A Monument Befitting A Giant

 Yesterday I mentioned a monument to a pioneer of his sport and the struggle for civil rights.  Today I came across a story about a new monument to Robinson’s sporting and historical grandfather, if you will.

As readers of this blog—and those with even a cursory knowledge of cycling history—know, Marshall Walter “Major” Taylor was not only the first Black World Champion cyclist; he was also the first African-American champion in any sport. 

(George Dixon, the African Canadian who won the bantamweight boxing title in 1892, was the first Black champion of any sport. Interestingly, Taylor first won his title in Montréal.)

While Major Taylor is most often associated with Worcester, Massachusetts, where he lived much of his adult life, and New York, Paris and other places where he achieved his victories, he was born and raised In Indianapolis—where, I suspect, few people have been aware of him.

Until now, that is.  As part of the city’s bicentennial celebration, its Arts Council commissioned a “Bicentennial Legends” mural series. (If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you know that I love murals!) The latest is a five-story homage to Major Taylor.

His great-granddaughter Karen Brown Donovan attended the ribbon-cutting ceremony last week, along with 1984 Olympic sprint medalist Nelson Vails, pro cyclists Justin Williams and Rashaan Bahati, and mural artist Shawn Michael Warren.

Jackie In The Jersey Theater

Today I took a ride into New Jersey for the first time, I think, since the pandemic began.  I know, that sounds odd, considering how often I’ve pedaled to Connecticut. But I finally got up the courage to board the ferry—which, much to my surprise, was nearly empty—to Jersey City.

I’d forgotten just how odd and interesting parts of the city are.  In Journal Square stands this monument to one of the icons, not only of sports, but also of racial equality and human rights:

Jackie Robinson is one athlete I wish I could have seen in his prime.  What I learned from looking at this sculpture, though, is the emotions he tried not to show, and the ones that he couldn’t help but to reveal.

Sporting events at their best are theater, or at least dramatic. So, perhaps, it’s not surprising to see this theatre across Kennedy Boulevard:

It’s long fascinated me that during the 1920s, when movies first reached mass audiences and studios built towering, cavernous shrines to them, Art Deco and a fascination for all things Egyptian defined the visual style of the time just as jazz was its soundtrack.  Looking at buildings like the Loew’s Jersey, though, shows me how congruent those things were: the lines and shapes of Art Deco building details and Egyptian carvings mirror each other as much as they echo the tempo changes of the era’s best music.

So a theater stands across from a monument to a man who played out one of this country’s real-life dramas.  To his right, across Pavonia Avenue, stands another former movie theater:

Like many other former cinematic cathedrals, it’s become a house of worship. That makes sense, as the interior dimensions of those old movie houses closely resemble theaters.  And when you come down to it, a mass or service is a kind of theatrical performance—just like a ball game or bike race.

And I got to see the theater of the street from my bike.

After A Century—Airbags For Cyclists?

The first US-made automobiles with airbags were introduced in the mid-1970s.  The pneumatic restraints became common about two decades later and mandatory in 1998. However, the innovation is just over a century old: In 1919, Harold Round and Arthur Parrott of Birmingham, England filed a patent, which was approved the following year, in the United States.

(Interestingly, the airbag’s inventors were dentists. If they’d marketed their device, it would’ve made a fun ad slogan:  The Round Parrott takes the bite out of crashes!)

It took another three decades, however, for someone to patent a version for use in automobiles. John W. Hetrick, an industrial engineer, came up with the idea of a bag that would inflate on bumper impact after working on Navy torpedoes. Unfortunately, he became one of many who didn’t profit from his work:  No auto company wanted to finance it, and his patent expired just before Ford installed it on a few experimental cars.

That leads me to wonder whether the product I’m about to describe had a similar fate. Evoc Sports of Germany has just introduced its Commute Air Pro 18.  

It’s a set of football-style shoulder pads designed to inflate within 0.02 seconds after an impact is detected. They are intended to protect a cyclist’s neck, shoulders, chest and collarbone—the last of which is the site of frequent and painful injuries. The sensor is activated by an electronic magnetic buckle on the waistband. It can be unbuckled so that the rider can bend over (say, to pick up his or her bike) without deploying the airbags. The bags themselves are re-usable but, after they are inflated, the CO2 cartridge will need replacement.

The device is contained in a backpack that has enough room for a laptop and more. When it reaches the market next year, it’s expected to go for 900 Euros (about $1065 at current rates). I hope that a.) the price comes down, b.) it’s as effective at preventing injuries as it’s claimed to be and c.) its inventor benefits more from it than John Hetrick did from automotive air bags.