It's The Stories That Matter

During the past couple of days, it's been colder (in NYC) than it's been in, probably, a few years. Today is definitely a tomato-soup-and-grilled-cheese-sandwich kind of day. Now, to all of you dear readers in Minnesota and North Dakota, this might be a beach day (on Lake Superior?  the Red River?).  But you have to remember that those of us in the Big Apple, everything is bigger, brighter, dirtier, hotter, colder, and generally more intense, and everybody is tougher, stronger and smarter, than in any other place in the universe.

Of couse, I jested (Is that a real word?), but only somewhat, with my previous sentence.  But like any true New Yorker, that's what I tell myself.  And the tourist bureau wants you to believe stuff like that so you'll tell yourself that you'll never, ever come here--until you do.  And you meet someone like yours truly.  And someone else like me. (Yes, believe it or not, there such people.)  And another.  And another.  Then you go home and tell your friends that everything in New York is bigger, brighter, dirtier, louder, more intense--and more expensive--but, you know, those New Yorkers are rude and gruff but they have hearts of gold.

My late uncle Joe was that kind of person.  He was born and lived in Brooklyn until he was about 60, when he and my aunt moved upstate. He never lost his straight-out-of-Red Hook  (I bawt a boddle uv alluv earl in da staw on toity-toid and toid*) accent--or his sense of humor and generous spirit.  

I am thinking of him now because of a feature article in a local newspaper of a place I've never seen. Uncle Joe was an avid motorcyclist until he couldn't ride anymore.  I don't recall him riding a bicycle but he talked fondly of the one he rode as an adolescent in the 1950s:  a Schwinn Phantom, in black.  He said the bike always "felt right:"  in spite of its weight, "it moved."  And somehow, he said, the gearing felt just right:  "I felt I could pedal into anything!"

Now, perhaps that last exclamation had more to do with his youthful energy than the bike, or anything else--though, I must say, if his bike was anything like the two black Phantoms I've seen, he probably felt like a real badass when he rode it.  I know, I probably would have, too.

Howard F. Gordon of Lower Burrell, Pennsylvania has one of those bikes.  And, I would guess, another, perhaps in another color.  And other bikes from that period, and earlier--over 100 of them!

From what I read in the article and saw in the accompanying photos, all or most of those bikes are of the balloon-tired "cruiser" variety made by Schwinn, Columbia and many other American companies until the 1960s.  He calls his 1951 Monark "the Cadillac of bikes.

Even though he admits he has "too many" bikes, he's always on the lookout for new treasures, at garage and estate sales.  "There are so many bicycles in garages and attics that are worth money," he explains. Whenever he buys a bike, he disassembles it and cleans every part before reassembling and restoring the bike to something like its original condition.

One of his more interesting observations regards the condition of the bikes he finds.  Generally, he says, girls' bikes are in better condition because they were better cared-for. Boys, he observed, usually rode their bikes into the ground.

That observation is part of what keeps him interested in vintage bikes:  the stories, known or imagined, by them.  "Every one of those bikes had a rider who can tell you something about the adventures they took on it," he explains.  "A bike is a kid's first feeling of freedom."  Sometimes kids pedaled their bikes to places their parents never knew they went. (Can you see me and Uncle Joe winking to each other?)  

In case you were wondering, Gordon rides.  "My wife and I go on riding dates," he relates.  "We stop for ice cream.  We enjoy the nice weather.  It's great exercise."

That sounds like a story behind at least one of his bikes! 

*--Translation: I bought a bottle of olive oil in the store on Thirty-third and Third.

Photos by Louis B. Ruediger, for the Tribune-Review. 

The Power Of A Basket?

About fifteen years ago, I saw someone riding a classic Cinelli track machine (fully chromed!) adorned with one of those flowery plastic baskets you see on little girls' bikes.

Had I seen it a few years earlier, I would have winced.  Or, if the bike was parked and its owner wasn't anywhere in sight, I would have torn the basket off.

Instead, I smiled...knowingly.  I had finally come to the realization that whatever keeps a person riding a bike is good.  That day, I saw nothing in the basket and have no idea of whether that rider--who had maroon hair and high boots--ever carried anything in it.  But if that basket made that bike more fun--let alone made it more useful--for her to ride, it couldn't have been bad.

I also realized that baskets, racks, fenders and other accessories--as well as wider saddles, higher handlebars and stems with longer quills and shorter extensions, might well keep the bike on the road or trail and not gathering dust in a garage--or, worse, rotting in a landfill.

What got to thinking about that chrome Cinelli track bike with the basket was this:

Karl King, a partner in an Arkansas blacksmith shop, built the bike near the end of the 19th Century.  It might've been consigned to the local landfill, if not the dustbin of history, at the dawn of the automotive age had King not built that front basket on the front. 

He wasn't using it to bring home pizzas or six-packs of his favorite craft brew, however.   That basket had a seat belt in it, as its museum display sign notes.  Take a closer look and you will see pegs--footrests--"just below the gooseneck" and in front of the mini-seat on the frame's top tube, as its museum display sign notes.  

King's granddaughters, Kay Stark and Genevieve Jones, rode in those seats. Long after his death, they donated the bike to the Nevada County Depot and Museum, housed in an old railroad station in Prescott, 95 miles southwest of Little Rock.  According to a museum posting, "the old two-wheeler looks as if it carried its last rider long ago and luckily found its way into the museum just before someone consigned it to that last great bicycle resting place, the scrap metal yard."

Hmm...Did the basket have anything to do with it?

A Journey Continues Across Generations

Some things are worth saving for their intrinsic value, artistic merit or historic or cultural importance.

More often, though, the stories behind objects are what make them valuable--at least to someone, if not to everyone.  

Such is the case of a bicycle that hangs in Les Sorensen's garage.  The Cooks Mills, Illinois resident inherited it from his uncle Einar when he died in 1978.  Einar never told Les the story behind the bicycle.  Rather, the younger man learned about it from letters his uncle's friend, Ed Warren, wrote to his mother.

Those dispatches were sent out daily during a trip Warren took with Einar and his brother Kay in 1922.  Their 62-day journey--which Einar rode on the bike in Les's garage--took them from their native Illinois to Los Angeles.  Some letters were sent  from familiar-sounding locales like Reno, Nevada, while others came from places where one might not expected to find so much as a rubber stamp, let alone a post office.

Along the way, the three young men stopped and worked for money to pay for their trip.  Einar sometimes stayed and worked a little longer than the others, but he would catch up to them.  While they made friends along the way, some places were rather hostile.  When they rode through those not-so-safe areas, they hid their money in their handlebars.

Les didn't find any of that cash.  I am sure, though, that some dirt and dust from their route was still embedded in parts of the bike:  For much of the time, they were riding on unpaved roads and they often had to carry their bikes.  One of Warren's letters says that one day, they portaged their machines 18 miles through the desert.

The letters and other memorabilia Warren's daughter assembled into a book, which she gave Les, offer no indication of any motive--except, perhaps, fun--behind their ride.  When they arrived in California, Kay decided to stay and join the military.  Einar and Warren returned, with their bikes, to Illinois.

The bike Einar rode--and Les now owns--is a Rugby, made in St. Louis.  According to the report I read, the bike had wooden rims, though the ones in the photo look more like chromed steel--and not of the same time period.  I am guessing that the wheels were replaced a few years ago, when Les rode it for a season.

Born 12 years after his uncle's adventure on the Rugby, Les is, shall we say, getting on in years.  He never could sell his antique treasure, he said, so he wants to keep it in the family.  So, he plans to send it to Kay Sorensen's granddaughter in Oregon.  

And, I'm sure, the stories will follow as the Rugby makes another trip to the Pacific. 

An Honest-To-God Lincoln

During my childhood, yesterday--12 February--was a national holiday, commemorating the birth of Abraham Lincoln.

Now  "it's not a holiday unless your boss/city/state says it is," as one of my colleagues put it.  We have another holiday--Presidents' Day--on the third Monday of every February to replace Lincoln's and George Washington's (22 February)  Birthdays as shopping days, I mean days off, I mean holidays.

I can understand a holiday for George Washington, Franklin D. Roosevelt and maybe even John F. Kennedy. (I say "maybe" only because JFK was in office so briefly.)  But Millard Fillmore?  Benjamin Harrison? Andrew Johnson?  Richard Nixon?

Some jurisdictions and institutions (such as the college in which I teach) still observe Lincoln's Birthday on the second Monday of every February.  So, in the spirit of the holiday--and because no store, at this moment, is running a sale on anything I actually want or need--I am going to present a Lincoln bicycle.

Actually, it has nothing to do with "Honest Abe".  The "Royal" in the name tells us as much.  Somehow I think he'd roll in his grave if anyone connected him, even if only verbally, with monarchy.

"Royal Lincoln" is named for Lincolnshire, in the English Midlands. Today it survives mainly on tourism, as it has some of the UK's best-preserved Roman and Medieval structures, and on specialized high-tech industries.  But it was one of the areas in which the Industrial Revolution was born and remained a center of British industry at the time the bike--a model called "Stonebow"--was made (1908).

At first glance, it looks more like an old Dutch city bike than anything made in England.  Nothing wrong with that.  But the details distinguish it from other bikes.

For one thing, the paint and lug work are nicely done and have held up remarkably well. Then there is this:

Probably the only saddle that even remotely resembles it is the Brooks B18.   And those pedals:

The person who wrote the entry for the bike on the museum's website has not seen another bike from that marque, and little information is available on it.  Could it have been one of those "local" brands once found all over the UK and Europe that was absorbed by a larger company--or simply ceased production, say, during World War II?

When I Took A Shot, I Mean, A Ride

Have you ever ridden a Sling Shot bicycle?

1995 model--like Stelios' bike

These days, SS is producing a line of bicycles with conventional tubing dimensions and geometry.  At the same time, they have continued their signature frame design:  the one with the cable in place of the downtube.

If you haven't ridden one of those bikes, you may have seen one.  In place of the downtube, a thick steel cable is attached to the bike with a spring.  Early versions of the frame, from the 1980s, actually had two cables, and the springs were hooked onto the bottom bracket.  On later models, the spring is found at the top tube.  And, on nearly all Sling Shots, there is a hinge on the top tube just before it meets the seat tube.

Stelios Tapanakis, who worked in several New York City bike shops during the '80's and '90's and co-owned Park Slope shop Rock'n'Road with Stella Buckwalter in the late '90's, was a big fan of Sling Shots.  He owned and rode both a road and a mountain model, each equipped with typical components (mostly Ultegra on the road bike and XT on the mountain bike) of the day.  He allowed me to try his bikes on a few occasions. 

The hinge

I didn't dislike either bike.  If anything, I found them rather unremarkable.  I don't mean that in a negative way:  They both reminded me of other bikes I'd ridden and, in some cases, enjoyed. 

1990 model.  I rather like this one.

In particular the road bike reminded me of at least a few Columbus SL frames I'd ridden (and a couple I owned).  Perhaps it had to do with the shocks which, Stelios explained, were the stiffest ones Sling Shot was offering.  (The bikes could be purchased with softer springs.)  I didn't notice any major difference in shock absorption from conventional steel bikes I'd ridden.  Nor did I notice a significant difference in acceleration or responsiveness.

What really surprised me, though, was that the Sling Shot seemed noticeably heavier than the Mondonico Criterium I was riding at the time, even though both bikes had very similar components and wheels and had the same tires.  (I didn't weigh either bike; my impression came from lifting both bikes.)  Even in those days, I wasn't a weight weenie; still, I couldn't help but notice the difference.

I also felt a difference--though less noticeable--in weight between his mountain Sling Shot and the off-road bike I rode at the time:  a Jamis Dakota.  In a way, that surprised me even more than the difference between the road bikes, as the Jamis was a mid-level bike.  Although I upgraded a few of the parts, the overall package was not on the same tier as the equipment Stelios was riding on his mountain Sling Shot.

As for that bike:  I noticed a bit more of a difference in the ride between it and the Jamis than I did between his road bike and mine.  The Sling Shot actually did feel as if it were absorbing more shock than my Jamis, on which I  had a Rock Shox Mag 21 fork, if I recall correctly. (When I bought the Jamis, mountain bikes still weren't sold with shock absorbing front forks; they were still considered an after-market item.) But the Sling Shot also felt less stable going down a hill, as if the bike had a loose head tube.  Stelios used to say that it allowed him more control of the bike.  I suppose that if I'd done more downhill rides, I'd have felt the same way.

So, while neither bike had a disagreeable (to me, anyway) ride,  I could see no reason to sell the bikes I had and "upgrade" to a Sling Shot frame, which cost about twice as much as my Mondonico and who-knows-how-much more than the Jamis.

I got to thinking about Sling Shots when I saw this photo on Memphis Cyclist:

I tried, unsuccessfully, to find more information about that bike.  Is it my imagination, or does it look like it--like the Sling Shot--has a cable instead of a down tube?

The top tube looks like someone crossed a truss and a camelback frame.  What if Sling Shot were to make a frame like that?

Turns out, they did--sort of:

Now I'm going to reiterate something I've said in earlier posts:  In my nearly four decades of cycling, nearly every "new" idea I've seen was indeed new--twenty, fifty or even a hundred years earlier!