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.
If you can't get to the Musee Picasso, don't worry: You can still see the "bull's head" he made from an old bicycle saddle and a pair of handlebars. I've included a picture of it in a few of my posts. Somehow I don't think this was his inspiration. At least, I hope it wasn't:
Yesterday, I indulged in a bit of "What If?"cycling history. If Greg LeMond hadn't won the 1986 Tour, would Americans be aware of bike racing at all? If he hadn't finished--and won--the 1989 Tour in such dramatic fashion, would many Americans care? And, if Lance hadn't raced from 1999 to 2005, would any cyclist have become a celebrity in the US? Now, I'm going to engage in a bit of "What If?" about the bicycle itself. What if the "safety" bicycle--one with two wheels of equal (or nearly equal) size, i.e., what most of us ride today--hadn't been invented? What if we were still riding "penny farthings": bikes with on which the pedals and cranks are affixed to the axle of the front wheel, which is usually much bigger than the rear? Well, for one thing, to obtain a gear anything like what I ride normally, I would need a front wheel that's as tall--or even a bit taller--than I am! So would most cyclists, I believe. Since I have never ridden a "penny farthing", I can only imagine how it feels. My guess is that it's something like riding a fixed-gear bike that's a few sizes too large. Riding a fixie on a frame that's a couple of centimeters too high is difficult enough; I don't want to think about what it would be like on a bike that's about twice as high as what I ride! I won't even try to conceive of what it would be like to ride such a bike with a motor. Apparently, though, someone has thought about it.
The designers of Ding3000, a German design studio, worked with BASF to come up with what riders in the Tour, Giro and Vuelta might be riding if someone hadn't realized that a bike with two wheels the same size and a gear-and-chain drive is safer and more efficient than a bike with a very tall front wheel. You see, this bike not only has a motor in it (which makes the latest form of "doping" possible), it is made of "thermoplastic polyurethane". Now, we all know that the carbon fiber tubes used in bike frames are woven strands bound together with a resin (plastic). So, in terms of technology, the modern penny-farthing would seem to be a cousin-in-an-alternative universe to the bikes ridden in today's races. But you could take this modern relic on your daily commute: It is equipped with puncture-proof tires and integrated LED lighting. And, I guess that sitting up so high on the wheel would make you visible to drivers! What would it be like to see throngs of cyclists pedaling penny-farthings to work every day, or taking trips to parks and beaches? Or--what if all of those guys (nearly all are male) who deliver pizzas and Chinese food were to trade their e-bikes or motorized bikes for the Ding3000-BASF concoction?
When it was still interesting and relevant, Saturday Night Live did a feature called "What If History?" Now, I'm going to engage in a bit of speculation "what might have been," at least as it relates to cycling. What if Bernard Hinault had won the 1986 Tour de France? What if Greg LeMond hadn't ridden that amazing final time trial in the 1989 Tour and Laurent Fignon had won instead? Finally, what if Lance hadn't ridden in the Tours of 1999-2005? In the humble opinion of this blogger who has much to be humble about (!), cycling would never have enjoyed even those brief spurts of popularity it had in the US. And your blogger who has so much to be humble about would be even more of a geek than she is. I am thinking about that now in light of some coverage I found on the Colorado Classic. It's a four-day race in the Centennial State, and today is the second day of this year's edition.
The Denver Post's coverage very clearly showed why interest in racing in the US has been so sporadic, at best. The one article today's edition devoted to the race focused on an ultimately meaningless breakaway made by Taylor Phinney. If that name sounds familiar, it's because he is the son of Davis Phinney and Connie Carpenter, two icons of American bicycle racing's near-golden age in the 1980s. But his lineage isn't the reason the Post focused such attention on Taylor Phinney. Rather, he is a "local boy": he lives in the cycling mecca of Boulder, not far from Denver. To be fair, most American media outlets aren't paying attention to the race at all. Still, it's disturbing--at least to those of us who care about cycling--that it only gets attention when it has a "local" angle. When perhaps the greatest rider of all, Eddy Mercx, was in his prime, almost no attention was paid to him in the US. The same can be said for Bernard Hinault, who was probably Mercx's most worthy successor, let alone Jacques Anquetil, who held the mantle before Mercx took it. Whatever comes of Lance's bans or any American racer on the horizon, cycling will never become a sport that vies with baseball, football and basketball--or, for that matter, tennis or golf-- for the attention of Americans unless more attention is paid, by the media and the public, to the overall sport and not only to the "American heroes." When a sport is about individuals rather than teams (Lots of people consider themselves Yankee fans even if they can't name the second-string catcher.), it is especially important for would-be fans to know how important the domestiques as well as the near-champions are to the sport. I know it takes a lot of time and dedication, which not everyone has, or wants to devote. That, I think, is a reason why horse racing is dying: Most people pay attention only to the Triple Crown races and the horses that win them. A true racing fan knows all of the other horses and riders. (I was never such a fan, but members of my family were, which is how I know this.) Anyway, congratulations to John Murphy, who won the stage in which Taylor Phinney made his breakaway.
