If Marcel Duchamp Had Done It....

Last week, I gave the students in one of my classes a very short piece of writing. Some said it looked like a haiku and, perhaps, it bears a passing resemblance to one.  I asked the students why that particular piece of writing--which doesn't rhyme, at least not in the way of, say, a ballad or sonnet--was published in a poetry magazine.

At first, there was the silence of students afraid of seeming ignorant.  But I reassured them that I wasn't looking for a right answer: I just wanted to know what they thought, and why.

Then, a student pointed out the imagery and figurative language.  Another student said the piece of writing didn't rhyme but had "echoes"--internal rhymes.  Finally, another student mused, "Well, the writer said it's a poem and the people at the magazine thought it was a poem.  So I guess it must be a poem."

I still don't know what to make of that answer.  I told him--and the rest of the class--to take a look at Marcel Duchamp's "Bicycle Wheel"--which, in fact, is a bicycle wheel in a bicycle fork mounted upside-down in a stool--and ask themselves whether or not it's a work of art.

Funny I should give that assignment and, soon afterward, come across this:

Police in Springfield, Missouri are investigating what they are calling a "property situation" at a house that's been vacant for some time.  In addition to the bicycle wheel hanging from a tree, there are bicycles and parts strewn about the property.  Bicycle tires had been thrown through windows.  A large trampoline hung from the chimney and a smaller one, with a bicycle on it, topped the house.

When police officers asked a man at the house next door whether he knew what happened, this was his reply:  "Bicycles."  Other neighbors wouldn't talk to the cops.  An employee at a nearby Domino's pizza said she noticed the bike parts, but not the trampolines, a couple of days earlier.

Since no one seems to know how or those bikes and parts ended up on the property, some folks--including a writer for a local newspaper--wonder whether it was an act of vandalism or an art installation.

Hmm...If Marcel Duchamp had done it...

I Am Happy To Pass My Wrench To Them

Yesterday I "outed" myself in the Women's Studies class I teach.

Now, I am guessing that a couple of students knew that I'm transgender because they're on the "rainbow" themselves.  And, I suspect one or two others might've known because they Googled my name and found that I indeed published and did all sorts of other things under my old name and identity.  And, perhaps, one or two might've guessed just because, well, they've seen enough different kinds of people: They're in New York, after all.

I told the students about my history because this week's readings, discussions and writing assignment were about the different kinds of feminism.  I joked that the class was going to be the Baskin Robbins of the women's movement, as we read about Black, Lesbian separatist, Asian and other kinds of feminism, as well as the ways in which feminism intersects with other areas such as the Civil Rights movement and Disability studies.

Oh, and they read a bit about  transgenders and feminism.  That, of course, was my "segue" into "outing" myself.

I will soon find out what sort of an effect that has on the class dynamic, and the students themselves.  But I told them, toward the end of class, that because I am transgender and started to live as a woman in my mid-40s, I have a different perspective on feminism--and on being a woman--from what others might have.

After that class, I couldn't help but to think about some aspects of my life as a male:  my education, my work history, the ways I related (or didn't) to family members and peers and, of course my cycling.  Though I knew a few active female cyclists--I dated one and rode with others, some of whom were members of clubs or groups with whom I rode--I wondered how much of a cyclist I'd have been, or would be now, had I lived as female all of those years.

And, of course, I wonder whether I would have worked as a bike mechanic.  In the years I did that work--on and off from the mid-1970s until the early 1990s--I never saw a female mechanic.  Oh, I saw women who worked in shops, but they always did sales or customer service.  One of those women was a partner (in a strictly business sense) in one of the shops in which I worked; another owned, along with her husband, another shop for which I fixed bikes.  In fact, it wasn't until my brief stint of fixing Citibikes four years ago, just after the share program started, that I actually worked alongside another female bike mechanic.  They, and I, were Recycle-A-Bicycle volunteers recruited for the task.

Those other female mechanics are considerably younger than I am.  I couldn't help but to wonder whether they would have learned how to fix bikes had they not volunteered for RAB--or whether they would have even been in RAB had they been part of my generation.  And, of course, I wonder whether I would have ever learned how to fix bicycles, let alone work in a shop, had I lived my teens and twenties as male.

At that time, there almost certainly wouldn't have been anything like the scholarships Quality Bicycle Products (QBP) is offering, along with other sponsors, for women to attend the two-week Professional Repair and Shop Operations class at the United Bicycle Institute.  "It's no secret that women have been historically underrepresented in cycling," says Kaitlin Johnson, QBP's Director of the Women's Mechanic Scholarship Program.  "Scholarship recipients gain a wealth of knowledge that helps them serve their communities better and helps them create a more inclusive environment," she added.

Previous scholarship recipients

In 2018, this scholarship is being offered for the fifth year.  Recipients must be able to attend the 29 January-9 February or 15-26 October classes in 2018.  Their scholarships will pay for the full tuition as well as lodging at UBI's Ashland, Oregon campus.  Recipients will also receive a small stipend upon completion of the class to help offset meal and travel expenses.

Oh, and scholarship applicants must be "women, trans, non-binary, gender non-conforming or intersex U.S. residents who are currently employed at a bike shop in the U.S.," according to QBP.  That sounds like something that would help Ms. Johnson's stated objective of "inclusion".  

Most important, it gives people like me--or, at least, younger versions of me who "might have been"--opportunities that I might not have had.  I am glad for that.

What If They Took Out The Traffic Lights?

Here's an experience that's in the "Don't Try This At Home" category:

Once, years ago, a NYPD officer pulled me over for riding through a red light on Broadway, just north of 23rd Street, in Manhattan.  He lectured me about how traffic lights are for everyone, and that I could endanger myself or others by not heeding them.  

At that time, I, as a cyclist, was even more of a minority than I am now.  Moreover, I was a messenger on duty that day, which made me even more of an outcast.  So I was not expecting that officer to understand what it was like to ride on city streets, let alone have any sympathy for me.

But I pointed out that I went through the red light ahead of two trucks that turned right when the light turned green.  Had I waited for the light, I could very well have ended up underneath one of those vehicles.

He put his pen down and looked at me.  I had the feeling he didn't trust me; after all, he'd probably heard all sorts of things from people who were trying to talk their way out of traffic summonses.  After what seemed like an endless silence, he said, "OK.  Just be careful."

"Good day, officer."

Now urban planners are starting, however slowly, something that cyclists have long known:  Following traffic signals doesn't always ensure a cyclist's, or a pedestrian's safety. If anything, at times--such as the situation I described--it can actually endanger us.  

Part of the reason for that is that, according to at least one study, signals can actually make drivers less attentive to their surroundings.  According to proponents of this idea, having fewer demarcations such as traffic lights, kerbs/curbs, traffic signs, road surface markings and regulations actually encourages cyclists, pedestrians and motorists to negotiate their movements with each other, usually through eye contact or hand signals.

The late Dutch traffic engineer Hans Monderman was one of the chief proponents of this urban planning concept, commonly known as "shared space".  His studies found that traffic safety and efficiency increased for all when public spaces were redesigned so that cyclists, motorists and pedestrians had to negotiate their movements with each other.  He went so far to say that the safest roads are those with the fewest marking, signs and traffic lights.

Meredith Glaser probably had his work in mind.  She's a researcher at the University of Amsterdam's Urban Cycling Institute (Can you imagine such a thing in the US?), which did a study of cycling in Alexanderplein, a busy intersection near the center of Amsterdam.  According to the study, about 40,000 cyclists ride through it every day--6000 an hour during peak times.  In addition, many pedestrians, automobiles and streetcars tranverse the crossroads every day.  

Institute researchers then asked 200 cyclists what they thought of the intersection.  "Chaotic" and "messy" were the most common responses.  Most said more traffic lights were necessary.

However, the researchers knew the city had a different plan:  The lights were shut off in May of last year.

While the lights were off,the researchers returned and asked another 150 cyclists for their thoughts.  About 60 percent said the intersection worked better without the signals.    The city's technical study found similar positive results, and no increase in the number of accidents.  In September, the city decided to remove the lights altogether, citing the fact that trams were not delayed and motor delays were cut in half.  In addition, bicycle traffic jams, usually caused by signals, were all but eliminated.

In the intervening year, the city has done similar things in other spots, with success.  Glaser thinks this could be a model for other cities in the world.  So does Dongho Chang, the Chief Traffic Engineer for the City of Seattle. "In an urban environment, you don't want a driver to be zoning out," he explains.  "You need them paying attention and looking for the unexpected."  He points out that only 8 percent of his city's intersections have traffic lights, but they account for 51 percent of accidents over the past 13 years.

Now, one obvious explanation is that the signalled intersections are the most heavily-trafficked and tend to have the most complex or complicated configurations.   Chang concedes as much, but also says that in such intersections, signals lead to dangerous behaviors such as speeding through a yellow light or accelerating quickly from a green.

Chang's, Glaser's and Monderman's points are well-taken.  However, they (perhaps surprisingly, in the case of Chang) fail to take into consideration something I, and other cyclists, know from experience:  Few American drivers have the level of awareness of cyclists most Dutch--or, for that matter, European--drivers have.  Seattle's drivers might be among the exceptions (I don't know:  I've never cycled there) but it's hard to imagine that even they have that level of awareness I found even in Montreal, less than an hour from the US, let alone cities in France, Belgium or the Netherlands.

Still, the work of the researchers and planners I've mentioned helps to indicate a greater truth:  Most cycling infrastructure, as it's currently planned, constructed and maintain doesn't make cycling--or walking or driving--safer.

What Will They Accomplish By Cracking Down On The "Chop Shops"?

At least a few of my rides have included stops at flea markets.  

So why are they called "flea markets"?

Well, it's a translation of "marche aux puces", the name given to an outdoor bazaar at the Porte de Clignancourt, on Paris' northern edge.  It's been operating there since some time around 1880.

So why is it called the "marche aux puces"?  It was often said--sometimes, with justification--that items, particularly upholstery, sold there were infested with fleas.  

Not long before the market began to operate, the straight, wide boulevards lined with sandstone-colored buildings one sees all over the City of Light were first constructed.  To make way for them, old buildings on narrow, winding streets were demolished.  This left a residue of old furniture and other items out in the open, where they could have been infested with vermin.

There is another reason why people might have thought those items were infested with fleas:  The folks who salvaged them were, as often as not, themselves infested.  Not surprisingly, when Georges-Eugene, Baron Haussmann, executed Napoleon III's vision for modernising Paris, it left many Parisians homeless or simply destitute.*  During the city's transitional period, many such people had few, if any, other ways to generate income.

Homeless people all over the world continue to "pick up the pieces", if you will, all over the world.  In my hometown of New York, I have seen them selling everything from corsets to computers, from books to barbed wire.  And, of course, many pick up soda and beer bottles and cans, which they can recycle for 5 cents each, from trash bins.

In San Francisco, that city of entrepreneurs, it seems that some of the homeless have become small-time operators in the bike business:  They operate what detractors call "chop shops" from underneath bridge and highway overpasses and other semi-enclosed public spaces.  

While even homeless advocates admit that some of the bikes are stolen, the majority are the fruits of dumpster-diving, scavenging on the streets or barter.  Usually, the homeless or poor people who operate these pop-up bike shops fix up the bikes they sell or trade, or assemble bikes from parts found in various places or stripped from other bikes. 

Most of the complaints the city receives regarding these operations are not about the shops, per se:  Most people don't have a problem with people doing whatever they have to do to put food in their mouths.  Rather, many residents say that these vagabond mechanics spread their wares across sidewalks, bike paths and sometimes even into streets, making it impossible or simply dangerous to navigate.   

With that in mind, the city's Board of Supervisors is expected to pass a bill that would prohibit anyone from storing or selling the following on any public street, sidewalk or right-of-way:

• five or more complete bicycles
• a bicycle frame with its gear or brake cables cut
• three or more bicycles with missing parts
• five or more bicycle parts.

The prohibition would not apply to anyone who has a commercial license (which, of course, includes almost no homeless person) or a permit for an event like a bike rally or clinic.  The bill gives the Public Works Department authority to seize items deemed to be in violation of the code. If the owner of the items doesn't allow the PWD to seize the items, police officers can be called in.  And, the owner can appeal to have the items returned 30 days after the seizure and notice of violation.

Not surprisingly, small business associations support this bill, mainly because the "chop shops" often impede access to stores, cafes and other establishments.  Bike shops are among such small businesses, and support the bill for the same reason.  Interestingly, though, none seems to have made an argument that these shops are taking business away from them because of their lower prices, probably because people who would buy (or barter for) bikes from "chop shops" weren't going to buy their bikes in a bike shop anyway.

Also not surprisingly, this bill is adamantly opposed by homeless advocates, civil liberties organizations and the Democratic Socialist party.  Most interesting of all, though, is a letter of opposition penned by Jeremy Pollock. He writes as a ten-year member of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition who, as he says, has had bikes and parts stolen and recovered a "ghost bike" from a homeless encampment.  

He effectively makes a point that the bill, should it become law, could violate the Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution.  He also decries the lack of collaboration between the city government and its citizens (especially cyclists) in drafting and voting on the bill.  

Pollock also expresses concern that enforcing such a mandate could make the already-challenging  jobs of DPW workers who clear homeless encampments even more difficult by making already-strained relationships between those workers and the residents of homeless encampments even more tense and hostile.  This will put a further strain on the DPW's resources, and will stretch the police department and criminal justice system even thinner than it already is.

Oh, and if the San Francisco Police Department is stretched thinner, it will dedicate even less manpower and fewer resources than it does to combat bike theft.  As it is, the Department--like others across the country--simply doesn't regard bike theft as a priority.  And, if it wants to combat bike theft, according to Pollock, "we don't need this cumbersome new notice of violation, we need SFPD to focus on catching bike thieves!"

*To be fair, Haussmann's work also made it possible, for the first time, to navigate Paris with relative ease, which helped Paris to grow as a commercial as well as cultural center.  When he widened the streets, he also added sidewalks, which made Paris the walkable city it is today. Moreover, his plan included other public works, including sewers, which greatly improved sanitation and the health of people, as well as a series of public parks and gardens.

Then again, he also made it all but impossible to mount an insurrection in Paris by widening and straightening those streets that could previously be barricaded--or used as escape routes by people who knew them.

Coming To A Neighborhood Near...Me

We all waited with bated breath.

No, I didn't mis-spell "bated."  If a cat swallows cheese and stands in anticipation of a mouse, he/she can be said to be waiting with "baited" breath.  But "bated" is just a truncated form of "abated":

Shall I bend low, and in a bondsman's key
Wait with 'bated breath, and whispering humbleness

In Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice, Shylock utters those two lines as part of a soliloquy in which he asks Antonio (the merchant) how he can ask for a loan after Antonio and his associates called him a "cur", spit on him and kicked him around.  Antonio's rationale for their behavior is the "usurious" interest on the loans Shylock gave them.  

Now, of course, I was exaggerating just a bit when I said "we all waited with bated breath."  Nobody does that in New York--except, maybe, for a bank (oh, irony of ironies!)--specifically, Citibank.  But we weren't waiting for a loan so we could open up a pet-boarding house.  Instead, we were eagerly anticipating something else that comes from S-itty--I mean, Citi--bank:  Citibike.

Well, all right, I wasn't waiting for it as much as some other folks were.  After all, I have my own bikes.  But I must say that I am glad that Citibike has come to my neighborhood.  In fact, as of the other day, it was on my corner:

Is the arrival of Citibikes a sign that a neighborhood is "hip"--or that it's merely infested with hipsters?  Whatever the case, I'm glad to see the bikes--even though they're in the ugliest shade of blue--just because I'm happy to see anything that encourages people to ride bikes.

A few days ago I wrote about the thefts that have plagued bike share programs.  Citibike has not been immune to such problems.  Baltimore may have come up with a solution--at least for a while.  There are other interesting ideas out there, including one I found in a 99 cent store just down the street from the new Citibike port:

A Mayor For---Cycling?

Two years ago, when I was in Paris, I learned that the city had recently appointed its first "maire de la nuit":  night mayor.

When I first heard about it, I wondered whether there was some hour--say, 9pm--when mayor Anne Hidalgo clocked out of City Hall and Clement Leon R, the night mayor, took over.  One of my friends explained to me that Clement Leon R heads the "Conseil de la Nuit"--a night City Council, if you will.  They are tasked with overseeing night life in the City of Light.  Among other things, they try to manage, and sometimes smooth over, relations between such establishments as bars and music clubs--as well as businesses that are legal there but not here.  

The office is patterned after one started in Amsterdam in 2014.  That city's night mayor, Malik Milan, is exploring the possiblity of creating a "Chinatown of night life" where libraries for students as well as eateries and the traditional venues associated with night life could be open 24/7.  The idea, which other cities are exploring, would take noisy establishments out of residential and central business areas and put them in some neighborhood on the perimeter.  As Milan explains, "In Holland, you can't have a proper meal after 9:30 p.m., and when friends arrive late from out of town, all you can offer them is fries."

I imagine that if you arrive late by bike and get a flat, or have some other sort of mechanical issue, you couldn't have it fixed until the next day (unless, of course, you or your friend knows how).  Would a 24/7 bike shop be part of such a district?   And, if it did, would it be then under the jurisdiction of the night mayor?

Or would it fall into the purview of a bicycle mayor?

As my city, New York, is discussing the possibility of creating the office of "night mayor", another city has just appointed the first bicycle mayor in the United States.

Tiffany Mannion assumed that position in Keene, New Hampshire the other day.  While the first in her country, she joins "a worldwide network of bicycle mayors, called the Bicycle Mayor and Leader network," according to Jen Risley, who appointed her as a member of the Monadnock Alliance of Sustainable Transportation's Steering Committee.   In her two-year term as Bicycle Mayor, Mannion will "represent cyclists from throughout the region and focus on three areas: education, connection and creation," Risley explained.  



Mannion is a "regular bicycle commuter and explorer" who "hopes to ride toward her goal of 3000 miles a year," Risley added.  As the area's only certified cycling instructor, Mannion will "educate colleges, universities and businesses with the economic advantages of developing bicycle-friendly policies" and "work regionally to help create confident riders and supported infrastructure," Risley added.

In accepting her role, Mannion thanked a number of people and organizations.  "This small city has enormous dreams," she declared.


Could Keene set an example for my hometown, New York, for cycling as Amsterdam and Paris are doing for nightlife?

Stop, Thief!

The other day I wrote about the rampant theft and vandalism that has temporarily shut down Baltimore's bike share program.

Other cities have experienced similar problems.

Here is a possible solution:

What would Natassja Kinski think of it?

Good Thing They Didn't Call It The "Jockbra"

In several posts on this blog, I've mentioned that Susan B. Anthony said, in essence, that the bicycle has done more than anything else to liberate women.

Since women started riding bikes, there are probably two things that have done more than anything else to encourage girls' and womens' participation in cycling and other sports.

One is Title IX, the 1972 US law that prohibits sex discrimination in educational programs--which include school-based sports programs.  Since then, the number of girls' and womens' sports teams in colleges and schools has expanded greatly.  As a result, more girls were encouraged to participate in sports, whether in their schools or outside of it, and one could argue that the subsequent increase in the proficiency of American female athletes has spurred other countries to improve their women's sports programs.

The other is what we now call the sports bra.  Before it was created, girls and women--if they weren't flat-chested--had to live with the pain of their breasts bouncing or the chafing of a bra's wires and straps.  Or they improvised support from duct tape and other items.  Or they simply didn't participate in sports at all.

The last option simply wasn't an option for Hinda Miller.  She had just started working for the theatre department at the University of Vermont and taken up jogging.  She used two bras which, I imagine, restricted her breathing and was probably only somewhat less painful than bouncing breasts.  

Across campus, Lisa Lindahl was dealing with the same problem.  She and Miller reached out to Polly Smith, who made costumes for the university's theatre department.  They bought some bras and tore them apart. "I was taking notes; Lisa was running," Miller remembers.  She was always asking Lindahl, "Does that feel good?"

None of them did.  They tried to come up with a solution when Lindahl's then-husband came downstairs with two jockstraps slung over his shoulders.  He was teasing them, but the proverbial light bulb lit up in Miller's head:  "That's what we want to do," she remembers thinking.  "We want to pull everything closer to the body."

She ran to the store, bought two jockstraps and brought them to the costume shop.  "The waist band became our rib band," she explained.  "We crossed the straps in the back because we didn't want them to fall and it went over our head.  And that was it."

So was the Jogbra born, 40 years ago this month.  It became a national brand and, two decades later, Brandi Chastain cemented its place in our collective consciousness.

Hinda Miller with a bronze plaque commemorating the Jogbra at the University of Vermont.

Today, Lindahl is an artist based in Charleston, South Carolina.  Miller served as a State Senator in Vermont from 2002-2013 and ran unsuccessfully for Mayor of Burlington (Bernie Sanders' old job) in 2006.  These days, she serves on the boards of a number of organizations as diverse as the Green Mountain Coffee Roasters and the Vermont Youth Orchestra.

If I do say so myself, few people in this world can appreciate the story of the Jogbra's origin as much as I can.  After all, I am a cyclist and someone who's participated in other sports--and someone who's lived on both sides of the aisle, if you will.  In other words, I am a transgender woman and one of (I assume) very few people who has used both a jockstrap and a sports bra!

New Locks In The Town Of "The Wire"

Bike share programs have been popular in most of the cities that have them.  Share bikes provide an alternative to driving or even public transportation (which is often overcrowded or inconvenient) for many commuters, and have given people who don't have a place to keep a bicycle the option to ride.  And, of course, they're handy when a friend visits from out of town and you don't have a bike for him or her to ride.

One problem, though, is that in too many cities, those bikes have also been popular with thieves.  Roberto, my guide in Rome, told me that the Eternal City abandoned its program after bikes were stripped and abandoned, tossed into the river or simply disappeared.  Other cities that were among the early adopters of the bike share idea found that they had to redesign ports and locks and install tracking devices on their bikes.

The problem of theft and vandalism was bad enough in Baltimore that earlier this month, it temporarily shut down its program.  The locks on the bikes met industry standards, but were no match for thieves in Mobtown.  

Bewegen, the company that made the locks, believes it has come up with a solution:  a "Baltimore lock" that automatically clamps the bike into the station when its handlebars are yanked.  According to Bewegen, other unspecified safety measures are also being added to the bikes.

All of the bikes have been shipped to the company's Montreal headquarters, where they will be refurbished as the new locks are made. "It's going to be a hard overhaul," says Chris King, the company's US marketing adviser.  "We're stripping them down to the bone."  He said the company will pay for the cost of the locks and all of the work under the terms of its warranty with the city.

Once the work is done, company officials will go to Baltimore to oversee the installation of the new bike locks.  King has all but admitted that the 15 October target date might not be met.  "We'll take as long as it's going to take to make it right," he said.

And, hopefully, folks in a town known for Edgar Allen Poe, H.L. Mencken and The Wire will be able to enjoy their city on two wheels for many years to come.

Watch For Recalls!

To my knowledge, I have ridden with three bicycle-related products that were recalled by their manufacturers.

The first was the fork on my Cannondale racing bike, one of the company's early models.  In those days, Cannondale made their aluminum frames but supplied them with steel forks made by Tange and other manufacturers.  When I bought the bike, a couple of my cycling buddies warned me that the aluminum frame would fall apart, even though they didn't actually know of any instances of it happening.  So they were as surprised as I was when the fork and not the frame was recalled, especially because many of us had ridden with Tange forks--or even frames made out of Tange tubing, not to mention the firm's headsets--without any problems.

To Cannondale's credit,they made that process of exchanging my fork about as easy as it could have been.  That would have been reason enough for me to continue buying their bikes, if only I liked the way they rode.  I know that some of you love the ride of your Cannondales, and I won't try to convince you that you should ride anything else.  Those bikes just aren't for me.

Anyway, my second recall resulted in my third:  When Control Tech said there was a problem with one of their stems, which I happened to have on one of my bikes, the shop from which I bought it offered me a lighter and more expensive Syncros stem as a replacement.  Not long after, that stem was recalled!

In each of those cases, I was fortunate enough to get news of the recall in a timely way.  In those pre-Internet days, it meant that I was in regular contact with the shop from which I bought the stems and was working for the shop in which I bought the Cannondale.  I wonder whether I would have learned about the recalls so quickly--or at all--had I been like most customers who return to the shop infrequently, or not at all, after buying their bikes.

But even in this day of smart phones and such, consumers sometimes don't hear about bicycle-related recalls.  One reason, I think, is that they are not announced in the media the way recalls of cars or household appliances are.  And, even if the recall of, say, a faulty seat post were mentioned in the evening news program, most people who aren't dedicated cyclists probably wouldn't think it has the same potential for harm as, say, a faulty water pump bearing in a pickup truck's engine. 

So it is especially important to be alert and diligent.  It's also a good idea to stay in touch with the dealer or company from whom you bought your bike.  That said, bike shops are staffed by human beings, who occasionally forget, or neglect, to tell some thing or another to their customers.

2008 Felt S32

According to Mark Ashby, that is what happened to him.  He bought his 2008 Felt S32 racing bike from the Bikes Unlimited of Williamsburg, Virginia in 2011.  Over the next two years, he brought the bike in for regular maintenance.  In fact, according a lawsuit he's filed against the shop, the Felt and ADK Technologies of China (which manufactured the bike for Felt), a check-over and other maintenance items were performed as late as 13 April 2013.

Later that month, Ashby crashed on Colonial Parkway in Williamsburg.  This caused him to "suffer severe personal injuries adversely affecting his health and well-being," according to documents filed in the court.  The cause of the crash, Ashby says, was the fork's steerer tube, which broke and caused him to lose control of the bike.

The Colonial Parkway, where Mark Ashby crashed.

The suit alleges that Bikes Unlimited knew about the recall but failed to notify Ashby. They did indeed know about the recall--of 2009 model B12, B16 and S32 bikes, which was initiated the following year.  The recall was expanded to 2008 S32 bikes--the model Ashby rode--but not until 2014, the year after he crashed.

I am not a lawyer, but I don't think I have to be one to see that Bikes Unlimited was not at fault.  Still, I think this story shows the importance of being alert (Check the Consumer Products Safety Commission website!) and maintaining a good relationship with those who sell you, and maintain, your equipment.