Whether You Autumn Or Fall, Please Don't Take A Header!

A few posts ago, I made a lame pun to explain why I prefer "autumn" to "fall", especially when it comes to cycling.

No one has ever autumned off his or her bike.  On the other hand, just about every cyclist has taken a fall.  

I have taken a few in my time.  None resulted in my missing any significant amount of time from riding. Ironically, the only injuries that kept me off my bike for more than a few days were not cycling-related.  Ditto for the one other event that kept me out of the saddle:  my surgery.

Of the falls I have taken, two resulted in my head making any contact with whatever I was riding, and fell, on.  

The first came when I was pedaling from Park Slope, where I lived at the time, to a school in the Bronx where I'd been conducting poetry workshops as an artist-in residence. I had just spun my way across the Greenpoint Avenue  Bridge and veered left onto Van Dam Street, in an industrial area of Long Island City, Queens.  About two blocks into Queens, a truck driver flung his door open, and into my side--causing the one and only somersault I've ever done on my bike.  Some would argue it wasn't a true somersault, as I didn't push my hands out in time to keep me from rolling on my head.

The second time, I was riding my mountain bike in Forest Park.  I was pedaling at  high-octane pace and was in my own little zone, not paying attention to my surroundings.

Well, in my path was a mound the BMXers used to flip themselves in the air.  I rode up on it--in the wrong direction, on the nearly-vertical side.  

Well, I flipped over. But I didn't flip back. Instead of landing on my wheels, as any of the 14-year-old kids would have, I came to earth upside down.

Those 14-year-olds rushed to my side.  "We really thought you were gonna die!", one of them chimed after helping me up. I never lost consciousness, but when I got up, I noticed that my helmet had broken.  In two.

OK.  So now you probably have figured out my position on helmets.  Yes, I wear them and encourage others to do likewise.  

Even though I had a helmet protecting me in each of those accidents, I count the lucky stars I didn't see when I feel that I have never taken a "header".  I hope you haven't either.

A line drawing of the world's first "header".  From Roads Were Not Built For Cars.

It seems that in the days of high-wheeled bicycles (a.k.a. "penny farthings"), "headers" were a fairly common occurrence. And, since cyclists in those days commonly rode front wheels of 60 inches (about 1.75 meters) or more, the impact from such a fall must have been even greater.  

Some would use the fact that people survived such falls as an argument against helmet-wearing.  That's a valid argument, as far as it goes.  However, there is also this to consider:  In those days, no one seemed to know much about concussions, let alone their long-term effects.

So...Yes, I will continue to wear a helmet as I cycle in autumn--and be grateful I haven't taken a "header".  At least not yet.

Mature? Not Yet: Disc Brakes On Bicycles

In the mid-1970s, my high school acquired its first computer.  The father of one of my classmates, who worked in a nearby military base, in one of those jobs he couldn’t talk about, negotiated the purchase.  For $6000, my alma mater got a used machine, about half the size of a classroom—and with about half of the capacity of devices kids carry in their backpacks nowadays.

When I graduated the following year, one of my relatives gave me a new Texas Instruments Model 101 digital wristwatch.  With its red LED display and sleek goldtone band, it seemed like the epitome of elegance and slick high-tech, all rolled up into one.  No one else I knew had such a timepiece:  For the one and only time in my high-school years, I was the coolest kid in the class.  At least, that’s how I felt.

Neither the computer nor my watch made it past my sophomore year of college.  The big box (“It’s just an oversized, overpriced file cabinet!” one parent exclaimed upon learning what it cost) assigned classes like “Sports Heroes” to honors students who signed up for the Shakespeare seminar.  (I know.  I was one of those students.) And that was the least of the computer’s malfunctions. Worst of all, nobody seemed to know how to fix them.

And nobody seemed to know how to fix my watch.  One shop claimed that displays of numbers that had nothing to do with the time of day were a result of “water damage” –only moments after I took that watch out of its box.  (I have since learned that technicians and reps say “water damage” when your electronic device is acting up or not working and  they can’t figure out why.)

Less than a decade after I graduated high school, the Yankees were giving away digital watches (with the team’s logo, of course) as promotional items on Fan Appreciation Day. My graduation gift, in contrast, sold for more (in non-inflation adjusted dollars) than most smartphones or laptops cost today.  And the watches the Yankees gave away were more reliable (water resistant to 100 meters, and shock resistant) than the one I got on Graduation Day.   

I was thinking about the computer and watch as I read an article in the most recent Bicycle Quarterly.

In “Are Disc Brakes Mature Technology? “, Jan Heine recounts his and other BQ editors’ experiences with both mechanical and hydraulic disc brakes on road, mountain and city bikes.  While the brakes on one bike offered the power and modulation of good caliper brakes, their performance was hampered by their incompatibility with the levers that came on the bike.  The brakes on the other bike were not as good as road calipers and, worse, there were a couple of potentially serious failures. 

Heine seems to think that disc brakes have potential, but there are issues that need to be worked out.  Braking power is still determined mainly by the size of the disc.  A larger disc is heavier and could necessitate larger forks—both of which are anathema to racers and other performance-oriented cyclists.  More important, though, is that while larger discs offer more power, they seem to offer less modulation.  From what Heine and others say, it seems that larger rotors give the brakes the “all or nothing” feel that V-brakes (at least the ones I’ve used) always seem to have.

Avid BB7 disc brake on Look X85 cyclo-cross bike

The flip-side is, of course, that smaller rotors offer less power.  And, if there isn’t enough power, whatever modulation the brakes offer is all but irrelevant.

Another problem, as Heine points out, is that on disc brakes, the pad grabs the disc on the rear.  On a front fork, that means the wheel is pulled away from the dropout (or fork end).  When you’re barreling down a hill—or sluicing through traffic—few things are more dangerous than a front wheel popping out of a fork. 

Most modern quick release levers, Heine says, aren’t secure enough for bikes with powerful disc brakes.   Through-axles, like the ones found on downhill bikes, might be a solution.  But even with them, the fork blades on most non-suspension (telescoping) forks wouldn’t be stiff enough to counter the forces the brakes would put on them.  So, Heine says, a dedicated suspension fork might be the best kind to use with disc brakes.

 (In contrast, rim brakes pull the wheel slightly upward, into the dropout.  And their forces are concentrated in or near the stiffest and strongest part of the fork:  the crown.  That is the reason why properly-installed wheels don’t fall out of forks equipped with rim brakes or no brakes.)

I myself don’t plan to start using disc brakes any time soon:  I have never had trouble getting the braking power and modulation I need from rim brakes, as long as I use good cables and pads and keep everything properly adjusted.  Plus, there is something to be said for the simplicity, not to mention the lighter weight, of such brakes.  So, I hope that disc brakes don’t become the only option on new bikes or that component manufacturers stop making rim brakes and parts.

On the other hand, I am not against some bikes coming with disc brakes, or for such brakes to be offered on bikes where they might make sense.  Most of all, I hope they don’t become a de facto standard—or the only option—before they are a “mature” technology.  At least, when my digital watch failed, I still had the mechanical watch another relative gave me for a birthday—my 12^th or 13^th, if I remember correctly.  And plenty of others were available. 

Joaquin Is Going That Way...

Everybody’s been storm-watching for the past 24 hours or so.  They all remember Sandy and, from what the weather reports say, Joaquin is even more powerful.  But the wind and rain that’ve battered us today aren’t his fault:  A Nor’easter has worked its way along this part of the coast.

Joaquin, as of today...we hope!

Sandy became a “superstorm” when  merged with a Nor’easter before making landfall near Atlantic City, New Jersey.  It doesn’t seem that Joaquin will do anything like that:  He seems content remaining out to sea, well to the east of Montauk Point.  Still, he could gift our Nor’easter with even more wind and water than it might have whipped against, and dropped on, us:  As meteorologists tell us, the course of a hurricane is one of the most difficult things to predict.

There seems to be an interesting divide in how much concern people who lived through Sandy’s ravages are expressing about the prospect of another Nor’easter, hurricane or—superstorm?! From what my own admittedly unscientific observations, the folks on the South Shores of Staten Island and Brooklyn, and in the Rockaways, are bracing themselves.  Whether or not they’re making actual preparations, they are taking the reports and warnings seriously—more seriously, some admit, than they did when Sandy approached. 

On the other hand, residents of Long Beach and other communities on the South Shore of Nassau County—which, arguably, incurred even more damage than Brooklyn and at least as much as the Rockaways—seem more blasé.  As one man said, “I lost everything then.  I’m not worried now.”  But people in other devastated areas also “lost everything”.  In fact, in the Breezy Point area of the Rockaway Peninsula, houses that weren’t blown apart or washed away burned to the ground when water wreaked havoc with the electrical wires.  I recall seeing people who were able to retrieve only family photo albums before fleeing, or upon returning.

As for me:  I am watching the storms.  Aside from not having classes for a week, I wasn’t affected much by Sandy.  I want to make sure I can say the same thing about Joaquin or the Nor’easter.

Then again…Joaquin couldn’t possibly affect us as much as Sandy did.  After all, Joaquin is a male name, while both males and females are named Sandy.  Hell hath no fury like that of both genders, combined!