Sound: Of The Wind, Or From It?

April Fool's Day was nearly two weeks ago.  Still, I thought the e-mail someone sent me about a certain bicycle accessory was a joke.  Then again, I think a lot of bicycle accessories are jokes, whether or not they are intended as such.

Anyway...It has to do with the sounds you hear when you're riding.  Me, when I'm riding, I like to be aware of my surroundings.  That is why I never ride with headphones:  I want to hear traffic and such, so I can be alert to any possible hazards.  When none exist, I like to enjoy the sounds of birds chirping, ocean waves spilling,  the wind rippling and rasping,  and snippets of conversation--or simply silence, depending on where I am.

When I was a kid, Radio Shack used to offer transistor (Is that what I am to my siblings?) radios that clamped onto the handlebars.  I was tempted to buy one, mainly because they were offered in every color in which jellybeans were ever made.  Or so it seemed.  But since that fancy passed, I never had any desire to add an accessory that made sounds I couldn't already hear from my saddle.

I guess others don't feel the same way.  For them, Korean designer Joseph Kim created Sound From The Wind, which, as its name tells us, takes the breeze that blows in your face and turns it into something that sounds like a flute or an ocarina.  The funny thing, though, is that the device looks like something a kid of my generation might've put on a Sting Ray or Chopper to pretend he was piloting a fighter jet.  Like such devices, Sound From The Wind grows louder as you ride faster.  The pitch can be altered with switches on the handlebars.

Hmm...I wonder whether the way one rides also determines what kind of music comes from the device.  I mean, how would I have to pedal if I wanted to hear Vivaldi's La Tempesta di Mare?  Or a Chopin nocturne?

P.S.  Gotta wonder about that brake lever...
 

An Ovation That Hasn't Found Its Audience

We've all seen, or at least heard of, "solutions in search of problems." They seem, as often as not, to come from engineers, inventors or simply geeks who have too much time on their hands.

The bicycle world has seen its share of such "solutions".  What's sad or funny, depending on your point of view, is that even if no problem is found for the solution and said solution fades away quietly, someone might revive it.  An example is elliptical or ovoid chainrings, which I discussed in an earlier post.

I remember hearing about another innovation that left me wondering, "And the purpose of this is...?"  I hadn't thought about it in a long time until someone passed along a video of it:




I guess somebody figured that if four-wheel drive works for jeeps, two-wheel drive would work on bikes, especially mountain bikes. 

The bike in the video made its debut in a 2005 robotics show.  I have to wonder whether its inventors knew that, nearly a decade and a half earlier, someone else had the same idea. And it shared the same problem with its descendent:  It didn't work very well. 

The Legacy Ovation first saw the light of day in 1991.  I remember reading about it in one of the magazines at the time.  If it looks like a conventional mountain bike with an oversized speedometer cable running through it, well, that's pretty much what it is.  Besides the cable, the other major difference is in the front wheel, which is a rear wheel, and the fork, which has a diameter of 135 mm (most front forks are 100 mm) to accommodate the wheel. 

 

As you can probably tell, the rear wheel (the one that's actually in the rear) is powered in the same way as rear wheels on other bikes.  Each end of the cable has a rotor-cut gear mounted on the side opposite the freewheel.  So, the rotation of the rear wheel causes the front wheel to turn.

The idea actually sounds pretty good.  One of the problems, though, is that of "fighting" the gear, which has a lot of resistance.  Also, having such gears exposed leads to rapid wear and deterioration, which was the downfall of the few Ovations that were ridden.

Solutions like the Ovation don't always find a problem, thankfully.  But sometimes they find a market.  And the bicycle's developers confidently predicted that their invention would capture "20 to 40 percent of the market over the next few years".  It, of course, didn't, and neither did the bike shown at the robotics show.  From what I understand, there have been a couple of other attempts, since then, to create a two-wheel drive.  They didn't gain traction (pun intended) with the public, either. 

Still, even if the two-wheel drive bicycle doesn't find the problem it's supposed to solve, the idea probably won't die.  As long as there's the potential for finding an audience, would-be inventors and entrepreneurs will probably continue to work on this "solution", whether or not it ever finds its problem.

Easy Like Your Sunday Best

Some things never end.

Like the mails and e-mails I get from the alumni associations and foundations of the schools I attended.  I've moved to different states and countries, changed my name and even had mail delivery stopped during a time when I was feeling depressed and hermetic.  About the only thing those schools didn't seem to know is my financial situation:  They hit me up for money, whether or not I have it!

Then there are those mails and e-mails you get from retailers.  You might have bought an inner tube or a beanie ten years ago, but they send you announcements of the sales they always seem to be running.  Some of them spend more trying to sell more to you than you spent in their establishments in the first place!

One such e-mail I received today is trying to get me to buy "discounted" bike jerseys that were way overpriced to begin with.  I had to chuckle at one of those offers, though:  for a Castelli jersey called "Sunday Best".

Growing up in blue-collar Italian-American Brooklyn and New Jersey, I never heard the term.  It still sounds vaguely WASP-y to me.  So, perhaps, it's no surprise that the jersey looks like this:

If that jersey has anything to do with Sunday, the design makes me think of the Episcopal Church--which, according to Robin Williams (who grew up in it), offers all of the ceremony of the Roman Catholic Church (in which I grew up) with half of the guilt.

When I attended Catholic school, we wore our school uniforms to church.  After my family moved to New Jersey, dress codes relaxed and most of us didn't have a "best" outfit for church:  We just cleaned ourselves up and made ourselves more or less presentable.  For most of my adult life, I haven't attended church and when I go to any sort of social function, it's usually with people who don't care about what I look like.  If I wear a skirt or a tailored pair of pants, most people I know would say I'm "dressed up", though my attire might not be most people's idea of "Sunday Best."

Ironically, through all of those years I was racing or just riding with racers (or "wannabes"), my "Sunday Best" included bike kit.  Most of us took long or "fun" rides on the Lord's Day.  Or we might join organized rides, such as the one a bunch of us used to take from Brooklyn to New Hope, PA and back.  On such rides, I used to wear my "best" (or, at least, favorite) jersey or outfit.  

These days, I don't wear cycle-specific clothing, except for gloves.  So my "Sunday Best" is whatever I happen to be wearing when I'm riding on the second day of the weekend.

Now, if I'd lived another life, my "Sunday Best" might look like this:

Nine Years, Nine Lives--With Max

It's hard to believe that I was once nine years old.

It's also hard to believe that, not so long ago, really, nine years seemed like a geologic age.

Now it goes by in the blink of an eye.  Periods of five and ten years start to blend with each other.  I realized as much when I made an offhand remark that something looked "Soo '80's."  

The person to whom I made the remark corrected me:  "More like early '90's".  After thinking for a moment, he said, "The '80's, the '90's--at our age, the decades run together."

That I can think of nine years as, in essence, a decade, says something about my perception of time.  I think I've also reached a point where any amount of time more than fifteen years becomes twenty.

Anyway...today, the 9th marks nine years of a relationship--with someone who, proverbially, has nine lives.

I am talking about none other than Max.  

Whenever I come home from a bike ride, he circles my wheels and my feet.  I feed him and, as soon as he's sated, he climbs onto my lap, whether I'm drinking, eating, reading or just spacing out.  

It still amazes me that such a wonderful cat came my way--and I didn't pay, or really do, anything to get him. In an earlier post, I told the story of how he came into my life. Whatever I've spent on him--which, really, isn't much--has been a pittance.  After all, when he climbs and walks on me, I feel as relaxed as I do after a good massage.  And when I'm tired or feeling blue, I talk to him and feel as if I've had a nice therapy sessions.

In  brief, he's a stress-reliever.  Of course, I don't tell him that:  I don't want to reduce him to mere usefulness.  I simply love having him around, and I hope he's around for some more years.  He's fifteen now, according to the vet who examined him just before I took him in.  In the scheme of things, that might just be the blink of an eye.  But it is a relationship, it is a love--which is to say, it is a life.

More Proof There's Nothing New

One theme to which I often return in this blog is "there is nothing new under the sun".  Just about every "innovation"--whether or not it actually changes the way we ride, or simply look at, bikes--has been done before.  I include bicycle frames made from aluminum (1890s), titanium (also 1890s) and carbon fiber (1970s, possibly even earlier).  I also include most newfangled componentry. Also, everything we associate with modern bike componentry--including "freehubs" and dual-pivot sidepull brakes--had been done before Shimano introduced them in the late 1970's and early 1990's, respectively.

Turns out, the "new" genres of bicycles aren't so new, either.  Although they weren't called "mountain" or "off-road", there were surely bikes that were, or at least seem like, prototypes of what we see on trails and in the woods today.  Ditto for folding bikes:  As I've mentioned in an earlier post, some were made for the French Army during the 1890s. 

And, as it turns out, "fat tire" bikes were rolling, bouncing and thumping along New York City streets (some of them cobblestoned) more than eight decades ago.  At least, that is what this Safety Day Parade photo from 1930 could lead us to believe:

 

 

 

But that bike had nothing on this "fatty", which beat it by sixteen years--and was aquatic, to boot:

That bike was entered in a waterbike competition on Lac Enghien, just north of Paris, in 1914.

Speaking of Paris:  When I saw this, I thought it was an entrance to a Metro station:

If it flew, I'd love to know how far.  Can you imagine having a waterbike and an aerobike?  You'd be ready for any disaster!

It's About Time They Took Control Of Those People!

There was The Look.

It was knowing and hateful--with a healthy dose of fear mixed in.  The giver wanted to instill fear in the receiver. But the receiver had already done the same:  Something in his walk or demeanor said, "Don't F- with me."

I know it well because I was the intended recipient of The Look.  And I was getting it because I had wrapped myself in psychological barbed wire.  The person who gave me The Look wanted to sell me drugs or his or her body.  Or lure me into a "theatre"--or an alley. Or try to suck or force me into some other scheme or scam to part me with my money and leave me part of the sidewalk or pavement, at least for a moment.

What I have described was an experience of walking 42nd Street from the Port Authority Bus Terminal to Times Square about thirty years ago.  That stretch of "The Deuce"--the street's nickname--was, of all New York City thoroughfares, the one in which a person had the best chance of being the victim of a crime.

Today Times Square has been turned into a cross between Disney World without the rides and a shopping mall.  Fresh-faced families flock to the same sorts of chain restaurants and stores they could find in their home counties--with higher prices.  And, instead of pimps, prostitutes and hoodlums, costumed street perfomers and "painted ladies" accost tourists and ply them for cash.  Some of those performers are even more aggressive than those old denizens of the demimonde I remember from my youth. 

At least, they seem more aggressive. Or, perhaps, they are because they can be to those fresh-faced families, who have no experience in walking by people they have never seen, and never will see again.  They do not have the ability to wrap themselves in psychological barbed wire and be unaffected by The Look.

Now the City Council is scheduled to vote on a measure to regulate those ersatz Batmans and Wonder Women, and all of the other costumed characters who terrorize Times Square.

I used to fancy myself a libertarian. Sometimes I still do.  But I know when regulation is necessary, or at least beneficial.  This is one of those times. I mean, do we want people running around the fashion capital of America looking like this?:

 

More Aerodynamic? More Ergonomic? Maybe Not, But They Were Pretty

A few posts ago, I mentioned the Shimano Dura-Ace aerodynamic (EX and, later, AX) components of the early 1980s.  While the components themselves didn't catch on quite as much as Shimano hoped, they had (and still have) their devotees. More to the point, they have their influence on today's components and bikes.

Perhaps no part of the EX system better epitomized the ensemble's inability to catch on with the cycling public and its long-term impact than the Dyna-Drive pedals. 

 

The Dura Ace EX Dyna-Drive (DD) crank was actually a lovely piece of work and would look as appropriate on a current bike as one of the era, or even an earlier time.  It resembled other Dura Ace cranks made since, more or less.  Its spider and pedal arm have a finish and shape like those of its successors, save for the flare near the end of the crank arm.  There was a reason for that:  the pedal mounting hole was about double the diameter of that on any other crank. 

That oversized pedal hole was made to accommodate the DD pedal, which had eliminated the through-axle found in most pedal bodies in favor of something shaped more like a plumbing joint that mounted outboard of the pedal.  The bearings were inside of it.  In contrast, most pedals have a set of bearings inside each end of the body.

In addition to lighter weight (about a third less than Campagnolo and other quill-caged road pedals of the time), this setup, because of the size of its mounting, was supposed to be stiffer. I never used the pedals or crank myself, but I knew a couple of cyclists who did and wouldn't use anything else. 

 

 

The mounting system also resulted in a pedal platform that was lower than, rather than level with, the center of the mounting hole in the crank arm.  As a result, at the bottom of the pedal stroke, the bottom of the foot was lower than the pedaling axis.  This was supposed to offer better biodynamics in the pedal stroke, which would lead to a more even power transfer throughout the rotation of the pedal. 

To me, it sounds like the benefit the Biopace (slightly elliptical) chainrings Shimano would make around the same time.  As I mentioned in an earlier post, I never used Biopace for any length of time, so I can't say whether or not they actually offered the claimed benefit.  Likewise for the DD pedals, which I never used.  I will say, however, that the few cyclists I knew who used them liked them very much.

Shimano made adapters so that conventional pedals could be used with DD cranks, or so that DD pedals could be used with conventional cranks.  I don't know anyone who used those, but I saw some cyclists ride conventional Dura Ace cranks and the pedals of their choice with the other aerodynamic EX parts.

Eventually, the 600 racing series and the then-new Deore touring and mountain bike parts would also offer the Dyna Drive option.   They were even less popular in those ensembles than in Dura Ace.  It makes sense, especially for the touring ensemble:  If your DD  pedal hit a curb or got snagged on a rock or tree root in the middle of nowhere, you probably wouldn't find a replacement--or even an adapter--in the local farm machinery shop where bike repairs are done.

Still, those pedals have had a lasting influence:  Look and other contemporary pedals, while they don't completely eliminate the through-axle, use a shorter axle than on earlier pedals.  More important, though, they use one set of oversized bearings on the side of the pedal that mounts to the crank, eliminating the bearing on the outer part of the pedal.  This makes lighter, more streamlined pedals possible. 

And, of course, the shapes of many of today's pedals owe much to the aerodynamic design of DD pedals, which in turn were influenced by the Lyotard No. 23, a.k.a. Marcel Berthet, platform pedal.

Free Bikes To The Polls

Since February began, 32 US States have held primaries or caucuses to determine who the Democratic and Republican parties will nominate as their Presidential candidates.

Today Wisconsin will join them.  The Badger State is also holding elections for State Supreme Court justice as well as a number of local offices.

Commentators have lamented the relatively low voter turnout thus far in other primaries and elections.  Campaign workers for all of the candidates have tried all sorts of things to encourage people to go to the polls.  

Bublr bikes in Milwaukee

Kevin Hardman has, perhaps, one possible solution.  He is the executive director of Bublr, Milwaukee's bike share program.  Today, he announced, everyone in the city is entitled to one free 30-minute ride on a Bublr bike.  To redeem it, a rider has to enter the code "1848" (the year of Wisconsin's founding) at any Bublr station.  As with most bike share programs, a credit card is needed to check out a bike; rides over 30 minutes will cost $3 for each additional 30 minutes.

According to Hardman, eight of Bublr's 28 stations are located within two blocks of a polling station.  The other twenty, he says, are "convenient" to places where people can vote.

So let's see...The bikes are blue.  Who do you think cyclists will vote for?

Even They Wouldn't Get Free Advertising From Me

Once, when I was a kid, someone gave me a T-shirt with the Coca-Cola emblem on it.  I always liked Coke; I drink it (the Mexican version) on the rare occasions when I drink soda.  So, I thought nothing of wearing that T-shirt until someone--an uncle, I think--told me I should be paid for wearing it.  "It's advertising," he explained.

He was right.  Still, I sometimes wear T-shirts or other items with the name of some product or business on it--as long as I don't have to pay for it.  I try, though, to wear only those products and companies I actually know and like.

But I don't think I'll ever get a tattoo with a business trademark.  For one thing, I don't think I'll ever get inked:  It's just not my thing.  For another, I wouldn't want to be marked more-or-less permanently with a business or product name.  At least you can take off the T-shirt or hat or whatever if you don't want to be a billboard for Al's Garage or whatever.

No, I wouldn't get a "tat" even for this esteemed company:

From:  Cycling Tattoo Gallery

as much as I've always liked their flowing-script logo (especially the one with the "globe" around it).

What The Wind Could, And Could Not, Stop

This is one of the first signs of spring.  It always warms my heart.

However, the cherry blossoms could not warm the sky.  In fact, I marveled that those buds were still on the branches:  When I opened my door this morning, the wind took it right out of my hand!

Here's another tree with delicate flowers that can stand in defiance of the gusts, and of the unseasonable cold. (The temperature was exactly at the freezing point of water.)

As you can see, the tree behind it, perhaps because it's bigger and, maybe, older, is a bit more cautious:  It still hasn't exposed its buds.

Tonight, according to the weather forecast, we might have snow mixed in with the showers.  The snow will probably melt as soon as it touches the ground.  Still, it's odd to know that it's coming nearly two weeks after the official start of spring--and just days after the temperature reached 25C (77F).

I rode to work in rain the other day.  So did a few other cyclists.  However, I haven't seen anyone, save for restaurant delivery workers, riding bicycles today, even though it's Sunday.  Riding in 30KPH (50MPH) gusts is one thing:  tiring.  All right, it's also exhilirating.  But getting knocked over by that same gust blowing at your side--especially in traffic--is scary, if not dangerous.  I know:  It's happened to me.  And I don't blame anyone else who wants to avoid the same.