Au Revoir, Paris :-(

Sigh...I mean cough, cough...Or do I mean burble, burble?

It's official:  President Donald Trump (I never imagined using that title and that name together!) has withdrawn the United States of America, the world's second largest polluter (and the largest, by far, per capita) from the 2015 Paris climate accord.

I would love to know what he knows that the leaders of 194 other countries don't know.  

Actually, I don't think it's a matter of what he knows or even who he knows--after all, even Rex Tillerson couldn't sway him.

If anything, his action seems to be a result of something that is a personality trait in children but is a personality disorder in a 70-year-old man.

There might be some scientific or clinical term for it.  If there is, I am not aware of it--after all, I am not a professional in mental health or a researcher in neurology or brain science.  So I will describe it as best I can.

Here goes:  He is possessed by a particular kind of petulance:  the kind that causes children to be resentful and throw tantrums when one of their siblings or peers gets anything he or she wants.  That child equates the other kid getting the toy or later bedtime or whatever with not getting it him or her self.  In other words, they think that whatever the other kid got came at his or her expense:  You gave it to him instead of me.

Well, substitute countries (except for Russia, Saudi Arabia or Israel) for kids, and you have Donald Trump's mentality.  If France or Japan or England or China or Germany or, God forbid, Mexico, should get what it wants, then it must mean that his beloved (as long as it profits him) good ol' USA must have been deprived of, or cheated, out of something.

I'm not sure that even Jeff Sessions thinks that way--or if he does, not nearly as pathologically as the guy who appointed him does.

Many in-the-know folks have pointed out that pulling out of the accord will one day (probably sooner than later) cost the US its leadership role in technology:  After all, so many of the forthcoming developments will, by necessity, have to do with reducing the causes of climate change.  This, of course, is bad for business, at least in the US:  All of the new technologies to prevent, combat or deal with climate change are going to come from China, India, Europe and possibly other places.

The Reign of Terror might have been bad for a fabricant de chapeaux, but it was good for folks who made scaffolding and steel blades.  Likewise, even though opportunities will be lost as a result of pulling out of the Paris accord, other entrepreneurs will benefit.  Among them will be the folks who manufacture things like this:

From The Human Cyclist

and this:

From Cyclelicio.us

Without Cotters, But Not Cotterless?

The French firm Specialites TA is probably best-known for its Pro Vis 5 crankset, often called the "Cyclotouriste" (though TA itself never used that name). Even if you've never ridden one, you've almost surely seen it:

It may well be the most versatile crank ever made:  The outer chainring, which bolts on to the inner bolt circle (the one closest to the center of the crank), were available in  sizes from 40 to 64 teeth.  The middle and inner rings, which bolted to the outer ring, were available in sizes from 26 to 50.  You could bolt one or two rings to the outer ring--or ride just the outer ring as a single.  So it may well be the only crankset that ever was truly designed to be used as a single, double or triple.  (On Vera, my Mercian mixte, I use a Shimano Deore MT-60 triple crank by substituting a BBG bashguard for the outer chainring.)  

Also, it may be the only crank that spawned as many imitations as the classic Campagnolo Record:  Sugino made a crankset that looked like a TA with a satin rather than a polished finish, and an early Shimano Deore crankset had the same bolt pattern, if a different look--as did the Stronglight 49D, the crank I'd probably choose if I wanted one with the 50.4 mm bolt circle and the option of single, double or triple.

Anyway, from the time it was introduced in 1963, the TA Pro 5 Vis became the crankset most commonly used on custom and other high-end touring bikes, particularly tandems, for about a quarter of a century.  Even early mountain bikes sported these cranks because they offered such a wide range of gearing--and, in spite of their appearance, were actually all but unbreakable.

Before Specialites TA introduced the Pro 5 Vis (five-bolt professional), the company produced chainrings used on cranks by other manufacturers.  Founder Georges Navet--who started out with ill-fated front-wheel drive experiments (hence the name:  TA stands for traction avant) wanted to produce a crankset to rival the best ones made by Campagnolo and Stronglight.  

Although Stronglight had been making cotterless cranks--fitted to the familiar square-taper  bottom bracket axle, which they originated--since the 1930s, some were still skeptical about the design.  Track racers were still using cottered cranks into the 1960s and some tourists still feared being stranded somewhere because the local garage or machine shop didn't have the right tools.  Other cyclists simply didn't want to change.

So, Monsieur Navet came up with a crankset that has the same arm and chainring bolt pattern we see on the Pro 5 Vis.  Unlike the Pro 5 Vis, this crankset--called the Criterium--was not cotterless.  So, in following the logic of cycle componentry from that time, you might say it was a "cottered" crank.  And you would be right--sort of.

If you didn't look closely, you might mistake them for cotterless cranks--which they are, sort of.

Specialites TA Criterium cranks with Spence Wolf-modified Campagnolo Nuovo Record rear derailleur, 1969.  From Velo Vecchio.

OK, you ask...What are they?  Well, the cranks were held to the axle by a bolt with an allen key head on one end, and a nut that threaded on to the other end.  That made the "cotters"--and the cranks easier to remove than those of traditional cottered cranks, and didn't require a special extractor, as cotterless cranks require.

An engineer once told me that the bolt holding the Criterium crank to its axle is technically not a "cotter", but rather a "pinch bolt."  The reason, he said, is that the traditional cotter has a wedge cut-out that is force-fit (usually by hammering) onto an axle with a flat spot.  The force--or stress, if you will--is what holds the crank to the axle.  On the other hand, the bolt in the Competition bore no such stress, and it merely holds the arm in place on the nearly pear-shaped axle end. 

The "not-cottered-but-not-cotterless" design had its advantages, in addition to not requiring special tools.  For one, the bolts were less prone to breaking or stripping than traditional cotter pins.  For another, it allowed 4mm of lateral movement in either direction on the axle.  That allowed the crank to be positioned for the best possible chainline.


One further advantage was that the design allowed the cranks to be made from aluminum.  A few companies made aluminum cottered cranks, but nearly all of them broke outright or ended up so gouged that the cotter pins could no longer hold them on to the bottom bracket axle.  But, because the Criterium's pinch bolt did not need hammer-blow forces to attach them, and because the shape of the axle and the way the bolts fitted into the crank provided an inherently more secure attachment, there was little to no danger of breaking or gouging the cranks.

What that meant was that the Criterium was, at the time it was introduced, the lightest crankset on the market.  It weighed even less than the alloy cranksets from Stronglight and Campagnolo because the Criterium's design allowed it to be made with skinny arms, like cottered cranks, and thinner around the axle interface.  it almost goes without saying that the Criterium was lighter, by far, than any other crankset because most--besides the aluminum cotterless sets made by Campy, Stronglight and a few other companies--were made of steel.

Cinelli Super Corsa with the drivetrain shown in the above photograph.  Also from Velo Vecchio.

The Criteriums were, like most Specialites TA products, meticulously made and beautifully finished.  Spence Wolf, the owner of Cupertino Bike Shop (one of the first in the US to devote itself to high-end bikes), equipped a few of the Cinellis and some of the Alex Singer bikes he sold with these cranks when the customer wanted wide-range gearing.  He would pair the Criteriums with a Campagnolo Record rear derailleur he modified with a long pulley cage he made for it.

But Specialites TA didn't make Criteriums for very long.  They introduced the Pro 5 Vis only a couple of years after the Criterium and, by that time, most dedicated, high-mileage cyclists--even track racers and tourists venturing into remote areas--were convinced that cotterless cranks were indeed a superior design.  To use a cliche, the rest is history.

Note:  I have seen only one of these cranks in person, on a bike I tuned up when I was working at the Highland Park Cyclery.  The bike had no markings on it, but the customer said it was "built in France".  I don't think it was a constructeur bike, but it looked fairly high-end.

Why We Need The Idaho Stop--And The Paris Accord

When I saw this image in my Google browser, I thought it had something to do with Donald Trump's intention to withdraw the United States from the Paris climate accord Obama, along with the leaders of 194 nations, signed two years ago.

The smoke is thick enough.  As I write, DT hasn't officially pulled away from the agreement, and some of his advisers--including Secretary of State Rex Tillerson--are going to make appeals in the hope of changing his mind.  I can almost picture him, or someone else, using that image as part of his "pitch".

Alas, it is the opening frame of a video shown on an Arizona television news program, and posted to the AZ Central website.  The story is terrible:  A commercial truck collided with a bicycle.  Now, that description is strange:  I normally think of a collision as occurring between two people or things that are more or less equal in their ability to withstand the crash.  That hardly brings to mind, at least for me, a truck hitting a bicycle.

According to the news report, two cyclists were involved, "but only one was struck by the vehicle, according to Gilbert police."

With reports like that, El Presidente has absolutely no reason to trouble himself with "fake news".  Too many stories one reads or hears in the "news" media are so incomplete, so lacking in facts or context, or simply so ineptly or deviously expressed, that the "fake news" seems reliable, or at least predictable, for no other reason that you can dismiss it outright.  Stories like the one I've just mentioned have to be filled in, teased out or in some other way worked through in order to make sense of them, let alone make an evaluation.

Oh--the woman hit by the truck was pronounced dead at the hospital and the other cyclist, also a woman, "required no medical attention."

OK, I  don't want to seem like I'm nitpicking, but I want to know how two cyclists were involved if one bicycle was struck.  

I will give the reporter(s) credit for this, though:  The report mentions that both cyclists  and the truck were traveling east on Ray Road in Gilbert, Arizona,  when the truck driver made a right turn onto Val Vista Drive.

I wouldn't be surprised if the cyclists stopped for a red light and proceeded when the signal turned green.  As I have mentioned in earlier posts, that is the easiest way to get struck by a motor vehicle, especially a truck or bus.  The "Idaho stop" is much safer:  When a cyclist proceeds against a red light through an intersection where there is no cross-traffic, he or she is much safer than he or she would be by following the signals, as the law requires in most places. 

 Going through an intersection when no cross-traffic is present allows the cyclist to get out ahead of traffic moving in the same direction--which makes it more likely that bus or truck driver behind you will see you.  

However the truck came to collide with the cyclist, the image at the beginning of this post is not good news--whether or not The Orange One quits the Paris climate accord.