Asleep At The...Handlebars?

Is it possible to ride while sleeping?

I may have done just that on at least one occasion.   In particular, I recall a time I picked up a small package on the Upper East Side of Manhattan and delivered it to an office in the Wall Street area--a distance of about 8 kilometers, in traffic.  When I arrived at that office, I opened my eyes and had no idea of how I got there.  And, when I stepped out of the building, my bike was locked to a parking meter.

When you are a messenger, nobody much cares about whether you slept or about anything else you might've done on your bike, as long as the document or package is delivered in a timely fashion, as they say.

It also helps not to have outstanding arrest warrants.  That is what Angela Yates is learning as I write.

Police officers found the 43-year-old sitting on a bicycle, passed out, in a Middlesboro, Kentucky gas station.  They woke her up and found that, in addition to her arrest warrants, she had a criminal summons.

During her arrest, the police searched her property and found a syringe containing a clear substance they believe to be crystal meth.  They also found eight other syringes and other drug paraphernalia.

Yates was then taken to the Bell County Detention Center, where she was strip-searched.  A quart-size bag containing what officials believe to be marijuana, along with another liquid-filled syringe, were found in her possession.  

She faces a number of charges.

If she is using those substances, I can't help but to wonder how she even got on a bicycle!

Is The Future In A Miniloop?

If you are a cycle-commuter, someone is sure to ask, "What do you do when it rains?"

In most places, you have the following choices:

1. Use fenders and raingear (or carry a change of clothes).
2. Get wet.
3. Use other means of transportation.

I'll admit to having used 3.) when it's raining, cold and windy--or during a hard, driving rain when I could hardly see in front of me. I also have used alternative means of transportation--which, for me, here in New York, means the subway--when there was more than a dusting of snow.

Some day the weather excuse won't wash--at least, if architect Richard Moreta has any influence over urban planners.

He has just unveiled his "MINILOOP", an enclosed elevated bikeway designed to snake alongside streets or highways, or cut their own paths through cities.  

Moreta says he has designed MINILOOP to be easily replicated in, and adapted to, different locales:  It can be made open-air for warmer climates and fully enclosed in less hospitable environs.  Most important, though, he believes his design will not only help to reduce the number of motor vehicles used for transportation; they will afford more vertical space for trees and plants to grow and help filter the air.

The Shimano Dance?

Today's Shimano Ultegra components trace their lineage to the "600" derailleurs introduced in 1975.  The following year, a complete "600" groupset was introduced.  Two years later, an iteration of them appeared with some fancy scrolls and engravings.

Shimano offered this groupset, called the "600 EX Arabesque" until 1984.  It was good stuff, especially for its time, except for one thing:  the headset required a special tool to adjust it.  Apparently, some Shimano marketing person thought the lace and filigree engraved into the other components would be difficult to replicate on a headset.  So, that person figured the best way to distinguish the headset was to shape the locknut like those scrolls. Still, it was a good headset: At least, the one I had served me well.

(Can you imagine Dee-Lilah, my fancy-lugged Mercian Vincitore Special, with an Arabesque groupset?  Maybe that would be a bit much, aesthetically.)

Anyway, even with all those fancy scrolls engraved into the parts, I have always thought "Arabesque" was an odd name for a line of bike components.  I wonder who their intended audience was.  Perhaps it included someone like her: