For all of his foibles and questionable behavior, I always thought Michael Jackson was one of the greatest entertainers of his generation. True, he made all of his worthwhile music before he turned thirty. (In fact, I think that was one of the things that caused or exacerbated many of his problems: The only way he could "outdo" himself after those great albums and videos was through outrageous behavior.) But you had to admit: He could always put on a show.
Somehow, though, I doubt he did much cycling, ever. I don't think much he ever did was conducive to pedaling two wheels. And his fashion sense, as interesting as it could be, simply doesn't work when you're in the saddle.
One example of what I mean was his practice of wearing one white glove. For one thing, about the only white articles of clothing I ever wore on a bike were the socks I raced in: Back then, the USCF and the UCI didn't allow racers to wear anything else under their Detto Pietros. Wearing white while cycling simply never made any sense to me; for that matter, I rarely wear much of anything in white because, when I do, I ruin it. Also, when I haven't had much sun, I look sickly in white.
But back to Michael Jackson: Wearing one glove isn't very practical on a bike. Sometimes I ride gloveless, but not when the weather is anything like it's been the past couple of days.
Sometime during my workday yesterday, I managed to lose one of my gloves. By the time I was ready to leave, the temperature had dropped to 18F and a brisk wind blew out of the northwest. The college in which I work is about half a mile from a strip of stores, all of which were closed.
Another few blocks away, there's another strip. By the time I passed it, only a Rite-Aid Drugstore and a Mandee's were open. RA didn't have any gloves, though they had things like electric socks and blankets. That left Mandee's, which had only those too-cute fingerless gloves that has a "hood" you can slip over the fingers--but not the thumb. They weren't much, but I figured they were better than nothing.
So I bought a pair and, every few minutes, brought each hand to my lips and blew hot air (Some people tell me I'm full of it.) over each thumb. Still, by the time I got home, my hands were tingling and my thumbs were numb. I was only too happy that Charlie and Max wanted me to stroke them!
There are lots of good ways to commemorate MJ. Emulating his sartorial style when you get on a bike isn't one of them!
Vera is once again up and running. She got me to work today. I definitely count my blessings that I lost only a seat and post, not the whole bike.
I am making a couple of other modifications to her and, when they're done, I'll show her in her new glory.
Speaking of theft: Yes, I have had bicycles stolen. Four, in fact. Two were "beaters" and I actually got one of them back after the owner of one of the shops in which I worked spotted it when he was riding home. However, another bike that was stolen from me was a high-quality, nearly new, road bike: a 1994 Bridgestone RB-2.
I bought it as a "leftover" at a substantial discount the following year. Most Bridgestones--at least the higher-end models--sold out in most years; I considered myself lucky to get one that was more or less the right size for me. I didn't "need" another bike, as I had high-quality road and mountain bikes, but I got a deal that was simply too good to pass up.
It came in a blue-green (I thought it was more blue) metallic finish that I liked, although I would have liked the plum metallic, the other color choice offered that year, even better. However, for the price I paid, I wasn't about to be picky.
I put a pair of Michelin 700 X28C cyclo-cross tires and rack on it with the intention of making the bike my commuter and winter road ride. That plan worked for about three months, if I remember correctly. At the time, I was teaching at the New York City Technical College (now the New York City College of Technology). The good news was that it was less than five minutes, by bike, from the Park Slope apartment in which I was living. However, the bad news was that it was in what was still a high-crime area of downtown Brooklyn.
The college consisted of a couple of fairly grimy concrete and steel buildings that sucked up all of the soot from nearby factories and the cars and trucks entering the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges. Bicycles weren't allowed inside any of the buildings. But nearly every day, I bought coffee and something to eat from a truck that stood just outside the main entrance. The owner told me to park my bike at the parking meter nearest his truck, plainly within his sight. I did that for a couple of months.
Well, one day, he was sick and someone else--a nephew, I think--manned the truck. And, after teaching eighteen- and nineteen-year-olds where to put commas in their sentences, I walked over to the truck, only to find my bike gone.
The young man in the truck claimed to see nothing.
I'd been using the best lock Kryptonite made at the time. They paid the full retail cost of the bike, minus the deductible. After another paycheck or two, I could have bought another RB-2, even at the regular price. The only problem was that they weren't available any more. It was made in Japan and the dollar lost a lot of value against the yen, making the bike, and others built in Japan, much more expensive in the US than they had been. So Bridgestone and other Japanese bike makers (like Miyata and Panasonic) simply stopped exporting to the US. (Other Japanese makers, like Fuji, outsourced their manufacturing to Taiwan and China.)
Because I already had a high-end road bike, a nice track bike and a pretty good mountain bike, I simply used the latter bike for commutes and saved up for a nicer mountain bike, as I was becoming a fairly serious off-road rider. But I missed the RB-2: It was a sweet ride and the time I had it marked the first time in my life I had more than one good road bike.
Has anybody out there ridden a high-wheeler (or, as they were called in England, "penny-farthing")? Every once in a while, I think I'd like to ride one.
Of course, there's one logistical problem: finding such a bike. And then I'd have to get a pair of bloomers. I suppose I could ride in a short skirt, but somehow that wouldn't be in the spirit of riding a bike like the one in the photo.
