When They Tried To Bar Major Taylor

This month--February--is Black History Month here in the US.

Mention "black cyclists" and one of the first names that comes to mind is "Major Taylor".

He was the first African-American athlete to win the world championship of any sport.  (Canadian bantamweight boxer George Dixon was the first black athlete to accomplish that feat.)  Although he was one of the most famous and admired athletes in the world, the "Worcester Whirlwind" was not insulated from racism.

The Worcester Whirlwind, circa 1900. From wikipedia.

The city from which Taylor's nickname was derived--Worcester, Massachusetts--was one of the centers of the Abolitionist movement.  Even so, not everyone there welcomed him with open arms.  When he bought a house in the well-to-do Columbus Park enclave, alarmed white neighbors tried to buy it back from him.

Even if you're the best in the world, you can't stop fools from being foolish.

Even so, life was better for him in Worcester--and in the rest of the Northeast--than it was elsewhere in the US.  While he won pretty much every race and award that could be won in his home region, he could not advance his career unless he won in other parts of the country. Two things conspired against him:  One, owners and promoters of races and tracks in the South banned him--and all other black cyclists--outright. Second, in 1894, just as Taylor's career was in ascendancy, the League of American Wheelmen--then the governing body of bicycle racing--voted to ban blacks.  Some have speculated that the ban was specifically aimed at Taylor, who, even at the age of 17, was beating his white challengers, some of whom were far more experienced than he was.

(The LAW is now known as the League of American Bicyclists.)

That ban, of course, closed other doors for him.  There were, however, a number of races--mostly in the Northeast--that allowed him to compete.  And, of course, he went to Canada:  In 1899, he won the World Championship for the one-mile sprint in Montreal.  

(Interesting aside:  In 1946, Jackie Robinson played for the Montreal Royals, which was the top minor-league team of the Brooklyn Dodgers. Fans in Montreal embraced him, as they did Taylor half a century earlier.)  

But even in the relative tolerance of his home region, Taylor encountered hostility.  He was often denied lodgings and food on account of his color, and white racers turned into pure-and-simple thugs when riding against him: One opponent hauled him off his bike and choked him into unconsciousness.

In the racial atmosphere of that time, the only way Taylor could advance his career was by racing in Europe.  He, in fact, had a number of offers to participate in races and join teams, especially in France.  He was grateful for the opportunities but would not accept them at first:   In Europe, many races were held on Sunday, as they are now.  Taylor had become a devout Baptist after his mother's death and would not race on the Sabbath.

Some of the offers he received were lucrative, to say the least.  When pleas and urgings from prominent African-Americans as well as cycling fans had no effect on him, black newspaper editors of the time published what we would now call "fake news"--saying that his religious scruples had been conquered by Mammon--or editorials speculating that such a thing would happen.

Of course, it didn't.  Finally, in 1901, a French team offered him a contract that specified he wouldn't have to race on Sunday.  He accepted, and before he even mounted a bicycle on the other side of the Atlantic, he was treated to a hero's welcome. 

An American in Paris.

Europeans were as impressed with his dignity and grace as they were with his athletic prowess.  He did much to help improve the level of European racing, not only by his presence, but also by mentoring young racers.  Here is one account of such tutoring, from his autobiography:

  I recall that on my first trip to Europe in 1901 I saw a French youth, whose name was Poulain, ride in an amateur event at Nantes, France. He was very awkward as he rode about the track, but something about him caught my eye, and I became interested in him at once. At the close of the race I made several suggestions to him, adjusting his pedals, and handle bars, and giving him some advice on how to train. I stressed clean living upon him, and told him in conclusion that if he trained carefully and lived a clean life, I would predict that some day he would beat all the amateurs of Europe and the professionals as well.

  When I returned to France in 1908 this same Poulain, who in the meantime had won the amateur and professional championships of France, defeated me in a special match race. Imagine my surprise at the conclusion of this event when my conqueror told me who he was. The laugh certainly was on me. I did manage to bring him into camp, however, after I reached by best form.

"The laugh was certainly on me." How could they not love someone with such an attitude?  Unfortunately, not everyone in his home country felt the same way.

More--Or Mores?

If you mention English three-speed bikes, the first brand that comes to most people's minds is Raleigh.

That makes sense when you realize that not only did Raleigh make more such machines-- and make them for longer-- than any other bike maker, they  had also, by the late 1950s, acquired BSA, Sunbeam and other manufacturers of such machines.  If you aren't a three-speed enthusiast or haven't worked in a bike shop, you probably aren't aware of those brands.  Most people have seen bikes from those marqes but didn't notice because they don't know or care about such things, or because those bikes looked so much like Raleighs that they didn't notice the brands.

So it's not such a surprise that English bicycle saddles have a similar history to the bikes I've mentioned, especially when you realize that most English bikes (as well as machines from many other countries), until the 1970s, came with British leather saddles.

Now, a cyclist who isn't of a certain age can be forgiven for thinking that Brooks is the only British company to have made those iconic perches from hide stretched across rails.  Turns out, up to about the 1970s, a number of firms in Albion were making saddles similar to the ones Brooks offered.

You may have ridden one of their wares, perhaps without realizing it.  Among those saddle makers were Lycett, Wrights and one I re-discovered recently.   They all have remarkably parallel histories:  They started as makers of horse saddles or other leather goods, and they all were based--as was much of the British cycling industry--in and around Birmingham.  

(The name of that city is pronounced "burr-mean-gum" with an accent on the first syllable.  Folks in Alabama will tell you their largest city is "Burr-ming-ham", with the last syllable accented.)

Recently, I saw an old Holdsworth parked in my neighborhood.  I wish I had taken photos of it:  The frame was obviously from the 1960s or earlier, but it was kitted out with a combination of modern, mostly Japanese, components.  The bike, however, sported one item that was very distinctively of its place and time:

I rather liked the nameplate, with the Middlemore name bookended by an enlarged "M" and "E" at the beginning and end, respectively.  What puzzled me, though, is this:

So the rear plate says "Middlemore" but the side emblems read "Middlemores".  It would make more sense if the latter contained an apostrophe, as in "Middlemore's saddles".  Instead,it looks as if someone couldn't decide on the singular or plural.

The makers of that saddle can be forgiven.  The B89, which I believe was the model I saw on the Holdsworth, looks like a cross between a Brooks Professional and B17.  At least, the width seems to be somewhere between the two.  And the leather on it was as thick as I've seen on any, and appeared to be of very good quality.  Whoever's been riding that saddle seems to have taken care of it.

In doing some research, I found an entire blog devoted, not only to Middlemore(s) saddles, but to other items--some not related to bikes--made by the company.  Apparently, the firm was known as Middlemore & Lamplugh after the two firms bearing those names merged in 1896, and continued to make saddles under both names until 1920, when the firm was dissolved and one of its factories was sold.  Middlemore once again became a separate company, known as Middlemores Coventry, that continued to make bicycle saddles.

As Raleigh was acquiring many of the old British bicycle marques, a rival company, the Tube Investments Group, was buying up the bike makers Raleigh hadn't collected.  By that time, Raleigh also owned a number of component manufacturers, including Sturmey Archer---and Brooks.  In 1960, TI bought Raleigh, which meant that, in essence, they controlled the British bicycle industry.

TI would then "retire" some of the old bike and parts brands that had previously competed with Raleigh and its affiliates.  Somehow, though, Middlemore(s) managed to remain independent.  During that time, the B89 came out; later, a cutaway version (like the Brooks Swallow), the B89N, was offered.  And their tri-sprung saddle, the B3, found a following among some more leisurely cyclists.  According to one former employee, Middlemore(s) even made a saddle for Princess Margaret.

By the 1970's, however, much of their dwindling income came from rebadged saddles they made for a few bike manufacturers, including Lambert/Viscount and Moulton.  But as companies like Lambert/Viscount died out, were acquired or moved production overseas, Middlemore(s) dwindled and seems to have stopped making saddles altogether in the 1980s, although it existed on paper until 21 May 1991.

At that time, Middlemore(s) was one of the most longevous manufacturing firms of any kind in Britain or the world.  It had, in fact, existed for even longer than Brooks or Raleigh. 

Across the Channel, a number of French firms made leather saddles similar to the ones made by their counterparts in Blighty.  Some were of decidedly inferior quality, like the Adga Model 28s that came with Peugeot UO8s and other similar French bikes.  (The Adga 28, as Sheldon Brown wryly notes, probably did more than anything else to turn people off suspended leather saddles.)  Then there was Norex, a "second line" of saddles from Ideale, the best-known French maker.  

Ideale seems to have gone out of business in the mid-1980s or thereabouts.  From the next two decades or so, Brooks was just about the only brand of leather saddles available (and then only sporadically) in the US and much of the world.  A Dutch company continued to make similar products, which seemed to be of decent quality.  One possible reason why they weren't imported to America, or to most of the English-speaking world, might have been its name:  Lepper.

Note:  The images in this post came from "VeloBase".

Hasta La Vista, Esquire!

Yesterday, I mentioned Vista bicycles.  If you became a cyclist around the time I did--or were in junior high or high school when I was--in the US, you probably saw a lot of them, if you didn't have one yourself.

Vista Esquire, circa 1972

I got my Schwinn Continental just as the '70's Bike Boom was building up steam.  At that time, shops routinely ran out of Schwinns, Peugeots and Raleighs, which were the most popular brands in bike shops.  I had to wait three months for my Continental, which was not unusual.  But not everybody was willing to wait for one of those brands, and dealers knew that such customers would buy pretty much any ten-speed that resembled, even in the most superficial ways, bikes from those companies.  

Head badge from early Vista bicycle.

Some accused Schwinn of suppressing production in order to create such a demand and, consequently, drive up prices.  Truth was, they, like most other bike manufacturers, simply couldn't keep up with the demand: US Bicycle sales doubled from 1970 to 1972.  Even the boatloads of bikes that arrived daily from Europe and Asia weren't enough to satisfy consumers.

Schwinn Collegiate, circa 1972

Schwinn, however, did something else that made their bikes--and, by extension, other ten-speeds--more difficult to find, especially in rural areas.  On the eve of the Bike Boom, in the 1960s, Schwinn tried to eliminate from its dealer networks the small-town stores that sold tractors, feed and fertilizer, hardware, guns, cars or whatever else alongside Schwinn bicycles. (Some kept only a couple of bikes in the store and if the customer wanted another model or color, or needed a different size, the shop ordered it.)  The company wanted their bikes sold in showrooms devoted to their bikes and that stocked a sizeable number of Schwinn bikes and accessories.  Jake's Feed and Seed or Rick's Rifles couldn't or wouldn't make the investment in showrooms and inventory and were thus shut out of what would become a lucrative enterprise.

Vista Esquire, circa 1971

In response, a group of manufacturers and suppliers formed the National Independent Dealers Association and put together a line of bikes.  It's long been rumored that one of those manufacturers was Columbia bicycles of Westfield, Massachusetts:  Early Vista bicycles, for all of their attempts to look like Schwinns, had the style of everything from welding to graphics seen on the Columbia bicycles found in department stores.  

I knew more than a few kids--and a few adults--who rode them when they couldn't get Schwinns.  Vistas sold for about 20 percent less and were lighter than the Schwinn models they were designed to compete with.  From my limited experience with them, they clattered in that same clunky way as department store bikes like Columbia and Murray.  

The early Vistas had the same components as Columbias of the time:  Huret Allvit  derailleurs and steel one-piece cranks-- which were also found on Schwinns-- and cheap sidepull brakes.  Around 1972 or 1973, however, Vista began to equip their "Cavalier" and "Esquire" with their own brand of derailleur.  At least, that's what a lot of people thought.

Made-in-Japan Vista 15 speed bike with 64 cm(!) frame, circa 1975

In-the-know cyclists, however, soon realized that Vista had simply rebadged the SunTour GT rear and Spirt front derailleurs, and the ratcheted "power" shift levers bolted onto the handlebar stem.  Folks like me who had the chance to ride those Esquires and Cavaliers simply couldn't believe how much easier, and more accurately, their gears shifted than the ones on our Continentals and Varsities--or even on some of the more expensive European racing bikes.

Made-in-Japan Vista Elite with Shimano 600 components, circa 1978

That move probably did as much as anything to popularize the Vista brand and to keep sales even after the Bike Boom died down.  Some time around 1975 or so, Vista began to offer a line of "professional" bikes made for them in Japan.  Those bikes resembled the mid-level ten (and later twelve) speed bikes from Takara, Azuki and other Japanese marques, with their lugged frames made out of high-tensile (and, in a few cases, straight-gauge chrome-moly) steel tubing outfitted with components from SunTour, Shimano, Sakae Ringyo,Takagi and other well-known manufacturers from the Land of the Rising Sun. By the early '80's, Vista was even offering an "aero" model with flattened chrome-moly frame tubes, early "deep V" rims from Araya and Shimano's 600 EX "aero" components.

Head badge from Japanese-made Vista

Those Japanese-made Vistas were good, but mostly indistinguishable from other bikes from the by-then-more-familiar Japanese brands.  Thus, thirteen- and fourteen-year-olds who bought American-made Vistas weren't, if they were still riding, buying Japanese-made Vistas when they went to college and beyond.  Instead, they purchased ten- (or, by that time, twelve-) speeds from such iconic brands of the 1970s and '80s as Fuji, Miyata, Motobecane and Raleigh.

The Vista brand seems to have disappeared some time around 1984 or 1985--a couple of years after those "aero" bikes came out.  By that time, Schwinn was making a series of missteps that would cost much of the market share it once enjoyed.  (As an example, the company's management acted as if mountain bikes were just a passing fad at a time when other manufacturers were making their mark in that discipline.)  And the quality of other American mass-produced bikes (with a few exceptions like Trek), which wasn't very good to begin with, fell off precipitously and, within a few years, nearly all production shifted offshore.

Old Whitewalls Turn New Wheels (Antifreeze) Green With Envy!

I still remember when a bike with "antifreeze green" Velocity rims or neon orange or pink parts could get my attention.  These days, I see so many bikes, components and accessories in such a riot of colors that I don't notice the loud and shocking colors--or, in some cases, cartoonish graphics--on them.  


From the images I've seen, and from what I've read, I imagine that a century ago, the color palette for what people pedaled wasn't quite as extensive as it is today.  I'm guessing it didn't include the loud, sometimes garish, hues that scream out in the tumult of tones we see today.



That leads me to wonder how these bikes might have looked to people in Peoria, Illinois in 1920:

The Voss Brothers' bicycle shop in Peoria, Illinois, 1920.  From the Peoria Historical Society Image Collection at Bradley University.

In that photo, the tires look like fluorescent rings around the wheels.  I couldn't help but to wonder whether someone got really creative in the darkroom--or whether whitewall tires of that time were really as white as they look in that image.  

I also wonder whether they captured people's attention at first--and whether those same people got used, even jaded, to them.

Can you imagine those tires on antifreeze green rims?

From Superb Bicycle Boston blog.

Into The Fold On Being And Nothingness

Handing over a bank note is enough to make a bicycle belong to me, but my entire life is needed to realize this possession.

That insight came from none other than Jean-Paul Sartre.  Yesterday, I made a reference to him.  Well, wouldn't you know it?:  Today I came across the above quote, and this photo:


Here he is riding "Le Petit Bi":

This bike has been all but lost to the mists of time or, more precisely, the ashes of World War II.  Andre Jules Marcelin, a French Nobel Laureate (1926) physicist, invented it and received his first patent for it in Luxembourg in October 1939.  The following year, he received patents for it in France and Switzerland.

No one seems to know who manufactured the bike or how many were made.  All that is certain is that only a few exist.  Did the war severely curtail their production?  Or were many destroyed in bombing raids and such?

Professor Marcelin did his research at the Laboratoire de Chimie Physique (Chemical Physics Lab) of the Sorbonne-University of Paris.  He and other Sorbonne scientists held seminars on Monday nights where writers, poets, painters and other artists to speak.  It's possible that Marcelin met Sartre there, as well as Francois Picabia, seen here on a Bi:

Interestingly, that photo and the one of Sartre ended up in a Nazi propaganda magazine called Signal, which tried to show that life was normal for the French people under the German occupation.  

That Marcelin went to the trouble of filing for patents in multiple countries shows that he saw some sort of commercial potential in the Bi.  He even had plans for a foldable tandem and a motorized Bi:

Perhaps most intriguing of Marcelin's designs is the one he patented in 1935, four years before the Bi, for what looks like a foldable recumbent bicycle.

Whatever its history, the Bi did have something of a legacy.  One of the first lightweight folding bicycles, the Bickerton, came out during the 1970s.  The first prototype of it borrowed heavily from Le Petit Bi:

The Bickerton that finally came to market had a significantly different design, most likely because Harry Bickerton (who was an engineer) saw that he couldn't make the bike out of aluminum (as he did to achieve his bike's light weight) if he were to use the Petit Bi design.

So, although Andre Jules Marcelin patented Le Petit Bi, perhaps no one will realize its possession--or, more precisely, it.

Firefighter Bicycle

There's a good chance you've seen a police officer patrolling his or her beat on a bicycle.  It's a common sight on college campuses as well as in dense urban areas with heavy traffic.  Bicycles can be ridden between buildings, down alleyways and in all sorts of venues too narrow for cars.  Even when few adults were cycling here in the US, constables on two wheels were not an unusual, if not a common, sight.

There is also a long history of postal delivery on bicycles, mainly for the same reasons officers patrol from the saddle.  Mail carriers on bikes aren't as common as cops pedaling on patrol, at least here in the US, but I understand they still pedal through "rain, snow, sleet and hail" in a few places.  And they are still pretty common in some other countries.

Speaking of history:  I've written a few posts about how bicycles have been used in the military.  As commenter Reese Matthews pointed out, bikes aren't particularly good fighting platforms.  In some situations, however, they are good for transport and reconnaissance, especially in terrain in which motor vehicles can't be used.  And, interestingly, the Vietnamese didn't actually ride their bicycles; rather, they used their two-wheelers "as pack animals" to transport equipment and other goods.

I mention all of these facts because of something I came across:

This firefighter bicycle was made by the Birmingham Small Arms Company in the early part of the 20th Century.  Naturally, the hose caught my eye.    The bike also had special accomodations for an axe and a siren.  And look at that headlight!

While it looks distinctive, I don't know how anybody rode it, especially with the "hump" in the top tube--not to mention what the bike must have weighed!  It's easy to see why bicycles have never had as much of a role in firefighting as they have had in conducting wars, patrolling streets and campuses and delivering mail.  Then again, the bicycle contributes to firefighting in a different way:  Many firefighters ride to keep themselves in shape--especially if they have injuries that prevent them from running--or simply for pleasure.  In particular, I have met many firefighters on charity rides, or other kinds of organized rides. 

They serve. And the bicycle helps them.

Riding Cyclo-Cross Because They Had No Other Choice

From New York City, you can ride north for three days or so (or drive about five hours) and come to Lake George, often called "The Queen of American Lakes". 

There's another lake in the area:  Placid.  Most of you know that the town named for the lake hosted the Winter Olympics, most famously in 1980, when an underdog US Hockey Team beat the mighty Soviet squad.  (Many people mistakenly think that the upset occurred in the championship game because the meme "The US beat the Soviet Union for the Gold Medal" has been repeated so many times.  The Yanks' victory over the Soviets actually came in the semi-finals.)  Lake Placid was also the site of the third Winter Olympiad, in 1932.

Even when there aren't Olympics Games in session, a trip to the lakes and the town--and to surrounding Warren County--is worthwhile.  Located in the Adirondacks, the area offers some of the most beautiful fall foliage anywhere as well as all sorts of stunning mountain and lake vistas, as well as many opportunities for hiking, cycling, skiing, canoeing and other outdoor activities. 

There was a time, though, when nearly all of the economic activity in Warren County related to farming (especially dairy) and logging.  Hardly any of the county's municipalities, including Lake George, Queensbury (the present county seat) and even Glens Falls were barely hamlets, and none of the few roads were paved.  During the spring rains, riders of high-wheelers sometimes found themselves slogging through mud that came up to the hubs of their tall front wheels.

Can you imagine cyclo-cross on a high-wheeler?  I imagine riding under the conditions I've described were difficult enough on a bike with two wheels of equal size.  That might be the reason why, in the days of the first American Bike Boom, a Glens Falls boy named Harry D. Elkes became a World Champion.

 

In 1964, Howard Mason wrote about Elkes and his upstate New York milieu.  Mason could recall the first bicycle he ever saw--a high-wheeler--some seventy-five years earlier.  He also mentioned a cycle industry that flourished in the area in spite of the sparse population and the fact that, for much of the year, cycling was all but impossible, given the road conditions and the bicycles available at that time, not to mention the spring rains I've mentioned and the heavy snows that fall from October through April.  It was particularly interesting to read about one dealer who, even decades after the Bike Boom died out, wanted no part of the auto business "because of the service after a sale".  Cars, and tires especially, were not very reliable in those days.

You can read more about the world of cycling in the 1890's in Warren County on the county Historical Site's website.  "Such were the so-called 'good old days' of the '90's," Mason wrote.  "You may have them."

50 Years Ago This Month: The Dawn Of SunTour

What is the most influential and important development in the history of the bicycle?

Some would say, well, duh, it's the invention of the bicycle. I might agree, except that it's hard to pinpoint when, exactly, the bicycle was "invented".  Is Leonardo da Vinci responsible for it?   Or, do you consider the "celerifere" the first in the line of two-wheeled vehicles we love to ride to day?  Some might say Karl von Drais de Sauerbrun, who attached a steering device to his two-wheeler, is the progenitor of our pleasures.  Then again, others would have us believe that it wasn't really a bicycle until Kirkpatrick MacMillan attached foot pedals to it.

After the invention of the bicycle, however you define it, probably the most important development--and certainly the one most influential beyond the world of cycling--is that of the pneumatic tire.  Without it, not only bicycles, but also motor vehicles, would give slower and bumpier rides than wooden- or metal-wheeled horse-drawn carriages.  And modern passenger aircraft could not take off or land.

Possibly the next-most important development is the invention of the "safety" bicycle.  It's what we (well, most of us, anyway) ride today:  two wheels the same size (or close to it), foot pedals and a front chain that drives a rear cog via a chain.  This type of bicycle replaced the high-wheeler or "penny farthing" bikes, on which the pedals and cranks were attached to the front wheel axle.  The gear ratio was, therefore, dependent on the size of the front wheel:  Common diameters were 60 and 72 inches.  On the "safety" bicycle, variable gears were possible.

Variable gears led to inventors coming up with various ways to use them, the most common of which are variable-gear internal hubs (e.g., the Sturmey-Archer three-speed hubs found on classic English bikes) and derailleurs.

About the latter:  The patent for what is, arguably, the most important innovation in derailleur design was filed fifty years ago this month in Japan, and a month later in the US.

Here we can see it advertised in the December 1964 edition of New Cycling magazine:

It's the SunTour Gran-Prix derailleur, the progenitor of every single derailleur with even the slightest pretense of quality made during the past few decades.


This brainchild of Nobuo Ozaki, SunTour's chief engineer at the time, the SunTour Gran-Prix introduced the "slant parallelogram" design to the world.  The derailleur's main parallelogram is more or less parallel to the chainstay, in contrast to those of Campagnolo and Simplex derailleurs, which dropped straight down from the frame mount and were almost perpendicular to the ground--or those of Huret derailleurs, which consisted of flat steel plates that pivoted on the mounting plate.

Such a difference is not merely stylistic:  It allowed the top pulley of the Grand-Prix to run as close to the smallest cog as it did to the largest, or any in between.  Shifting thus became easier and more precise, especially on wide-range touring gears.  People were amazed at the difference when they replaced their malfunctioning or broken Huret Luxes,  Campagnolo Gran Turismos or Simplex Prestiges with something from SunTour.  I know I was.

Without a way of keeping a constant distance between the derailleur pulley and the rear cogs, it's all but impossible to make any sort of indexed derailleur system work reliably.  Ironically, this fact would lead  Shimano and Campagnolo (and, later, SRAM) to claim supremacy over the market SunTour would dominate from the mid-1970's until the mid-1980s--and, ultimately, to SunTour's demise.

Practically the second SunTour's patent expired in 1984, Campy and Shimano (and Sachs-Huret, which would become part of SRAM) seized upon it.  The following year, Shimano introduced SIS, the first commercially successful indexed derailleur shifting system.  The rear derailleur from that system combined SunTour's slant parallelogram with the spring-loaded top pivot Shimano (as well as Simplex) had already been using in their derailleurs.

Notice that I said SIS was the first commercially-successful indexed derailleur system.  It wasn't the first indexed system:  The idea was tried as far back as the 1930's (the "Funiculo" derailleur on Jacques Schulz bicycles), and in 1969 SunTour introduced an indexed system that, by all accounts, worked well. 

Had SunTour waited a couple more years to market that system, they might have dominated the bicycle components industry even more they did in the 1970s, and they still might be in business today.  However, the "Honor" and GT derailleurs-- refinements of the Grand-Prix--and the "V" series were introduced just as the '70's Bike Boom was starting in North America.  New cyclists (like yours truly) in the New World had no previous brand loyalty, if you will, to any of the established European derailleur makers and were more willing to try something that looked (and, more important, worked) differently.

Interestingly, this led to a reversal of an old dynamic:  A few years later, European cyclists (some, anyway) would take the lead of their American counterparts and start using SunTour (and, later, Shimano) derailleurs and other parts. 

Anyway...After Shimano introduced their indexed system in 1985, other companies--including SunTour and Campagnolo-- panicked and introduced their own systems. Some of us referred to Campy's "Syncros" system as "Stinkros".  SunTour's system shifted a little better, but not as well as Shimano's, which consisted of a more closely-integrated set of components.  Essentially, Shimano designed a whole new system, while SunTour and Campagnolo simply created new indexed shift levers that were supposed to work with derailleurs and freewheels those companies were already making.

What made matters worse was that bike manufacturers, like Schwinn, equipped some of their models with SunTour's indexed shifters but used them with freewheels, chains and cables--some of which weren't even made by SunTour--they already had on hand.  It almost goes without saying that the results ranged from underwhelming to disastrous.

(Also, the fact that Schwinn's reputation was already slipping didn't help to bolster confidence in the components they used on their bikes.  That's my opinion, anyway.)

SunTour finally redesigned their indexed systems, but it was too late.  The company managed to hang on until 1995.  By then, nearly all bikes of any quality had Shimano derailleurs--which had the same geometry as the SunTour derailleurs Nobuo Ozaki created three decades earlier!

(He was, apparently,  much better at industrial design and engineering than anyone in the company was at translating.  One of their early manuals, useful as it is, tells us "How To Use Honor Rightly".)

Embarking With A Koala

If you've been following this (or my other) blog for a while, you've probably noticed that I like to tell stories about myself.  You've also probably noticed that I like to tell stories about other people, and times and places other than my own, especially if those stories have been untold or forgotten.

That is one reason why I've written posts about (or in which I mention)  Beryl Berton, Nancy Burghart, Sue Novara, Rebecca Twigg, Jeannie Longo, Paola Pezzo and other prominent female cyclists.

And, yes, this post will be about another. But it will also touch upon a topic--a nation and culture, really--I've never mentioned:  Australia.  This omission does not come from any sort of bias; it has mainly to do with the fact that I've never been anywhere near the world's smallest continent or sixth-largest country, depending on how you look at it.

Nearly everything I know about it comes from reading and chance encounters with Australians in other parts of the world, including my own home town.  One of the few things I know is that the Aussie population--about a tenth of that of the US, even though the two countries are roughly the same size--includes a disproportionate number of long-distance cyclists.  That's not so surprising when you consider Australians' affinity for sports and outdoor activities and the fact that so much of the country is undeveloped.

One of those riders was someone named Billie Samuels.  I have been trying to find some information on her, to no avail. I guess I have to look in actual book (I think I can still do that) of Australian cycling history.

I learned of her only through stumbling over the photos I've included here.  Whoever she is, I want to know more because, hey, how could you not want to learn about someone who starts a ride from Sydney to Melbourne with a koala mascot on her handlebars?

(The photos in this post come from Vintage Everyday.

Detroit: The Next Portland--Or Amsterdam?

Henry Ford with his bicycle in the early 1890's. 

David Byrne has said that one of the most memorable bike rides he ever took was in Detroit.  He described the backdrop to his Motor City randonnee as a "postapocalyptic landscape at its finest" and rates that trip with his spin along the Bosprous and Sea of Mamara in Istanbul.

Somehow I'm not surprised that he was so taken with the devastation of Detroit.  He is, after all, David Byrne.  But, if you've been following this blog, you know that some of my favorite rides here in New York take me through industrial areas of the Bronx, Brooklyn and Long Island City, which are so free of traffic on weekends that they're weirdly bucolic.  I feel the same way about the Wall Street area; the only problem with it is that there isn't nearly as much of it as there are of those old industrial areas.

The thing about Detroit is that he's not the only one who thinks it's an excellent cycling city.  Many riders, who live within the city limits as well as in the suburbs, appreciate the fact that the city is flat, save for the area around Dorais Park. They also like the extensive networks of paths and greenways that line the Detroit River, which separates the city from Windsor, Ontario in Canada. ("Detroit" means "strait" in French.)  In fact, some people cross the border to ride in the home of the Big Three.  

Interestingly (and, I'm sure for the people involved, exasperatingly), there is no way to cycle between Detroit and Windsor.  In fact, the buses from Windsor will allow bicycles only if they're disassembled and in a box or bag.    Even then, the driver has the authority to deny access if he or she feels the bus is too crowded.  On the other hand, there is work on developing a water taxi between the two cities, and it's believed that bicycles will be allowed on them.

Another interesting aspect to Motor City Cycling is that it has a velodrome--in Dorais Park.  If you know about the city's history, it may not be such a surprise:  After all, it was a center for bicycle manufacturing and riding before the auto industry developed.  (In fact, Henry Ford and others associated with the auto industry began as bicycle makers and mechanics.) Even after Chevys and Fords started rolling off the assembly lines, Detroit kept the flame of bicycle racing alive during the Dark Ages (at least for American racing) that followed World War II.

But, in another layer of irony, the Dorais Park Velodrome doesn't go that far back.  In fact, construction on it began during the riots of 1967, and it opened on the day Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon in 1969.  It lay unused and all but abandoned until it was discovered by suburban cyclists who were using the hill for training.

I am not an urban planner or an expert on Detroit.  But I, like almost everyone else in the USA, have some ideas about what Detroit's future could be like.  Denizens of Pittsburgh realized that the steel industry would never be as significant as it was until the 1970's.  So, they took advantage of the fact that the city had some first-class academic institutions like the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie-Mellon, and turned the erstwhile Steel City into a center for biomedical research and technology, much as Boston did earlier.  

Detroit doesn't have the sort of academic institutions that Boston and Pittsburgh have.  But what a lot of people don't realize is that not very far from Detroit are vast stretches of farms.  Michigan has always been a leading agricultural state; perhaps Detroit could become a center of agronomy and other "green"technology.

But even more important (for the purposes of this blog, anyway), the city might be able to take advantage of the shrinkage even its Mayor, David Bing, has advocated.  A more compact Detroit could be ideal for the development of a cycling infrastructure.  Perhaps, in a smaller city, the residential and business areas would be closer together, which would make bicycle commuting--and cycling in general--more feasible and enjoyable for more people.  

Who knows?  Perhaps Detroit could be the next Portland--or Amsterdam.