A Late Summer Ride In November: No Sweat!

Today was a very strange day, weather-wise.  When I got out of bed at 7:30 am, it was already 20C (68F).  The normal afternoon high temperature  at this time of year is around 15C (60F).  By mid-afternoon, we had a high of 25C (77F).

What made it all even stranger is that in the morning, the rain that had fallen in the wee hours dripped and slicked all over everything.  Most of the day remained overcast, although there was no real threat of rain.  The sun peeked out briefly about three and a half hours into my ride, but it pulled the blanket of clouds across its face almost as soon as I saw it. I have often ridden, happily, in such conditions in coastal areas in the US and Europe.  

The sun peeked out briefly about three and a half hours into my ride, but it pulled the blanket of clouds across its face almost as soon as I saw it.  The combination of warmth--more typical of early or mid September--and cloud cover could have made for very sticky conditions.  However, even on a 125 km (75 mile), about a third of which consisted of sequences of climbs with very little flat or straight stretches between them, I wasn't sweating--or drinking water--very much.  And I didn't feel tired, in the middle, late in the ride, or in the end.

Perhaps I was energized by the light I saw:  the trees and bushes radiated their autumnal colors, just past their peak in upper Westchester County, against a gray sky particular to November, I feel:  aging, like the earth beneath it, and  rather melancholy, but not oppressive. 

Now that I think of it, that might have been the reason why I sweated so little, in spite of the climbing and heat:  When the late summer sky is shrouded with thick cumulus clouds on a late summer day, you can still feel the intensity of the sun, and of the heat that almost everything seems to absorb after several weeks of summer. But, even if the sun had shown itself more today, I don't think it would have drained me, and my waterbottle:  It would have been less intense, and it would not have been aided by the the ground, streets and other things that absorb its heat in the "dog days".

Of course, I might have just felt really, really good to be on Arielle, my Mercian Audax, again after riding to and from work all week on my LeTour.  

How Rattraps Became Beartraps---In 1899

Last week, I wrote about "rattrap" pedals.  They were the kind of pedals that came on most '70's Bike Boom-era ten-speeds, and have continued to enjoy popularity with cyclo-tourists, motocross riders and commuters. The great advantages of them are that they can be used with or without toeclips, and ridden on either side (unlike most quill and road clipless pedals, which must be flipped to the right side).  As I mentioned, two of the most popular models of rat-traps are the Lyotard 460 (which hasn't been made in at least two decades) and the MKS Sylvan.

Road "quill" pedals, which were all but displaced by the advent of easy-to-use clipless pedals from Look and Time, would sometimes have the "sawteeth" on the side of the pedal on which the cyclist pedaled.  The other side was usually cut away, and thus unrideable.  They were so made to improve cornering clearance, a definite concern for criterium and track riders.

(Track pedals usually had cages like those of road "quill" pedals, without the "quill".)

Famous examples of road quill pedals are the Campagnolo Record and its many imitators, and Lyotard 45. 

Double-sided quill pedals were all but nonexistent until around 1980.  At that time, the cults of BMX and mountain biking were spreading beyond their respective Southern and Northern California cradles.  That was also about the time equipment was being developed specifically for those new disciplines.



SunTour BMX pedals, circa 1980

Possibly the nicest double-sided quill came from  SunTour.  They had the same bearings, axles and bodies as SunTour's wonderful track and road pedals, which were made by MKS.  (The "Supreme" and "Nuevo" pedals, currently made by MKS, are virtual clones of the pedals made for SunTour.)  Some of the early mountain bikes came with those pedals; "bear trap" pedals, developed soon after, were essentially BMX pedals with curved plates.

SunTour "bear trap" pedals, circa 1985

When double-sided quill pedals first appeared on the market, many of us wondered why no one had ever thought to make them earlier.  Well, it turns out that someone had:

In 1899, the Bay State Stamping Company of Worcester, Massachusetts introduced the Bennet pedal.  Don't you just love the clover cutouts in the cages?

I tried to find out how long these pedals were produced.  They were introduced just as the first American Bike Boom was about to dissipate.  So, I suspect they weren't made for very long, and the design--like many others from that period--was forgotten.

Aside from the cage shape, the Bennet had a couple of other interesting features.  One is a dust cap that springs into the body and is held by latches. In contrast, most other dust caps are either screwed on or pressed in and often fall off, especially when the bike is ridden over rough roads or trails.   The other innovation was a bearing cone that was keyed rather than threaded to the axle, and held in place with a set screw.  According to the manufacturer, this system allowed for one-tool adjustments.  It also eliminated the problem of locknuts that came loose and allowed the cone to screw up and crush the bearings.

I would love to know how well those features worked. If they were effective, the Bennet was certainly well ahead of its time.  Even if they weren't, the Bennet is interesting as a kind of proto-BMX or -mountain bike pedal.

An Umbrella On The Trail

There are films I see for their artistry or historic or cultural significance.  Then there are movies that, I admit, I watch solely as entertainment, as harmless diversions. 

Then there are cinematic works that I simply must look at again and again because, really, there's nothing else like them and they defy categorization.  Among them are Vittoria de Sica's The Bicycle Thief and The Garden of the Finzi-Continis, Fracois Truffaut's The 400 Blows and Jacques Demy's The Umbrellas of Cherbourg.

That last one is perhaps the most uncategorizable of all.  If someone had told me, beforehand, that all of its dialogue is sung, I probably never would have looked at it, as I am not a fan of musicals.  However, it would never work if someone tried to cast it as a musical, whether on film or stage.  Hey, I think that even translating it into English would be almost criminal.

Also, the film is shot in a way that doesn't remind me of any other.  It's been compared to an Impressionist or Pointillist painting--which, in some ways, is a valid comparison.  It often uses color and form in ways similar to those of Auguste Renoir or Georges Seurat. It's actually worth seeing for that reason alone:  It's purely and simply beautiful to look at.  (So, for that matter, are Catherine Deneuve and Nino Castelnuova.)  It reminds me of why someone described melancholy as "beautiful sadness".

I got to thinking about  Umbrellas and the painters I've mentioned after coming across this image: