R.I.P. Bruce Gordon

I had been cycling just long enough to know that the frame was different from any other I had seen.

Like nearly all quality lightweight bicycles of the time, it was built from high-grade steel tubing (in this case, Reynolds 531) joined by lugs.  And there was nothing unusual about the finish, a pleasing but not flashy bluish-green, unadorned by pinstripes, bands or any other kind of markers.  It didn't even have a decal bearing the name of its maker.

What I could see, though, were that the lugs--the longpoint "fishmouth" style popular at the time--were more meticulously finished than on any other frame I'd seen.  And the paint had a "quality" look that made my Peugeot PX-10 seem about as refined as a tank.

That frame's owner had brought the frame, built with Campagnolo components, to Highland Park Cyclery, a New Jersey shop in which I would later work. I would ride with him later.  I wasn't impressed with his riding (You might say I was a snot-nosed kid), but I liked his taste, at least in bikes.

As it turned out, that frame was built by Bruce Gordon.  He was one of a group of builders, which included Mark Nobilette, who trained with Albert Eisentraut, possibly the first of the wave of American builders who would ply their craft in the 1970s.  Eisentraut would stop building frames, and leave the bike industry altogether, a few years after I saw that frame.  

Well, I have just learned that Bruce Gordon--who would go on to design and make racks as well as other parts and accessories for bikes--was found dead in his Petaluma (CA) home on Friday.

Bruce Gordon, 2010

While he gained renown for his touring and racing bikes, he also was building 29ers and "gravel bikes" before they were called 29ers and "gravel bikes."  He realized that some cyclists, particularly those accustomed to road bikes, wanted a bike that could be ridden on what the English call "rough stuff" but didn't want the width or weight of mountain bikes.  Also, such bikes are more versatile than mountain or road bikes.

Gordon stopped building frames a few years ago.  As I mentioned in an earlier post, building frames is hard on the body, and builders often quit after developing arthritis, carpal tunnel and other ailments.  Two years ago, he tried to sell his business.  A crowdfunding campaign was launched to buy his framebuilding shop and retail store.  Apparently, it didn't work:  Because of the large amounts of money needed to rent a space large enough for a shop, and for all of the other expenses (including inventory that may sell slowly), the bike business rarely proves lucrative.  Custom frame building is even less so:  It seems that those who don't retire from the trade for health reasons end up leaving it because, paradoxically, higher-end frames, bikes and parts have smaller markups, and sell more slowly, than mass-market stuff.

So, since he closed his shop, he had been selling his remaining inventory, equipment and intellectual property.

Although I never owned one of his frames, I will miss him, if for no other reason that he made what might have been the first unique bike I ever saw.

Jury Awards Cyclist Injured By Bike-Lane Obstruction

Sometimes it seems that there aren't any penalties for creating hazards in a bike lane.  I can't begin to count how many times government vehicles park in them, or civilians use them to pick up or discharge passengers.  Worst of all, though, are objects left thoughtlessly or deliberately in our paths.

Such an obstruction ended the career of a Securities and Exchange Commission official.  In April of 2016, James Schnurr was pedaling down a bike lane in his Jupiter, Florida neighborhood when he struck a stanchion.  According to his complaint, he "was ejected from his bicycle and hit the ground," causing "significant and permanent injuries."  The SEC hired an interim replacement for Schnurr in July of that year and he retired permanently that November.

James Schnurr

In addition to incurring expenses for his medical, nursing and rehabilitative care, Schnurr suffered a loss of earnings (he was making $248,000 a year) and the ability to earn money in the future, according to his complaint.  So, he filed suit against the homeowner's association that oversees Jonathan's Landing and Jonathan's Landing Golf Club, Inc.

He claims that the companies erected the stanchions--which are typically used to hold up chains, velvet ropes or cloth belts to delineate crowd-control boundaries--but failed to provide pavement markings, signage or other warnings as to their "hazardous nature."  It is not clear as to why the companies erected the stanchions.

The association and golf club fought the charges. Still, a Palm Beach County jury awarded Schnurr 41 million dollars but  determined that all parties shared responsibility. Schnurr was deemed 50 percent responsible due to "negligence. The homeowner's association was 45 percent negligent because it failed to notify Schnurr of the dangerous conditions, while the golf club's 5 percent negligence contributed to his loss, injury or damage. Now it is up to the court to determine whether that $41 million will be cut to reflect how responsibility was distributed.

Whatever happens, I hope this leads to more awareness of how cyclists are endangered, whether deliberately or unwittingly, by obstructions in bike lanes that are supposed to be safe for us.

If You Need A Wheel....

Yesterday's post got me to thinking about my own experiences with bike theft.

I have lost a few bikes, and even more parts, to thieves.  As for the latter:  Saddles (including a Brooks), pedals and wheels have disappeared while my bikes were parked on the street.

So what do you do if someone takes your front wheel?

How Safely Is Your Bike Parked?

What's the difference between true love and an STD?

Only one of them is forever!

Not many things in life are "forever". (On a purely semantic level, nothing is, because, well, none of us is forever!) One thing that that doesn't last for eternity is security, at least the kind provided by bike locks.  Sooner or later, someone figures out how to pick, break or hack even the best security device.

That is what happened with the Ottolock.  Given that it's a light, flexible band, I am not surprised.  I imagine that there isn't much consternation among Ottolock's creators, either:  The Portland (where else?) company acknowledges that it's not a primary theft deterrent.  It should be used only for short durations in low-theft areas, or in conjunction with a stronger U-lock, according to company representatives.

Still, I can see the egg on their faces when "Lock Picking Lawyer" posted this video showing how easily he cut the band:

How Strong Does A Helmet Need To Be?

Current bike helmet testing procedures are fairly rudimentary.

That statement comes from two Swedish companies whose names are associated with safety.  One is well-recognized by Americans:  Volvo. I can recall when the company's ads included the claim that their cars were "the safest" on the road.  The other is POC, which makes helmets for cycling as well as other sports.

They have a point:  Most helmet tests "involve being dropped from different heights on either a flat or an angled surface" and might mimic low-speed falls onto curbs.  They do not, as Volvo and POC state, "take into account vehicle-to-bike accidents."

Previously, the two companies collaborated, along with Ericsson,  on another project aimed at making cyclists safer in the presence of cars.  In January 2015, they exhibited a prototype of a car-and-helmet system created to warn Volvo drivers and cyclists of their proximity to each other which, the creators believed, would prevent crashes.  That system, however, was not developed commercially.  As noble as the intentions of its creators may have been, such a system is fairly useless--unless, of course, the car and helmet have compatible systems.  That would be the case for the small percentage of drivers and cyclists (outside Sweden and a few other countries, anyway) who drive Volvos and wear POC helmets.



Now, a helmet that can withstand a collision with an automobile might be more practical. Still, I think it's fair to ask:  How much more practical is it?  Are there any studies that show how many collisions involve the cyclist's head slamming against the hood (or some other part) of a moving car or other motor vehicle?  

If a cyclist is run down from behind by a motorist who blew through a red light (as happened to Frank Scofield), how likely is it that the cyclist's head will make contact with the vehicle?   I can't help but to think that in such a collision, or the one that took the lives of five Michigan cyclists three years ago, helmets, no matter how strong, might not have made the difference between death and life, or prevented permanent injuries.

Don't get me wrong: I am in favor of making helmets safer.  But I also think they should be designed to protect cyclists in the conditions they have the greatest chance of encountering.  If someone can show me that a helmet made to withstand impacts with motor vehicles  can prevent , or could have prevented, fatalities in a significant number of crashes, then I'm all for what Volvo and POC are trying to do. Otherwise, I have to wonder just how useful it actually is.

Sam, Sam The Bicycle Man

If I am ever near Seattle, I just might take a side trip to Sequim.  Why?  The lavender fields, which look like a little bit of Provence in the Pacific Northwest.

It also sounds like a place with interesting characters--like Sam, Sam The Bicycle Man.

With a name like that, he could have been one of the folks in The Spoon River Anthology if its author, Edgar Lee Masters, had a more sanguine view of small-town life.  What I am about to relate about Sam, though, comes from Sequim resident Tim Wheeler.

Wheeler's family purchased a dairy farm just south of the town.  A small creek cut across the bottom corner of the farm, isolating a one-third acre parcel that was "worthless for any agricultural purposes," in his words.  When they arrived, Sam Wyatt--The Bicycle Man--was already living there, having rented the space from the farm's previous owner.  

Sam lived in a tar-paper shack he'd constructed.  It contained a makeshift kitchen and single bed, and was heated by a tin stove.  There was also an outhouse. On his porch, he plied the trade for which Tim and other kids would recognize him.  As Wheeler recalls, "He could take any junked bicycle, no matter how rusty, and reconstruct it into a bike that some needy child could ride."  For Wheeler, Sam "took steel wool and polished off the rust" after adjusting the bolts and tightening all of the nuts and bolts.  But he couldn't find a proper seat.  So, he cut a chunk out of an old automobile tire and "wired it on the seat stem poking up from the bike frame."  

Wheeler rode that bike "hundreds of miles on all the scenic byways" in his area.  If he had a problem, "there was Sam, Sam the Bicycle Man to fix it for me."  Recalling that bike, Wheeler says, "No brand new plaything under the Christmas tree ever gave me as much joy as that bicycle."  What Sam did for Tim, he did for other kids in the area even though "I can't recall any of us paying him a penny for his work."  

Sam also rode his own bicycle to do his errands and visit relatives, who were scattered all over the Pacific Northwest.   He was doing that in his seventies, according to his grandson, Russell Wyatt.  He visited "every one of his brothers and sisters," according to Russell.

Tim Wheeler was in his early teens when Sam died.  At his funeral, the church was "packed" with kids for whom he'd built bikes.  I'd bet that they, like Tim, "learned to value old things, to try to fix broken things before we buy something new."  

But perhaps the greatest lesson Tim Wheeler learned from Sam, Sam The Bicycle Man was that "every child deserves food and shelter, and a bicycle, and lots of love."

I can hardly think of a better legacy.

The Kids Aren't Riding: Why That Matters

Depending on where you live, you might think that this is a great time to be in the bicycle business.   More and more adults are pedaling to work and for fun.  And wherever you look, new bike shops are opening, the online business be damned.

At least, that is the picture you'd see in certain urban areas and, perhaps, some inner-ring suburbs.  And most of those adults you see riding are relatively young and well-educated.

It is among that demographic in areas like Boston, Portland, San Francisco and Seattle that one sees bicycle culture flourishing.  On the other hand, in areas where people are poorer, older and less educated, one sees few adult cyclists, and nearly all of them are male.  As often as not, they are riding machines "rescued" from basements and junk piles, and seem to be held together by duct tape.

Those older, poorer and less educated people aren't the ones who are driving the bike business.  They don't buy new bikes or even spend spend money to refurbish old ones, and they certainly aren't the ones buying hand-tooled leather-and-oak craft-beer bottle holders. If they go to bike shops, it's because their bikes have problems they can't fix themselves.

I am not conjecturing:  I see such riders on my way to work or any other time I venture out of Hipster Hook and into the outlying areas of my city.

Those folks are not fueling all of those bike cafes serving Marin Macciatos or Linus Lattes.  Nor is another group of people.  The reason is that the cohort I'm about to mention doesn't ride at all.  At least, fewer and fewer of them are.

I am talking about children and adolescents.  While sales of adult bicycles and accessories are on the rise, that of bikes and related items for kids is plummeting.  At least, that's what industry analysts are saying.  They are genuinely worried about the future of the children's bicycle industry.

Time was when bikes for kids were the "bread and butter" of most bike shops.  I can recall such a time:  Shops were busiest in the Spring, around the time the school year began and during the weeks leading up to Christmas.  In fact, shops often had "layaway" plans for kids' bikes, in which the buyer paid for the bike over a period of time.  It was sort of like a "Christmas Club" for bikes.  

(I remember having a Christmas Club when I was a child and adolescent.  Nearly all banks offered them.  If I recall correctly, I opened my first one for a dollar a week when I was about ten years old.  When I started delivering newspapers and other work, I increased the amount I saved.  Do banks still offer such accounts?)

Even though most shops have at least a couple of kids' bikes for sale, not many seem to be sold.  Instead, I reckon, most such bikes are sold in department stores.  In a way, I can understand the reasoning:  Most parents can only, or want to, pay as little as possible for a bike that the kid will outgrow in a couple of years, if not sooner.  And, since there are more single-kid households than there were when I was growing up (I have three siblings; we weren't seen as a large family), there's less of a chance the bike will be "passed down".  

Aside from changes in the family structure, there is another compelling reason why kid's bike sales are falling:  Fewer and fewer kids want new bikes for Christmas or other occasions.  Instead, they want electronic toys.   I would also imagine that other outdoor activities are becoming less popular with young people for this reason. 

Finally, I will offer an observation that might help to further explain the decline of the children's bicycle industry:  Today, many kids are discouraged or even forbidden from venturing outside by themselves, or even in the company of other kids.  These days, when I see kids under 14 or so on bikes, they are accompanied by adults.  The days of kids going out and exploring on two wheels seem to be over.

So why should readers of this blog care about the children's bicycle industry?  Well, we might be keeping the adult bicycle industry thriving.  But how often do we buy new bikes?  After a certain point, we don't buy a whole lot of accessories:  When we have what we need (and want), we tend to stop buying.  

Also, in a point I don't enjoy bringing up, none of us is going to be around forever.  So when we go to that great bike lane in the sky, who will take our place?  Will today's adolescents ditch their X-boxes (or whatever they play with now) and climb over two wheels?  We should hope so; so should the bike industry.

Death While Training For A Memorial

For the past several years, Florida has been the state in which a cyclist has the greatest chance of being killed by a motorist.

That point was underscored, for me, by a story that came my way.  The other day, Deputy Sheriff Frank Scofield was training for a memorial ride to honor 9/11 victims when he was--you guessed it--struck from behind. 

The motorist who ended his life on a county road blew through a stop sign. But that motorist wasn't a "good ol' boy" in a pickup truck or some drunken sunburned youth.  Rather, the driver in question is 75-year-old Lajos Toth of Lake Helen.

Deputy Sheriff Frank Scofield

The road where Deputy Scofield took his last ride is County Road 415 in Volusia County.  You might the collision "hit home" for me because Volusia is the county directly south of the one in which my parents live.  Just about every time I visit my parents, at least one bike ride takes me into the county, which includes Daytona and Ormond Beaches and The Casements.  

Frank Scofield was training for a ride to commemorate 9/11 victims.  Now I am writing a post to remember him.

From Riding Without Tires To Leaving The Competition In His Tracks

Some of us have ridden bikes with mismatched or missing parts.  We may have ridden such bikes because we didn’t know any better.  Or we may have been too poor for a “proper” machine.

Such was the case for Richard Carapaz.  His father brought home a blue BMX he found in a junkyard.  That bike was missing a seat, pedals or brakes.  He rode that bike—without tires on the dusty roads near his home.

That home was in the Ecuadorean village of Playa Alta, near the border with Colombia.  “Alta” means “high”, and that’s no exaggeration:  It’s in the Andes.

Riding in such conditions surely helped him during the past couple of weeks, when conquered climbs on the Alps and
Dolomites.  Those ascents, and strong time trials, helped  him to win the Giro d’Italia.

That victory made him the first Ecuadorean winner of one of the Grand Tours.  While racers in neighboring Colombia are among the sport’s best, cycling has been relatively unknown in Carapaz’s native country.


Whatever else happens, Carapaz is unlikely to forget his roots:  His family has saved that bike he rode without tires.

Nine Years: What Writing This Blog Is Teaching Me

Nine years ago today, I started this blog in much the same way I start many of my rides:  I had a general idea of the journey I was undertaking, but I had no idea of where it would take me along the way.

About all I really knew when I published that first post was that I'd be writing about me and bicycling.  And, I supposed, anything related to them--which, of course, is open to very wide interpretation.  

So, if you've been following this blog, you've heard me ramble or rant about any and all sorts of things:  history, art, architecture, literature, New York, Paris, food, gender and more.  If you'd told me, for instance, that I would try to explain how a certain molecule works, I might have wondered whether you were partaking of substances that have only recently become legal, and only in a few states!

The fact that I write such posts (however ineptly) might be the reason why I've kept this blog going.  While I never imagined writing a post like that one, or some of the others I wrote, I also knew that this blog could not simply be a recounting of my rides or a discussion of equipment.  

 I realize now that this blog has become a forum for my experience of bicycles and cycling.  Whatever I see when I ride, what I think about when I'm adjusting my derailleur, what I recall from rides past, and the things I've learned about everything from urban panning to music as a result of my rides, are all part of my cycling experience.  

Really, I can't think of much that doesn't relate to bicycles or bicycling.   At least, there aren't many things in my life that I can separate from my experience of cycling. So, I expect that as long as I continue to write this blog, it will take twists and turns I never expected.  

Thank you, dear reader, for taking the journey with me.  I'm not done yet!

So You Didn't Marry The Girl Or Guy Next Door? Thank Your Bike!

If the love of your life is of a different race, ethnicity, national origin from your own, you have the bicycle to thank.  I might say the same if your significant other is the same gender as you, or identifies in a way you never heard of until you left home.

That's more or less what University of Arizona historian David Ortiz says.  As I've mentioned in several posts, no less than Susan B. Anthony said that the bicycle did more than anything to emancipate women.  Cycling would change the clothing women wore, allowing more freedom of movement.  The bicycle also allowed women to travel unchaperoned by males for the first time.

And, says Ortiz, it also allowed men to travel greater distances.  At the time the "safety" bicycle was introduced, most people never got further than about 50 kilometers from where they were born or raised.  For a young man, then, "the girl next door" wasn't a Hollywood stereotype (well, ok, Hollywood didn't exist then): If she wasn't the one he married, she didn't come from much further afield.

Now, I don't think there's anything wrong with marrying the girl (or guy) next door, if that is what you want.  I just think it's nice to know that it's not the only choice.  And, of course, having two parents of very different backgrounds can be a great thing for their kids:  What could give them a better education?

As a transgender woman, I can't help but to think that such heterogeneity, along with women's liberation, helped to bring about, however slowly, greater acceptance of LGBTQ people. It's no coincidence, really, that the first and most vibrant queer communities have been found in cosmopolitan neighborhoods and cities.

So, if I ever find myself hooking up with an Afro-Japanese Brazilian bisexual whose pronoun is "they", I know the bicycle is responsible!  

Seriously, though:  From what David Ortiz says, the bicycle made us freer.  Certainly, I feel freer when I ride!

Technology And Propaganda: The Bicycle In World War I

If our only hope of survival is halting climate change, then the only way the human race will truly advance is if we get rid of war.  That's what I believe, anyway.

That said, I also understand that you can't ignore war if you study history. So, because I am interested in history, and the roles the bicycle has played in it, I've written a few posts about how bicycles have been used by the military.

World War I may have been the conflict in which the bicycle played the most pivotal roles.  It raged at exactly the moment when technologies spawned directly and indirectly by the bicycle were starting to take forms we recognize today.  In all of the nations involved, with the exception of the United States, millions of people rode to work and school, and for fun.  Even in the States, many of adults were still riding, as affordable, reliable automobiles (think Model T) were still a decade in the future.

Doran Cart is one person who recognizes the importance of bicycles in the so-called "Great War".  He is the senior curator of the National World War I Museum and Memorial in Kansas City.  When the US entered the war in 1917, military leaders "realized bicycles could make a difference in certain situations," according to Cart.

French military folding bicycle

Although they weren't particularly useful in the trenches and weren't particularly safe on open roads, bicycles could reach areas inaccessible to motor vehicles, and were more reliable.  These factors also made the bicycle, in many situations, the quickest way to convey messages. Bikes also were used, interestingly, on airbases.

What might have been as important as the bicycle's utility was its familiarity.  Unlike other technologies deployed during the war, almost everyone was familiar with the bicycle, as most rode them as civilians.  This meant that soldiers didn't have to learn how to use them, as they did with, say, trucks or planes.  Because so many men and women in uniform had been riding bicycles for all or most of their lives, at least some knew how to repair and maintain them.  How many people knew how to fix a plane or tank before the war?

That familiarity, according to Cart, also made bicycles useful in another way:  they were "a humanizing aspect to the war."  Because bicycles "represented something that every person could use" and were (and are) "available to everyone regardless of social class", they turned out to be rather effective propaganda tools.  Countless illustrations from that time depict young soldiers on or with their bicycles.  I mean, if you see this "Avanti Savoia" ("Onward Savoy"), you might think the 26th Bersaglieri Battalion was embarking on a bike tour.

Bike-Outs: Super-Predators Wilding? Oh, The Menace!

They ride bikes together.

Oh, and those bikes are s-s-scary:  They’ve got fat wheels and look like Hell’s Angels motorcycles without the motors.

And the kids who ride them—T-they ride in packs and make a lot of noise.  A-and, you know, they pop wheelies and stuff.

They’re-they’re teenagers.  And they’re...

If you were in New York thirty years ago, you can fill in that last ellipsis.  Let’s just say they’re, um, darker than I am—and use words I didn’t learn in Spanish 101.

It seems that every generation or so, some j-school grads with too much time on their hands find new ways to whip up hysteria about groups of urban teenage boys being, well, groups of urban teenage boys.  The latest, it seems, is something that’s been dubbed the “bike-out.”

A Bike-Out?! Oh, my!

Indignation over boys riding modern versions of “Choppers” or “Stingrays” has been ignited by a 74-year-old man who was out for a stroll when, he says, he was attacked by a group of “lawless” teenagers on bikes.

My purpose is not to doubt the man.  One attack, however, does not a phenomenon make.  I am reminded about the hysteria about “wilding” generated by the Central Park Jogger case.

That assault was indeed brutal.  But a certain entrepreneur took it upon himself to take out full-page ads in which he demanded the death penalty for the alleged attackers:  teenagers whose confessions, as it turned out, were coerced and who were finally released from prison on the cusp of middle age.

I am, of course, referring to Donald Trump.  In his ad, he famously bellowed, "I hate them. I want to hate them."  

One thing you have got to say for El Cheeto Grande:  He knows how to play the media.  Or, at least, he shows what one can do with the media if one has, say, a couple of billion lying around.

The "bike-outs" are as much a phantom phenomenon as "wilding" was, and their perpetrators were just as mythical as Hilary Clinton's "super predators."  Those ghost stories (pun intended) involve urban teenage boys and young men who are black and Latino. The only difference between them, as far as I can tell, is that in one legend, the bogeyman show up on bicycles.

(Thanks to Eben Weiss for writing about the "Bike-Out" hysteria in Outside magazine.)

Dealing With A Transit Strike, The Dutch Way

When there's a transit strike in a US city...

All right, I'm starting off with an iffy proposition.  There aren't many US cities with real transit systems:  New York, Boston, San Francisco, Chicago and a few others. 

OK, so now that we've got that out of the way, let's proceed:  In a US city with a transit system has a transit worker's strike, what happens?

Well, if history (at least here in NYC) is any guide, the city will try to make it easier for cars to enter and park.  A road shoulder or part of a bridge might be designated as an ad hoc bike and pedestrian lane.  And, given the way things are today, the city just might grant more Uber permits.

Now you might think I'm being cranky and cynical. (I am a New Yorker, after all!) But we all know that when it comes to bicycling or transportation, the most forward-thinking American cities might do something the Danes or Dutch did twenty years ago.

Yesterday, transit workers went on strike in the Netherlands.  Yes, in the whole country, not just in Amsterdam or Rotterdam.  That work stoppage involves, not only train and bus operators, but all other workers in those areas, as well as on trams and ferries.

That last item is important because Amsterdam isn't the only part of the country that's laced with canals. Also, the geography of the capital and other Dutch cities means that getting from one part of town or another often involves crossing a body of water.

So what did authorities in Amsterdam do?  They closed the IJ Tunnel--an artery as important to the city as, say, the Brooklyn Battery, Queens-Midtown, Lincoln or Holland (!) tunnels are to New York--to "fast moving" traffic.  They then opened the mile-long tube, which connects the center of the city with its north end--to bicycles.  Pedestrians, though, still aren't allowed.

The way commuters are howling over the prospect of congestion pricing, can you imagine how they'd react if any of those tunnels were opened to cyclists?

4-1/2 Ft.

Probably the most famous objet d'art that has anything to do with cycling is the "bull" Pablo Picasso fashioned from a bicycle saddle and handlebars.  

There are others, of course, including Marcel Duchamp's bicycle wheel.  On the other hand, we don't often hear about performance art based on bicycles or bicycling.

Now an artist and librarian based in Oakland, California plans to help fill that void.

Lisa Conrad plans to cycle across the state of Nebraska from Thursday, 30 May until 15 June.  She will be accompanied by other artists who plan to traverse the state from west to east.  After the Cornhusker State, they plan to ride across Iowa. 



Now, they are not the first cyclists to ride across either state.  What will be different is their route, which will trace abandoned railroad tracks and the gaps between them.  The purpose, she says, is to explore the role of the railroad in the making of the United States, in particular through examining the tension between the romance of the rails and the reality of making them, which was often exploitative, to put it mildly.



While she doesn't mention anything about it, the ride/performance piece--called 4 -1/2 ft, after the standard width of a railroad track--the  coincides with the 150th anniversary of the Transcontinental railroad. 

This isn't the first such ride for Conrad and the other artist-cyclists.  Previously, they did a similarly-themed ride across Washington State and Northern Idaho, and another through Montana into Wyoming.

You can learn more about 4 -1/2 ft at their website.

Remembering A War’s Legacy

Today, on Memorial Day, I am remembering something I saw last July, while cycling in Cambodia.

Few countries have been more devastated by war.  The land mines that remain, after half a century, continue to bind the nation and its people to the legacy of a war that spread from Vietnam and led to the horrors of the Pol Pot regime.

Aki Ra was conscripted to fight at age 10, he estimates:  He doesn’t know the exact date of his birth. By the time he was old enough to vote in most countries, he had fought in theee different armies.  During that time, he became a specialist in explosives, specifically land mines.

As a civilian, he has devoted himself to finding and defusing land mines, not only in Cambodia, but in other former war zones.  He’s even unearthed World War I - era ordnance in Europe.



This work led to his founding the Landmine Museum and a school for children, many of whom would not otherwise have the opportunity to do so.

The Museum is a testament to a legacy of war—specifically, how it continues to terrorize people who weren’t even born when their land was laced with explosives.

M

Be Safe. Don't Become A Memory Just Yet!

Today is Memorial Day.  

In spite of our current President, I still hope that, one day, people will be able to look at military installations and armaments in much the same way they look at Stonehenge:  as monuments to practices abandoned.  That, to me, is the only way the millions of combat-related deaths and mutilations will have any meaning.  In other words, those wasted lives and bodies will matter if they teach us that we don't have to squander our talent and treasure.

Now, I hope none of this sounds so lugubrious that you won't go for a bike ride.  If you do, be safe.  I don't want this day to be a memorial for you, before your time!

Protecting Yourself--And Your Riding Buddies

If you use fenders, you know that the front and about half of your rear fender help to keep you and your bike clean and dry.

The rearmost part of your back fender--and its mudflap--serve mainly to keep the riders behind you from getting splattered or sprayed.

In other words, a long rear fender and flap is a courtesy to your fellow cyclists.   If that's the case, there may be no more considerate rider than this one:

The Signs In Delaware

You're riding down a street.  You see a swath of green--and white lines and--barricades!?  Really?  There's a bike lane here?

More than a few times, I've had bike paths appear seemingly out of nowhere--and end just as abruptly. Or someone tells me about a lane I somehow missed in an area I ride frequently.

Now, I can only imagine how often someone who's newer to cycling than I am--or who rides less frequently than I do--is totally oblivious to whatever bicycle infrastructure might be available to them.  Or they just don't know what might be a good route to pedal from their homes to work, school, the park or wherever they want or need to go.

The folks at Bike Delaware understand as much.  They were instrumental in getting the state to build bike lanes-- including the Wilmington-New Castle Greenway, a safe, direct, flat and nearly uninterrupted seven-mile motor-free trail linking the Wilmington riverfront with downtown New Castle.

That lane opened last September.  Three years earlier, in July of 2015, Bike Delaware began working with the Delaware Department of Transportation to to secure the necessary regulatory approval for "wayfinding" signage.  Transportation signs are highly regulated by the Federal government--more so than roadways or bike paths, which are mainly state or county projects.  

Best of all, the bike signs have their own unique color, so they can't be confused with other road signs.  

I haven't been to Delaware in a long time. But if I ever find myself there, at least I'll know which way to ride!