Will It Lift The Bike Business? Or Will REI Fall Into A Canyon?

For as long as I can remember, someone has predicted the demise of the local bike shop.  The first "threat" came from mail-order giants like Bike Warehouse/Bike Nashbar, Bikecology/Supergo and Performance.  They offered high-end frames and components at lower prices (including shipping) than your neighborhood dealer--if indeed it carried those items or could order them.  

Later, the death-knell for The Village Spokesperson or its equivalent was supposed to have been sounded by Internet retailers--some of which, of course, were the online incarnations of mail-order firms.  Often, their prices were even lower, and their selections greater, than those of mail-order or brick-and-mortar businesses because they didn't need the warehouse space of mail-order companies and, well, because of sheer volume: A human doesn't have to be present when you press "click" to order that helmet or GPS device or when it's dispatched.

Indeed, some shops closed their doors when mail-order companies became known even to once-a-month, seven-months-out-of-the-year, cyclists. (Older mail-order concerns like Cyclo-pedia had much smaller, though very loyal, markets.) And others ended their runs when they couldn't keep up with Internet retailers, or when the COVID-19 Bike Boom went bust.  

But there were a few factors that kept other bike shops in business and encouraged the establishment of new ones.  One is what a remote shopping experience, whether via the US Postal Service or World Wide Web, could not offer:  personal service. While most mail and online retailers offered fit charts and guides for bikes, helmets, shoes and other items, they could not replicate the experience of trying them on in the store.  A related factor is the relationships cyclists build with trusted bike professionals:  For example, the folks at Bicycle Habitat understand my riding style and preferences, and how  they have changed.  Also, they and other shops I have frequented have offered me discounts as a repeat customer, so I find that I save little, if any, money when I shop from a screen. 

And let's face it, people like me simply feel more comfortable going to proprietors, mechanics and other shop personnel we've known for years or even decades. 

That last factor explains why some analysts and casual observers are again sounding alarms over "the death of bike shops."  The cycle brand Canyon has announced a partnership with REI Co-op.

Now, that doesn't mean you'll find Canyon bikes or accessories, or even a demo fleet, on your local REI showroom.  Rather, those stores will only handle warranty claims and do repairs--at a 20 percent discount for REI members-- on Canyon bikes.  In other words, REI is taking on two vital parts of a relationship between a bike buyer and shop.  I rarely have to go to a shop for repairs (only when I don't have the tool and can't justify buying it or, as when I bought Dee-Lilah, my custom Mercian Vincitore, I wanted an assembly job from someone who loves and appreciates Mercians), but it's good to know that I can get advice and answers from someone with expertise and that, should I have a warranty issue, someone can handle it for me. 

I think those are particularly important issues for customers and riders of Canyon, a direct-to-consumer brand. Few, if any, did a pre-order ride or fit, so I am sure that some ordered the wrong size or type of bike for themselves or someone else.  I would likewise assume that many Canyon customers have done little, if any, bike repair work and thus didn't assemble some or all of the bike properly.

Moreover, at least a few Canyon riders, like other cyclists, are also hikers, campers, skiers or participants in other outdoor sports.   Thus, they would feel comfortable going to REI:  Indeed, they may already be customers or even members.  On the other hand, they may be new to cycling and thus feel intimidated by bike shops, especially the ones that cater to dedicated cyclists.

All of that said, I don't think Canyon's partnership with REI will mean the end of bike shops as we know them.  But it could change the ways in which at least some cyclists get service, even if it begs the question of whether REI would hire or train mechanics--or press salespeople into fixing bikes.   

As Smooth As Friction

• SunTour VGT rear derailleur 
• Shimano Titlist front derailleur 
• Huret shift levers (similar to Simplex retrofriction )
• Stronglight 93 crankset and chainrings 
• SunTour Pro Compe freewheel
• Sedis “sedicolor” chain (gold, to match the freewheel!)

• Huret Jubilee rear derailleur 
• Campagnolo Super Record front derailleur 
• Simplex retrofriction (“teardrop “) levers
• Campagnolo Super Record crankset and chainrings 
• Maillard 700 freewheel 
• Regina chain

So what do those two lists have in common? Each of them comprised the drivetrain on one of my bikes. The first ran on an iteration of my Peugeot PX-10 when I repurposed it as a touring bike. The second graced the Colnago Arabesque I rode for much of my inglorious racing career!

One thing you’ll notice is that neither set was composed entirely of parts from the same company. Until the mid 1980s, that was the norm, as no component manufacturer—not even Shimano or Campagnolo—offered a truly complete “gruppo”: Neither company’s lines included chains, and Campagnolo didn’t offer freewheels.

Another reason why most were casseroles , so to speak, rather than purées is that, for the most part, one firm’s derailleurs could be used with another’s shift levers, freewheels, chainrings and chains. It also didn’t matter if you switched from, say, a six- to a seven-speed freewheel: As long as your derailleurs could handle the range (smallest to largest cogs) and the total gear difference (the combined range of your front chainrings and rear sprockets), it didn’t matter that the other parts weren’t from the same maker.

That all changed 40 years ago, when Shimano introduced SIS: the system with shifters that “clicked.” It

worked extremely well—as long as your freewheel (or cassette) cogs, chain, derailleurs, shifters and cables were all Shimano SIS. (Many of us soon discovered that Sedisport chains worked as well as, and lasted longer than, Shimano’s offerings.) By the end of the decade, nearly all new bikes had SIS or its variants, two of which I’ll mention. “If it doesn’t click, it won’t sell,” became a bike industry mantra.

Seemingly in a panic, Campagnolo and SunTour offered their own “click shift” systems. (SunTour actually made one in 1969. It reportedly worked well, but the still-relatively-small derailleur-equipped bike market wasn’t ready for it.) Both failed—Campagnolo’s Syncro system was panned as “Stinkro”—for essentially the same reason. While Shimano designed an integrated system, it seemed that Campagnolo and SunTour simply made indexed levers. The “clicks” didn’t always mesh with the gear change because they were the calibrated to the distance between the cogs. 

Campagnolo’s Syncro wasn’t produced for very long and seems to have found popularity mainly among collectors. “Campy” was able to redeem itself during the ‘90’s, when it made an integrated system (with Ergo levers) that worked well. SunTour, on the other hand, never recovered from its failed system (and, to be fair, other missteps). Its reputation was made worse because bike-makers like Schwinn used their old stocks of French cables and chains that didn’t play nice with SunTour’s click shift.

SunTour’s fate is a particularly sad irony when you consider that a generation of cyclists like me could replace a malfunctioning Huret Allvit, Simplex Prestige or Campagnolo Valentino or Gran Turismo—or an ailing Atom or Regina freewheel—with something from SunTour without re-doing the rest of the bike.

Part of the reason why that was possible was “friction “ shifting, as Eben Weiss points out in his latest Outside article. He cites that compatibility as the reason why, after decades of using indexed shifting and a brief fling with electronic changers, he’s converting all of his bikes to friction shifting.

I may do the same. It wouldn’t be difficult, really.Of my seven bikes, five have derailleurs. (The other two include a fixed-gear and single-speed.) Two of the five shift with Simplex retrofriction levers. The other three—Dee-Lilah (my Mercian Vincitore Special), La-Vande (King of Mercia) and Vera (Miss Mercian mixte) have Dura-Ace 9-speed downtube levers. I’m using them in indexed mode but they can be converted to friction levers simply with a turn of the adjuster ring. I would do that, of course, if I were to use 8- or 10-speed cassettes instead of the 9s I’m currently running.

Mercian—Say It Ain’t So!

 This will be one of the saddest posts I’ve written.

As you may have heard, Mercian Cycles ceased trading about two weeks ago.

I found out just the other day, when I realized I hadn’t received any notices from them in a while (I was on their mailing list) and went to their website. Their closure wasn’t exactly front-page news because Mercian isn’t like Schwinn, Raleigh or any of those bike manufacturers even non-cyclists know. 

Mercian, you see, was one of the last frame builders to make their bespoke and stock frames with traditional methods and materials, even if the latter were updated (e.g. Reynolds 853, 725 or 631 instead of 531 tubing). As for the methods: Mercian’s framebuilders joined those tubes in hand-cut lugs that were pinned and brazed in an open hearth before being finished with deep stove enamel paints.  A single builder made the frame every step of the way before the frame was sent to Mercian’s paint shop.

The result was frames that were more beautiful than even most other hand built frames, and certainly more elegant than almost any modern bike. More to the point, Mercian’s work resulted in bikes that you could forget you were riding—they seem to disappear under you—and, barring a crash or other mishap, could outlast you. I know this because I’ve been riding one of my Mercians—Tosca, my fixed-gear—since buying it in 2007, while another of my six Mercians—Negrosa, a 1973 Olympic I bought six years ago—rides as smoothly as it ever has. Oh, and Dee-Lilah, my Vincitore Special (the one with the head lugs in the photo) feels like a magic carpet.

I didn’t want to believe that no more of those wonderful bikes or frames would ever come out of that Derbyshire workshop (or that said workshop would become something else, or be demolished). So I sent an email to Grant and Jane, who had owned Mercian since 2002 and to whom I had spoken and written numerous times. In my response to my “say it ain’t so, Joe” message, I received this:

Hello
This is an automated reply.

Thank you for your email, Mercian Cycles Ltd has ceased to trade, and
we have instructed an Insolvency Practitioner to assist us with taking
the appropriate steps to place the Company into Creditors’ Voluntary
Liquidation.



We have instructed Opus Restructuring LLP and should you have any
queries their contact details are nottingham@opusllp.com.

I hope that some other builder or small company keeps the name and tradition alive (as Woodrup did for Bob Jackson a few years ago) and that Mercian doesn’t become another once-proud name affixed to cookie-cutter bikes from China, Indonesia or some other “sweatshop” country.

A New Year’s Eve Voyage

 The other day—New Year’s Eve—I took yet another ride to Point Lookout. I don’t know whether I was burning residual calories from Christmas week or waging a pre-emotive strike against the evening’s indulgences.

Whatever it was, I got what might have been the best treat of all, at least to my eyes. 

That softly glowing band between the sea and sky made the ship—and the few people I saw on the boardwalks of the Rockaways and Long Beach—seem solitary but not isolated, alone but not lonely. That, of course, is how I felt while riding Dee-Lilah, my Mercian Vincitore Special, under a sky that was muted gray but not gloomy .

Some of us need that light, and to move in or occupy it like that ship, because this season encourages, and sometimes forces, extroversion, camaraderie and bright lights. Some of  need times of solitude, and solo bike rides, to navigate, let alone enjoy, holiday gatherings of any size.

Riding In Beauty

 Some of you would  cringe if I quote a Carpenters’ song. I wouldn’t blame you.  But I’m going to cite one of their tunes anyway: “Rainy days and Mondays always get me down.”

Today is a very rainy Monday.  I don’t mind:  Yesterday, Saturday and Friday afternoon comprised one of the most glorious weekends for cycling I’ve had in this part of the world. The skies ranged from clear azure to swirly silver and blue with the sun piercing through—and temperatures from 15 to 25c (60 to 77F).

Friday afternoon was a ramble along the Brooklyn and Queens waterfronts between my apartment and the Williamsburg Bridge, and out to the Hispanic and Hasidic neighborhoods of the non-gentrified areas of Williamsburg and East Williamsburg.  

Saturday was ideal for a trek to Greenwich, Connecticut: I pedaled into the wind through the Bronx, Westchester County and over the ridge into the Nutmeg State.  That meant I rode the wind home.

I had the same kind of luck with the wind yesterday, when I pushed my way out to Point Lookout and glided home. The wind seemed to have blown out of the south-southeast:  I had to put more effort into the first stretch, going mostly south from my apartment to Rockaway Beach, than I did on the mostly-eastward section from Rockaway to the Point.

I didn’t take any photos on Friday or Saturday because, as beautiful as those experiences were, they are rides I’ve done many times and I didn’t see anything unusual. That will probably change soon enough, at least on the Connecticut ride, when Fall begins to paint the trees and foliage from its pallette.

On yesterday’s ride, though, a vista from the western end of the Long Beach boardwalk reflected the way this weekend’s rides felt:

I rode in beauty, or at least its light, this weekend. Maybe this rainy Monday won’t get me down, at least not too much.

(In case you were wondering, I rode Tosca, my Mercian fixed gear on Friday. Saturday, Dee-Lilah, my Mercian Vincitore Special, took me to Connecticut.  And yesterday La-Vande, my King of Mercia, brought me to the beaches.)

Riding To My Own Guitar Solo (Or Overtime)

 On Monday morning and early afternoon, I took Dee-Lilah, my Mercian Vincitore Special, for a spin out to Point Lookout and back: 120 kilometers (about 75!mikes). Yesterday morning I took Tosca, my Mercian fixed gear, for a shorter ride—about 40 kilometers (25 miles) to Fort Totten and back.

What did these rides have in common, besides the fact that I enjoyed them?  Well, both bikes are purple, though in different shades.  Also, I timed both rides to, as best I could, finish before the most intense heat—and worst air quality (those Canadian wildfires, again!) of the day.

Both rides also have something in common with every other ride I’ve taken in my life:  I rode without headphones, eat buds or any other audio device.  Sometimes I feel I’m the only person who still rides that way.

I think I’ll always ride that way.  For one thing, I don’t want to impede my ability to hear traffic or other ambient sounds—including bird sings and ocean tides. But I also believe  don’t need devices to hear music, if only inside my own mind.

Back in the day, the term “ear worm” didn’t exist. (At least, I hadn’t heard it.) I would,!however, find myself riding to a tune playing through my head—usually, somethings I’d heard not long before.

I first noticed myself riding to a tune I was carrying with me during a ride when I was, probably, fifteen years old.  I’d been pedaling a long, flat stretch of New Jersey Route 36 from Sandy Hook to Long Branch. The ocean stretched thousands of miles to my left—it years would pass before I saw the other side. The sky stretched even further above and beyond me.  And, even though I knew the road ended—or, more precisely changed direction—in Long Branch and I was gliding toward it on a combination of youthful energy and the wind at my back, I saw myself pedaling forward, forced, even further than that road could take, or my own vision could guide, me.

That ride’s ear worn before there were ear worms?  The long guitar riff of Black Sabbath’s “Rat Salad.”  It’s trippy yet hard-driving and expansive: the way I was pedaling on that long-ago ride.

And what did I hear as I pedaled, with a light breeze at my back, along the long,f flat—and surprisingly deserted—Rockaway Boardwalk? You guessed it: Rat Salad. As Kurt Vonnegut would have said, I was woozy with deja vu.

Oh, and during yesterday’s ride, my “ear worm” was an overture from Debussy’s “La Mer”: one of the first pieces of classical music I came to truly love—and an “ear worm” on another long-ago ride.

Given what I’ve described, you might think I was a strange kid. I wouldn’t try to disabuse you of such a notion.  Of course, you may think I’m an even stranger adult—one in mid-life—because I’ve never ridden, and intend never to ride, with headphones, ear buds or any other audio device.

Cycling Through The PTSD of History--My Own and This Country's

Spring arrived yesterday at 17:24 (5:24 pm) local time in New York, where I am.

At that moment, I just happened to be out on Dee-Lilah, my custom Mercian Vincitore, for an after-work ride.  I knew I'd have about an hour and a half of daylight from that moment on, and I intended to take full advantage of it.

The sun shone brightly; there was scarcely a cloud in the sky.  But the wind, gusting to 40KPH (25MPH), and the temperature, which barely broke 5C (40F), reminded me that winter would not loosen its grip so easily.  Still, the ride was delightful because of Dee-Lilah (Why do you think I so named her?) and because I'd had a full day of work- and non-work-related things.

Also, I may have felt the need to work with, if not out, the lingering sadness I felt:  Yesterday marked twenty years since the United States invaded Iraq.  If 9/11 was America's first step into the quicksand of a perennial war, on 20 March 2003, this country had waded into it, at least up to the waist. If I believed in karma, I would say that the trials and tribulations this country has suffered are retribution for that act of violence--which was precipitated by one of the more monstrous lies told by a public official.  (That so many people see such dishonesty as normal in political and official discourse is something else I might have taken as some sort of cosmic payback.)

US Marines in Kuwait, near the Iraq border, the day before the invasion.  Photo by Joe Raedele, Getty Images

I remember that time all to well.  For one thing, I marched in the massive anti-war demonstration a month earlier, where I was just a few bodies away from those horses NYPD officers charged into the crowd.  For another, I was preparing to live as the woman I am now:  I had begun therapy and counseling a few months earlier, and started taking hormones a few weeks before that demonstration.  All of the jingoism and drumbeats I heard in the lead-up to the invasion-- not to mention the invasion itself, premised as it was on lies--disturbed me because they showed how profoundly disrespectful some people can be toward other people simply because they are darker, speak a different language, worship differently (or not at all) or express their gender or any other part of their identity in ways that are not accepted by the society around them.

Sometimes I am called "over-sensitive:"  I have PTSD from a few things that have happened to me and sometimes I think I suffer it simply from having been alive when great evils were committed.  It's a good thing I have my bikes, and riding!

Two Views As The Fall Turns

Here in the New York Metro area, we've just had a weekend of warmer-than-normal fall weather, punctuated by showers late in the morning and early in the afternoon on Sunday.  I did a fair, but not unusual (for me, anyway) amount of riding.  

Saturday brought me and Dee-Lilah, my Mercian Vincitore Special, to Point Lookout.  In previous rides to the Point, instead of "the rocks," I've made another beach area, known mainly to residents, my turn-around point.  While it doesn't have as commanding a view as "the rocks" (where there are now large mounds of sand), the quality of light--a scrim of sea mist across a screen where blue meets blue--is serene.  It reminds me that when I'm cycling (or reading or writing) alone, I feel further from loneliness than I've felt in some of my relationships and in social situations.

I rode into the wind just about all the way to the Point--which meant, of course, that I had the wind at my back on my way home for my last ride before the end of Daylight Savings Time.

Yesterday I got out later than I'd planned.  Since I figured (correctly, it turned out) on taking a shorter ride, I hopped on Tosca, my Mercian fixed-gear bike.  I had no particular destination in mind.  My ride turned mainly into a series of dodges around the street closures and crowds gathered for the New York City Marathon.

On my way back, I pedaled up the Vernon Boulevard bike lane, which detours through Queensbridge and Rainey Parks.  Just past Rainey is an ersatz "beach" and kayak launch site below street level--where, less than a mile across the river from the Manhattan skyline, an autumnal vista more reminiscent of the New England seashore presented itself.

The weekend marked, to me, the end of one part of Fall.  Now another begins.  The light will be different, I am sure, but still beautiful.

Riding Into The Season's Light

Sometimes I ride into sunrises.

Sometimes I pedal into sunsets.

Sometimes the day dawns as it ends.

Sometimes the day ends as a season continues.

And they're all journeys of light.

The other day, after work, Dee-Lilah--my custom Mercian Vincitore Special--took me into such a journey.

From a block away, I felt as I could see the day, the season, coming to us as we approached this tree

and it filled me with its light.

Do I need a better reason to ride?

 

A Detour Into Surprise

The other morning, I set out for Connecticut.  Dee-Lilah was certainly up for it:  the sky was clear and bright, and a light wind rippled yellow leaves that line my street.

Across the RFK (Triborough) Bridge and the Randalls Island connector.  Up the deserted industrial streets of Port Morris and Southern Boulevard to "the Hub," where the Boulevard meets White Plains Road and several subway lines.  Traffic was almost as light as the wind (though not me, at my age!) all the way up to the Pelham Bay Bridge, where my visions of the perfect Fall ride to the Nutmeg State met with this:

"Oh, it must be Ian's fault," I thought. Though the Hurricane brushed by us two weeks earlier, the damage, if there had been any, was still there, I mused.  But, peering ahead, I couldn't see it:

Then I glanced to my right and got the really bad news:

Spring 2023.  If I could believe that, I wouldn't be so upset:  I wouldn't be able to ride the Pelham Bay Trail to Westchester County during the rest of this Fall and Spring, but most of that wait would span the winter.  But, if you know anything about New York City Department of Transportation projects, you know that Spring 2023 is most likely when the work will start.  Then it will be further delayed by some dispute or another, and costs.  Call me a cynic, but I've seen such scenarios play out too many times.

Oh, and when I looked on the city's website, I learned that the plan is to replace the bridge altogether.  To be fair, it may well need replacement:  The bridge wasn't designed for all of the traffic it handles (and, I might add, the bike/pedestrian lane isn't the greatest, but it at least takes you to the trail) and probably is falling apart.  

I could have taken one of the routes I rode before I discovered the bridge and trail.  But, instead, I wandered in and out of the Bronx and Westchester County.  Guess where I took this photo:

It's a view from the Bronx, but not from where even people who know the Bronx might guess.  At the far eastern end of the borough, there is a neighborhood with the seemingly-incongruous name of Country Club.  The neighborhood was indeed the location of the Westchester Country Club before the Bronx became part of New York City.  But, in a way, the area still has a "country club" feel:  It's effectively an island, cut off from the rest of the Bronx (and New York City) by water, I-95 and Pelham Bay Park.  The houses come in all ranges of styles, but they have this in common:  they're big, more like the ones you find in the far reaches of Long Island or New Jersey.  The few buildings that aren't single-family houses or small stores or restaurants (mostly Italian and, I suspect, good) are condos, some with their own marinas!

Just on the other side of the highway is another neighborhood that seems to have been untouched by the "burning Bronx" of the 1970s. Like Country Club, it has many Italian-American families and remarkably clean public spaces.   And it has a store that seems to have been kept in a 1950s time capsule:

Frank Bee.  Transpose the "ee" on Frank, and you could have a nickname for someone in the neighborhood--or a DJ.  Frankie B.   Now that sounds like a name people would associate with the Bronx.

Just by those signs, you can tell that, like Country Club, Schuylerville has a lot of Italian-American families whose kids Trick-or-Treat freely in the neighborhood.  While very little in the store falls into the price range advertised on the store's banner, the prices are actually very good, especially compared to those in other parts of the city.

Whatever happens, I hope the store--and those signs and mannequins--stay where they are.  In an ideal world, such friendliness would be an antidote against the odious bellowings of would-be oracles:

Now, I'm not a political scientist and I'm an historian only if you define that term loosely.  That said, in my understanding, the notion that "Democracy killed Jesus" is wrong on two counts.

First of all, Pontius Pilate wasn't an elected official; he was an occupying Roman.  Second, and more important, an angry mob agreeing on something and acting on it isn't democracy, especially if it doesn't reflect the wishes of most people--or, as in the case of Jesus (if he indeed lived and died as he did in the stories passed on to us), if most people didn't even know about the accused or his alleged deeds.

Did that bit of graffiti reflect what most people in Country Club or the Bronx believe about the death of Christ or democracy?  I suspect not.  Whatever they think, I have to say this for them:  They, whether they were walking, raking their leaves or even driving, were very nice and a couple even cheered me on.  What I didn't tell them, of course, is that Dee-Lilah, my custom Mercian Vincitore Special, makes me look like a better rider than I am!😉

Me, Dad, Ian, Rita, Maureen And Delilah

The other day I took a ride to the ocean. 

And I took another yesterday.

From those images, you probably can tell that I'm not talking about the Rockaways, Point Lookout or Coney Island, my most common sea-bound treks.

For that matter, I don't mean the Jersey Shore, where I haven't gone in some time.  Rather, for the past two days, I've done two other seaside rides I've mentioned--though, again, not for some time--on this blog.

I arrived in Florida on Friday evening.  The purpose of this trip is a visit with my father, whom I hadn't seen in three years, since my mother's funeral.  We'd planned another visit but, like so many other plans by so many other people, it was put on hold when "COVID happened."  

Since arriving, I've had nearly perfect weather for cycling and, of course, have taken advantage of it.  The bike I rode during previous visits--a balloon-tired beach cruiser--got rusty and dusty. My father, thinking the bike was beyond redemption (it just looks that way) went and bought another bike--a cheapo full-suspension bike--from a friend.  I rode it on Saturday, along the Lehigh Trail, over the bridge in the first photo and up Route A1A through Beverly Beach and Painters Hill.

Along the stretch from Flagler Beach to Beverly Beach, I was looking at some of what Hurricane Ian wrought.  While the damage wasn't nearly as widespread as what befell Sanibel Island or Fort Myers, there were piles of debris on roadsides, testaments to damaged or destroyed buildings and trees. As I looked at one of those ruins, a car door opened.  Just when I thought I was about to be "doored" again, a woman emerged from the half-opened portal and said, "You write a bike blog!"

Nothing like being famous, eh?

Actually, she is someone I met during a previous visit, about seven years ago.  I'd stopped at a gas station-convenience store for a cup of coffee or to use the bathroom--possibly both--when Rita broke me out, for a moment, from my stereotypical New York "don't talk to strangers" mode. (If I recall correctly, I had just arrived the night before.) We stayed in touch for a time but I think her number was part of the data that didn't transfer from my old to new phone, in spite of the salesperson's promise that everything, including a bunch of photos, would make the journey.

I didn't experience a near-catastrophe-turned-happy-coincidence the following day, when I pedaled up to the Castillo San Marcos in Saint Augustine--49 kilometers, or 30.5 miles--into a gusty wind, on the rusty and dusty balloon-tired beach cruiser.  Upon arriving, I wended through the shops and houses of the historic old town before enjoying a picnic lunch on the waterfront promenade and riding back--with that same wind, of course. So, I reckon that I at least rode a metric century on that rusty beach cruiser, though that was not the point of this trip.

After that ride, I showered, got dressed and went out to Mezzaluna for a delightful meal of mussels in a sauce of butter, garlic and lemon with even more delightful company, which included my father and his friend Maureen, a retired Canadian nurse.  She, as it turns out, was something of an avid cyclist and hiker before, as she said, "arthritis found me."  Afterward, we went to her house, filled with her plants and handicrafts, photos and paintings by friends and her late sister, all against backdrops of walls and alcoves painted in very Floridian shades of blue, green and yellow, and "guarded" by my newest friend--Delilah, her cat.

So now there are two Delilahs--well, a Delila and a Dee-Lilah, on this blog. Both are synonymous with delight, even if one is furry and black and white, while the other is lilac-colored and probably would have loved the ride I took today.

So why did I come to the Sunshine State this weekend?  Well, today is Columbus Day, Italian American Pride Day or Indigenous People's Day. (I prefer the latter because, not in spite of the fact that, I'm of Italian heritage: Why should our "pride" day be in honor of a guy who got lost?)  That meant a long weekend and, while some people traveled--There were quite a few out of state plates along A1A and foreign languages spoken at St.Augustine--it isn't nearly as hectic or expensive as traveling at, say, Thanksgiving or the Christmas-New Year season.  Plus, I didn't want the focus of my visit to be a holiday. Rather, I wanted to see Dad again, and because I wondered what it would be like to meet him without Mom or other family members.

I met him into a new phase of his journey--and, I suspect, mine, as I took familiar rides for the first time in a long time.

 

A Weekend With Dee-Lilah

I decided to spend the weekend with Dee-Lilah, my custom Mercian Vincitore Special.  There was no particular reason why I chose to ride her.  She is a special bike because I gave her to myself for a round-number birthday, but like anything special, I shouldn't need a special occasion to enjoy her.

All right...Saturday was, save for the wind, one of the best days, weather-wise, I've experienced in a while.  I chose to pedal to Point Lookout because it meant pedaling into the wind on my way out and riding the wind on my way home.  Dee-Lilah liked that idea, too.

The conditions surrounding our ride were of the kind one encounters for a few days around this time of year, between the unofficial and official ends of summer.  The day's high temperature was only a couple of degrees higher than the water (74 F or 23F), so some people swam or at least waded into the water.

Also, the sun shone but didn't bear down on me.  So, I didn't need to use quite as much sunscreen as I'd needed on other recent rides.  Thus, while I didn't feel drained as I often do after riding under unfiltered sunlight, I needed to drink as much water as I would on a hot day, because the wind brought dry air with it.

Yesterday was a bit warmer and I woke up later.  So I simply wandered along the waterfronts, and through some of the back streets, of a few Queens and Brooklyn neighborhoods.  Dee-Lilah thought the light around the Statue of Liberty and Valentino Pier flattered her.  I agreed.

This weekend was not a special occasion. But, with Dee-Lilah, it was a Dee-Light!

A Ride Of Ripples

 High, wispy cirrus clouds.  The ocean barely waving, let alone tiding.  A breeze against my face on the way out and my back on the way home.

 

 

 

Everything felt like a ripple today.  It may have had to do with doing another Point Lookout ride.  I made that choice, in part, because of the direction of that breeze, as gentle as it was.  Had I gone to Connecticut, Westchester, Alpine or Nyack, I would have been pedaling against the wind on my way home.  Also, yesterday was warmer than it had been earlier in the week, and I started to ride later in the morning than I'd planned.  If the warmest part of the day was going to be warmer than the past few days, I wanted to ride by the ocean rather than inland.

 

So, when I say that the ride was a ripple, I'm not complaining.  Rather, I felt rather privileged, as if I could see the brush strokes of those ripples in the sky and on the water, as I felt them against my skin.  Also, it's a treat to ride any of my bikes--in this case, Dee-Lilah, my Mercian Vincitore Special, lived up to her name.

 

Our ride ended, not with the rain, but a ripple.  All right, T.S. Eliot didn't end " The Hollow Men" that way.  I'm not sure that he could have, any more than I could have written his poem. I am happy to write my own poems--and take my rides, whether they begin or end with ripples, or anything else.

Waiting For...Murray?

I waited nearly a year for Dee-Lilah, my custom Mercian Vincitore Special.  At least I expected as much:  When I ordered her, the folks at Mercian were advising customers to anticipate such a lag between the time they placed their deposits and received their frames or bike.  

If I recall correctly, I waited about the same amount of time for my first Arielle, my dear, departed first Mercian. For ten or twelve months to pass from the time someone puts down a deposit and takes delivery of has never been unusual when ordering a bespoke frame or builder.  But, until the pandemic, the longest I can recall myself or anyone waiting for an off-the-shelf bike was three months, in the heyday of the 1970s North American Bike Boom.  That's how long it took for me to get my Schwinn Continental in 1972.  To be fair, though, I wanted a color that, I'd heard, Schwinn was offering in limited numbers.  

But I don't recall a situation like the one that's developed during the COVID-19 pandemic:  People have had to  wait a year for a bike.  And I'm not talking about a Mercian or a custom frame from someone like Richard Sachs.  Rather, folks are standing in line for Murrays and Huffys from big-box stores.  That has to do with the supply-chain disruptions you've heard about:  Factories closed during lockdowns and ship and dock workers, and truck drivers, either couldn't go to work or quit their jobs.

So it's particularly galling to see this:

 

 Why, in the middle of a bike shortage, is Target tossing brand-new bikes into a dumpster?  One would expect that if those bikes didn't move during a shortage, perhaps they could have been discounted or donated.  But no.  For all that the company, like so many others, likes to tout its philanthropy and environmental objectives.  It doesn't, however, donate merchandise under any circumstances. 

To be fair, many other companies have similar policies. They also, like Target, try not to sell merchandise at significant discounts:  If Target sells Schwinn or H&M sells a sweater, for example, at 50 percent off, the regular price seems much higher.  As for donations, some companies cite the tax and other legal implications of this practice.  Call me a cynic, but while I am willing to grant that companies find that it's too difficult or costly to give their stuff to Goodwill or a community bike center, I can't help but to think that tossing brand-new stuff comes down to the only two words I remember from the only economics class I took:  supply and demand.  Retailers want to keep the former low and the latter high to prop up prices.

I wonder whether the dumpster-diving mom who took the video had been waiting for one of those bikes for herself or her kids.