If It's A Low Trail Bike You Want....

Yesterday, "Velouria" , the author of Lovely Bicycle! posted about a possible trend-in-the-making for low-trail bikes.

Briefly, trail is the distance between the point where the "rubber meets the road" and the point at which the steering axis intercepts the ground.  Racing bikes usually have more trail than touring or randonneuring bikes; that's why their steering is more sensitive.  On the other hand, tourists and randonneurs have traditionally preferred the stability a shorter-trail bike offers, especially if they are carrying loads on the front.

I suppose that if I did loaded touring or randonneuring regularly, or if I hadn't spent so much time riding road bikes, I'd prefer a lower-trail design.  That said, I won't try to dissuade anyone who actually prefers the ride of a low-trail bike and doesn't want it merely as the latest fashion accessory on which to hang a $200 front rack that will, as "Ground Round Jim" caustically comments, never carry anything more than a vegan croisssant. 

Now if you really want low trail, take a look at this:

From Izismile

Henry Miller's Best Friend

In an earlier post, I mused about the relative lack of serious literature about bicycles, bicycling and cyclists.  

What's puzzling is that such a void exists even with the number of well-known writers of the past 120 years or so who were cyclists.

Among them is Henry Miller:

From "The Daily Bike" in Adventure Journal

In My Bike And Other Friends, he wrote, "After a time, habituated to so many hours a day on my bike, I became less and less interested in my friends.  My wheel had now become my one and only friend.  I could rely on it, which is more than I could say about my buddies.  It's too bad no one ever photographed me with my friend.  I would give anything now to know what we looked like."

A Brief Post-Storm Ride

I'm still not feeling that great today.  But I did have the day off from classes, so I rested.  When I got tired of that, I took a late bike ride.

Along the way, in Ozone Park, I made this interesting find:

I'm trying to find more information about the rather attractive but otherwise unremarkable building:

At least it seems to have weathered Superstorm Sandy and last week's Nor'easter.  The same cannot be said for a house I saw about three miles down the road:

Like many houses in Howard Beach and Lindenwood, it incurred more damage on the inside than out.  The exteriors of most of those houses didn't seem much changed by the wind and rain; it probably would've been difficult to tell that a storm had passed were it not for the bags and piles of debris in front of them.

For once, I wouldn't have complained if someone were blocking the bike lane!  I was grateful, though, that no one was.

At least I didn't have to contend with anything like this:

Even if the tree were still sounding, the scene would have looked foreboding.  Lately, the overcast skies, which I often welcome, seem that way.

Jamaica Bay and the ocean are just beyond those bare trees and reeds.