These Wheels Are Returning To Their Roots

Henry Ford was a bicycle mechanic.  His first car was basically two bicycles connected to a carriage and a motor.  But, even though he made four-wheeled motorized vehicles available to the masses, Ford never abandoned his pedaled two-wheeled.  Even after he became one of the world's wealthiest individuals, he took a three-mile spin every day after supper.  Time magazine showed him on one of those rides, which he took on his 77th birthday.

Around the time Ford was fixing bikes, two brothers in Detroit were doing the same. They would patent a dust-repellent hub and bottom bracket and found a company that manufactured some of Detroit's earliest bicycles.  Later, they would enter the same line of business that would make Ford--and Detroit--famous.

The siblings in question are John and Horace Dodge.  

Then there was a bike mechanic and racer from France who, like Ford and the Dodges, would turn his energies from two wheels to four and add a motor.  He achieved renown as one of the early auto racers and, like Henry, John and Horace, would start his own auto-making company.

I am referring to Louis Chevrolet.

Of course, if you have too much time on your hands and idle brain capacity, you can speculate about what bikes might be like if the companies Ford, the Dodge brothers and Chevrolet made them.  

Actually, we might get an idea of what Chevrolet Cycles might be by looking at what's on offer for 2019.  Chevrolet, of course, became one of the most iconic marques of General Motors.  

Yes, GM is going to make and market two models of bicycle for the coming year.  But they won't be like the offerings of Shinola or the Detroit Bike. Instead, the company's two-wheelers will be pedal-assisted e-bikes.  General Motors CEO Mary Barra said, in a press conference, that the new e-bikes would be "designed to help people stay mobile in an increasingly difficult-to-navigate urban landscape."

There is a kind of irony or poetic justice in all of this:  GM, Ford, Chrysler and other auto companies helped to make the "increasingly difficult-to-navigate urban landscape."

Keep Moving--On A Divvy, Manta-Ray or Featherstone

Some motorists see us as invaders, or as over-indulged, when we "take" "their" roadway and parking spaces simply by exercising the rights we have--let alone when bike lanes are built. 

Others, though, simply are baffled by us.  They are unaccustomed to seeing us, mainly because few, if any, Americans living today can recall a time when bicycles and cyclists were major presences in their cities or towns.  They certainly can't recall a time when bicycles were important parts of their community's culture and economy.

In some places, such a time really wasn't so long ago.  Detroit, Boston, New York and a few other cities had vibrant, if small, cycling communities during the "Dark Ages" of US bicycling:  roughly the two decades or so following World War II.  Also, a few colleges and universities, including Princeton and the US Military Academy (West Point) had very competitive cycling teams.

There are, however, a few more communities in which bicycles as well as bicycling were an important part of the history and culture, and even the economy.  One such place was Shelby, Ohio.  So was a much larger city about 500 kilometers west:  Chicago.

Mention the "Windy City" and, in regards to cycling, a certain name enters people's minds.  Hint: It starts with an "S".  If you grew up in the US, there's a good chance you rode--or had--one of their bikes. And, if you became an active rider or simply an enthusiast, you might have bought one of their top-of-the line bikes.

I'm talking, of course, about Schwinn, which manufactured bikes on the city's West Side for nearly a century.  But in 1900, it was just one of 30 bicycle manufacturers making its wares along Lake Street!  Perhaps not surprisingly, the "Second City" was also home to one of the most intense racing scenes, and vibrant cycle cultures, to be found anywhere in the US, or even the world.

While much of the current bicycle culture in American cities began with young, educated and affluent people--and is frankly consumeristic--Chicago's cycling culture thrived, then survived to the degree that it did, largely because of its industrial, working-class roots and immigrant (particularly German) communities.  This story is  one that the Chicago Design Museum tells with "Keep Moving:  Designing Chicago's Bicycle Culture," an exhibit it recently opened.

The Museum places a Divvy (from the city's bike-share program) alongside a Schwinn Manta-Ray and an 1891 Featherstone-- believed to be the first US bike offered with pneumatic tires--and other bikes that were made, or had some other significant connection to, Chicago.  There is also memorabilia related to the bikes, including material from Carter Harrison's successful campaign to become the city's mayor.

So why is Carter Harrison's important in the story of cycling in Chicago?  Well, to demonstrate his athletic bona fides, he wore his Century pin--signifying that he'd done a 100-mile bike ride--on his chest while riding his single-speed bike.  

And to think that a certain presidential candidate ridiculed a Secretary of State for falling off his bicycle! Hmm...Would El Cheeto Grande have won Harrison's election?

His Travels With Mona

Many years ago, I read John Steinbeck's Travels With Charley.

In the book, he and his traveling companion set out on a trek that took them through 40 of the 50 US states.  He took this trip, he said, because he felt he'd lost touch with America.  If anything, he might have been trying to recapture his youth:  He was nearing 60, and his physical and mental health were failing him.  I suspect he might've been suffering from "writer's block."

So, he outfitted a three-quarter-ton pickup track as a camper and set out from his Sag Harbor, NY home.  And he allegedly recorded--and replicated in the book--a number of conversations with "ordinary" Americans.

Even at such a tender age, I had my suspicions about his account.  Some things just didn't seem quite right; later on, when I'd read more of his fiction, I felt as if some of those conversations sounded like the dialogue in his stories.  And I had to wonder whether he was alone--save for Charley--and roughing it as much as his book made it seem he was.

Still, I enjoyed it:  after all, Steinbeck could tell--or, more precisely, reveal--a story.  In fact, Travels With Charley might have been the first book that showed me how the truth of the story is more compelling than the mere chronological or spatial correctness of its facts.  Even if he wasn't in Alice, North Dakota at the exact moment he related in the book, what he was learning while traveling the windswept plains is interesting and, at times, compelling.

I'm mentioning Travels With Charley because of the traveling companion in Steinbeck's title:  his French poodle.  I must say that I like French poodles as much as anyone else, but I'm not sure that it would be the breed I'd choose to accompany me on a trip.

Perhaps I'd choose a hound--at least for a bike trip, as hounds generally like to be outdoors.  Now, I'm sure Paul Stankiewicz didn't choose his "Charley"--whose name is Mona--specifically for his trip across the USA.  But the pooch--an 8-year-old mixture of English fox hound and Egyptian Pharaoh hound--accompanied him on a drive from their New Hampshire home to California and, more important (for this blog, anyway), on an 8000 kilometer (5000 mile) bike ride back to the Granite State.

They arrived two weeks ago--he, 10 pounds lighter than he started and she having survived being struck by a car.  Fortunately, she suffered nothing more than a few scrapes and a stiff neck.  Perhaps not surprisingly, she and Stankiewicz developed a bond after spending four months on the road together.

He undertook this journey on a Trek 520 he bought used and "fixed up for touring" with lower gears and new brakes.  I'm sure he needed both in towing a trailer that carried Mona, as well as supplies for him and her.

Mona, recovering from her injuries

Now that he's home, he's looking for a job.  At least, the news reports and blog he kept of his journey can vouch for what he did during that four-month employment gap in his resume.    

And, on returning home there have been adjustments.  For example, he says that on such a trip, "You kind of lose track of time, like it's a Sunday afternoon."  That's a pretty fair description of how it feels in the middle of a multiday (or multiweek) trip.  That might be the reason why, he now feels like he's "going so fast" when he's driving his car at 30 or 40 miles per hour.