Spinning Wheel Size

It seems that the debate about wheel size won't ever go away.  I'm not talking only about 650 vs. 700:  I'm thinking about those sizes vs. 20 inch or smaller sizes.

There has always been a contagion of cyclists, bike designers and marketers who've maintained that smaller wheels are actually faster.  Alex Moulton went so far as to "break" records with his bikes.  (As it turned out, he rode against records that hadn't been challenged for years, or even decades.)  Whatever you think of his bikes, recumbents or other small-wheeled bicycles, they do have loyal followings, particularly in Japan and a few other countries.

My experience with smaller-wheeled bikes (apart from what I rode early in my childhood) is limited to a couple of folding bikes.  Perhaps I'll have the opportunity to ride others and, if I'm feeling ambitious, make a comparison with my own and other 700C bikes.

Or I could borrow this bike:

From:  Austin 360

 

Portraits of New York Cyclists

From Amsterdamize

I've just stumbled across another bike site I like:  #BikeNYC.

It's photographer Dmitry Gudkov's series of portraits and profiles of New Yorkers who ride bicycles to work or simply to get around. 

Included is a portrait of what I'd like to look like, on and with my bike, in my next life.  And there are lots of images of attractive, stylish people who ride. But Gudokov's photos aren't just "fashion shoots" with bikes as props.  His subjects work in diverse fields (lawyers, janitors and everything in between) and live in a variety of neighborhoods throughout the five boroughs.  One of my favorites is a guy named "Jamaica," who lives in the eponymous neighborhood in Queens.  I think I've seen him; I work not very far from where he lives.

I haven't replicated any of Gudkov's phots here; he doesn't allow anyone to copy and paste them.  Given that he is a photographer, I can understand his wish (and, possibly, need) to do so.  So I'll just encourage you to visit his site. While you're there, check out this portrait of Hal, the longtime mechanic of Bicycle Habitat.  He's the one who turned me on to Mercians, and who built the wheels for the ones I ride.

Springing Forward

It's hard to beat athletic events for displays of intense concentration.  I don't think the competitors are being melodramatic when they grimace, shout or contort their faces and bodies, and focus their eyes, in ways that do not allow for the recognition of anything but the task ahead.


It was especially striking to see on a clear early spring (more like mid-spring, weather-wise) Sunday in a Corona park.

I try not to think or talk too much about teaching when I'm away from it. (Goddess knows that I have to spend lots of time reading and grading papers and tests, and preparing lessons.)  However, I couldn't help but to think of a comparision-and-contrast exercise: between the kinds of intensity displayed by the bocce player in the first photo and Bernard Hinault in this one:

Although my ride was leisurely, the bike that got me there seemed to be focused on getting me there and wherever else I wanted to go.  Track bikes, I think, are rather like that:  The fixed gear wastes little energy to flexing or bending, or to the friction of the mechanisms that would be necessary to allow the bike to coast. This also means the rider can't waste motions, even when riding in the meditative way I was.