Build, Ride And Show

All right.  Because you've all been such good readers, and I've been to a bike show, I'm going to treat you to some "bike porn."  However, I'm going to show you some important but not-so-flashy stuff first.

In an earlier post, I started to talk about some of the ways in which this year's New Amsterdam Bike Show was different from shows I attended in days gone by.  I mentioned the emphasis on utilitarian bikes.  As much as I love to ride for sport and recreation, I'm glad that some bikemakers are actually seeing, and selling, their wares as alternatives to cars.

In that regard, the bikes that impressed me the most are those from Yuba Bicycles.  They're probably the nearest two-wheeled equivalent to pickup trucks and vans.  The bikes are actually equipped with a "flatbed" in the rear.  Onto it one can attach seats, oversized panniers and even shelves. I've been told that these bicycles have been used to move the entire contents of apartments and houses, not to mention surfboards, stereo systems and such.

Yuba bikes must be seen to be believed.  These bikes are not for anyone who has even the slightest pretense of being a racer.  The wheelbase of a Yuba is nearly four times as long as that of Tosca, my Mercian fixed-gear bike! 

The spiritual grandparent, if you will, of Yuba might be Worksman Cycles, who still make their machines in Ozone Park, Queens--just a few miles from my apartment.  I've mentioned Worksman in a previous post, and meeting Bruce Weinreb, the company's Director for Custom Programs and Special Markets,only deepened my respect for their products, and for the company itself.  Their industrial bikes are used all over the world, and countless pizzas have been delivered on their bikes.  They can be great alternatives to cars and trucks, if for no other reason than they usually outlast, often by decades, their gas-guzzling counterparts.

They also make tricycles.  I see at least a couple every time I go to Florida.  However, they're not only for those who can no longer (or never could) ride two wheels:  The space between the two rear wheels is all but ideal for baskets, bags and other ways of hauling cargo.  They also make a Special Edition:  the model you see in the photo.  Ten percent of the purchase price of each of those bicycles is donated to the Wounded Warrior Project.

Gazelle, which has long been noted for its city bikes with internally-geared hubs, is also making a bike out of recycled materials.  A lighting system is built into the bike:  The headlight is found where a head badge would normally be installed, and the tail light is under the seat.  Both are solar-powered, and are said to store more power--and use it more efficiently--than earlier solar-powered bicycle lights.

Another utility bike I saw at the show has a lineage almost as long as that of Worksman or Gazelle bicycles.  Actually, I first encountered it two nights before the show, in Tribeca's Adeline!  Adeline!, where I attended a party intended to launch Bobbin, a British maker of city and transport bikes, in the USA.   

At first glance, most people would think it's a folding bike or, if they're more knowledgeable about bikes, a replica of an early Moulton. However, there's no way to fold the bike, and about the only thing this bike has in common with the Moulton is its small wheel size.  It's what's known in Albion as a "shopper."  People ride them to marketplaces because their low profile makes them easy to mount and dismount when they're loaded, and easy to maneuver through the narrow aisles and crowds of people in marketplaces.  

All right, now that you've stayed with this post, I'm going to deliver on what I promised.  First off is a Horse track bicycle.  Check out the lugwork and paint:

 Here's one of their touring bikes:

And how can you not love a trussed frame like this one from Benjamin Cycles?: 

  
 Benjamin and Horse are both based in Brooklyn, NY.  Could we see the day when a model called "Greenpoint" or "Bensonhurst" has the same cachet as one called "l'Alpe d'Huez" or "Stelvio"?

Workin' It

Some bikes look right only when they've got half of their paint missing and look beat right down to their inner tubes.

Well, all right, I didn't see the inner tubes on this one.  But I imagine that they have, if nothing else, the feel and scent of a pair of flip-flops swished and slogged through curbside puddles during a summer rainstorm.

But, really, can you imagine this bike--from Worksman Cycles--new?  The paint job may have been rather attractive, if in a utilitarian sort of way.  Somehow, though, it wouldn't have looked right.

I must say that in my more than three decades of cycling, I've seen only one "virgin" Worksman.  One shop in which I worked was an official Worksman dealer.  Highland Park Cyclery did a brisk business inside a ramshackle building (which was torn down after HPC moved to fancier digs) at the foot of a commercial strip across the river from the college (Rutgers) I attended as an undergraduate.  Some of the stores and restaurants offered deliveries, some of which they made on bikes.  Those shops and restaurants already had their delivery bikes--Worksmans, mostly--before I started working at HPC.

So it was something of a surprise--to me, anyway--when I found myself assembling a brand-new Worksman.  I didn't mind that:  Although it wasn't a bike I'd've bought for myself, it was easy to work on.  Plus, one could not deny that it was suited about as well as any product could be to its purpose.

What surprised me, though, was that it wasn't a business that bought one.  Rather, he was--as I recall--a married middle-aged man who ran a "consulting business" from his home.  He never consulted me about what his business consulted on, but he seemed prosperous and his family harmonious.  

He said he'd wanted his Worksman to use as his "human powered station wagon."  Later, I saw him hauling groceries, building supplies, books, and even furniture on it.  Another thing I find interesting, in retrospect, was that he was looking to become less dependent on his car (which he sold not long after buying the Worksman) at a time when gasoline prices were falling, at least relative to what they were in the days around the Iran Hostage Crisis.

Although I saw that man on his Worksman nearly every day, it didn't seem to wear much.  Granted, Highland Park wasn't as harsh an environment as New York or other urban zones for a bike.  Plus, I'm sure he didn't subject it to the same kind of abuse as most delivery people did to theirs. 


Apparently, in spite of the fact that the bikes never seem to die, there's enough of a market for new ones that the company is thriving, and did even during the leanest of times in the American bike market, and before the current vogue for "cruisers".  I guess that disproves the notion that if a product is so well-made that it never needs replacement, the company making it will lose sales and stop making it, or even go out of business.  (Some old-timers claim that was the story of Weinmann concave rims and Sun Tour V-GT derailleurs.) In any event, the bikes are being made in the Ozone Park area of Queens, NY, about seven miles from my apartment and just off the route of a few of my regular rides. 

Afterword:  I was looking up Highland Park Cyclery.  Apparently, they've moved up the road into neighboring Edison and have renamed themselves Joyful Cycles, in a reference to 1 Thessolonians 5:16-18.  Ironically, Frank, who owned HPC while I worked there, and his wife Wendy were about as antithetical to religious fundamentalism as any two people could be!