The Wire(s)

In two earlier posts, I mentioned the Slingshot bicycle. You may have seen one:  It has a cable anchored by suspension coils where the down tube would normally be found.  At least, that's the kind of bike for which Slingshot is known.  Apparently, they're now making a line of bikes constructed entirely of chrome-molybdenum steel tubes, like a traditional frame sans lugs.


But I digress.  Slingshot is still best known for its "frame with a cable".  I had the opportunity to ride one owned by one of my old riding buddies.  I rather liked it, but I'm not sure I would want it as my only bike.


Although Slingshot is the best-known (and possibly the best) bike to use a tension cable as part of its frame structure, it's certainly not the first.  At least, the folks at Slingshot --who still build all of their frames, including the cable-less one, in Grand Rapids, Michigan--weren't the first to think of building a bike that way.


Here is a drawing of one patented in 1904, nearly eight decades before the first Slingshot was made. 





Of course, the shape is very different.  I think I like it, though I wonder what it would be like to ride.  You see, the purpose of those cables is not suspension, as it is on the Slingshot, but to make the frame collapsible.


Depending on how it rode, I might consider such a bike if someone made it.  I imagine that some other people--especially those who travel a lot--might, too.  And I can imagine the military hankering for a bike like that, especially in areas inaccessible by other vehicles.

At The End Of The Day In The Middle Of Spring

What could have been better than this:  a late-afternoon ride on a perfect Spring day?

It's the sort of thing that can make you happy to, well, be.  Scrims of cloud swirled around the bright sun.  Breezes puffed petals from flowers that have bloomed for a few days and, at times, gusted and rippled the water around my ride.

My little adventure took me to the Coney Island pier.

From there, I pedaled along the ocean and New York Bay under the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge.

The only thing that wasn't almost perfect was this last photo.  But that was my fault.  I'm including it anyway because even though the saddle and part of the handlebars were cut off, Tosca still looks great, as she always does.

Spell Check Special Ed

Once upon a loong time ago, I thought about becoming a medievalist.  I always found that period of history interesting, but I realized that I would have to learn about seven or eight more languages (of which about two or three are spoken by living people),  If nothing else, I might have finally understood a concept I was taught, but never quite understood, when I was in Catholic school:  that eternal life.  I probably would have needed it, and more, to learn everything I needed to know in order to become a medievalist.

Anyway, I was reminded of that when I saw this sign:

Could the person who made it have been a medievalist, or tried to become one?  Theese puppyes cuytes I do lyke wel.  

Hmm...How would The Canterbury Tales have been different if Chaucer had Spell Check?

While pondering that question, I came across this:

Maybe the bike couldn't decide whether it was a Specialized or a Bottechia?  Or, perhaps, a Boteycheya?

Now I'm thinking of one o my riding buddies from my off-road riding days.  He didn't add a "C: to his Specialized.  Instead, he removed the "iz",    

He took the meaning of "Special Ed" quite literally and wore it as a badge of honor.  Or honorye?