A Project's Maiden Voyage

The other day was a fine early-spring day.  Yesterday was just like it, only warmer and with less wind.

It seemed like a good day for a maiden voyage.  Yes, I took my winter project out for a ride.  I'd planned to take it for a "shakeout" of, say, 20 kilometers.  Then I'd go home, have lunch and take a ride on one of my Mercians.

But a ride to the World's Fair Promenade and Flushing Meadow park turned into a North Shore jaunt that took up the late morning and early afternoon.  The day was just so nice that I didn't want to go back inside.  Also, I was starting to form a few early impressions about the bike and wanted to spend some more time on the road to examine them, if not in depth.

Also, I wanted to see whether any problems would develop.  So far, I haven't found any.  I'll need to do only the things one normally has to do with a new build (even when using old parts):  Cables and spokes need re-tensioning and I'm going to tweak the saddle and handlebar position a bit.  So far, however, I don't think I'll need to make any major changes.

I reckon I rode 85 or 90 kilometers with a few hills and rough patches.  The bike is both more stable and sprightly than I expected it to be.  It seems, so far, to ride like a less refined version of Vera--which is not a bad thing, necessarily.

Years ago, I had a set of Weinmann 605 brakes on my Romic and one of my Treks.  I liked them then, and now I remember why:  They have a very firm response which, I believe, is enhanced with Mathauser (Kool Stop) brake pads.  I am especially pleased that they are playing nice with the inverse brake levers.

And I remembered what I liked so much about SunTour derailleurs back in the day:  They, like the brakes, have a positive response.  I wondered, however, what the shifting would be like with a modern chain on an old freewheel.  I wasn't so worried about whether they'd mesh:  The freewheel I installed hadn't been used much, if at all:  It was about as close to new as it could be without being new.  It is, though, a five-speed freewheel, which has wider spacing between the cogs than what's found on modern cassettes.  And the chain--a SRAM PC-830--is made for 8-speeds.  

Happily, I didn't miss a shift.  The "pickup" was quicker than I expected, and the chain engaged the cogs--on a SunTour Winner Pro freewheel--without any problems.  The drivetrain shifted and ran quietly.

In an upcoming post, I'll list the componentry. For now, I'll mention two interesting (to you bike geeks, I mean enthusiasts, anyway) things I did.

One is in the rear wheel, which I built.  The hub is spaced for a six-speed rear, with a 126mm over-locknut diameter.  I rearranged the spacing--shortening it by 5mm on the right (drivetrain) side and lengthening the left side by the same amount.  In other words, I spaced the right side for a 5-speed freewheel and, in adding the spacers to the other side, made the hub more nearly symmetrical. This reduces the amount of "dish" in the wheel which, I believe, will make it stronger.

The other thing I want to mention is the handlebar tape.  Yes, I used cloth tape--in this case, Tressostar gray and dark blue--and coated it with clear shellac.

That ornament on the stem?  It was an earring.  It was once half of a pair.  I lost its "mate".  So, I cut off the clamp, filed down the stub and attached it to the stem with Crazy Glue!

If you've been reading this blog, you've seen the bag before.  It's the great Randonneur bag Ely of Ruthworks made, which I've used on Vera for the past couple of years.  I hope she and this bike--which I've yet to name--don't fight for custody of it!

An Early Spring Reverie

Yesterday definitely felt like Spring.  The weather was pleasantly cool and the skies almost preternaturally bright. Breezes blew from the ocean, sometimes turning into winds.

It was a great day, in short, for a ride of, oh, about 105 or 110 kilometers.  A trip to Point Lookout and back falls very neatly into that range, depending on whether and how I vary my route.

I didn't see as many people along the Rockaway boardwalks as I expected.  However, a lot of people were roaming around the area, and on the beach, both in the Rockaways and in Long Beach.  And, while I enjoyed a piece of English Blue Stilton cheese and two whole wheat bagels, a few families stopped at Point Lookout to take portraits on the rocks, with the waves in the background.

Well, all right, there weren't any waves. Or, at least, they weren't the kind that lash against the rocks.  I don't think I've ever seen the tide recede as much as it had yesterday.

On other rides, I've seen sandbars form on the north side of the bay.  But yesterday, for the first time, I saw another on the south side.  They almost merged:

Meantime, Vera was soaking up some sun.  She's getting and giving some good rides. Don't worry:  My other Mercians will see the road this soon--actually, this week, I hope.  I was doing some maintenance on them and now I have a few days off for spring break!

And, yes, my project Trek will also see some "duty", too!

How Many Bananas?

Last week, while out for a ride, I stopped at a Halal cart for a falafel.  It got me to thinking about how much the definition of "street food" has changed here in New York.  

In addition to falafel, hummus and those tasty chicken-and rice or lamb-and-rice dishes the Middle Eastern street cooks/vendors offer, it's possible to buy tacos, pizza, curries, waffles, sushi, various kinds of sandwiches, fried chicken, lobster rolls, crepes, salads, meat-on-a-stick and cupcakes as well as familiar fare like ice cream and almost anything based on coffee or tea from various trucks and carts all over the city.

It wasn't so long ago that "street food" in the Big Apple meant "dirty water" hot dogs (with mustard and barbecued onions), knishes and pretzels that were baked dry, then burnt on the hot plates the vendors used to warm them up.

Ruminating about such urban delicacies (as if I don't have better uses for my brain cells!) led me to recall the days when "energy bars" hadn't been invented.  Back then, we carried "trail mix" or other combinations of dried fruits, nuts (and, for some of us, chocolate) as well as other fruits--especially bananas.

In fact, when I was co-editing a club newsletter, we had a five-banana rating system for rides.  The most difficult rides, of course, got five while the easiest rides were marked with only one.

That system would have been entirely useless had someone shown up to ride in this:

From Extreme Mobility

A Story I Didn't Want To Repeat

One of the things my students learn--if they don't already know it--is that the same stories repeat themselves, whether in literature, the other arts, journalism or "real life".

As for the latter:  Yes, another story repeated itself in life.  In fact, it's one I wrote about just yesterday in this blog.  Unfortunately, it's not the sort of account I, or anyone else, enjoys repeating.  But here goes:

Another motorist drove into the back of another cyclist in Florida--in more or less the same part of the Sunshine State, no less.  

Frank Atkisson in the Florida State Legislature, 2003

Yesterday, I told you about Alan Snel.  He survived the ordeal, although he still has a lot of recovery ahead of him.  Frank Atkisson, on the other hand was not as fortunate:  The force of 26-year-old Kristie Jean Knoebel's car ended his life shortly after he was struck while riding at around 7pm the other day.

Although Snel's experience garnered a lot of attention among cycling advocates and journalists--Alan is both--it didn't reverberate through the general population the way Atkisson's unfortunate encounter has.  At least, his tragedy has caused the general public--in Florida, anyway, to take notice.

You might say that it's because Atkisson, unfortunately, died.  But another reason is that he served in the Florida House of Representatives for eight years, and was also a city council member and the mayor of Kissimmee as well as a Commissioner in Osceola County.

I don't want to trivialize his death, or even to seem overly cynical, when I say that his visibility to the people of Florida--especially to his fellow politicians--might be the impetus to make conditions safer in what is the deadliest state for cyclists.

Maybe, just maybe. We can always hope.  But for now, we can only mourn him--and be thankful that Alan Snel is still with us.

What's A Cyclist Worth? In Florida, Not Even A Fine

I don't think of myself as a vengeful person.  At the same time, there are people I want to see punished, or at least castigated, for their misdeeds.

Moreover, I have come to realize that you can tell what a person's status is, or was, in his or her community or society by the sort of penalty meted out to someone who commits a crime against, or otherwise causes harm to, that person.

Now, I'm not going to say "Don't get me started about drivers who get off scot-free when they run down cyclists!" because, well, I am going to rant about that, whether or not anybody gets me started.

Specifically, I am going to rant and rave about one particular cyclist who was so victimized.  He has survived the ordeal, albeit with a fractured spine and deep bruises.  He hopes to get back on his bike sooner rather than later, but he still faces a long recovery from the injuries he incurred a month ago today.

A 65-year-old motorist named Dennis Brophy, of Fort Pierce, Florida, was in the process of inhaling a "breathing treatment" when he drove his 2016 Chevy Cruze straight into the back of a cyclist who, like him, was traveling south on Old Dixie Highway.  Brophy admitted he suffers from sleep apnea and said, according to the incident report, that he was "blinded by the light" and "never saw" the cyclist he struck.

That was at 8:03 am.   The cyclist would spend the next two days in the Lawnwood Medical Center's ICU.  Meantime, Brophy went home without even a citation for plowing into the cyclist, whom he could have just as easily killed.

Alan Snel, after a motorist struck him from behind

That cyclist is Alan Snel.  Perhaps you know him from reading his "Bicycle Stories" blog.  You may also know, or know of, him from his extensive cycling advocacy, or from his work as a journalist in Nevada and Florida.  It seems, though, that to Florida law enforcement officials, he was--as he says--"collateral damage", or simply someone who got in the way of a motorist who couldn't be bothered to swerve a couple of feet out of his way.

Alan's bicycle

Although I have had some very pleasant experiences of cycling in Florida, I also realized that it is a very auto-centric place.  From what I have seen, I would guess that the vast majority of cyclists are adults, many of--as we say--"a certain age".  Yet, too often, people entrusted to uphold the law and support public safety seem to see cyclists as people who won't grow up and drive and who therefore "bring it on themselves" when they are endangered or, worse, injured or killed by motorists.

Alan's helmet

I was not surprised to learn that more cyclists are killed by motorists, in proportion to the population, in Florida than in any other state.  Furthermore, in every year since 2010, Florida's rate has been around 50 percent higher than the second-deadliest state in each of those years: Louisiana.  And in most of those cases, like Snel's, the driver faced minor or no charges.

Alan, in better times

As Snel recovers, he still needs money to cover living and other expenses.  So, friends and other supporters have started a YouCaring fundraiser for him.

Coming To My Town?

I am not surprised.

Over the past few weeks, I've written about "Uber for Bicycles"--or, if you like, Citibike (or Velib or Bixi or whatever bike share program you care to name) without the docks or ports.

Such services have become very popular in a few Chinese cities where, apparently, people are getting back to bikes.  The success of such services has caused their operators--Mobike and Ofo, mainly--to eye overseas expansion.  

Turns out, Mobike as well as a few other "rogue" companies are planning to "dump thousands of bicycles on Big Apple streets," as the New York Post exclaimed with the sort of hyperbolic vitriol, or vitriolic hyperbole, on which the Post seems to have a patent.

Mobikes in Shanghai. Photo by Johannes Eisele, from Getty Images.

Those companies are setting their sights on parts of the city not currently served by Citibike--mainly, Manhattan north of 110th Street and Staten Island.  The latter could be particularly fertile territory for a bike-share service, as the city's subway system doesn't run there and there are fewer bus lines and other mass transportation options than exist in the other boroughs.  Bike shares could be particularly useful for commuters and others who ride the Staten Island Ferry to and from Manhattan.

And, I must say, that I like the idea of a port- or dock-free share service.  At the same time, I share the concern expressed by Post editors and others who worry that bikes will be "strewn" all over city sidewalks and streets, as they are in Chinese cities. Those problems, however, could be avoided with sensible regulation.  With such regulation, I think it would be easier to pre-empt such bike-blocked streets and sidewalks because as narrow as some streets in this town are, I would guess they're still wider than those in China, particularly in the old central areas of that country's cities.

(As I've mentioned in earlier posts, I've never been to China.  But I know that New York streets are wider than those in Europe which are, from what I'm told, wider than some of their counterparts in Chinese cities.)

Anyway, I think "Uber for Bikes" is indeed coming to my hometown.  We just need to learn from the experiences of those cities that already have it and develop the right policies for it.

Skyline, Invisible

Have you ever wondered what the Manhattan skyline looks like when you can't see it?

That was not an attempt to be cute, clever, ironic or oxymoronic.  It's also not an introduction to a post about going blind, an experience I hope never to have!

Rather, it is about my ride to work this morning:

That's what I saw ahead of me as I pedaled across the RFK Memorial Bridge.  Even if the weather forecast hadn't warned about fog, I wouldn't have been surprised to see it, given the heavy rains in the wee hours of yesterday morning, the showers that continued on-and-off through the rest of yesterday, and this morning's heavy gray sky. 


The skyline was invisible, but the Hell Gate Bridge was not:

When Hell Gate can be seen clearly, but the skyline is shrouded in fog, what kind of a day will it be?

So far, it's been good.  I think it had something to do with riding to work.

Purple Ride

All you have to do is look at Arielle, Tosca and Helene--my three custom Mercians--to know what my favorite color is.

And, although I am more of a Purple Haze fan, I certainly loved Purple Rain--and the artist who made it his signature song.

I am talking about His Royal Badness, or The Artist Formerly Known As The Artist Formerly Known As Prince.  It's hard to believe that in not much more than two weeks, a year will have gone by since he left us.

Not surprisingly, there have been some lavish tributes.  But perhaps none is as unique or interesting as the one Erik Noren has just made for Anna Schwinn.

Anna Schwinn with her Prince tribute bike.

Yes, she is one of those Schwinns.  She had contacted Noren of Peacock Groove Bicycles about getting a custom bike built for her.  Then, after Prince's death, she decided to make it a tribute.

Erik Noren of Peacock Groove Bicycles

Although Noren has built tribute bikes and other machines in unconventional configurations, he says he was intimidated at first.  "How do you take his spirit, his music and what he did, and put that into a bike?," he wondered.

The first thing he thought about, he said, was style.  Prince "was never gaudy," Noren explained.  "He was always classic and classy."  After he constructed a color scheme and theme, word got out about his project.  Soon he received messages from vendors and even associates of Prince himself, offering to donate items and materials to be used in the commemorative cycle.

Noren is justified in believing that what he turned out befits its namesake. Last month, it won awards for the Best Theme and Best Bike In Show at the North American Handmade Bicycle Show.  While he is happy about the awards, he believes the greatest validation came from an audience of one:  Ms. Schwinn herself.

She took the bike out for a ride around Lake Minnetonka--only a few pedal strokes, if you will, from Prince's home--and dipped the wheels in the water.  Noren is glad she did that:  As visually striking as the bike is, he believes that it, like any other bike, "needs to be ridden."  The scratches and dings a bike picks up are "like scars on people:  they tell a story."  He is "excited that she's out making new stories on that bike."

I think the Purple One himself would approve.

A New Day, A New Wrap

Yesterday I managed to get in a nice ride along the coasts, from my place to the Rockways and Coney Island, along the Verrazano Narrows and up to Hipster Hook back to my place.

The morning was overcast but the afternoon turned bright and clear, if windy.  So I wasn't surprised to see strollers, dog-walkers and, yes, cyclists along the boardwalks and on the promenade under the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge.

Vera, my green Miss Mercian mixte, went for the ride, in part because I wanted to ride a bike with fenders:  There is still a lot of crud and "ponds" in the streets, courtesy of last week's snow and the rain we have had during much of the time since that storm.   If you have seen Vera in previous posts, you might see another reason why I wanted to take her out today:

Yes, I swapped the handlebars from Velo Orange Porteurs (which are on another of my bikes) for Nitto "Noodle bar".  The latter is my first choice for drop bars.  I wanted to try Vera with drops because she had them when I first acquired her.  Although I have liked her ride with the Porteurs, I have always had a feeling that she was designed for drop bars.

Also, I wanted to try some new handlebar tape:

I used two rolls of Newbaum's tape:  one in burnt orange, the other in khaki.  I chose Newbaum's tape for the colors and because I am curious as to how it might be different from other brands of cloth tape I've used.

I wrapped the bars in khaki, leaving gaps wide enough to be over-wrapped with the burnt orange.  Then, I finished the ends with regular jute twine I found in a Dollar Tree store.

  


After wrapping the bars, I gave them four light coats of clear shellac.  Although this wrap doesn't have the "sheen" I've seen on some other shellacked bars, I like the look:  The clear shellac darkened the colors slightly.  Also, even though it has a "harder" feel than un-shellacked (Is that a word?) tape, the tape retained much of its texture, which makes for a nice grip.  I think the "feel" may have to do with the fact that the Newbaum's tape is a bit thicker than other brands (Velox, Tressostar, Cateye) I've used. 

It will take a few rides, I think, to decide whether I like this kind of handlebar wrap.  I used to like regular, un-shellacked cloth, but it seemed that I had to replace it every season.  Then again, I could say the same for Cinelli (or any other brand of) cork wrap. 

The burnt orange, while not an exact match, is surprisingly close to the color of the Ruth Works rando bag on the front.  The bag has, of course, developed a bit of patina.  I imagine that if I keep on riding with this new tape, it will develop a similar "character" and perhaps be even more similar to the color of the bag.

The Price Of Riding Off Into The Sunset

Although I haven't dated anyone in a few years, I have been in more intimate relationships than the Roman Catholic Church (in which I was raised) says a person should have in his or her life.

Of those affairs and partnerships (which include one brief marriage), in only one was I able to share my passion for cycling.  

It was the relationship that ended with my gender transition.  Ironically, she and I had a Domestic Partnership Agreement which, in those days before legal same-sex marriage, was the tightest knot two people of the same gender could tie.  I used to joke that, as a male, I was living the dream of every lesbian of the time:  I shared a nice apartment in Park Slope with an attractive woman.

Even though my transition was what I wanted and need to do, I missed her for a long time.  Some of the best conversations and meals I've ever shared were with her. And, of course, there was the cycling, which included bike tours of the Loire Valley, a week of exploring the Paris region by bike, and day and weekend rides in Vermont, Massachusetts, upstate New York--and the environs of our fair city.

One of the best things, though, was that I didn't have to lie to her when I bought bikes or bike-related equipment.  Part of the reason was that I bought a bike for her and she bought one for me.  So, she knew what bikes, parts and the kit I wore cost.

Had we stayed together, I would not have shared this fear of so many other cyclists:

Tomorrow I will start writing about "serious" cycling topics again.  Really!