Trying To Shed Some Light

Early the other morning, Daylight Savings Time ended.  That meant moving the clocks back an hour, which means that it gets dark an hour earlier.  Of course, that means day begins an hour earlier, for now.  But within a few weeks, we'll "lose" that hour, as well as an equal amount of time at the end of the afternoon, as the days grow shorter overall.

That means, among other things, that most of my rides home from work will be done in the dark.  I suspect the same is true for other commuters.  And some of us will be doing at least some part of our "fun" rides in the dark, whereas we might have been doing them in daylight a couple of weeks ago.

Many of us will therefore be using our lights more than we had been--or using them, period, after months of not using them at all.   I fall into the former category:  I don't avoid night riding; in fact, there are times I enjoy a ride begun after sunset.  However, during the weeks and months of long days, I do my nocturnal rides mostly by choice; some of the riding I'll do in the dark for the next few months will be out of necessity.

Thus, I and other riders will be making more use of our bike lights. 

It used to be that here in New York--and, I suspect, in other American cities--one rarely saw a cyclist with a high-end lighting system.  The prevailing wisdom has always said that bike lights in the city are "for being seen, not for being seen by".  Most city streets are well-lit enough that you don't need a bright headlight to see potholes or other road hazards, not to mention the traffic and turns ahead. If anything, I think that for city riding, a headlight needs to offer more side than front visibility so that drivers approaching an intersection without a signal can more readily see a cyclist approaching.  Also, I think good side visibility is useful in very tight intersections where, even if the cyclist stops well short of the crosswalk or the "stop" line, a driver could turn into the cyclist's path--or the cyclist him or her self--if he or she is not seen.

Schmidt hub generator (for disc brakes)

If anything, it always seemed (at least to me) more important to have a good tail light, preferably a good, bright "blinky".  That is assuming, of course, that you are a nice, law-abiding cyclist (which you are--right?) who always rides in the direction of the traffic.

These days, though, I'm seeing more cyclists with more sophisticated (and expensive) lights than the removable "blinkies" I use.  Some are riding with hub generators; others with rechargeable battery packs carried in water bottle cages in other attachments.  And I have seen some very high-tech looking lights mounted on handlebars, brake bolts and fenders.

Planet Bike Super Flash

Such systems no doubt have their advantages.  But, for the time being, I still prefer the Planet Bike Super Flash  I've been using on the rear and PB's Beamer for the front.  I think I've spent more on batteries for them than I spent on the lights themselves--and it's not because the lights "eat" the batteries:  the lights simply hold up well.

Planet Bike Beamer

I think I'm reluctant to buy anything more complex or costly because, well, what I have seems to have worked for me (for seven years) and because I often park where theft is a concern.  Once, when I parked my Bontrager mountain bike, someone cut the White Industries hubs out of my wheels; I worry that someone might do the same to a generator front hub if I were to use it. 

"Bottle" generator

Bottom-bracket mounted generator

Also, even though I've heard that the all of those new generators and super-lights are better than what was available before, I'm skeptical.  Perhaps it's because when I came of age (as a cyclist, anyway), most of the bike lights available were, simply, junk.  "Bottle" generators were inefficient, chewed up tires and made a lot of noise ; generators that mounted on bottom brackets and ran off tire treads also ate up tires, didn't work on treads that were too knobby or too smooth, and simply skidded over tire treads if they were covered with rain or snow.  Battery lights were heavy, clunky, mounted on flimsy brackets and put out less light than the ones powered by generators.  Really, the best light--as Tom Cuthbertson noted in Anybody's Bike Book--was the "armband" flashlight made by Wonder and a few other companies.  I used to wear one on my left leg, just below my knee, on the theory that the light bobbing up and down would signal, to motorists, that a cyclist was ahead.

Wonder "armband" light

Maybe one day, if I ever decide to build a dedicated tourer or randonneuse, I'll build a wheel around a Schmidt hub dynamo or something like it.  But as long as I have to park on city streets, I think I'm going to stick to relatively inexpensive removable lights.

How I Learned That Size Matters

Youth is a time of transgressions.  Maturity is about discretion.  And one's, shall we say, august years are right for confessions.

I am going to confess something to you now.  No, I am not going to tell you about some crime I committed--though some might argue that the other party involved in this story is guilty of at least a misdemeanor--at least by the laws of civilized society, whatever that is..

Steve's comment to the post I wrote a few days ago moved me to disclose my past misdeed.  No, I am not talking about a sexual indiscretion (though I committed, uh, one, or maybe two or three, in my day).   I am talking about the sort of mistake that I prevented more than a few customers from making when I was working in bike shops.

You see, I bought a bike that was too big for me.  Way too big, in fact.  Now, I want to emphasize that I bought the bike and paid for it with some of the very first money I earned.  Previously, I had one other bike that was too big for me when I got it.  But at least my well-meaning, if misguided, grandfather gave it to me with the idea that I would "grow into it."  He didn't live to see me ride it.

On the other hand, I lived through a couple of periods of development in my life while riding the too-big bike I bought.   I was beating other kids in impromptu races and, at the age I was, I could ride bikes and wear clothes that didn't fit, and eat just about anything, and be none the worse (or so it seemed) or wiser for it.

The bike in question was the Schwinn Continental I mentioned in previous posts. In the peak months of the bike boom, dealers of popular brands like Schwinn, Peugeot and Raleigh were taking orders for basic ten-speed bikes months in advance.  In all of my local shops, bikes from those brands--and others--sold out before they even left the factories.  It wasn't unusual for every ten-speed in a dealer's stock, or that a dealer had on order, to be reserved for someone.  When I was ready to buy my Continental, there was an five-month waiting list--until Michael's Bicycle Co, on Route 35 in Hazlet, NJ, got a shipment in earlier than expected.  The bikes sold out almost immediately--except for one.  "As long as you don't mind the color," the shop's owner said, a bit condescendingly.



This Schwinn Sports Tourer, from the same era as my Continental, has a 26 inch frame.




So, instead of living through five months--an eternity when you haven't yet turned fourteen--I only had to sit tight for six weeks--the time it would take for the shop to assemble the bikes that had been ordered first--for my 26-inch (66 cm) frame.

Mind you, all of the road racing and touring frames I've had since were in the 54 to 57 cm (21.25-22.5 in) range.  A 66cm/26 inch frame is commonly recommended  for a rider with a 97cm/38 inch inseam; such a rider is likely to be anywhere from 194 to 201 cm (6'4"-6'7") tall.  In contrast, at the time I bought the bike, I was 173 cm (5'8") tall and had a 79 cm/31 in inseam.  (Now I am 178 cm/5'10" tall with am 81 cm/32 in inseam.)

No one  in the shop made any effort to convince me I shouldn't buy the 26-inch frame.  Perhaps they thought that, even at the peak of the '70's Bike Boom, the shop might find itself "stuck" with such an odd-sized bike.  They needn't have worried:  Even after the Boom died down a bit, a couple of years later, I sold the bike for as much as I paid for it.  And I don't think it fit the person who bought it any better than it fit me!

Schizophrenic Measurment Systems

On a Montreal street, I saw a sign like this:

In French, “foot” is “pied”.  Apparently, the same translation is made when “foot” refers to the unit of measure rather than the bodily appendage. 

Such a sign is not remarkable until you realize that Quebec, like the rest of Canada and the world, uses the metric system.  Thus, that speed limit sign that reads “50”—in kilometers per hour, of course-- translates into a speed limit of about 30 miles per hour. Likewise, those one-pound packages of pasta, chips or other food become 500 kilograms (about 17.5 ounces, or one pound and 1.5 ounces) and gasoline, beer and milk are sold by the liter rather than the gallon, quart or pint.

That “pied carre” sign is oddly reflective of the standards (if they might be called that) in bicycle measurements.  Until the 1980s, British bikes, as well as most Japanese and high-quality American bikes, used British standard measurements for everything from bottom bracket threads to frame sizes.  Often, the metric equivalents were provided along with their Imperial counterparts.  So, for example, a one-inch steerer tube would also be marked as 25.4 mm.

The other main standards of bicycle measurements were Italian, which is still (mostly) in use and French, which was found on most continental European bikes not make in Italy.  Both standards were metric, although some of the Italian measurements (such as bottom bracket and steerer tube sizes) were metric “translations”, if you will, from Imperial sizes.  I can find no explanation of why they were so; I am guessing that they were leftovers from the days when Italian racers, like their counterparts in other European countries, were using BSA components.

Only the French system of threading and measurement was completely metric. The handlebar stem quill (the part that inserts into the fork) diameter was 22.0 mm; the British and Italians used 22.2 mm, which is 7/8”. Most American bikes and some Japanese bikes exported the US took 5/6” diameter, which the Japanese usually listed as .833” and is today known as 21.1 mm.  My Schwinn LeTour, made by Panasonic in Japan, uses that size. So did my old Nishiki International.

At one time, it was commonly believed that if the worldwide bicycle industry were to adopt a single set of standards, it would be the French system, as it was the most consistent and because almost every country besides the US was using the metric system for everything.  But, because of the influence the American bicycle market came to exert over that of the rest of the world, the ISO standards became a veritable mishmash of metric and inch measurements.  Bottom brackets are 1.37 (or 1-3/8) inches by 24 threads per inch and headsets are 1 or 1-1/8 inches.  (A few tandems and early downhill mountain bikes are 1-1/4.)  On the other hand, everything from seat post diameters to axle lengths are expressed in millimeters.

Perhaps the most bizarre aspect of bicycle measurements comes in frame sizing.  British and American frames-- even customs and Paramounts—and Japanese bikes made for export up to 1980 or so were built with inch sizing.  So, my International was 23 inches; the next size down was 21 and the next-largest size was 25.  My Romic and first Trek were 22  inches; my subsequent road bikes had 55 or 56 cm frames.

Now almost all road bikes have frames measured in centimeters.  However, most mountain bike frames are, and have been, marketed (at least in the US) with inch measurements.  So, while my Bontrager Race Lite had an 18-inch frame, the Land Shark road bike I would get a few months later was 55cm.

A certain cartoon exhorted its viewers to “BlameCanada!”  Hmm…Could our neighbors to the north be the reason behind our schizophrenic system of measurements?  Then again, “pied square” I saw was the only instance of Imperial measurements I saw in Montreal. (You won’t find it in Paris, or anywhere else in Europe.)  And it was used only in reference to real estate.  I wonder why that is.