Beer and Bikes Go Together Better Than...Bell-Bottoms and Ten-Speeds

You can really date yourself if you had a pair of these

or even remember them. I'll just say that I recall them from the time I was in 8th grade, which is about when I got my first ten-speed bike.

It's kind of funny to realize now that bell-bottoms in any fashion became so popular right around the time people like me, young and old, were getting our first bikes without full chain guards!

Of course, fads are not always synchronous. (Bikes are still around, but ten-speeds now refer to cassettes, not bicycles!)  I have been cycling almost continuously since those days, but I can't remember the last time I wore a pair of bell bottoms.

The new pairing these days seems to be beer and bikes.  At least, that's the case with hipsters and milennials--though enjoying a brew after a spin is a custom as old as, well, two wheels.

So, it makes sense that two companies extremely popular with the demographic I've mentioned are teaming up to create a special edition:

I rather like the bike but I must say that I don't want to pay for something that's a vehicle to advertise someone else's products.  Still, the New Belgium Brewing graphics on the Brooklyn Bicycle Company machine isn't as blaring or glaring as the "billboard" graphics on bike jerseys worn by wannabe racers.

Don't Move These Bikes!

Although it's only 80 kilometers from London, the land on which the town of Milton Keynes stands was mostly farms and woodland until the town designation order was made in 1967.  Though equidistant from London, Cambridge, Oxford, Birmingham and Leicester, MK, as it's known in Britain, was never meant to be a suburb of any of those cities.  Instead, it was planned as a hub, albeit a smaller one, in its own right.  Since then, it's become one of the UK's technological incubators--which is somehow appropriate, given that some of the oldest Bronze Age tools were found when it was excavated.

Some people deride or even loathe it for its modern architecture and art. (The "concrete cows" are the butt of many jokes.)  Other people love, or at least appreciate it, for the very same reasons.  One thing that can't be denied is that some of it, especially the public art, won't be found anywhere else.

An example is this mural:

John Watson created it in 1978 and, with the help of students from the nearby Stantonbury School (now known as the Stantonbury International School), installed it on the side of a building in the Stantonbury retail centre.

Well, a retailer wants to destroy the retail centre.  Aldi, based in Germany, has supermarkets all over Europe and in the eastern US.  They want to demolish the building the tile mural adorns.  The supermarket chain says, in its plans, that the mural could be "reprovided somewhere (nearby)".  However, Ian Mitchie, chairman of Public Arts Trust Milton Keynes, is applying to Historic England to have the artwork listed.  Moving it, he said, is almost certain to destroy it, as ceramic tiles don't take well to relocation.

Pumping His Pedals Into Plowshares

Do you love to ride your bike but hate to shovel snow?

If you answered "yes", meet Rob Wotzak of Milford, Connecticut.  He shares your passions and came up with a way to indulge one while making the other less onerous.




Although his pedaled tractor plow is new, the idea had been simmering in his mind for years.  "I had a rusty old tractor plow sitting behind my barn," he said.  Finally, two years ago, he "grabbed the plow and a pile of bike parts" and "started cutting and welding" his first prototype. 

As the saying goes, the third time is the charm:  The model he's using came after that first attempt and another.  One of his motivations to create such a machine, he said, is that "legs are stronger than arms" but that using it is still a "workout."

Still, it looks like a good example of Yankee ingenuity to me!