The day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.
So are we warned in Paul's first letter to the Thessalonians.
A thief in the night is certainly cause for worry. After all, I'm sure I'm not the only cyclists who's lost his or her steed to one. I've also lost parts on bikes I've parked overnight in the path of some random crook.
As poignant as Paul's metaphor is, I have to wonder what he'd have said about another nocturnal perp.
The guy, who was caught on video, was walking around the Times Square area with a bag of feces. (Back in the day, shadowy characters prowled the area with bags full of other things, some of which they sold to passerby!) In the wee hours of one morning last week, he smeared the contents of his sack over the seats of Citibikes parked in the dock across the street from the Al Hirschfeld theatre, where "Kinky Boots" has been playing.
Worst of all, some people actually took the bikes without checking the seats.
This incident gives new meaning to the decals that have been applied to some of the city's rental bikes:
When I heard about the perp, who hasn't been caught, I imagined a(n) (over)zealous police officer stopping him and ordering him to open the contents of his bag!
These days, shift levers are curved pieces of metal with cylinders at one end. The shapes vary somewhat, and the ones attached to brake levers (e.g., Campagnolo Ergo and Shimano STI) are longer. But, for the most part, they don't call attention to themselves.
Probably the most elegant shifters ever made were the "teardrop" retrofriction levers Simplex made during the 1970's and '80's:
Next in my beauty contest are the Superbe Pro levers SunTour produced during the 1980's"
Some might say they look even better with the gum-rubber hoods SunTour offered for a time:
I'd probably want those hoods if I were going to install the levers on Vera, my British Racing Green Miss Mercian.
Campagnolo Record levers of that era also had a fairly understated design:
unless some bike maker decided to re-fashion them:
Now, some would argue that an Olmo of that era simply wouldn't be an Olmo without those shifters. I wouldn't disagree, though I've never owned an Olmo.
I've never owned a Schwinn Sting-Ray, either. That's probably a good thing, considering the shifter that came with it:
I can't help but to wonder whether it has something to do with the decline in birth rates. Supposedly, the shifter "clicked" or "indexed". It's hard to imagine how that was accomplished with the derailleur that came with the bike: a Schwinn-branded ("Schwinn Approved") Huret Allvit.
In a way, though, I can understand why that shifter was used on Sting-Rays: the bike's designer was invoking the spirit (or something) of "muscle cars" from that time. I guess some kid could push or pull that lever and imagine himself on the track at Daytona or something.
But there's no such excuse for this lever, which was made for adult bikes:
If you think somebody cannibalized a Simplex "Prestige" derailleur and glued parts of it to the tops of these lever, you'd be right--sort of. After all, these levers were made by Simplex around the same time they were making all-plastic derailleurs.
And then there are these levers that dare not speak their name:
The "333" on the sticker means that Shimano made them, probably during the 1960's or early 1970's. SunTour's components were sub-branded "888". How these companies came up with those numerical designations, I don't know.
One way you can tell it's from that period is the red adjuster knobs and trim. Both Shimano and SunTour--as well as a couple of other less well-known Japanese manufacturers--made derailleurs and other components with red trim or even small parts. That practice seems to have lasted only a few years, and no one seems to know what inspired it. The "rising sun" of the Japanese flag, perhaps.
I wonder whether it will work with Campagnolo cassettes. ;-)
I promised myself not to make every other post about chainrings with elegant or unusual designs. And I'm keeping my promise: I've written three other posts since the one about the Liberia chainring.
So I don't feel guilty about writing another post about a sprocket, especially this one:
Its maker, Bespoke Chainrings of Australia, is producing this ring based on the design of one made by French manufacturer Solida around 1910.
If you bought an entry- (or even mid-) level Peugeot, Motobecane, Gitane or other French cycle during the '70's Bike Boom, there's a good chance it had a Solida cottered crankset. Some later bikes came with low-priced Solida melt-forged cotterless cranksets; apparently, Solida never made a high-quality forged cotterless crankset. However, at the time the original "cat" chainring was produced, Solida had a reputation that reflected its name: They were solid and sturdy, if not as light or refined as their counterparts from makers like Stronglight, Specialites TA or even Zeus or Nervar.
That chainring certainly is charming and a temptation. For now, Bespoke is making it only to fit cranksets with the 50.4mm bolt circle diameter. Those cranks include the Specialites TA Pro-5-Vis (a.k.a. Cyclo Touriste) and Stronglight 49D, as well as other vintage models from Sugino and Nervar--and, of course, modern near-replicas from Velo Orange.
However, I'm not about to spring for another crankset. Bespoke plans to make chainrings for cranks with other bolt patterns, including 110 and 130 mm. If they can replicate the cat pattern in 110, I'd go for it!
They also make "drillium" chainrings that mimic the ones of the '70's and early '80's and replacement dust caps for vintage Stronglight cranksets. The rings are made to be used with multiple as well as single gears.
