Does He Understand Why People Don’t Cycle to Work?

 

Jalopnik is ostensibly about cars and “transportation.”  Quite a few of its articles, however, seem to be anti-bike rants in the guise of “reporting” about cyclists’ actual and perceived transgressions against motorists.

Then there is Owen Bellwood’s article, published yesterday.  The title—“0f Course People Don’t Want to Bike to Work”—is a clue to the tone, if not the content, of his article.

For a few paragraphs, Bellwood seems to be on the right track.  He cites poor infrastructure—including bike parking (or lack thereof), showers or other facilities for cleaning and changing clothes at workplaces (again, or lack thereof) and bike lanes—as a major reason why people in New York and other American cities won’t bike to work. He also mentions drivers who use bike lanes for passing, parking or picking up or discharging passengers or packages.

Bellwood also correctly identifies the poor design and pure-and-simple muddled thinking behind too many bike lanes.  As he wryly notes, “It’s not good enough to have a bike painted in the road to warn cars that a cyclist might come through.” And he echoes an observation I’ve made in previous posts: “[W]e can definitely do better than a few floppy plastic bollards separating a cyclist from a 4000 pound pickup truck.”

He sums up by saying that “space” is “all that cyclists are asking for.” We need “space on the road and space to park up,” he says.  I agree with him on those points. But he also falls into a common misperception that I once shared:  Educating drivers will help to improve cycling safety.  I know that many unfortunate encounters between drivers and cyclists result from motorists’ lack of awareness of what safe cycling actually entails, which doesn’t always align with motorists’ perceptions. On the other hand, many more cyclists are maimed or killed by road rage or drivers who simply don’t care about anyone but themselves.

That latter category of drivers won’t be changed through “education.” Though not uniquely American, such drivers are more common in the US because of our car-centered and individualistic culture. Bellwood can be forgiven, I believe, for not understanding as much—and that such motorists won’t be “cured” through “education”- because he is an Englishman.  But I also believe that at least his cultural background—and his familiarity with cycling culture in his home nation as well as countries like Denmark—gives him an awareness of how things could be better in my hometown and home country of New York and the USA.

Bringing Us Our Daily Bread

People curse and depend on them.  I'm talking about those food delivery workers on e-bikes who weave, at breakneck speeds, through traffic and buzz pedestrians and cyclists.  People complain when they're nearly struck, or simply scared, by those couriers whom they expect to bring pizza, tacos, General Tso's chicken, sushi or pad thai to their doors within 15 minutes after placing their orders.  And, since most of those delivery workers are paid by the number of deliveries they make, and depend on tips, they will continue to rush within a hair's breath of anyone who's walking or pedaling in "their" bike lane.  As much as that annoys, exasperates and freaks me out, I try not to be too angry with them:  After all, many of them are supporting families here and in their native countries (nearly all are immigrants, many of them undocumented) and have limited job opportunities because they speak English poorly or not at all and may have educational or professional credentials that aren't recognized here.

Still, as much as I respect their work ethic,  I have to admit that no delivery worker I've seen has anything on this one in Cairo, Egypt:

#video
bread delivery in Cairo 🥖
🚲#ifb #SaturdayKitchen #Food #bicycle pic.twitter.com/dxqQBUr64R

— You Must Do✍️SURVEYS (@youmustdo1) August 14, 2021

The Ghosts At Norwich

  “Ghost” bikes originated in Amsterdam during the 1960s. Anarchists painted bicycles white and left them on the streets for people to use.

Around the turn of this century, artists began to make “ghost” bikes from abandoned bikes, some of which were stripped of their parts.  They were purely artistic expressions until October 2003, when Patrick Van Der Tuin placed a white-painted bike and a sign reading “Cyclist Struck Here” on a St. Louis street. 

Within a couple of years, “ghost” bike monuments began to appear on streets in New York and other American cities. Soon afterwards, they started to show up in other parts of the world.

Nearly all of those monuments have been placed on or near the sites where cyclists were struck by motorized vehicles.  Members of the Norwich Cycling Campaign decided that members of their English city’s council need a daily reminder of the six cyclists who have been killed on city streets this year.  So, Campaign placed six “ghost” bikes outside the Council’s offices.

“Each of the white bikes symbolizes a failure to keep people safe on our roads,” declared Campaign chair Peter Silburn. He added,  “These deaths are not accidents, they are the result of policies that prioritize the convenience of car drivers over people’s safety.”

The Campaign wants the city to install more cycle lanes, lower speeds on urban roads and fewer cars. I hope the “ghost” bike installation helps to deliver the message—and results.

Riding In Ophelia’s Wake

Yesterday I took La-Vande, my King of Mercia, for a spin to Point Lookout.  The day was delightful—the first full day of sunshine after Hurricane Ophelia. I recently installed fenders on La-Vande, but I didn’t need them as much as I’d anticipated:  the roads and paths weren’t rivers and streams.  The storm’s wake, however, denied me, and everyone else access to Point Lookout Park.  Well, almost everyone:

They climbed the fence And the storm’s wake didn’t stop some intrepid beings from lining up on the nearby soccer field:

Might those birds have invented a new formation?

If You Don’t Jump The Shark, It Will Ride You

Nearly a decade ago (!), I wrote about my old Land Shark bicycle.

I got to thinking about it when I came across this:

An Emblem of Bicycle History

 Believe or not, bicycle manufacturers were major, or at least significant, employers in the US until World War II.

I’m not talking only about Schwinn.  A few years ago, I wrote about the Shelby Bicycle Company, which took its name from the Ohio community in which it was based.

Another example of such a relationship between a town and a bike-maker is that of Emblem Bicycles and Angola, a New York Stare village 3.3 kilometers (2 miles) from Lake Erie and 50 kilometers (22 miles) from downtown Buffalo.

Unless you are even deeper than I am into pre-War bikes, you probably haven’t heard of Emblem bicycles.  Apparently, they began making bikes during the first Bike Boom in the late 19th Century and continued until the eve of World War II. During the 1910s, Emblwm, like some other bike-makers, began to make motorcycles, which hadn’t evolved into their own category. As a matter of fact, Emblem, like other fabricators of two-wheeled vehicles, were identified—and identified by the public—as a bicycle company even when their production of motorized bikes exceeded that of traditional pedaled bicycles.

So, yesterday, when a fire burned in the historical building that the company called home, local media reports identified it as the “historic Emblem Bicycle building “—even  though Emblem bicycles haven’t been made there, or anywhere, in about 80 years.

Two dozen fire companies fought and contained the blaze.  Fortunately, no one was hurt.

Drowning In Irony

Perhaps the folks at the World Metrological Organization were playing a joke on us.  At least, someone in that august body has seen or read Hamlet and has a sense of humor or irony the Bard might appreciate.

I mean, why else would they name a hurricane Ophelia—after a character who drowned?

This morning it really looked like someone could be submerged simply by opening a door or window.  I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say that the rainfall resembled a cataract.

If that metaphor works for you, the Crescent Street bike lane could have been its Niagara River or River Niger. The water finally receded, but earlier today it looked more like a stream than a path.

He Thinks He'll Be Out In 30 Days

It's bad enough to be struck or "doored" by a motorist who "didn't see" you even though you were dressed in reflective and fluorescent clothing and had your "blinkies" flashing even though it was midday.

And it's galling that, too often, such motorists get "slapped on the wrist" or incur no penalty at all.  Moreover, the cyclist, especially if he/she/they doesn't survive the "accident" is likely to be blamed, even if, in addition to wearing the bright vetements I described, also donned a helmet and obeyed all traffic laws.

What could be worse?

Perhaps what Jesus Ayala and Jzamir Keys did.

On 14 August, the duo joyrode four stolen cars--in a single day--and struck two cyclists and a car intentionally.

Yes, you read that right.  There is no conjecture about their intentions:  As Ayala drove the vehicles, Keyes filmed their "adventures" from the passenger side.  In the video, they can be heard laughing as Ayala drove into retired police officer Andreas Probst as he cycled down a Las Vegas street.  When Probst bounced off the windshield and onto the side of the road, one of the teens said to the other, "We gotta get outta here."

Yes, they are teens:  Keys is 16 and Ayala has turned 18 since the incident.  That means Ayala could be moved to an adult jail from the juvenile facility where he's been held since his arrest.  Keys fled and was caught a month later.

Ayala predicts, "I'll be out in 30 days, I'll bet you."  His reasoning, he said, is that it was "just a hit-and-run."

Except for a couple of small details.  In addition to injuring the other cyclist, who was not identified, Ayala's antics killed Probst. 

The cynic in me says that law enforcement officials are taking it more seriously than they might have because one of their own died.  But even if that is the case, I hope that it leads to Ayala getting the sort of punishment any driver deserves, but too rarely gets, for striking and killing a cyclist.  He won't have much to laugh about then. 

Google And Penny Farthings

Google turns 25 years old today.

So how does that relate to a bike race in England?

To my knowledge, the world’s most-used search engine has nothing to do with its sponsorship or organization. It may, however be a reason the race was run the other day.

I am talking about the 2023 Penny Farthing Championships.  Penny Farthing, as you may know, was a nickname for the high-wheeled bicycles that were popular before “safety” bicycles—like the ones we ride today—were developed. 

In contrast to today’s bikes, with chain-and-sprocket drives and wheels of equal, or nearly equal diameter, Penny Farthings were propelled by cranks attached directly to the axle of the front wheel, which was much larger than the rear. The proportion of the two wheels reminded English people of two of their coins, hence the name.

 

So, you may still be asking, what does Google have to do with a style of bicycle that all but disappeared by the mid-1890s?

Well, although I am in, ahem, midlife, I am old enough to remember—and have been an active cyclist—in the days before Google, or the Internet. In the 1980s and 1990s, vintage bikes, parts and accessories were all but impossible to find unless you chanced upon an old shop that was closing.  News of the few swap meets spread through word of mouth or printed notices, as often as not found at local club meetings.  

During that time, younger or newer cyclists were unaware of those beautiful old bikes, bags and clothing in traditional designs and materials.  Some companies that made them went out of business and no one was picking up the torch, so to speak.

Moreover, people who had older bikes and parts gave up on them when they couldn’t find replacements or people who knew how to work on, say, their old Sturney-Archer hubs. So, companies didn’t make or offer replacements or reproductions because “there was no demand.”

But the Internet—especially after the launch of Google—made not only bikes and parts, but information about them, more available.  Perhaps even more important, it allowed an aficionado of, say, vintage hand-built steel frames or randonneur bags who might be the only such person in his or her area to connect with someone in another town or even country.  I believe that such connections had much to do with increased i’interest in those bikes, parts and accessories—which, perhaps ironically, took off not long after Google launched.

Would the current interest in penny farthings, which has grown particularly strong in England, have happened without Google?  I can’t answer that.  All I can say is that I find the sight of Lycra-clad young people astride high-wheeled bikes charming, if incongruous.

You Can Ride It. Really!

 I have long believed that John Milton wrote “Samson Agonistes” for essentially the same reasons why he wrote “Paradise Lost.”  For one, I think he was trying to express his political beliefs.  For another, I think he had a poetic sensibility—almost entirely aural—that he simply had to express.

What is the difference between those two works? “Paradise Lost” is an epic poem, while “Samson Agonistes” is a play of a particular kind:  a “closet drama,” which is intended to be read rather than performed. (I would argue that, like “Paradise Lost,” it—or at least parts of it—has to be read aloud in order to truly appreciate Milton’s poetics.)

There seem to be analogies to “closet” dramas in the bicycle world: bikes and components that are created, not to be ridden, but because, well, someone could create them.  An example is a bike with square wheels, which I showed in a previous post.

But, it seems that someone has actually ridden it:

Shimano Crankset Recall

 I ride Shimano components—derailleurs, cassettes and brakes—on three of my bikes.  So what I am about to write will not be an expression of schadenfreude.

Here goes:  Shimano is recalling 2.8 million of its cranksets worldwide—760,000 in North America.  They include Dura-Ace and Ultegra 11-speed cranks manufactured between from 2012 to 2019 and sold, whether to individuals or to bike-makers, until this year.

The “Hollowtech” cranks were made with two more-or-less U-shaped aluminum alloy bars bonded with epoxy, which accounts for their appearance, light weight—and the problem that’s led to the recall.

 About 4500 crank arms de-laminated—in other words, came apart—as cyclists pedaled them. Some of those incidents resulted in injuries though, apparently, none were life-altering.

Shimano has provided a list of model names and numbers, along with date codes (which can be found on the backsides of the crank arms). 

No Bikes On The Right

Since the death of Generalissimo Franco in 1975, Spain has gone from being a conservative Catholic bastion to one of the most seemingly liberal and progressive countries in Europe and, indeed the world.  As an example, in 2005 it became the third nation on the planet--after the Netherlands and Belgium--to legalize same-sex marriage.

Note that I used the word "seemingly."  As in other countries, liberalism and tolerance of racial, ethnic, sexual and gender-expression minorities is found mainly in the large cities.  Rural areas and other places far removed from cities either remained conservative or were part of a "backlash" --which included animus against immigrants--that boosted right-wing politicians and parties into power.

In this sense, a recent development in Elche is not surprising.  A coalition of right- and far-right parties now rules the third-largest city in the Valencia region. They are un-doing what previous administrations did or started--including a bike lane in the center of town. 

Moreover, the city's new government wants to increase the amount of space allotted for cars on the city's streets because--tell me if you haven't heard this before--bike lanes "take away parking spaces" and "cause traffic jams."

It seems that right-wing politicians and their supporters see cyclists and bike lanes as easy targets.  Part of that, I believe, is that in a departure from times past, much of the native working class--who form much of the base of support, as they do for the Republican Party in the United States--either work in auto-related industries or are car-dependent in one way or another.  Cycling is therefore seen as attack on their way of life.

Also, in Elche the bike lane, like others in European cities, was funded in part by a European Union fund to develop "low emission zones"--of which the newly-dismantled bike lane.  Right-wing nationalists can therefore depict bike lanes and other sustainability projects as "overreach" by far-away bureaucrats, whether in Brussels (for the EU) or in Washington DC or state capitals (in the US).

It seems that everywhere a nation or group of people tries to make its country or community more sustainable and livable, the pushback comes from the political right--and bicycles and cyclists are among the first targets.

Their City Is Dying. Blame The Bike Lane.

Recently, another neighbor of mine lamented that the bike lane on our street--Crescent, in Astoria, Queens--is "ruining the neighborhood."

"How?" I asked.

"It used to be so easy to park here.  Now it's impossible," she complained.

I didn't express that I found her cri de coeur ironic given that she doesn't drive.  I believe, however, that she knew what I was thinking:  "When I did drive, one of the reasons I moved here from Manhattan was so that I could have a car.  So did a lot of other people."

To be fair, the reason she doesn't drive is an injury incurred in--you guessed it--a car crash.  So while I conceded that some folks--like the ones who pick her up for errands and outings--need to drive, I pointed out that others could do their chores by walking or biking and their commutes on buses or trains--or bikes.  "Didn't people find it harder to park as more cars came into the neighborhood."

"Yeah, but the bike lane made things worse."

In one sense, I agree with her:  the bike lane was poorly-conceived and -placed.  But blame for decades' worth of traffic and parking congestion on bike lanes that are only a few years old seems, to me, just a bit misplaced.

It seems that such mistaken vilification is not unique to my neighborhood or city--or to American locales in general.  In the UK city of Doncaster, "cycle paths, pedestrianisation and poor bus planning" are "slowly choking our wonderful city centre."  Nick Fletcher, a Tory MP, heaped on the hyperbole, begging planners to "reverse this trend" before "Doncaster becomes a ghost town."

What is the "trend" he's talking about?  The one he and others claim they saw unfold in nearby Sheffield:  a plan to turn downtowns into "15 minute cities," where all of the businesses and services a resident needs are within a 15 minute walk or bike ride. Fletcher and other conservative MPs see such plans the way much of today's Republican Party sees vaccination, mask-wearing during a pandemic, teaching actual history and science and shifting from fossil to sustainable fuels:  as "socialist conspiracies."

Doncha' no"?  They're part of a socialist conspiracy to destroy their city!

Where I live is, in effect, a 15 minute city:  Whatever one's needs, interests or preferences, they can be reached within that time frame, without a motorized vehicle.  Even midtown Manhattan is reachable in that time when the trains are running on time.  And in my humble judgment, Astoria is hardly a "ghost town."  Nor are neighboring Long Island City, Sunnyside or Woodside--or Greenpoint in Brooklyn-- all of which are, or nearly are, 15 minute cities. 

Oh, and from what I've heard and read, Sheffield and Doncaster are both "post industrial" cities in South Yorkshire.  Steel is no longer made in Sheffield, once the nation's center of that industry, just as coal and mining were once, but are no longer, synonymous with Doncaster's identity.  Both cities have endured losses of population that disproportionately include the young and the educated.  So it seems as ludicrous to blame bike lanes and bus routes, even "poorly planned" ones, for turning those cities into "ghost towns" as it does to blame a poorly-conceived bike lane for the lack of parking in a neighborhood to which people moved from Manhattan so they could have cars.

Riding In Beauty

 Some of you would  cringe if I quote a Carpenters’ song. I wouldn’t blame you.  But I’m going to cite one of their tunes anyway: “Rainy days and Mondays always get me down.”

Today is a very rainy Monday.  I don’t mind:  Yesterday, Saturday and Friday afternoon comprised one of the most glorious weekends for cycling I’ve had in this part of the world. The skies ranged from clear azure to swirly silver and blue with the sun piercing through—and temperatures from 15 to 25c (60 to 77F).

Friday afternoon was a ramble along the Brooklyn and Queens waterfronts between my apartment and the Williamsburg Bridge, and out to the Hispanic and Hasidic neighborhoods of the non-gentrified areas of Williamsburg and East Williamsburg.  

Saturday was ideal for a trek to Greenwich, Connecticut: I pedaled into the wind through the Bronx, Westchester County and over the ridge into the Nutmeg State.  That meant I rode the wind home.

I had the same kind of luck with the wind yesterday, when I pushed my way out to Point Lookout and glided home. The wind seemed to have blown out of the south-southeast:  I had to put more effort into the first stretch, going mostly south from my apartment to Rockaway Beach, than I did on the mostly-eastward section from Rockaway to the Point.

I didn’t take any photos on Friday or Saturday because, as beautiful as those experiences were, they are rides I’ve done many times and I didn’t see anything unusual. That will probably change soon enough, at least on the Connecticut ride, when Fall begins to paint the trees and foliage from its pallette.

On yesterday’s ride, though, a vista from the western end of the Long Beach boardwalk reflected the way this weekend’s rides felt:

I rode in beauty, or at least its light, this weekend. Maybe this rainy Monday won’t get me down, at least not too much.

(In case you were wondering, I rode Tosca, my Mercian fixed gear on Friday. Saturday, Dee-Lilah, my Mercian Vincitore Special, took me to Connecticut.  And yesterday La-Vande, my King of Mercia, brought me to the beaches.)

Clothes Make The Rider

Some cyclists simply cannot imagine wearing anything but Lycra while riding. For a time, I was such a rider.

These days, I don't wear Lycra--though, perhaps, not for the same reason as this rider:

Can you imagine him in an outfit like this?: 

The Campag Kid Is Holey

 

No, this isn’t one of my Mercians—though you may be forgiven for thinking that it is.

Rather, it’s an almost-finished build by someone who calls himself “The Campag Kid.” Here in the US, we call Campagnolo “Campy,” but in the UK, the nickname is “Campag.”

That distinction is just one indication of how bicycle culture  in England differed from that of the US or Continental Europe in the 1970s. Bicycle racing—and cycling in general—was ending a long period of dormancy.  In countries like France, Belgium and Italy, the racing scene was dominated by one-day “classics” and multi-day time trials.  But in England, the chief mode of competitive cycling was the time trial.  So, perhaps, it’s not surprising that Campag Kid’s heroes were Alf Engers, Beryl Burton and of course Eddy Mercx. 

It was Eddy who, wittingly or not, started the cult of “drillium.” The word is a portmanteau of “drilling” and “titanium,” and the practice involved, basically, drilling components—usually Campagnolo—within an inch of their lives.

The bike Eddy rode for his 1972 hour record ride was adorned with “holey” stuff. The belief then—as in some quarters today—was that “lighter is faster.” As titanium was used only for small bits like fastening nuts and carbon fiber was a couple of decades on the horizon. So aluminum and steel parts were the ones that got the treatment.

The 1970s Mercian Superlight frame Campag Kid is building lived up to its name:  It was one of the lightest road frames—and had one of the tightest geometries—available  at the time.

As Campag Kid explains,  the cult of drillium—which was arguably even stronger in the UK than in the US—died in the 198Os as aerodynamics came to dominate high-performance bicycle component design. All of those holes came to be seen as “wind catchers,” and aerodynamic parts, although they were sometimes heavier than even non-drilled bits, were believed to be more efficient.

Whether or not drillium has any effect on speed, it certainly can be eye-catching. Oh, and I love the color of that Mercian—and the fact that it’s a Mercian!

What Is A Bike—Or Bike Lane?

When asked to define “film,” the director Jean-Luc Godard replied, “truth at 24 frames per second.”

Would that New York City’s Department of Transportation would define “bike” so clearly! Then again, if the DOT would, would the city’s Police Department enforce any policy about who and what could be in a bike lane.

The cynic in me says that my question is rhetorical: Just about anyone who pedals a non-motorized bike or walks in a bike-ped lane would answer with an emphatic, “Are you kidding?”

Too many of this city’s bike lanes (and I almost) have been overrun with two-wheeled contraptions that have no pedal assist and that run by a twist of the driver’s wrist.  They, apparently, are lumped in with electric-assisted pedal bikes because they’re sold by the same dealerships.

Now the DOT wants to expand the definition of a commercial e-bike to 48 inches (122 cm) from the current 36 inches (91.4 cm) and “allow” a “maximum” speed of 20 mph (32 kph), which current e-bike riders routinely exceed.

Those behemoths would be even bigger than the delivery “bikes” UPS is trialing on city streets—and weigh 500 pounds (227 kg.).  Oh, and the “bikes” have four wheels.

In other words, they would be as wide as most bike lanes—which would effectively block everyone else—and, with their volume, mass and four wheels, could build enough momentum to maim or kill cyclists.

If such vehicles are allowed to use the lanes, are they still “bike” lanes?

A "Smart" Investment?

For all of the work that has been done with frame and wheel materials and configurations, and with new ways of shifting and braking, the single most important bicycle-related technological innovation--indeed, one of the world's most important technological innovations, period-- is 135 years old.

I am talking about the pneumatic tire, which John Boyd Dunlop created.  Note my choice of the last word in the previous sentence:  For decades, Dunlop was cited as the "inventor" of the air-filled rubber tire.  But neither he nor researchers on the subject seemed to have been aware of the patent fellow Scotsman Robert Thomson took out four decades earlier for his "aerial wheels," which were tubes of rubber strengthened by a process Thomson invented:  vulcanization.

 Thomson's creations were produced only in limited quantities mainly because rubber, at the time, was very expensive.  And, because there were no cars or planes, and very few of anything we would recognize as bicycles, the market for his creation was limited.  Apparently, though trials showed that carriages fitted with Thomson's "aerial"s were markedly faster and more comfortable, carriage owners and operators didn't line up to buy them.  My guess is that changing a flat tire would have been, to say the least, arduous.

Anyway, Dunlop's tires literally changed the world: Without them,  bicycles, cars and trucks would be no faster than horse-drawn carriages , and modern aircraft could not take off or land. And, ever since, owners and operators of vehicles have tried to eliminate the main drawback of air-filled tires--that they can flat--without sacrificing their buoyancy.

(To clarify:  For whatever advantages they offer, today's tubeless tires do not solve this dilemma.  Since they are filled with air, they indeed can go flat.)

It seems that every decade or two, someone or some company or another comes out with an airless tire.  A few years ago, I wrote about one I rode--the Zeus LCM--I tried about four decades ago, when I worked at Highland Park Cyclery in New Jersey. While I understood their appeal to commuters and folks who weren't confident in their mechanical abilities--or simply didn't want to dirty their hands or scratch their newly-enameled nails--I switched back to my air-filled tubed tires after a few rides.  

About two and a half years ago, I wrote about one of the latest attempts to create an airless tire.  Actually, unless I want to be struck by the ghost of my old physics teacher, I have to correct myself:  there is air at the core of the tire I'm about to describe, just as there is air in most "empty" spaces on Earth.  The difference is that the air at the hollow core of the Metl tire isn't pressurized and not necessary for the tire to hold its shape.

Rather, the Metl tire, as the name indicates, is kept round by a Slinky-like spring made from a nickel-titanium alloy and wound around the inside of a polyurethane-rubber tube, which has a replaceable rubber tread.  The alloy used in the spring, combined with its design, makes for a tire that, like conventional pneumatics, deforms on impact but springs back to its original shape.  This design is very similar to the tires used on planetary rover vehicles, so it's not surprising that tires were developed for the Smart Tire Company with NASA's cooperation.

The Metl tire, without its tread.

The treads are said to have a lifespan of 5000 to 8000 miles (about 8000 to 12,800 km) but the main body of the tire should last for the life of the bike, according to Smart.  They fit conventional rims and are now available--via a Kickstarter campaign--in 700C X 32,35 and 38C sizes.  The 35C width has a claimed weight of 450 grams (about 16 ounces, or one pound), which is fairly typical for a tire of its size.

A pledge of $500 will get you a pair of tires, and it costs $10 to re-tread them.  A complete set of aluminum or carbon-fiber wheels clad with Metl tires can be had with pledges of $1300 and $2300, respectively.  Just take note, dear investors (When have you ever seen that phrase in a novel?) that delivery of the tires and wheels isn't expected before next June.

When A Local Ride Turns Into A Journey

The other day, before I wrote my 9/11 commemorative piece, I took a ride:  a ramble through Queens and Brooklyn on Tosca, my Mercian fixed-gear.

My ride included some familiar streets and sights.  But I also took in some streets--or, more precisely, segments of them--I hadn't ridden before.

One of those thoroughfares, Carroll Street, spans the breadth of Brooklyn in two sections.  The first begins at Hoyt Street, near the borough's downtown hub and cuts through the brownstone neighborhoods of Carroll Gardens and Park Slope on its way to Prospect Park.  On the other side of the Park, Carroll continues along through neighborhoods less known to tourists:  Prospect-Lefferts Gardens, Crown Heights and Ocean Hill-Brownsville.  It was along that second section, in Crown Heights, that I chanced upon these houses: 

They combine the brownstone facades one sees on the other side of the park with Victorian-style cornices--and rounded, almost turret-like fronts I've seen only in Ridgewood and a couple of other Queens neighborhoods.  That block of Carroll--between Kingston and Albany Avenues--lies in the heart of the Hasidic neighborhood of the Heights.

After I took the photos, I walked Tosca (Carroll is a one-way street) to check out a store where I didn't think I'd buy anything but I wanted to see because it's unlike any in my neighborhood of Astoria, or in most other places.

Turns out, the place moved around the corner, to Kingston Avenue.  I peeked in; the young man working in it knew full well that I wasn't from the community and therefore wouldn't buy the mezuzahs (Star of David medallions found on the doorways of homes), prayer shawls or other items ultra-Orthodox Jews use in their daily lives and worship.  But he didn't seem to mind my being there and we exchanged greetings of "shalom" on my way in and out.

As I turned to my left, I noticed an alleyway in the middle of the block.  

The first painting, closest to the street, seems like a conventional representation of a Torah lesson--until you look closely.  But the sky-blue background gives the scene an almost ethereal feel and the rabbi's expression makes him seem, simultaneously, like a relative and an ancestor, as if the kids might be in a room with him or that he might have come to them in a dream or vision.

To their left were two other murals.  Is the girl--woman?--in awe or fear?  I couldn't help but to think about Edvard Munch's "The Scream"--which, I'm sure, the artist intended.  But is it a scream of ecstasy or terror, or something else?  I might've asked the same questions about the man in the other mural which, of course, evokes Van Gogh's "Starry Night."

Even though the compositions echo (pun intended) Munch and Van Gogh, I felt that the artist's real inspiration may have been one of the greatest Jewish modern artists:  Marc Chagall.  At least, the colors--themselves and the way they play off, with and against each other--reminded me of his paintings and the stained-glass windows he created for the cathedral of Reims, France, to replace the ones blown out during World War II.  In fact, in walking past the murals with Tosca, I felt as if I were in an open-air temple or synagogue.

On the other side of Kingston is another alley, with this portrait by the same artist:

I thought it was interesting how that artist used blue differently from the way it's used in the painting of the Torah lesson.  Here, it makes the man--whom I assume to be, if not a rabbi, then at least some sort of elder in the community.  

It never ceases to amaze me how taking a random turn during a ride in my city can take me on a journey!

They Left Their Bikes. I Hope They Made It Home.

 Twenty-two years ago today, some young men who believed they fighting for Allah hijacked three passenger airliners. Inside one plane, passengers fought the hijackers and diverted them from careening  it into the Pentagon. Instead, the plane crashed into a field, killing everyone on board.

No passengers, crew members or hijackers survived the other two flights, either. One hit the Pentagon. The other slammed into the World Trade Center—just a couple of miles upwind from where I lived at the time.

In previous posts, I commemorated 9/11 anniversaries by discussing the essential workers. Some rode bicycles to their jobs. Others—who delivered everything from contracts to quesadillas—rode bikes for their livings.

Some of their bikes were found weeks, months, even years, later.  Some of them, alas, were never heard from again.  We can only hope they made it out of the WTC area. If they did, I hope they made it home, wherever that may have been, wherever that is.

What’s On Their Minds?

 In yesterday’s post, I recalled a bike I rode around the time the  Notorius B.I.G. and Tupac Shakur we’re making their presence known.

I couldn’t help but to think about something else that was popular around that time.  A sinuous profile of a woman interposed on an image of Sigmund Freud’s head appeared on posters and T-shirts with the inscription, “What’s on a man’s mind?” Sometimes the question mark was omitted, turning the query into a declaration.

So, in that vein, the flow of my thoughts turned to this question:  What’s on a cyclist’s mind?

A New Bike-Packer—Or A ‘90’s Mountain Bike?

Because I am in, ahem, midlife, I am old enough to have owned and ridden a mountain bike made around the time Rock Shox, Marzocchi, Manitou and a few other hitherto-unknown companies were bringing internally-sprung front forks to the general public.  A few bike-makers were developing frames with suspension in the rear triangle. But that feature, and suspension (what Brits called “telescoping”) front forks were still extra-cost options or modifications.

At that time, in the early-to-mid-1990s, mountain bike frames like my Jamis Dakota typically had 71 degree head angles, which are a bit more slack than road frames (73-74 degrees) but more aggressive than ‘80’s machines that, like the balloon-tired bikes from which they evolved—and many of today’s “hauler” and “rough stuff” bikes—had angles ranging from 69 all the way down to 66 degrees.

Bikes like my old Dakota, I believe, were attempts to inject some road-bike responsiveness into mountain bikes, some of which were, frankly, sluggish. But those bikes from three decades ago were comfortable and stable enough that they were often used for loaded touring (sometimes after switching the flat handlebars for dropped bars), as Trek and other bike-makers stopped making dedicated touring bikes around 1988.

Well, someone at the Dutch bike company Van Nicholas seems to have ridden—or simply recalls—one of those mountain bikes. Their new Nootau, billed as “the ultimate bike-packing machine,” is built around a titanium frame with a geometry nearly identical to a just-before-suspension off-road bike.

Of course, the Nootau’s componentry has almost nothing in common with what was in use around the time “Smells Like Teen Spirit” blasted across the airwaves. Like most of today’s new bikes, it has a threadless headset and stem, which were available but not standard.  But, unlike the cantilever brakes on vintage mountain bikes, disc brakes stop the Nootau.  Discs enjoyed brief popularity, mainly on tandems, during the late 1970s and have been revamped during the past few years.

Perhaps the most striking difference, however, between the Nootau’s equipment and that of vintage mountain bikes is in the drivetrain: the Nootau has no derailleurs. Instead, its single-sprocket crankset is mated to a Rohloff rear hub with 14 internal gears. (I’m trying to wrap my head around that: I’ve had Sturmey Archer and Shimano three- and five-soeed internally-geared hubs.

I may not have the opportunity to ride a Van Nicholas Nootau. I must say that I like its look—and relish the irony of how much its design resembles that of my old Jamis Dakota.

Heat Or Rain?

 Another soupy morning.  Again, I went for an early ride.  Today, however, I wasn’t sure whether I was trying to beat the heat or a rainstorm.  Both were forecast for today.

When I pedaled along the Malcolm X Promenade, just past LaGuardia Airport, I would’ve bet on the rain, except that I don’t bet. Anyway, I kept on riding—out to Fort Totten.

My money (colloquially, of course) was still on rain.  I actually wouldn’t have minded it on such a hot day.

By the time I got home, clouds were parting and the sun was peeking through. The weather forecasters still talked about “possible” showers or thunderstorms for the rest of the day.