In the middle of the journey of my life, I am--as always--a woman on a bike. Although I do not know where this road will lead, the way is not lost, for I have arrived here. And I am on my bicycle, again.
Friends, neighbors and co-workers who don't ride bikes refer to me--sometimes affectionately, other times derisively--as "The Bike Lady".
Of course, I don't mind the title at all. But they should know who the real Bike Lady is.
She's a single mother who lives with her two kids near Columbus, Ohio. Since 2008, she and her donors have been providing bikes, helmets and locks to the Holiday Wishes program of the Franklin County Children Services, and to other protective services that help abused, neglected and abandoned children.
Last year, Kate Koch expanded her reach beyond her home turf and into the Tri State (Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana) region, which encompasses Cincinnati and Louisville. Many of the kids who receive the bikes probably never imagined they'd get anything at all, let alone a two- or three-wheeler, for Christmas. Even with all of the electronic toys now available, getting a new bike at Christmas is still a dream for many boys and girls. And, were it not for Kate Koch, a.k.a. Bike Lady, it would be nothing more than a dream.
Her organization--called Bike Lady--accepts donations of bikes as well as money, which is used to buy bikes, helmets and locks at wholesale cost. Of course, Bike Lady--Ms. Koch as well as the organization--are at work all year on the project so that the Bike Lady can be Santa.
It's one of two pieces of Christmas music to which I could listen all year long. Handel's Messiah is the other.
You might have guessed the other: The Nutcracker. I know, it's a ballet, and one really should go to a theatre or concert hall for a performance. It is quite the spectacle. I realize, however, it's not always possible to attend a staging. Lucky for us, the music is very, very listenable.
That the music, by itself, is so thrilling is not a surprise when you realize who wrote it: Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Marius Pepita choreographed the original production of the ballet, which is based on a story written by E.T.A. Hoffmann and adapted by Alexandre Dumas, who is probably best known as the author of The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers. "That's all really nice," you might be thinking, "but why is she writing about it in this blog?"
Well, on this date in 1892, The Nutcracker premiered in the Imperial Marinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, Russia (not Florida!). Since then, it has been performed in ways that even Tchiakovsky himself, with his fertile imagination, probably never envisioned. Here is one of the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies: Can you believe it was actually played on bicycle parts? Cables and spokes were plucked for the stringed instrument sections, a disc brake hit simulates a triangle and percussion sections are really gears shifting, braking, shoes being clipped into pedals and other sounds familiar to those of us who ride.
San Francisco-based composer Flip Baber created this piece for Specialized, who wanted a Christmas music made only from bike sounds. It became the company's musical Christmas card in 2006.
You probably know what happened on this date in 1903: the Wright Brothers made the first controlled, powered and sustained heavier-than-air human flight in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.
It's often said, inaccurately, that the flight the Brothers made that day was the "first" flight. Actually, people had flown for centuries before that in gliders, hot-air balloons and other airborne vehicles. But those flights were wholly dependent on the speed and direction of the wind; they had no other power source and therefore could be kept up only for very limited amounts of time. Other would-be inventors tried to make airplanes or gliders with wings that flapped or could otherwise be made to propel or steer them. Needless to say, they proved unsuccessful.
The real innovations in the Wright Brothers' plane were that its wings were fixed, it was powered by something other than the wind and that controls (which the Brothers invented) regulated the course of the flight.
That control--known as the three-axis control-- may have been the most important innovation of all: It's still used on all fixed-wing aircraft, from crop dusters to the Boeing 787 Dreamliner and the Airbus A 380. It's the reason that every one of those planes can keep their equilibrium, a.k.a. balance, throughout a flight. If an aircraft can't be balanced, it can't fly.
Now...Think of another vehicle that can't move forward unless it's balanced.
Since you're reading this blog, the bicycle is probably the first such vehicle that came to mind. So, it should come as no surprise that the Brothers were bicycle mechanics and, later, manufacturers. They studied motion and balance using bicycles in their homemade wind tunnel. Knowing this shatters the common misperception that when Shimano and other bicycle parts manufacturers, as well as bicycle makers, were making "aerodynamic" equipment, they were following the lead of the aerospace industries. In fact, as we have seen, the Wright Brothers and other inventors were studying the aerodynamics of the bicycle eight decades before Shimano or other companies paid heed.
So...The next time you see an aerodynamic bike or part, you can thank (or blame) Orville and Wilbur Wright.
