Today, in parades all over the nation, we will see bicycles decorated for the occasion. Some are embodiments of patriotic fervor, like this bike:
I'm not sure what brand it is, or whether it's even made in the US. It has an American flag on its seat tube, but it looks new enough not to have been made here. Still, it looks like an old American cruiser; it even has an Ashtabula crank--unlike the retro-repro models, which usually have cheap three-piece cotterless cranks.
But I'm not going to quibble. For contrast, here's something with a more contemporary flair:
"Jersey Knitter" decorated those bikes a few years ago for the parade in the Garden State community of Montclair. I would imagine that when those colors spin, the visual effect might be like a pinwheel firework.
In contrast to those examples of patriotic pedal power, here's a Dutch-style city bike decked out for the most American of holidays:
In some weird way, this bike makes sense. If nothing else, the white bike makes a good "canvas", if you will, for the color palette. Also, in a weird way, it makes sense historically. After all, were it not for the Dutch (and French, Spanish and Poles), the American colonies might not have gained their independence from the British crown. In fact, the Netherlands was the first nation to recognize the United States of America as a sovereign country.
Plus, the Dutch gave the world Mondrian. What would Look bicycles and the LaVie Claire team used for their logos if they didn't have Mondrian's compositions of lines and primary colors?
Pretty much all things that can be done--and a few things you wouldn't want to do--on a mountain bike have been done in Moab, Utah.
They include this Fourth of July celebration. At least, I hope it was a Fourth of July celebration. Otherwise. there are at least a couple of really crazy cyclists in the Colorado Plateau's Mecca of Mountain Biking.
After reading some of my other posts, some might argue that the bike of which I'm going to write in this post is the best racing machine I ever owned or rode.
In future posts, I'll tell you why it wasn't--at least, not for me--and which bike was. Still, it was a great bike and I sold it to buy my next racing bike (Mondonico) only because I thought it might be a better fit.
If I do say myself, though, it's hard to deny that my Colnago Arabesque was pretty, or at least had an interesting style. If nothing else, it didn't look just like other Italian racing bikes of its time. Although it was essentially the same in geometry as the Colnago "Master", the Arabesque had a few nice touches the Master lacked:
Like my Mondonico, my Colnago Arabesque was constructed from Columbus SL tubing: the lightest available from the company at that time. Many other riders I knew, and rode against, at the time were convinced that bikes built from Columbus were stiffer than those made from Reynolds, Ishiwata, Tange or Vitus tubings. That may well have been true, but I found that bikes with short wheelbases constructed from Columbus SL tubing gave a harsh enough ride that I might not have ridden as fast as I might have on, say, a Reynolds 531 or 753 bike. (853 wasn't yet available).
Plus, I have to say that while the bike's workmanship and finish were pretty good, they weren't quite up to the standards one might expect from other top-flight bikes. Given that the Colnago was my first elite-level Italian bike, I was surprised at how easily the paint chipped.
Still, I must say that the Colnago Arabesque was a fast bike and its harshness was mitigated at least somewhat by the tubular (sew-up) tires I usually rode on them. Most high-pressure racing clinchers of the time rode harshly; tubulars were more resilient. I used one of Vittoria's less expensive models for training rides on Mavic GP4 rims; for races and other fast rides, I rode some nice French Wolber "Course" or Czech Barum tires on Mavic GEL 330 rims.
Now, given the criticisms I've made of this bike, I still can't say that it's not the reason I wasn't a better racer!
I sold it to a guy who called himself Joneszy. He was a bike mechanic who claimed that chrome-moly tubing was actually aluminum and called cogs "clogs". Still, he knew enough to know that the Arabesque was a good fit for him, as he had a longer torso than mine.
I didn't see him again. I didn't see the Arabesque for a few years until Tammy and I were walking along Flatbush Avenue near the Brooklyn Academy of Music. A middle-aged black man stopped for a traffic light; his bike caught my eye. Yes, it was my old Arabesque.
"You bought that from Joneszy, didn't you?"
"Yeah...How did you know?"
"I sold it to him."
Of course, he wanted to know how I knew it was the same bike. I pointed to a decal I placed on the downtube, just behind the head tube lug. The paint chipped there; the silver and black decal--which came with someone's Huret Success titanium derailleur--was at least tasteful, and just big enough to cover the chip.
What were the chances of anyone else having a Colnago Arabesque with a Huret Success decal in the exact same spot?
