From The Voiture A Petrol To La Velo Electrique

Over the past couple of decades, the Dutch and Danes have gotten things mostly right when it comes to everyday cycling.  Note that I said "mostly":  As I noted a few days ago, the author of "Bicycle Dutch" encountered a newly-constructed bicycle viaduct that, as it turns out, isn't very practical--and, possibly, not very safe--for cyclists. 

Still, the Netherlands, like Denmark, does better than most countries in making the bicycle a practical transportation alternative.  So does France. While the French aren't yet on par with their northern neighbors, cycling infrastructure and regulations are much better thought-out than what we have in the US or other countries.

And French planners are dealing with a reality that I, in my youthful arrogance, would not acknowledge until recently:  Not everyone will forsake four wheels for two, or one pedal for two--or, more important, petrol for muscle.

Some, of course, just don't want to exert themselves physically.  But others, particularly those who are elderly or have disabilites (or whose bodies are giving out on them for other reasons), can't.   So how do you get them to give up their cars--which tend to be older and less fuel-efficient because, well, such people also tend to be poorer than those who can afford a Prius or Tesla.

Acting on that realization, l'Assemblee Nationale--France's equivalent to the US House of Representatives or the UK's House of Commons--has just approved a measure that would give people the chance to hand over their old, exhaust-belching voitures for scrap.  In return, they'd receive a 2500 Euro (2975 USD at current exchange rates) grant to buy an electric bicycle.  

The measure is an amendment to a climate bill passing through Parliament that aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in by 40 percent from 1990 levels in 2030.  If the measure is adopted, France would become the first country in the world to offer people the chance to trade in their old cars for electric bicycles.  Perhaps most important of all, it is a recognition that "the solution is not to make cars greener, but simply to reduce their number," according to Olivier Schneider of the Federation Francaise des Usagers de la Bicyclette (FUB), an organization dedicated to everyday cycling.

Piercing Its Facade

This post will do something that, to my knowledge, few if any other pieces of writing have done:  mention an early bicycle suspension system and a French ladies' utility bicycle from the 1960s or 1970s.

That wasn't my original intention, but in the admittedly-cursory research I did, the two topics became entangled.

How did I start on this path (pun intended)? Well, a few days ago I saw this

parked around the corner from my apartment.

At first glance, it looks like any number of French ladies' utility/city bikes of its time:  The swept-down top lateral tubes lend it a grace most "beast" bikes don't have.   That detail distinguihes somewhat from the mixte bikes that made their way to the US during the 1970s Bike Boom.  Those bikes--like the Peugeot UO8 mixte--had straight twin lateral tubes.  As a result, bikes like the U08 had slightly tighter geometry than bikes like the one in this post, which gave them a somewhat sprightlier ride.

You can still find plenty of bikes like the one in my photos parked on Paris streets and all over France:  they were, and still are, for many French women what classic British three-speeds were for generations of women riding to work, the marketplace or the park in much of the Anglophone world.

But I knew, right away, something was odd about this bike.  One give-away was the "Belle de Paris" decal on the downtube:  I mean, if you saw that in a movie, you'd think it was a joke.  No French bike maker would have given such a name to a bike it planned to sell in France--or to anyone who knows anything about French bikes!

(I think now of the car Renault sold as "Le Car" in the US.  Even if you don't know or care about anything French, you just had to roll up your eyes on seeing that!)

Another odd thing about the bike is the brand name:  Pierce-Arrow.  As far as I know, there never was a French bike-maker by that name.  And then there's this:

Some of the Motobecanes imported early in the US Bike Boom had fork crown caps stamped with the telltale "M" emblem.  Also, some bikes made by Motobecane and sold under other names--like Astra--bore it.

And, of course, Motobecane made many bikes like this one:  Of all French manufacturers, it's likely that only Peugeot made more.  So, I surmised--correctly, my research would confirm--that I was looking at a Motobecane rebadged as "Pierce-Arrow".

So what of Pierce-Arrow?

Anyone who knows anything about the history of luxury automobiles knows the name.  Heck, even I knew about them!  Before World War II, they had a cache on par with the revered names of today like Rolls-Royce and Mercedes Benz.  And, like most other auto manufacturers of the time--and a few that survive today (think of Peugeot and Ford)--Pierce-Arrow was a bicycle-maker before it manufactured cars (and, in Pierce's and Peugeot's case, motorcycles).  And, in another interesting parallel with Peugeot, Pierce began as an industrial company that manufactured a variety of items (Yes, that peppermill was made by the same company that made the PX-10!) before venturing into wheeled goods.

George N. Pierce started his company in Buffalo, NY in 1872.  In 1890, at the dawn of the first "Bike Boom," Pierce produced its first bicycles.  They quickly developed a reputation for quality and elegance as well as elegance.  As per the latter, the company offered one of the early "ladies'" models of safety bicycle, with a graceful tube that swept down from the head tube.  

Seamless joint. From 1897 Pierce Bicycle catalogue.

As for technical innovations, they contributed two that would influence later bicycle develpment.  According to their 1897 catalogue, their frames had seamless joints achieved by "fittings inside one tube and shaped to fit snugly around the opposite tube."  This can be seen as a predecessor of both lugged and fillet-brazed joints:  the joining methods used to this day on most high-quality steel frames.  

Pierce Cushion Frame, 1901

The other?  One of the earliest frame suspension systems.  In 1898, their Cushion Frame line featured a shock absorber on the post connecting the rear axle to the seat pillar.  Hmm...I think I saw something like that on a few mountain bikes--in 1998, or thereabouts!

Anyway, Pierce continued to make bicycles until 1918, when the Emblem Manufacturing company in the nearby community of Angola acquired them.  Emblem continued to produce bicycles until 1940--ironically, two years after Pierce-Arrow Motor Car Company ceased to exist.

Now, from what I've gleaned, the company's bicycles were never called Pierce-Arrow.  That appelation was reserved for cars. Bicycles and motorcycles were always called "Pierce."  The Pierce-Arrow name, however, would be conflated with Pierce bicycles--possibly because of the arrow in Pierce's emblem.  In the years after the last Pierce bicycles were made, at least one distributor sold bicycles rebadged as "Pierce-Arrow."  To my knowledge, no bicycle manufacturer ever made a "Pierce Arrow" line of bikes:  That label was a creation of the distributor/importer, just as "Nishiki," "Azuki," "Centurion," "Shogun" and "Univega" were.  (Although those bikes were made in Japan, you can't buy one with any of those names in the Land of the Rising Sun.)  Apparently, the distributor was banking on the residual cache of the "Pierce Arrow" name.

Don't you just love the fender details?  I think Velo Orange's "Facette" fenders were inspired by these, or something like them.

So...whoever bought the bike I saw parked in my neighborhood may have thought he or she was getting some connection to a classic car.  Instead, he or she got something like what a madame would have pedaled to school, work, the market or to her relatives in the next village or arrondissement.  

Il A Demissione Pour Gagner (He Quit In Order To Win)

 What do Dave Cowens, Rebecca Twigg,  Lance Armstrong and Theo Nonnez have in common?

Because you're reading this blog, you certainly know about Lance and probably have heard of Rebecca.  Unless you're a basketball fan (which is practically synonymous with being a New Yorker of my generation), you might not know about Dave Cowens.

As for Monsieur Nonnez--well, you might not know anything about him (except that he's French) unless you avidly follow bike racing.

OK...So what do they share?  No, not needles, Lance's revelation notwithstanding.  They all did something almost nobody expected of them:  They walked away from their careers as world-class (or, in Nonnez's case, potentially world-class) athletes.

Dave Cowens was perhaps the greatest "undersized" (Where else but in the NBA is 6'9" "small"?) center in the history of the game.  As a New Yorker, I am not a fan of the team for which he played most of his career--the Boston Celtics.  I am enough of a basketball fan, however, to respect him:  He simply never seemed to play a bad game.

In the middle of the 1976-77 season--just a few months removed from his team's most recent championship--he took a leave of absence "for personal reasons."  There was no contract dispute or feud with a coach or team management:  He simply needed to, as we might say today, re-set.  The term "burnout" wasn't yet in wide use, but if you read accounts of that time, it's pretty clear that's what he was suffering.

So it was for Rebecca Twigg a decade later.  Three years after winning a silver Olympic medal in the road race, she crashed--literally and metaphorically.  A misaligned rear wheel led to a mishap in which she was lucky to emerge with a broken thumb and mild concussion.  At the time, she said she was tired of waking up early, regardless of the weather, and pushing her body to its limits.  She took time to complete degrees and start a new career in information technology before deciding she needed to be on her bike again.  And she did so in a rather big way, winning another Olympic medal in Barcelona in 1992.

(Unfortuantely, she "crashed" again and has been homeless for the past few years.)

Now, I know it's not fashionable to talk about Lance without bashing him, but here goes:  He, of course, quit racing for two years after his cancer diagnosis.  But, before he confessed to Oprah, he talked about how he considered retiring after his fifth Tour de France win.  Had he not "juiced," he would have been, in at least one sense, in elite company:  Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Mercx, Bernard Hinault and Miguel Indurain reached that magic milestone. (They all won other races, including the Giro d'Italia, Vuelta a Esapana, some of the "classics," and various other cycling events, so even if Lance didn't have his wins vacated, I don't believe he wouldn't have been in their class.)  He spoke of something similar to what Twigg described:  He was tired of a life that revolved around training.  Few people outside the sport realize what a singular, solitary existence bike racing is.

That's what Theo Nonnez learned.  What he also said is, in essence, that if you realize that you're not willing to give up literally everything else in your life--including relationships and the foods most other people eat--you probably won't reach the heights of the folks I've mentioned.  You really have to want to be a champion more than anything else--possibly life itself--in order to keep yourself so motivated.

My previous sentence may well explain why Cowens took his leave, Armstrong almost quit and Twigg did, for a time.  I think it might also explain why she "crashed" in life:  After pursuing something so single-mindedly, and not having another suitable outlet for your adrenaline (IT?), it's easy to burn out on life, if you will.

Again, in my unfashionable all-but-defense of Lance, I think it might explain why some athletes cheat:  When you compete against someone who's spent his or her life pursuing the same goal you've devoted your life to pursuing, and the difference between you and that person is a second, or a stroke of bad luck (an accident, say), the temptation to grasp at any possible advantage, however illegal or unethical it may be, is great.

Theo Nonnez

I think Theo Nonnez may have seen these possibilties.  What he did say is that he realized, even after winning a junior championship, cycling wasn't the right career choice for him, and that he was pursuing it in part because of the hopes and expectations of people around him. Je me suis mis a pleurer sur le velo--"I began to cry on the bicycle"--he reports in the tweet announcing his retirement.  He has not announced concrete plans, but says he wants to help others.

If all of that is true--and I can't find any reason to doubt him-- Theo Nonnez is wise beyond his 21 years.  Best of all, he's still young enough to come back if he changes his mind a few months or a year from now. (He shouldn't wait too long, though:   An athlete's career is brief!)  Whatever he does, he's already a winner, and I wish him well.