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?: 

The Colors of My Memories

 Once upon a time, I was a wannabe, unsuccessful, and then a manqué, racer. I wore jerseys—and sometimes shorts and helmets—that were veritable riots of color.

These  days, most of the Lycra bike outfits I see are in carbon-bike hues:  stealth black, carbon-neutral gray and the like.

Oh, I miss the good ol’ days!

Clothes Make The…

I know…You’re looking at this because you like her bike and her, um, attire.

And that’s the reason why I posted it.  Really!

All Dressed Up With Nowhere To Ride

Most schools and workplaces have dress codes.  So do some societies and countries.  Then there are the unwritten rules about what you should or shouldn't wear.  Bike clubs and sometimes even informal groups of riders have them.  Rarely, if ever, is someone barred from a ride that isn't a sanctioned race for not wearing the "proper" attire.  But sometimes the body language and facial expressions of other riders tell you all you need to know:

 

Is A Picture Worth A Thousand Words When It Gives Us Two?

As The World's Only Transgender Bike Blogger (at least, the only one I know about!), you can understand why this got my attention:

From bikechaser

Well, all right, the colors are hard to miss.   But the design is not exactly to my taste (at least, not anything I'd wear).  What piqued my interest were the words:  "Femme" (woman) on the jersey, "Homme" (man) on the shorts.

Hmm....

A Croc Of...?

Grant Petersen of Rivendell Bicycles has been called a "traditionalist iconoclast".  At first glance, that sounds like an oxymoron.  What it means is that he advocated a return to tried-and-true designs, methods and materials for bicycles and components at a time when the industry was moving toward carbon fiber and such.

On the whole, I'm with him.  In fact, you might say my bikes are, at least somewhat, Rivendells without being Rivendells.  All of my frames are lugged steel; all of my components are steel or alloy: there's no carbon fiber anywhere on them. For that matter, I don't use brifters, clipless pedals or low spoke-count boutique wheels, although I've tried them all.

I also agree with him when he says you don't need special clothes for cycling.  I say this as a reformed Lycra Lizard.  

But he also thinks that Crocs are perfectly fine shoes for cycling.  Again, there was a time in my life when I wouldn't even ride to the local bookstore (remember that?)  unless my foot was attached to my Look pedals with the stiffest shoes Carnac or Sidi made.

Now I ride mostly in "normal" shoes.  Still, I have never pedaled in Crocs.  In fact, I have yet to own, or even try on, a pair.  Maybe I won't, ever, especially after seeing this:

From Memecenter

Even after shedding skintight racing gear and jettisoning clipless pedals and cleats, there are still some things I won't wear on a bike!  I'm sure Grant would concur.

This "Mac" Is Almost 200 Years Old. Would We Have Gore-Tex Without It?

If someone were to ask you which countries contributed the most to the development of the bicycle, which would you name?

I'd bet that most of you would name one or more of the following:

• England
• France
• Italy
• Japan
• United States.

Any or all would be valid choices.  A case could also be made for Germany:  like the US, it played significant roles in the early history as well as the current development of the bicycle, although there was a "gap" of a few decades.

One country that played an inordinately large role in the early development of the bicycle is Scotland.  Now, some of you may argue that it's part of the UK and therefore the Scots are British.  But, as much as I love the English and things English (Hey, I teach their literature!), I see the Scots as an independent people who have had a history and culture distinct from their neighbors.  If I don't understand that, well, I've had no business teaching Macbeth.

The single most important technological development in the history of cycling--indeed, one of the most important technological developments in history, period--came from the hands of a Scottish veterinary surgeon who practiced in Northern Ireland. 

There is still a company that bears his name.  These days, it's best known for tennis equipment and tires for motorcycles, cars and trucks.

And, yes, it made bicycle tires until the 1960s.  In fact, their clinchers were regarded as the best available and were original equipment on many quality bikes, including Raleighs.  Owners of Raleigh three-speed got very, very creative in extending the life of their tires because they couldn't be replaced with anything that wore as well.  Likewise, owners of Raleigh sport bikes like the Lenton did whatever they could to keep their original Dunlop tires rolling, because the only way to match, or exceed, their performance was to use tubular ("sew-up") tires.  Dunlop also made a steel rim, the lightest of its time, to use with the tire.

John Boyd Dunlop's invention--the pneumatic, or air-filled, tire-- essentially completed the modern bicycle which, arguably, was created by John Kemp Starley a couple of years earlier when he created a machine with two equal-sized wheels driven by sprockets and a chain.  Starley's bike was, essentially, the final major stage in the evolution of the pedal driven bicycle, which was invented by Kirkpatrick Macmillan, another Scotsman. (With a name like that, what else could he be?)

As I said in an earlier post, it's difficult to overstate the importance of the pneumatic tire.  Without it, bicycles would still be slower and less versatile than horses.  So would motorcycles, automobiles and trucks.  And modern aircraft could not take off or land.

Even if no other Scotsman invented anything to improve the bicycle, or the bicycling experience, I think Scotland could lay claim to being one of the most important countries in the development of cycling.  However, I am going to mention another Scotsman who created something that, like pedals and pneumatic tires, made it possible to ride a bicycle under a greater range of conditions.  Some might even argue that his invention made Dunlop's work possible.

One way in which the invention I'm about to mention is different from pedaled bicycles or pneumatic tires is that it wasn't developed specifically for bicycles.  In fact, he probably never rode anything we would describe as a bicycle.  For that matter, he might not have ever seen one.

You are all familiar with his name and the invention that bears it, even though most of you probably have never owned one--or, at least not a "real" one.  There is only one factory in the whole world that makes the "authentic" version.  Still, it has influenced many, many other products in its genre--and items far beyond the scope of said genre.

As I mentioned, it helped to make, if indirectly, Dunlop's tire possible.  And what did that tire--and just about every tire made since--consist of?  Rubber and fabric.  Remember, the original Dunlop tire didn't have a bead:  It was rather like a modern sew-up (tubular) tire.

So what else is made from rubber and cloth?  A certain raincoat:  the Mackintosh.  Its inventor, Charles Macintosh, was born 250 years ago today.


Charles Macintosh was a self-taught Scottish chemist who originally worked on new ways of making dyes.  He succeeded at that, but neither that nor anything else he did would immortalize him in the way his coat--and, most important, the fabric he created for it--would.

He found a way to sandwich a layer of liquid rubber between two layers of cloth.  The key was in mixing naphtha into the rubber compound, which gave it enough liquid viscosity to spread between the layers of cloth but allowed the rubber to remain supple when it dried. 

Mackintosh coats became an instant success:  Everyone from police officers and firefighters to Arctic explorers wore them.  As a result, they became very fashionable and were, perhaps, one of the first unisex pieces of outerwear.

An early Mackintosh:  The Granddaddy of Gore Tex?

But the most important result of Macintosh's work is that he created what was, in essence, the world's first waterproof fabric.  Other attempts had been made to create waterproof jackets and coats:  They either were too stiff to wear or were, well, not exactly waterproof.  The main drawbacks to early Mackintoshes were their stiffness (though they were still more supple than other raingear), smell and tendency to melt in hot weather. All of these problems were solved by Macintosh and later chemists--and with the vulcanization of rubber.

If you have a Gore Tex jacket, the way it was made was, really, not so different from how Mackintoshes have been made for nearly two centuries.  The Gore Tex membrane is bonded between layers of fabric. And, just as the original Mackintosh (made in a factory in Manchester, England) is taped at the seams, so is any Gore Tex garment that can claim to be waterproof.  Of course, Gore Tex overcomes the other drawback of the Mackintosh, or any other rubberized garment:  Its lack of breathability.

So, I think it's safe to say that the "Mack" did as much to make cycling an activity that can be done in adverse weather conditions as another "Mac" did--at least in the eyes of its fans--to make personal computing easier and more versatile.

(N.B.:  I have composed this, and everything else on this blog and my other, on PCs, mainly out of habit.)
 

What Should You Bring With You On A Ride?

You've just finished a long ride on a hot day.  Or, perhaps, you've been riding up and down hills, or spent the whole day riding into the wind.  Maybe you've been tearing up the turf or slogging through mud.

Now you're some combination of sweaty, dirty and tired. So, you wash up and put on some fresh, clean clothes.  What do you do with the clothes you wore while riding?

Some of you might hand-wash them.  That's what we did back when we wore Sergal or Kucharik wool shorts, jerseys, tights and jackets.  Later on, other companies offered wool clothing that could be machine-washed on the gentle cycle.  Many of the synthetic fabrics that came later could be treated in the same way.

If you are bike-touring, you might not have access to a washing machine.  And, if you hand-wash your vestments in the nearest sink, tub, river or creek, it will take forever for your stuff to dry.  (The "spin" cycle on a washing machine usually extracts much more moisture than most of us can wring out.)  That can be a real problem when you have to re-pack them, or want or need to wear them the following day.

One possible solution to such a dilemma is to bring a washing machine with you.   Then, it doesn't matter whether you sleep in the Hilton Hotel or in the woods:  If you bring a machine with you while cycling, you won't have to worry about whether or not you have access to electricity or any other power source.  Your bicycle becomes--or, more precisely, you become--the power source.

She Would've Had Us Riding In Style--And Comfort!

When you think of female clothing designers (which, I assume, you regularly do! ;-) , names like Coco Chanel, Miuccia Prada, Vera Wang, Betsey Johnson, Carolina Herrera and Sonia Rykiel probably come to mind.  They have influenced what we--and, yes, you guys, too!--wear today. 

We American women, especially those of us who are active in any sport like cycling, owe perhaps an even greater debt to someone you probably don't know about unless you're, ahem, of a certain age. Or if you teach at FIT or Pratt.  Or if, of course, you are a fashion designer.

According to Jennifer Minniti, the chair of Pratt's Fashion Design Department (and herself a designer), the person of whom I am writing "is known as the inventor of American sportswear or ready-to-wear."  That's not an overstatement:  She was probably the first designer to understand how American women's lives were different from those of upper-class Europeans (who were, traditionally,  the main customers of most designers) and how they therefore needed clothing that was more functional and adaptable while still elegant and stylish.

Most important of all, her creations fitted and moved with the body, something that could not be said of the work of other designers, whose clients still largely eschewed physical activity. It is no surprise, then, to see that she created this "cycling costume" in 1940:

 

I don't expect to see that in the peloton. But, hey, forget that it isn't in Lycra--wouldn't you wear it? 

 

 

Claire McCardell, who designed it, was the first American fashion designer to garner name recognition.  She was so well-known in her time that in 1950, President Harry S. Truman presented her with the Women's National Press Club Award, making her the first fashion designer to be voted one of America's Women of Achievement.

Hmm...How would she have dressed the man who quipped, "I like riding a bicycle for two--by myself"?