Cranking (and Gearing) Up Arielle

So...How do you spend another dreary winter day on which the streets are still full of ice?  I know, ride a trainer or rollers.  I may just go out and get one or the other.  I used to ride rollers, back when I raced and when I told myself I was "going to get back into racing."  I know it helped to keep me in shape and improved my bike handling skills.  But it was boring, boring, boring!

So I spent today--part of it, anyway--modifying Arielle a bit. 

There was nothing wrong with her;  as I mentioned a while back, I didn't feel I needed the triple I had given her.  So I swapped the crankset for a "compact" double and changed the cassette (and chain, which needed it).  The gearing change allowed me to switch from a long- to short-cage rear derailleur and from a triple to a double front derailleur.

Arielle's drivetrain now consists of:

• Sugino "Alpina" 170mm cranks with Specialites TA "Syrius" chainrings, 50 and 36T
• Phil Wood bottom bracket with 108mm stainless steel spindle and rings
• Shimano "Dura Ace 7700" (9-speed) rear derailleur
• Shimano "Dura Ace 7402" front derailleur
• SRAM 850 8-speed cassette
• SRAM 890 chain
• White Industries Platform Pedals with MKS steel toe clips, Velo Orange leather toe clip covers and Velo Orange Straps
• DiaCompe "Silver" downtube levers.

I had been using the levers before the switch.  I like them very much:  They have a smooth action and feel good on my fingers.  I like the simplicity of downtube friction shifters:  After riding with Shimano STI and Campagnolo Ergo brifters for about a decade and a half, I came back to them about two years ago.

Interestingly enough, the same size bottom bracket worked with both the triple and the double.  Of course, that does not mean that you can get away with using the same bottom bracket when switching from one crank to another:  That depends on which model you're switching from and switching to, and on various dimensions of your frame.

I had been using the 50T chainring on my triple.  I decided to keep it because it gives me some gears that I really like.

Now all I need is some decent riding conditions.  I'm not fussy about temperatures, can stand some wind and don't even mind light precipitation.  But I'm not about to ride when there's ice everywhere.  Arielle deserves better than that!

What You Always-- Or Never-- Wanted

I'll admit that I've had more bikes than most people--in fact, more than some communities.  Maybe that's the reason why I don't yearn for bikes I don't have, as I did in my youth.  I have a pretty good idea of what I like and don't like, so I have bikes I love and that feel right for me.  I still try new components and accessories, as my needs in such areas as gearing change.  


Soon, I'll post something about The Bikes of My Life.  I'll recollect about some from my past and talk about my recent and current rides.  Even though I have bikes I love, I still miss a couple of the old ones sometimes.  However, I realize now that those feelings are as much about some of the experiences I had with those bikes as they were about the ride qualities.  And, I admit, that my memories of both the experiences and ride qualities have been distorted, if not erased, by time.


That said, I've had a few bikes I don't really want to see or ride again.  And there are the bikes I'm glad I didn't get and the ones I've never had the urge to try or buy.  Here's one I saw up-close some time ago:

I found this photo of it while surfing the web.  I'm guessing that it's a downhill bike of some sort.  For all I know, it may be a great bike for the purpose.  But then again, I never had any wish to do downhill riding (on what Peter White calls "invalid bikes"), so I wouldn't have any reason to ride or buy such a bike.  


Are there bikes from your past that you wish you had now?  Bikes you wish you could have had?  Bikes you never want to see again? Or, are there any you never had and never wanted?  

Ground Hogs and Safety In Numbers

Is there indeed safety in numbers?   That's what these guys seem to be saying.

Or does it mean that if you're alone, you need a basket?


Actually, the fact that I'm asking questions like that means I've spent too much time (or, at least, more time than I like) off my bike.


At the battle of the Somme, officers were heard to ask, Quand sera-ce fini?:  When will it end?  That's what almost everyone, even people who love the snow and ice are asking.   (Given the way the weather is further straining already-stretched budgets, it might be more pertinent to say, Nous sommes dans le pot de chambre, et nous y serons emmerdes.)


Looking at bicycle-related websites and shopping for things I might need for the upcoming season seems utterly incongruous.  Sometimes it feels as if I'm preparing for a day that might not come.  

Supposedly, there's only six more weeks of winter:  The groundhog didn't see his shadow.  Well, with the weather we've been having, there aren't many shadows of anybody or anything!


What if a group of groundhogs came up together?  Would they have been more or less likely to see their shadows?  Would they be safer?  Or, at least, would they  be less likely to get snowed in?

Solitary In The Snow

For the past couple of weeks, the only people I've seen on bicycles were making deliveries for the local restaurants and diner.   Whenever I see a delivery man (Yes, they're all men.), he likely to be the only cyclist on the road at that moment.


I think now of my days as a messenger.  There were days when I was not only the only cyclist on the streets (at least for a few blocks around), I was sometimes the only person to be seen on the streets.  It didn't matter whether I was on or around Wall Street, or in one of the industrial areas that still existed, though as shadows of their former selves, in Manhattan.  


In those days, I was watching quite a few post-apocalypse movies, most of which I've forgotten.  (Frankly, I watched most of them high or drunk.)  That may have been the reason why the landscape seemed almost lunar, and I felt like some sort of pioneer or homesteader.  


Somehow the snow and ice made me, and the few other people who were outside, seem even more solitary, as if the scene were a photograph negative of a chiaroscuro portrait.

This photo was taken in Kalamazoo, Michigan yesterday.  But it could have been shot in just about any community of any size in the Northeast or Midwest during the past couple of weeks.  It feels as if these storms are making every cyclist seem solitary.


In a sense, we are.  

What Can You Generate On Your Bicycle?

Hub generator?  Bottle generator?  An '80's bottom-bracket mount generator?

None of the above for me.  Nighttime cyclists in this city have the same goal as denizens of the club scene:  being seen. Here, flashing lights are more useful than steady-beam lights because most streets are relatively well-lit.  As far as I know, none of the generator lights made today has a flashing mode.  

But I can think of another kind of generator that might be useful here, at least in the summer.  Here it is, in action:

http://www.videojug.com/webvideo/how-to-make-a-bicycle-ice-cream-maker

Now tell me:  You really want to use your bike to make ice cream.  Admit it!

Once you do that, there's no telling how many appliances you can power with your bicycle.  Hair dryers.  Laptops.  Juicers.  How about a sandwich press?  After all, what's better than a panini for a mid-ride snack?

Forget ethanol or solar, wind or nuclear power.  You just saw the real solution to the world's energy needs!

A Circus Monkey In Red

I've cycled long enough to have seen some truly strange components.  Some were mechanically or functionally quirky; others simply left me wondering what their designers and manufacturers were thinking.


And a few simply look strange.  To wit:

Its brand name is apt:  "Circus Monkey."  Actually, I think it looked rather like a Ferris Wheel designed by someone who jumps through hoops of fire.  


Although it definitely wouldn't look right on any of my bikes, and I probably wouldn't buy it even if I could use it (It's made for mountain bikes with disc brakes, and I don't have one), I actually like it.  Or maybe I like--or, at least, admire-- whoever designed it.  I mean, how could you not?  


To grossly paraphrase Shakespeare, a hub by any other name would probably spin as smoothly.  Still, who wouldn't at least stop and look at one called "Circus Monkey"?  Especially when it looks like the hub in the photo.

Excelsior!, Or The Case For Bike Baskets

The next time someone makes fun of you because your bike has a basket, show him or her this:

The bike is an English three-speed.  So you know that once it's freed from the snow, it'll work just like it did before the storm.  What that means is that, for one thing, the brakes won't work worth a damn if the rims are the least bit wet!


Still, I'd take that bike over some of the others I saw in and around the piles of snow around the Bel Aire Diner:

Some would see that photo as a good case for a mountain bike.  Chacun a son gout.  Or is it de gustos no hay escritos?


But not all fourteen of the bikes parked around the diner were so isolated:

There are normally at least a dozen or so bikes parked around the diner. Sometimes some of them serve as "donor" bikes for the others.  


The US Postal Service claims that they deliver through snow, sleet, hail and the dark of night.  With all due respect to them, I can safely say they have nothing on the delivery guys at Bel Aire diner.  And, of course, the Postal Service doesn't serve French toast any time of the day you want it!

Stopping Is Part Of The Journey

I can say with near-certainty that on this date at around this time, ten years ago, I was riding on rollers.  Back in those days, that's what I did during the winter.  Even after I stopped racing, I still was trying to prove something to myself.  Or, more precisely, to disprove something.

What was it?  Well, before I try to describe, let alone name, it, I have to say that what led me to ride rollers even after my racing days ended was the same thing that kept me training for soccer after I stopped playing it.  I knew full well that I would probably never play again and, even though I enjoyed playing, I wasn't mourning my acknowledgment that my playing days were over.  In fact, I felt surprisingly little.  But I still had the impulse to train as if I were still playing.


Something similar happened after I stopped racing.  Although I'm glad I raced, I wasn't upset when I knew that part of my life was about to end.  And once I "retired," I really had no urge to go back.  However, I wanted to know that I could.  


Why?  Well, I always want to feel as if I start or leave stages and challenges in my life on my own terms.  It's never a good feeling not to do something because you're not capable of it.  The worst of it is that you can't even kick yourself, in hindsight, for lack of effort if you simply didn't have whatever it took to do something that you wanted to do.


Perhaps I never got past or over being the ungraceful, unathletic pubescent child I was.  Until I started training and playing, I was taunted by other kids--and sometimes adults--not only for my seeming lack of athletic ability, but also for my perceived lack of manliness, or even the capacity for becoming a man, whatever that meant.


Those taunts were echoing in some recess of my brain.  That's the reason why, ironically, I spent more time on rollers and trainers in my early post-racing years than I did when I was actually racing.    In an irony within that irony, I was pushing my body--my male body--so hard because I was trying to poound it, or something about it, out of existence altogether, or at least into submission.


I've been on my bike once in the past two weeks.  I'm feeling antsy and hoping that I'm not gaining weight.  (At least I'm not eating any junk.)  But, at the same time, I'm not as ornery as I would've been back in the day.  When I couldn't ride--or after a few weeks of riding rollers or trainers--I used to feel resentful and angry that I couldn't do what I wanted to do but, it seemed, everybody else could.


I think that being off my bike for a few months after my surgery last year made me aware, for the first time in my life, that the times when you recuperate, or simply stop for whatever reasons, are also part of the journey. In fact, those times might be almost as important as the times when we're riding and training.   For some people, it's the only opportunity to reflect on the question of why they are doing whatever they do.

Thirteen (Or More?) Ways Of Looking At A Cassette

For a time in my life, my favorite poem was Wallace Steven's Thirteen Ways of Looking At A Blackbird.  It's still a favorite of mine.


Now, as far as I know, there aren't any blackbirds anywhere near where I live or work.  In fact, there weren't very many living beings outside today.  Nineteen inches of snow fell on Central Park from last night into this morning.  Cold gusts whipped the snow around,  and thunder echoed the flashes of lightning that pierced the heavy clouds.  Why any living being would choose to be outdoors in such conditions is beyond me.


So, being indoors on a day that Charlie and Max slept through, I started to see the toes of glaciers creeping along my walls where the paint ran.  (No,I'm not taking intoxicants of any sort. )  And rows of tiles become an Andy Warhol painting of kaleidoscopes.


Which leads me to wonder:  How many worlds can be seen from the back of a cassette?

Soo '70's

Seeing it snow again made me think of The Ice Storm.  I liked it, but I also remember thinking how the clothes, hairstyles and the things people did (Wife-swapping.  Key parties.  EST.) were sooo '70's.  I know: That decade included my puberty, adolescence and undergraduate years.


Now this is sooo '70's:

Not only is it from the '70's; it's English.  No one in the USA today would get away with making an ad like that.


And nobody would get away with making a bike like the Lambert.  Or, I should say, nobody would stay in business for even as long as Lambert did (just over a decade).  


Not only did they try to mass-produce high-performance bikes in England, they tried to keep their prices reasonable, perhaps a bit low--even for that time.  During the company's first few years, they made most of the components, as well as the brazed lugless cro-mo frame, in-house.  The components were the bike's undoing:  Most of them didn't hold up very well.  Worst of all was the so-called "Death Fork," which was one of the first production forks to be made of aluminum.  That piece was indicative of much else on the bike:  It was a possibly-good idea that wasn't executed very well, mainly because no one knew how it needed to be executed.


They offered a 21-pound road bike, which was about as light as you could get at that time, for $149.  They offered that same bike, plated with 24-karat gold for $279.


A price like that for gold?  Now that's soo '70's.