Tour Green: Sean Kelly

Believe it or not, this was the jersey of a French cycling team.



So why does it look more like the flag of Ireland--or, at least, the way such a flag might look if it were designed by an Ulsterman?

The Sem-France Loire team raced from 1980 until 1983.  Directeur sportif Jean de Gribaldy formed it by taking the French part of the Belgian Flandria-Ca-Va Seul-Senair (Try saying that three times fast) team after Flandria withdrew its sponsorship.   The team was originally called Puch-Sem-Campagnolo, but de Gribaldy re-christened it Sem France-Loire in 1981, when Sem became the main sponsor.

In the squad's first year, it was captained by Joaquim Agostinho, a Portuguese cyclist who finished fifth in the Tour de France that year.  But in the summer of 1981, a certain racer who started his professional career on the Flandria team several years earlier contacted his former directeur sportif--de Gribaldy--about joining his new team.

DeGribaldy got the necessary sponsorship and signed said cyclist.  Once you know who he is, it will make--in an ironic sort of way--perfect sense that he wore the jersey in the picture.

I am talking, of course, about someone who would become of the most prominent racers of the 1980's--and one of the most successful Irish riders ever:  Sean Kelly.

With Sem, Kelly rejoined some of his former teammates, including Eddy Planckaert.  With such a strong cast, the team cast a shadow far longer than one might have expected from their small budget.  Their riders accounted for several important victories, such as the French road race championship of 1981, the Swiss Cyclo-Cross championship of the same year, as the Paris-Camembert in 1981, Paris-Nice in 1982 and Liege-Bastogne-Liege in 1983.  And, in 1983, Kelly would win the Tour de Suisse for the Sem team's last major victory.

The following year, power-tool manufacturer Skil became the main sponsor. Sem-France Loire then morphed into the Skil_sem team.  And Kelly went on to bigger and better things.  Although he never won the Tour de France outright, he took--appropriately enough--its maillot vert in 1982, 1983, 1985 and 1989.

The Man In A Case

March, as you probably know, is Women's History Month.  Does that mean that we don't have a history for the other 11 months of the year?  And what about Blacks?  Not only do they have only one month, but they got the shortest:  February.  So for 337 other days of the year (338 in a leap year), they don't have a story?

All right.  I'll stop ranting.  When I  think about WHM--or women's history or rights in general--I am reminded that in the early days of cycling, riding a bicycle was something a "proper" lady didn't do.  In some parts of the world, that's still the case:  One of my colleagues, who hails from Ethiopia and is in her sixties, has never learned how to ride.  And there are places, I understand, where a woman or girl on a bicycle is not only frowned upon, it's illegal.

From Women's History: About

But back to the early days of cycling:  During that time, Anton Chekhov wrote a short story,  The Man In A Case.  During the 1970's, Wendy Wasserstein turned it into a one-act play (with the same title) about a marriage between Varinka, a "pretty girl of thirty" and Byelinkov, a much older Latin and Greek professor at a university near Moscow.

You can see how cautious and traditional he is in this exchange:

 
　　VARINKA (takes his hands.) We will be very happy. I am very strong. (Pauses. ) It is time for tea.
　
　　BYELINKOV. It is too early for tea. Tea is at half past the hour.
　
　　VARINKA. Do you have heavy cream? It will be awfully nice with apricots.
　
　　BYELINKOV. Heavy cream is too rich for teatime.
　
　 　VARINKA. But today is special. Today you placed a lilac in my hair. Write in your note pad. Every year we will celebrate with apricots and heavy cream. I will go to my brother's house and get some.
　
　　BYELINKOV. But your brother's house is a mile from here.
　
　　VARINKA. Today it is much shorter. Today my brother gave me his bicycle to ride. I will be back very soon.
　
　　BYELINKOV. You rode to my house by bicycle! Did anyone see you!
　
　 　VARINKA. Of course. I had such fun. I told you I saw the grocery store lady with the son-in-law who is doing very well thank you in Moscow, and the headmaster's wife.
　
　　BYELINKOV. You saw the headmaster's wife!
　
　　VARINKA. She smiled at me.
　
　　BYELINKOV. Did she laugh or smile?
　
　 　VARINKA. She laughed a little. She said, "My dear, you are very progressive to ride a bicycle." She said you and your fiance Byelinkov must ride together sometime. I wonder if he'll take off his galoshes when he rides a bicycle.
　
　　BYELINKOV. She said that?
　
　　VARINKA. She adores you, We had a good giggle.
　
　 　BYELINKOV. A woman can be arrested for riding a bicycle. That is not progressive, it is a premeditated revolutionary act. Your brother must be awfully, awfully careful on behalf of your behavior. He has been careless-oh so care-less-in giving you the bicycle.
　
　　VARINKA. Dearest Byelinkov, you are wrapping yourself under curtains and quilts! I made friends on the bicycle.
　
　　BYELINKOV. You saw more than the headmaster's wife and the idiot grocery woman.
　
　　VARINKA. She is not an idiot.
　
　　BYELINKOV. She is a potato-Vending, sausage-armed fool!
　
　　VARINKA. Shhh! My school mouse. Shhh!
　
　　BYELINKOV. What other friends did you make on this bicycle?
　
　　VARINKA. I saw students from my brother' s classes. They waved and shouted, 0Anthropos in love! Anthropos in 'love!!"
　
　　BYELINKOV. Where is that bicycle?
　
　　VARINKA. I left it outside the gate. Where are you going?
　
　　BYELINKOV (muttering as he exits.) Anthropos in love, an thropos in love.
　
　　VARINKA. They were cheering me on. Careful, you'll trample the roses.
　
　 　BYELINKOV (returning with the bicycle.) Anthropos is the Greek singular for man. Anthropos in love translates as the Greek and Latin master in love. Of course they cheered you. Their instructor, who teaches them the discipline and contained beauty of the classics, is in love with a sprite on a bicycle. It is a good giggle, isn't it? A very good giggle! I am returning this bicycle to your brother.
　
　　VARINKA. But it is teatime.
　
　　BYELINKOV. Today we will not' have tea.
　
　　VARINKA. But you will have to walk back a mile.
　
　 　BYELINKOV. I have my galoshes on. (Gets on the bicycle.), Varinka, we deserve not to be different. (Begins to pedal. The bicycle doesn't move. )
　
　　VARINKA. Put the kickstand up.
　
　　BYELINKOV. I beg your pardon.
　
　　VARINKA (giggling.) Byelinkov, to make the bicycle move; you must put the kickstand up.
　　　
　　(Byelinkov puts it up and awkwardly falls off the bicycle as it.moves. )
　
　　　
　
　　(Laughing.) Ha ha ha. My little school mouse. You. look so funny! You are the sweetest dearest man in the world. Ha ha ha!,
　　　
　　(Pause.)

Origins

After writing about Missy Giove, I got to thinking about how bicycle racers come to be.  

When "The Missile" was flying down mountainsides, downhill racing was a new genre of mountain biking. Before that time--the early-to-mid '90's-- nearly all of the prominent mounatain bikers started off as road racers.  However, she was one of the first mountain bikers who didn't have a significant background on the road. Later in the decade, there would be a "critical mass" of mountain bike racers who spent all or most of their amateur and professional careers as mountain bikers without spending significant time on the road or track. 

Interestingly, by the end of that decade, American dominance of mountain biking would end.  While riders from the US still won more than their share of victories, the best young talent in the sport was coming from Europe--first from France, then from Switzerland, Germany, Italy, Austria and a few other countries.  

One would have thought that the riders from the other side of the Atlantic--where racing culture was, and still is, deeper than it is in the New World-- would have been, if anything, road or track racers before becoming mountain bikers.  And indeed some were.  But those new riders from the Alps, Pyrenees and other mountain areas of Europe also had roots in another sport that is more prominent over there than it is here:  downhill ski racing.  

It makes sense, at least to me:  My own (admittedly limited) experience with both has shown me that downhillers, whether they're on skis or wheels, have to have similar reflexes and moves.  Plus, if you're living in a mountainous area, you simply have more opportunities to do either sport, let alone both.

Now, to a completely different area of cycling: the triathlon.  Of course, it's not strictly a cycling event:  it also involves running and swimming.  Still, one might expect that a large percentage of triathloners to come from the world of bicycle racing.  


I am sure that many do, although I have seen no research to corroborate that. However, from my own admittedly-informal observations, and from knowing several triathloners, I get the impression that most triathloners start off--and identify themselves primarily--as runners. And not many seem to be mainly swimmers 

Promo for mini-triathlon in Marysville, MO, 2012

If what I've seen is indicative of the wider world, I can think of one reason why triathloners might be runners first and foremost .  Of the three triathlon events, running is hardest on the knees and other body parts.  If someone's joints and limbs can stand up to the pounding or jarring that results from hitting the pavement, they can certainly handle cycling and swimming.  Conversely, while swimming is a very intensive physical activity, it places very little stress on the knees. 

So...If some of the best downhill racers were skiers before taking up mountain biking, and the majority of triathloners start off as runners, what were the first bike racers doing before they started spinning their pedals?

What Congestion Pricing Might Prevent

A few days ago, I wrote about congestion pricing and the wonderful effects it's having on people's physical and mental health--not to mention pedestrians' and cyclists' safety--in Center City London and beyond.  It's been proposed here in New York but it's gone over about as well as lead bagels.

The funny thing is that the people who are most vehemently opposed to it are always complaining about parking.  I should think that, if anything, it would make parking easier.  It might even prevent scenes like this:

From XCiteFun

 

The Moveable Feast Of Bicycle Racing

Recently, I mentioned Ernest Hemingway in one of my classes.  Not a single student had heard of him, let alone read any of his works.

I have very mixed feelings about that.  On one hand, I'm appalled that they'd gotten to college without knowing about one of the most famous American writers.  On the other, I'm not so sorry, as I've gone through periods of absolutely loathing him (the man as well as the work) for the all-but-complete absence of credible, let alone substantial, female characters and the testosterone-soaked world he created and image he projected.

Then again, there is an economy and precision in his language that few other writers have equaled--and which, ironically, makes him easy to parody.  And for all that he glorified masculine pursuits, few writers have shown war-weariness from a combatant's point of view as well as he did.  

Whether I've loved or hated him, there is one work of his I always loved:  A Moveable Feast, which was published posthumously.  Even after having lived in Paris and enjoyed a few extended visits in the City of Light, I am still moved by his descriptions of his life there.  Also, I always had the sense that if he ever let his guard down as a writer, he did so in writing that book.

If he was capable of sighing, he did it in that book.  In particular, he expresses regret--and seems almost apologetic--in talking about one topic about which he couldn't write: bicycle racing.

One of the things that all of those English teachers never mentioned while they were ramming The Snows of Kilimanjaro and A Clean, Well-Lighted Place down the throats of my generation was that, while in Paris, he became a big fan of bicycle racing and that he was an active cyclist through much of his life.  A friend of his, Mike Ward, introduced him to it after giving up betting on horse racing because, he said, he'd found something better in bicycle racing. 

 

Hemingway similarly became enamored of two-wheeled pursuits after turning his attentions away from the trotters.  Given that he wrote stories about hunting and fishing, which he also loved, it's no surprise that he would want to write about bike racing.  But, as he recounts in A Moveable Feast:

"I have started many stories about bicycle racing but have never written one that is as good as the races are both on the indoor tracks and the roads."

 He gives one possible reason why he couldn't write a story he liked about racing:

"French is the only language it has ever been written in properly and the terms are all in French and that is what makes it hard to write."  

Still, he is glad to have been introduced to the sport:

"Mike was right about it, there is no need to bet. But that comes at another time in Paris."

 Maybe it's time for me to read him again.

 

A Sign In Late Spring

As I mentioned in an earlier post, there was a time when I actually regarded Coca-Cola as an energy drink.  I'm sure some cyclists still do.  In fact, some might regard it as a performance-enhancing drug.

Like nearly every cyclist in the developed world, I've seen innumerable Coke ads on billboards, storefronts and even painted on the sides of buildings.  But I've never seen one quite like this:

It's a still from Late Spring (Banshu), a 1949 film directed by Yasujiro Ozu.  Based on Kazuo Hirotsu's novel Father and Daughter (Chichi to musume), it belongs to a genre of Japanese film called shomingeki, which deals with the ordinary daily lives of modern working- and middle-class Japanese people.  This genre flourished during the immediate postwar period, in spite (or, some say, because) of the heavy censorship imposed by Allied occupying forces.  
Such films usually focused on families, featured simple plots and were shot with static cameras.  This genre might be compared, in some ways, to the Italian neo-realist films of the same period (such as Rome, Open City and The Bicycle Thief) and the French New Wave that brought us the likes of Le Quatre Cent Coups (The 400 Blows) a decade later.

There's a certain irony to seeing a Coca-Cola road sign in a film that's supposed to--at least on the surface--celebrate an idealized version of Japanese family life.  Then again, some have seen it as one of the ways Ozu subverted the censorship of the time. 

Hmm...Coca-Cola presented as a threat to traditional authority in order to subvert the censorship imposed by an occupier.  It's a bit much to wrap my head around.  Maybe it's easier to think of Coke as an energy drink--or even a performance-enhancing drug!

A Cycling Catalogue Becomes A Software Company

I may not ever need their services.  But if I do, I'll be sure to call them, just because of their name.

I'm talking about an outfit called Cycling '74. Their home page describes them as "a full kit of creative tools for sound, graphics, music and interactivity in a visual environment."

Hmm...It sounds like a few bicycle races I've been to. 

Headquartered in San Francisco (where else?), Cycling '74 was founded in 1997 by David Zicarelli to serve as the distributor for his various collections of software. 

According to the company's website, he took the name from a 1974 bicycle catalogue that contained many of the images used on the company's original website.

He could have done much worse:  1974 was an interesting year in cycling.  It was probably the apex of the Bike Boom in America.  Eddy Mercx won the last of his five Tour de France titles.  The World Championships were held for the first time in North America--in Montreal, to be exact.  And SunTour, Campagnolo and other component makers would make significant changes to their lineups.

Most important, I think, is that the iconic images of the Bike Boom--the bikes, the riders and the rides--seem to come from that year, or thereabouts.  When people think of a "Bike Boom bike", images of that year's  Fuji S-10S, Raleigh Grand Prix or Super Course, Motobecane Mirage and Schwinn LeTour, among others, come to mind.

Does Congestion Pricing Save Lives?

Here in the US, there's one very easy way for a politician to ensure that he or she will not be elected:  Proposing a tax increase.

Forget that.  If it even sounds like a tax increase--or the government, in any way, shape or form taking more money--it will destroy the aspirations of any candidate.

That is one of the reasons why no New York City mayoral candidate has ever proposed it.  Michael Bloomberg, in the middle of his second term as Hizzoner, made it part of his long-term sustainability program for the Big Apple.  Then-City Council Speaker Christine Quinn favored it.  So did the conservative Republican leader of the New York State Senate, Joseph Bruno.  And then-Governor Eliot Spitzer liked the idea, too.

The somewhat-modified plan was approved, 30 votes to 20, by the New York City Council on 31 March 2008.  To qualify for Federal funds to research and implement the plan, the State Assembly had to vote for it  by 7 April.  That day, after a closed-door meeting, the Assembly's Democratic Council decided not to vote on the proposal, citing "overwhelming opposition", in the words of Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver.

Within three months, the price of gasoline would spike to $4.00 a gallon. (I know that for you Europeans, that is cheap. But I can recall my father filling up the gas tank of the family station wagon for $5.00 when I was in my early teens!)  That, ironically, would cause a five percent decrease in automobile trips into Manhattan below 60th Street, the area that would have been affected by a congestion-pricing plan.

I think it was Woody Allen who said, "Life is hard.  But what's the alternative?"  Something like that might be said about congestion pricing.  Yes, it would cost money and it might mean giving up something else.  But if it saves lives--forget "lives" plural, let's talk about just one, perhaps your own--wouldn't it be better than the alternative?

Turns out, a claim that congestion pricing could save lives is not hyperbole.  There's evidence to support it, courtesy of in Colin Green and his fellow researchers.

Professor Green is a health economist at the University of Exeter Medical School.   This month, he and his colleagues will present a study at the Royal Economic Society's annual conference in which they show that in the congestion zone, there has been, not only a dramatic decrease in the number of accidents, but also an even more dramatic drop in the accident rate, i.e., the number of accidents per vehicle mile driven.  

That was a significant finding because a decline in the number of accidents could be attributed to other factors--or could be seen as a statistical aberration--more easily than such a shrinkage in the rate per mile.

Moreover, Dr. Green and his cohort found that fewer accidents were occurring in the rest of London, outside the congestion zone.  What that suggests is that one of the objectives of congestion pricing is being achieved:  People's behavior is changing.  More are riding bikes and walking; fewer are driving.  And the revenue collected from congesting pricing is used to improve mass transit and cycling infrastructure, which causes more people to see them as realistic alternatives to their (usually short) driving trips.

Milan, Singapore and Stockholm all have plans similar to London's in place.  As far as I know, no one has studied them in the way Dr. Green has examined London's plan.  But I would suspect that similar, if less dramatic, results have been achieved.  Whatever the results, if lives are saved, I think it's worth whatever would be charged to drive and park in the center of the city.

 

A History of British Cycling--Infographic

If it has anything to do with England or History, I'll probably be interested.


If it has to do with England, History and cycling, well, I'm there!

And there I went when someone sent me this link, from Total Women's Cycling, with an infographic about the history of British cycling. 

In it, I found some things I'd never known before.  For example, from 1890 until the 1950's, the National Cyclists' Union banned racing on open roads.  And the Tour de France was first televised in the UK in 1980.

The infographic also mentions a cyclist whom I regard as one of the greatest of all time, perhaps the greatest besides Eddy Mercx:  Beryl Burton.  She won several road and pursuit titles and broke records previously held by men.  It might be said that she dominated the sport in a way that Jeanne Longo loomed over the rest of the female peloton two decades later or Missy Giove ruled the then-nascent sport of downhill mountain bike racing a few years later.

And the graphic ends with some of Britain's favorite bike rides.  Enjoy!

Riding Again: Fino Alla Prossima...

The sun shone almost all day today.  People called in to report UFO sightings.

OK, I'm exaggerating just a little.  But it's been weeks, months even, since I've seen as much sun as we've seen today.  So, of course, I took a ride.

Oh, joy!  I get to ride two days in a row and neither of those rides are commutes or errands.  I'll admit, today's ride wasn't the toughest I've ever done.  But my lack of riding this winter showed on the hills in the north Bronx and Westchester County.  

Much of the snow has melted, but I still had to ride over patches of slush mixed with road salt, mud, gravel and the detritus of this season.Both Vera and Helene, my Mercian mixtes, have fenders.  But I've put new chains on both of them and didn't want to clean up their drivetrains all over again.   

Of course, I could blame the LeTour for the added effort I had to expend.  However, the truth of the matter is that I just need to ride more.  The cold is one thing.  But I just will not ride when there's a lot of ice on the streets, as there has been for the past few weeks.  It's one thing to slip and fall into a snowbank on the side of a trial; it's something else to slide and tumble in traffic.

Anyway, it felt so good to be riding again, just for the sake of riding, that I actually started to weep as I pedaled along a path that followed the ever-so-gentle curves--and jagged rocks--of the Bronx River from the Bronx into Westchester County.  Make what you will of that; it felt good, almost as good as the riding itself!

Along the way back, I saw this:

I'm always fascinated to see old signs painted on the sides of buildings. Were the folks who commissioned them seeking immortality?  Of course, I spent the rest of the ride wondering about "Fino, the fighting Congressman"--especially since "Fino" means "till" ("fino a" means "until")  in Italian.

Turns out, he had a really interesting career.  He represented his district for eight terms in the US Congress during the 1950's and 1960's.  Although he was a conservative Republican who introduced legislation to outlaw the Communist Party, he also supported Medicare (which began during his time in Congress), increases in Social Security benefits and financing for mass transit.  But perhaps his most novel idea of all was one he proposed in 1964:  a national lottery to raise revenue for hospitals.  When he proposed it, New Hampshire had just become the first state to authorize a lottery, something no state had during the previous seven decades.

Now that I've read about him, I think much of Fino's politics had at least a touch of class resentment:  At the time, his district consisted mainly of working-class Italian and Irish homeowners who, like him, didn't like the elitism they percieved in politicians like John Lindsay, who served as New York City's mayor during the last two terms Fino spent in Congress.  

What would he have made of someone like me riding a bike through his neighborhood on a day like today?