E-Bikes On The Boardwalk?

It looks like electric bikes, or e-bikes, are here to stay.

Although I don't plan to start riding one any time soon, I have nothing against them.  If anything, they're good for people whose knees are giving out on them, or for other people who--whether through aging or some other cause--don't have the strength or stamina they once had but still want to pedal two wheels.

What makes them controversial, though, is their relationship with unmotorized bicycles, other motorized vehicles--and traffic, whether it consists of pedestrians, cyclists or motor vehicles. Specifically, should they be subject to the same rules and regulations as, say, motorcycles?  Or should they categorized with non-motorized bicycles and be allowed to share designated bike lanes and paths with them?

Cities, states and other jurisdictions are coming up their own mandates.  Beach resorts and towns face another question:  Should electric bikes be permitted to roll alongside regular bicycles on boardwalks?

The City Council of Ocean City, Maryland will have to come up with an answer to it when it meets on Monday.  Last week, Councilman Tony De Luca introduced an ordinance that would have amended the city's traffic and vehicle codes to allow Class One motorized bikes--ones that stop assisting the rider when a speed of 20 MPH is reached--on the boardwalk.  Class Two and Three e-bikes, which have a throttle and can reach higher speeds,  would have been banned.

DeLuca's proposal didn't garner enough support to become part of the city's law.  On Monday, the Council will hear opposing recommendations from the Bike Committee and the police commission.  The former cites e-bikes' usefulness for people who are rehabilitating from an injury or have bad knees, while the latter points to difficulties in enforcing e-bike rules and the fact that cities like Virginia Beach ban them altogether.

 

I Don't Want To Be A Guinea Pig Again

This morning my father and I were talking about one thing and another.  "If they come out with a vaccine (for COVID-19), would you get it?" he asked.

"That depends.  If it comes out before Election Day, or even Inauguration Day, I'd have to wonder whether its approval was rushed."

Afterward, I found myself thinking about some of the worst bike parts I've ever used and owned. They were introduced as the lightest, best, strongest or "must-have" in some other way.  I can't help but to think that I, and some riding buddies who also experienced problems like the ones I incurred, were "guinea pigs" for the makers of those components.  

Of course, my collapsing Nuke Proof hubs weren't quite as catastrophic as a faulty vaccine might be.  The shop from which I bought those hubs replaced them with other hubs and equipment. But what do you do if the vaccine causes some physical or medical problem that can't be reversed? 


Note:  If the typeface in this post looks different from that of my other posts, it's because Blogger, in all of its infinite wisdom, decided to change its page and make it impossible to use whatever typefaces you've used before.

Cranking Up A Classic Marque

A little over a year ago, I recounted discovering--along with other novice American cyclists in the 1970s--bicycle and component marques known to generations of riders in other parts of the world.  

What I didn't realize was that some actually were, or would soon be, on the brink of extinction or being changed beyond recognition.  I am thinking of bikes like Falcon, Gitane and  Legnano, who made all sorts of machines from Tour de France winners to urban delivery conveyances--and companies like Nervar, Weinmann, Huret, Stronglight Simplex, Mafac and SunTour, who made the components for those bikes, and others.

Those manufacturers are gone now. (Weinmann-branded rims are made in China and the SunTour name lives on in SR-SunTour forks, which bear no relation, other than the name, to the revered maker of derailleurs and freewheels.)  So was Chater-Lea, a British company that made bicycles and even, for a couple of decades, cars and motorcycles.  But C-L is best known for what the English call "fittings":  parts like pedals, headsets and bottom brackets. They even made frame tubing and lugs.

Chater-Lea's quality was, in its heyday, second to none.  Custom frame builders specified C-L's parts; so did larger manufacturers for their best models.  I never owned or used any of their stuff, but I encountered some when I first worked in a bike shop.  A couple of my early riding companions--who pedaled through the "Dark Ages" when few American adults cycled--rode bikes equipped with C-L.

Those bikes were older than I was.  They sported those pencil-thin steel cottered cranksets (which may have been made by Chater-Lea) you see on old-time racing bikes and that fell out of favor once good-quality mid-priced cotterless cranks became available.  To my knowledge, C-L made bottom brackets only for cottered cranksets, and their pedals were of the traditional "rat trap" variety.  

So, while the stuff was of high quality, its designs were dated or even obsolete. (Clipless pedals all but killed the market for high-quality traditional pedals.)  That is why I was, if unknowingly, witnessing the "last gasp" of a once-revered name in the cycling world:  In 1987, they would cease after nearly a century of making bike parts.

Last year, Andy Richman, a British cycling enthusiast who lives in the US, decided to revive the brand with a ne plus ultra pedal that echoes the company's old designs but employs the highest-grade materials and finished flawlessly.  He said, at the time, that "if jobs are going to come back to the UK, it's got to be for making this kind of stuff."  In other words, "high end, beautiful, artisanal" items.

Now he is introducing a second Chater-Lea item.  Appropriately enough, it's a crankset.  But it's as much a departure from C-L's cottered sets as the pedals are a refinement of a traditional design:  The Grand Tour is a "sub-compact" crankset with 46/30 chainrings (a classic Randonneur/Gran Fondo configuration) designed to fit on JIS square taper axles and work with up to 11 speeds.

If you want to equip your bike with these items, save up your pounds:  You'll need 595 of them (about $775 at current exchange rates) to buy the cranks, and 250 ($325) for the pedals.  

Does Richman plan a complete Chater-Lea bike?