My Shimona

I'll never forget the guy who just couldn't wait to show me the "deal" he got--on Canal Street.  For ten dollars, he got himself the watch he always wanted--in gold, no less.  

That timepiece of his dreams was a "Roxel".

Was that name the fruit of a counterfeiter's creativity--or dyslexia?  I asked myself the same question when I saw this:

"Shimona" bike parts have been showing up on bikes purchased online--mainly under the "Aspen" brand.  The typeface on the disc in the photo is all but indistinguishable from that of Shimano.  I wonder how many people didn't catch the "typo."

Is the same person responsible for "Roxel" and "Shimona"?  Or was the person who came up with the latter name listening to song from a late-70s one-hit wonder.  I'm talking, of course, about "My Shimona":

Stephen Hawking Gets A Bum's Rush From Limbaugh's Mind (Such As It Is)

Here is another reason to Beware the Ides of March.

All right, so this happened yesterday.  What am I talking about?

More to the point, what was he talking about?

Rush Limbaugh commemorated the death of Stephen Hawking as only he could have:  by casting doubt on one of the great physicist's main contributions to science.

To wit, the radio loudmouth asks whether we can really know that the Big Bang happened if nobody was there to see it:



I'll admit I'm just a college dropout radio guy, okay?  I'm not a professional physicist.  I'm not a professional scientist.  I do not own a lab coat, white or light blue.  So they tell me that the Big Bang is where everything began.  Hawking says it's the Big Bang and we're still expanding.

Now, I won't make any snarky comments about Rush Limbaugh using the word "expand."  But I will say that the man accomplished something few, if any, of us could have.  For one thing, he made Ken Ham seem like a rigorous thinker, if not an out-and-out intellectual.  And he managed to show us what it's like when The Smartest Person In The World has shade thrown on him by the Damndest Ass In America.

Oh, dear Stephen Hawking, you deserve so much better.  Rest In Peace.  

An Ides Of March Vehicle

Even though it's been the background commercial for countless car ads, I still love it.

Even though I now consider myself a feminist I can forgive lyrics like these:

   I'm a friendly stranger in a black sedan 
   Won't you hop inside my car 
   I got pictures, got candy
   I'm a lovable man 
   And I can take you to the nearest star

even if I would tell my kids (if I'd had any) not to go near any man who said anything like that--if for no other reason than their sheer cheesiness.

Then again, I never actually heard the lyrics until long after I first heard the song on the radio, when I was about 11 years old.  I mean, why would I, when they're accompanied by some of the best horn riffs in a popular song on this side of "Hold On, I'm Coming."

I'm talking about a song called "Vehicle", which made it all the way to #2 on the Billboard charts in May 1970.  



So why am I mentioning it today?  Well, the group who recorded it was known as The Ides of March.  One of its members, Jim Peterik, would later write "Eye of the Tiger" for the Rocky movies.

And his songs are published by Bicycle Music.  Pretty ironic, isn't it, for a song about a guy trying to use his car to pick up girls?
   

A Tide? Or A Trail?

In another life, my daily commute will take me along a seacoast and the tides will roll in, leaving their garland of foam on a neck of sand, as I pedal by.

Or I might pass by pates of snow perched on bald shoulders of rock as vapor trails stream above me--or behind me! ;-)

Then again, in another life I might not commute:  All of my rides will be for the sake of riding.  Dream on!

This morning I contented myself with seeing white streaks drifting and dissipating in Hell Gate.  It's not a bad way to start the morning. Hey, at least I get to ride my bike to work.  Not everybody here in the US can do that!

He Rode Into Town--And Liberated It

How was your ride today?

Oh, it was fine.  I liberated a town.

I've never had a conversation quite like that.  The fellow who did had every right to any honors and accolades he may have received--even if they made him blush.

Somehow, though, I don't think Angus Mitchell would have been one of the parties. At least, he probably wouldn't have uttered "I liberated a town", even though it was true.

The Scotsman took command of his squadron after its leader was killed in a scout car just 50 yards from where he stood.   Then he was shot at himself, but the bullet glanced off a bronze periscope, sending bits of metal toward his face and injuring him.

After a brief recovery, he returned to his unit and was ordered to advance to a railway line near the Maas River, just outside the Dutch town of Boxmeer.  There, he decided to ditch the squadron's armored vehicles in favor of bicycles so the Royal Air Force wouldn't mistakenly bomb him and his fellow soldiers.  

He entered the town on his bicycle--alone--and found the enemy had retreated to a small village just outside the town.  Then he called down an attack and defeated the remaining German soldiers, thus liberating the town and its surrounding area.

For his exploits, he would be decorated by three different countries:  the United Kingdom would reward him with its Military Cross, the Netherlands would make him a Ridder (Knight) in the Dutch Order of Oranje-Nassau and France would bestow its Legion d'Honneur medal upon him.

He says he played a "small part" in the war, but the citizens of Boxmeer were grateful for it--enough so that he was invited back some 50 years later.

Angus Mitchell outlived most of them:  A little more than two weeks ago, on 26 February, he passed away, at the age of 93.  To say that his life was a journey would be an understatement and a cliche at the same time:  He took one bike ride that no doubt saved lives and changed others--including, I'm sure, his own.

I Am Such A Menace!

I guess I shouldn't be surprised to read another article that vilifies cyclists.

Most such drivel blames cyclists for traffic jams and all matter of quality-of-life issues in a city because, if they are to be believed, we all run red lights and run over someone's grandma who's carrying a puppy or a kitten she just took in from the shelter.

Well, there's a new twist on this theme today, in the Washington Post blog.  It starts like this:

  Scenes of Washington life include pedestrians on the streets with headphones, or cell phones or perhaps a purse.  The city's streets are also home to bicycles and bike riders.  And every now and then the pedestrians and the bicyclists do not mix well.

Its author, Martin Weil uses this opener as a Jaws-style setup:  Just as some unwitting swimmer has a cut or barely-concealed body part (a breast, perhaps) that causes the shark to smack its lips and think "LUNCH!", those poor, innocent pedestrians' head phones, cell phones and purses are bait for bad, bad people on bikes.

A real menace 2 society!

Yes, Mr. Weil writes about a string of purse- (and head- and cell-phone) snatchings committed by...a guy on a bike.  Specifically, a young guy or adolescent male on a bike.

Well, I guess I'll have to watch for that when I'm off my bike and crossing a street.  But at least it's good to know that, as a middle-aged woman, I don't fit the profile of the perps Mr. Weil describes.

Now I'm going to tell you a secret:  That's the reason I changed my gender.  I didn't want to seem like the sort of menacing young urban male who preys upon unsuspecting pedestrians at busy intersections! :-)  Heck, I don't even fit the profile of scofflaw cyclists who run red lights and run over old ladies with puppies and kittens.  After all, I really can't bring myself to harm someone when I look at someone and that person is a mirror.

And What Are You Going To Do With That "Extra" Hour?

Daylight Savings Time starts today.  So, if you haven't moved your timepieces ahead one hour, I am nagging  reminding you to do it now.

This means that at the end of this day, you get an extra hour of daylight--to ride, perhaps.

It seems this shop in Florida has other ideas:

Bamboo Or Carbon Fiber: Are Those The Choices?

Bicycles are made either from carbon fiber or bamboo.

At least, if I didn't know any better, that's what I would think after reading an article on The Huffington Post website.

It's one thing for a journalist to be ignorant about a subject before writing about it.  But Tom Levitt, the author of the article in question, seems to have committed a cardinal sin (Well, at least I've always thought it was a cardinal sin!) for a journalist:  not doing his research.

Also, he seems not to know what he is trying to tell his readers.  It would have been fine if he'd stuck to writing a feature piece about the London club whose workshop teaches people how to build frames from bamboo.  That part of the article is interesting enough, at least to me.  I wouldn't even have minded if he'd written about the environmental damage caused by the manufacture or disposal of carbon fiber, or of bicycles generally.  

A class in the Bamboo Bicycle Club's workshop.

But the premise of his article seems to be that teaching people how to make their own bamboo bicycles is a way to mitigate the environmental damage caused by disposing of bicycles.  That, itself, would have been all right if he hadn't conflated the making or recycling of carbon fiber bikes with the making or recycling of bikes generally. 

What's all the more perplexing is that the article includes this photo of share bikes dumped in Shanghai, China.  Again, exposing the environmental damage and sheer waste of such a practice would have been valid.  With my knowledge of bicycles, however, I would say that few, if any, of those bikes are carbon fiber.  Most, I would reckon, are mild to mid-grade steel.  

Why is that important?  Well, steel can be recycled many times without losing strength or other qualities that make it a good structural material.  That is one reason why it's the most-recycled metal.  Not far behind steel in that category is--you guessed it--aluminum.  If any of the bikes in that photo aren't made of steel, they're probably aluminum, which loses little when it's re-used.

On the other hand, carbon fiber is recycled by chopping it to bits and burning off the plastic resin that holds the fibers--which lose significant amounts of their strength in the process--together.  Of course the loss of strength is a concern to bike-makers, but it's even more of a problem in the aerospace industry, where use of carbon fiber has expanded even more than in it has in the bicycle industry.

Carbon fiber use is also expanding more rapidly in the automotive industry, which also might not want to use materials weakened by recycling.  And, for all of the carbon fiber bicycles, boats, gliders, tennis rackets and such available to consumers, the military is still, by far, the biggest user of carbon fiber composites.   Let's just say that the armed forces aren't noted for their concern about the environment, much less recycling.  Moreover, armed forces are willing and able to spend whatever is necessary to obtain the most advanced composites, so they wouldn't be interested in recycled materials.

So...If Tom Levitt had stuck to one topic--bike-building classes, bamboo bikes or the environmental hazards of carbon fiber--he might have written a lucid and enlightening article.  Instead, he has revealed his ignorance or laziness. 

No Escape In The Windy City

One of the great things about cycling, at least for me, is that it offers a way of escaping, if only temporarily, the stresses of daily life and the ills that afflict this world.

Perhaps I can say such a thing because I am white.  Nothing, it seems, can free Blacks and Hispanics--especially those who are young and male--from the yoke of lasso of racism, especially its noose of racial profiling.

No, not even cycling can free young people of color from those things.  If anything, riding a bike  might make them targets for cops on the hunt for tickets to meet their quotas.

At least, that's how things seem to work in Chicago.  Recently, the Tribune reported that 56 percent of all 2017  bike citations were issued in Black-majority neighborhoods, 24 percent in Latino/a-majority communities and only 18 percent in areas populated mainly by Whites.  That, in a city where the proportion of non-Hispanic Black and White people is almost exactly the same, at just over 32 percent for each race.  Hispanics make up 28 percent of the Windy City's population, but they are more dispersed than Blacks throughout the city, so it's fair to say that those who live in Latino/a-majority neighborhoods are bearing disproportionately ticketed.

This caricature of Major Taylor appeared in the 26 April 1894 issue of Cycling Life.

North Lawndale, where 89 percent of the residents are Black and relatively few cycle, got more bike tickets than any other Chicago neighborhood.  Lincoln Park--a neighborhood that is either "bike friendly" or the home of "Trixies" and "Chads", depending on your persepctive--got only five.  Yes, you read that right:  5, as many fingers as you have on your hand!  Oh, and Lincoln Park is  81 percent white.

Freedom Riders

Today is International Women's Day.

In previous posts, I've talked about the role bicycles played in women's rights.  And, although I've posted it before, I'll repeat a remark of Susan B. Anthony:

  Let me tell you what I think of bicycling.  I think it has done more to emanicpate women than anything else in the world.  It gives women a feeling of freedom and self-reliance. I rejoice every time I see a woman ride by on a wheel...the picture of free, untrammeled womanhood.

"Free, untrammeled womanhood." Funny she should say that.  When I started my transition from life as Nick to being Justine, I wondered whether I would continue cycling.  I lost some of my strength when I started taking hormones, though some of that loss may have been due to aging.  (I was in my mid-40's when I started.)  I also wondered whether cycling would fit into the image of femininity and womanhood I was trying to project at the time.

Happily, I didn't have to trade cycling for my identity because, well, cycling is as much a part of my identity as anything is.  Though I am not as strong or daring as I once was, I don't have to be when I'm on the bicycle.  Perhaps this knowledge is also what has allowed me to feel comfortable in riding what I like rather than following this week's trends.

And, here is something else I believe Ms. Anthony would approve:  I see cycling as much a part of my identity, not only as a woman named Justine, but as a feminist.  When you come right down to it, feminism is the freedom to do as we see fit, or as we please. Cycling fits that definition as much as anything--including reading and writing--for me.

So, I am hoping that some of the ice I encountered in the aftermath of yesterday's late-day storm clears out by the time I leave work.  That way, I can celebrate this day with--what else?--a bike ride!