Ah, yes, the 1980s. What was not to love? (Well, except that Reagan and Bush pere were President.) "Power suits" with padded shoulders. Ghostbusters. (The best English-language translation of Caesar's declaration of victory is reason alone to see the movie!) Televangelists. Miami Vice. Neon-colored ski wear. Trashdance, I mean, Flashdance. Jolt cola.
And in the world of cycling we had...fade paint jobs. And the Campagnolo Stinkro system.
And Shimano took over the world.
As for music...The decade gave us the worst song in the history of rock'n'roll--and the best old-school rap.
Let me tell ya, tho'---The Sugar Hill gang and The Beastie Boys had nothing on these kids!
One thing you learn (sometimes, anyway) as you get older is to accept what you are and work with it--or let it work for you.
For a long time, I tried to suppress my inner magpie. So, yes, I'll admit it: I like pretty, shiny things, especially if I can recognize my own reflection in them. Then again, given what I've just said, a pretty, shiny thing is something that will, by definition, allow me to recognize my own reflection. And vice-versa.
OK, enough of these extremely amateurish philosophical ramblings. I accept that I like looking at pretty,shiny things and it leads me to images like this:
Instead of turning my nose up at this two-wheeled contraption (which is, however you define it, a bicycle), as I might have done not so long ago, I allowed myself to be drawn in by the pretty, shiny lights. It led me to blog, which also contains this image:
That blog, is the most important find of all: Chicago Bicycle Advocate. I looked at a few posts on either side of the ones containing those photos. The stories in them are all-too-familiar to urban cyclists: getting doored (been there, done that!), a police officer who struck a cyclist and lied about it and a driver who darted in front of a cyclist and tried to blame the cyclist for the ensuing crash. But there are also inspiring stories, like that of the 13-year-old girl who came up with an idea for a signal system after seeing a man "doored" while she rode with her mother.
In reading those posts, and others, I was impressed by the level of analysis and clarity in discussions of the issues involved with accidents and other incidents involving cyclists. I am going to subscribe to it, even though I live nowhere near Chicago.
Hooda thunk it: Embracing my inner magpie has enhanced my understanding of the legal issues around cycling!
We've all heard the declaration, "I know it when I see it". Most of us have probably used it, or some expression that means more or less the same thing. Nobody knows who first uttered it, but it's most often attributed to Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart in an obscenity case. He admitted he couldn't define pornography, but he knew it when he saw it. I'd love to know how he, or anyone else knows!;-)
(By the way: He decided that the work in question wasn't pornography.)
I think most people would respond in the same way as Justice Stewart if asked to define a "bicycle". Just about everybody agrees that it has two wheels. (That, after all, is the literal definition of the word.) I think most would also say that it has pedals, or is powered by human energy in some way or another.
Very few people, I believe, would define anything with a motor on it as a bicycle. Even fewer, I think, would say that a bicycle is powered by a rocket.
That makes the record held by Francois Gissy questionable, to say the least. His 263KPH (163MPH) ride is listed as the land speed record for a bicycle. At least one rider has reached 260 KPH with his own feet: He was paced by a racing car, but pedaled to his record nonetheless.
