

Apparently, some people do:

Animal Snacks

Before embarking on a ride, I went to the store for a snack or two to bring with me.

This is not the reason why I don't eat meat during a ride

though I suppose it could be.

What if it could recognize its own reflection? 

Cheery Cherries--In Tandem?

You've heard the expression, "like two peas in a pod."

Well, I dug into a bag of cherries.  (Summer isn't right without them!)  I pulled out two, attached to the same stem.  And I wondered, "Is this possible?" 

A Hunger For Innovation

 Now I understand why some bikes don’t have round frame tubes!