Reflecting Phantoms and Sting Rays

Some Christians celebrate today, the 6th of January, as the Epiphany.  It's the day after the Twelfth Night of Christmas, so this day is often regarded as the end of the Christmas season.

While some folks take down their Christmas trees and decorations the day after the holiday, or on New Year's Day, I've known many others who put away their holiday decorations on this date.  Also, many decorations in public places like shopping malls and town squares are removed on or around this date.

Such places include the Atlas Park, about 10 kilometers from my apartment.  It's an open-air mall very similar in design to European Village of Palm Coast, Florida.  Both opened around the same time:  just in time for the financial crisis of 2007-2008.  But while EV was built on previously undeveloped land, AP was constructed on the site of Atlas Terminal Industrial Park, which once housed General Electric, Kraft, Westinghouse and New York Telephone as well as other manufacturers.

I don't know whether any Christmas decorations were ever made there.  In the confines of ATIP, however, a company made functional objects that could have served as tree or window ornaments:

If you're of, ahem, a certain age, you might have ridden a bike equipped with those reflectors.  You might still have them, or these:

Gulco "6 pie" reflector, above and below.

6

Schwinns and other bikes from the 1940s through the 1970s came with Gulco reflectors.  Sometimes the company's information was engraved on the metal backing:  Charles Gulotta Company (hence Gulco) of Glendale, New York.  

We all know that modern reflectors and lights do their jobs better than their earlier counterparts.  But you have to admit, those old lights and reflectors had style, or at least character, you just don't find in the new stuff.

Bikes from the 1940s and 1950s used the "bubble" or "jewel" reflectors, while Sting Rays and "muscle" bikes from the 1960s and 1970s came with "2 pie" or "6 pie" reflectors.   All fetch premium prices on eBay.  So does the special bracket that attached "6 pie" reflectors to "banana" seats on Sting Rays.

The small "jewel" reflectors were sometimes attached to the end of leather strips wrapped around hub shafts.  Hipsters and other urban fixed-gear riders sometimes replicate those "hub shiners" on their new machines.

Gulotta/Gulco didn't make reflectors only for bicycles.  The smaller ones were often used to attach license plates to cars and motorcycles; other "shiners" were also found on boats, trucks and other vehicles.

During the 1970s, Japanese bicycles found popularity among American cyclists.  Much about them was equal or superior to their American and European counterparts:  the lug work was often cleaner (at least on the lower- and middle-priced bikes), the SunTour and Shimano derailleurs were easier to shift and more precise and the bikes  represented better overall values for the money.  The Cateye reflectors that came with Fujis, Nishikis, Miyatas and other Japanese bikes were brighter, lighter in weight and sturdier (or at least less delicate).

I tried to obtain information on how long Gulotta/Gulco continued to manufacture.  All I could find were reports that "Charles Gulotta Co Inc" was first registered as a business name in 1925; a trademark application was filed in 1960, approved the following year and renewed in 1981 and "dead/cancelled" in 2002.  So, my guess is that Gulotta/Gulco was making reflectors--though, possibly, not bike-specific ones--into the 1980s, and possibly the 1990s.  By 2000, Atlas was no longer functioning as an industrial facility.

If you're restoring a Schwinn Phantom or Sting Ray, it simply wouldn't be complete without the right reflector--made in my neighborhood, more or less!

A Girl Scout Makes Her Town Safe(r) For Cycling

 It's funny to think that I, a transgender woman, was once a Boy Scout (and altar boy).  I joined the Scouts, in part, to try to quell the nagging doubts  about my gender identity.  Although that part of the plan didn't work out, there were things I liked about Scouting.  Among them were the fact that it recognize, and even reward (via merit badges) for doing things I would have done anyway.  So I earned merit badges for reading (!) and cycling.

The requirements for the badge weren't terribly rigorous: a few rides of increasing length, knowledge of hand signals and the ability to fix a flat tire.  I certainly didn't have to do anything as original as Jordan Brown has done.

Jordan Brown

In addition to cycling and scouting (in her case, Girl Scouts), she and I have this in common: Middletown, and its high school, where she is a ninth-grader.

Her Middletown, though, is in Rhode Island. Mine  was in New Jersey. (What US state doesn't have a Middletown?) Oh, and hers is still called Middletown High, whereas mine became Middletown North when a second high school opened just after I graduated.

But I digress.  To earn the Silver Award, a Girl Scout must complete an in-depth project in which she identifies a need or issue in her community (whether local, state, national or international), researches it and plans a project to address the issue or need at its root cause.  It requires a minimum of 50 leadership hours to implement and includes requirements that the project can be sustained beyond the girl who creates it.  The project has to be proposed to, and approved by, an awards committee at the regional organization: in Jordan's case, the Girl Scouts of Southeastern New England (GSSNE).

As often as not, a need is identified through personal experience.  Ms. Brown's discerned the need to educate members of her community about bicycle safety after seeing a friend, who wasn't wearing a helmet, take a major fall on a bicycle.  As a result, she had planned to conduct six weeks of after-school programs, in partnership with Bike Newport, about bike safety and knowledge in Middletown's two elementary schools.

Those programs were to take place in March and April.  Brown had also planned to conduct a community event during the summer.  The COVID-19 pandemic, however, rendered those plans undoable as all of Rhode Island's schools closed from March onward and restrictions were still in place during the summer.

The initiative she took should be reason enough to give her the Silver, and Gold Awards, as well as any number of other accolades.  She embarked on an alternative project that she divided in two parts. The first involved the purchase and installation of two bike repair stations in Middletown:  one at the public library, the other at the Gaudet Middle School.  To fund the $2600 cost of those stations, she held two car washes (which netted $1200), requested and received funds from the Middletown Town Council and received private community donations.

To see this part of her project to completion, she worked with the Town Council,  facilities departments of the schools, superintendent of Middletown Public Schools, principal of Gaudet, town administrator and library director--in addition to Girl Scout representatives and local mentors and advisors.

The second part of Brown's project was educational.  Reaching out to her local community wasn't possible during the pandemic.  So, she created a Girl Scout Patch program based on safety and the history and social implications of the bicycle.  The patch program has been offered through GSSNE and Girl Scout Facebook groups throughout the country.  

On top of everything, Jordan designed the patch, of which 300 were originally produced and given, free of charge, to the first 300 girls who completed the program.  So successful was the program that Brown had to have another 500 patches made. 

Everything she did would have been impressive if an adult experienced in teaching, business or community organizing had done it.  That it was accomplished by a first-year high school student means that we'll hear more from, and about Jordan Brown.  I hope she gets to tout her accomplishments from the saddle of her bicycle!

Trexit: Another Consequence of COVID-19

 Just before Christmas, I wrote about an irony of the COVID-19 pandemic:  The dramatic increase in bike-related sales has actually forced some small shops, like Larsen's Bicycles of Powell, Wyoming, out of business.  The same surge in demand that has filled the coffers of bike companies and larger shops has left smaller shops like Larsen's--usually the last to be supplied--without inventory.  

It seems, though, that some other shops are closing, or their owners are shifting their focus to related businesses, by choice. 

People often look at the price tags on bikes and assume that the bike industry is lucrative.  The reality is that margins on bikes are new bikes are smaller--and, the more expensive the bike, the smaller the margin.  Prior to the pandemic, the bike could stand on the showroom floor for months, or even years.  In the meantime, the shop's owner or manager had to pay all the overhead of running the business, not to mention the mechanic who assembled the bike.

In addition, most bike shop owners, like their counterparts in other industries, carry long-term debt, whether for the business itself or in mortgages for their business buildings or homes.  That is often a deterrent to any would-be buyer of a bike shop, or any other small business, and a reason why shop proprietors are running their enterprises long after their peers have retired from salaried jobs.

I have just described some of the reasons why I have no regrets over not opening a bike shop or a book store, even though I was offered opportunities to do both in my youth.  One retailer described the situation well:  "It just did start to feel like we were in the store-running business instead of the bicycle business."  Having worked in both bike shops and book stores, I realized that I love books and bikes, but had absolutely no love for "the store-running business."  That, in essence, is why Chris Kulczyki sold the business he started--Velo Orange--almost four years ago.

Unfortunately, according to that retailer, "the store-running business is where this industry is going."  That is one reason, I think, why some are leaving the industry. The retailer in question admits that he, and other shop owners, have benefitted from the current "boom." Their "store running" has allowed them to pay off old debts and put some money in the bank.  It's also allowed them to get out from under a pile of old inventory.  For the first time, many who opened bike shops during the 1970s and 1980s, can leave with a "clean slate."  

As sad as it will be to see some of those shops go, I really can't blame their owners for selling out or closing down.  You really can't blame anybody for quitting while he or she is ahead, especially if it's taken decades to get to that point.  Also, as more than bicycle entrepreneur has said, "I'm tired; it's time to retire."

Some of those shops were Trek dealers. In recent years, the Wisconsin-based company called in some of its debts by taking over stores, essentially leaving the proprietor with nothing.  Some shop owners were on the verge of such a fate early in 2020.  But the COVID-induced surge in demand allowed them to pay down their debts and allowed negotiate more more favorable terms to their Trexits.

From the Financial Times