Waiting For...Murray?

I waited nearly a year for Dee-Lilah, my custom Mercian Vincitore Special.  At least I expected as much:  When I ordered her, the folks at Mercian were advising customers to anticipate such a lag between the time they placed their deposits and received their frames or bike.  

If I recall correctly, I waited about the same amount of time for my first Arielle, my dear, departed first Mercian. For ten or twelve months to pass from the time someone puts down a deposit and takes delivery of has never been unusual when ordering a bespoke frame or builder.  But, until the pandemic, the longest I can recall myself or anyone waiting for an off-the-shelf bike was three months, in the heyday of the 1970s North American Bike Boom.  That's how long it took for me to get my Schwinn Continental in 1972.  To be fair, though, I wanted a color that, I'd heard, Schwinn was offering in limited numbers.  

But I don't recall a situation like the one that's developed during the COVID-19 pandemic:  People have had to  wait a year for a bike.  And I'm not talking about a Mercian or a custom frame from someone like Richard Sachs.  Rather, folks are standing in line for Murrays and Huffys from big-box stores.  That has to do with the supply-chain disruptions you've heard about:  Factories closed during lockdowns and ship and dock workers, and truck drivers, either couldn't go to work or quit their jobs.

So it's particularly galling to see this:

 

 Why, in the middle of a bike shortage, is Target tossing brand-new bikes into a dumpster?  One would expect that if those bikes didn't move during a shortage, perhaps they could have been discounted or donated.  But no.  For all that the company, like so many others, likes to tout its philanthropy and environmental objectives.  It doesn't, however, donate merchandise under any circumstances. 

To be fair, many other companies have similar policies. They also, like Target, try not to sell merchandise at significant discounts:  If Target sells Schwinn or H&M sells a sweater, for example, at 50 percent off, the regular price seems much higher.  As for donations, some companies cite the tax and other legal implications of this practice.  Call me a cynic, but while I am willing to grant that companies find that it's too difficult or costly to give their stuff to Goodwill or a community bike center, I can't help but to think that tossing brand-new stuff comes down to the only two words I remember from the only economics class I took:  supply and demand.  Retailers want to keep the former low and the latter high to prop up prices.

I wonder whether the dumpster-diving mom who took the video had been waiting for one of those bikes for herself or her kids.

Beauty Or Taste?

When I recall the places where I've stopped to eat or drink during a ride, I wonder just how good the food or beverages actually were.  Cycling heightens all of the body's and mind's functions, including the senses.  So the fruit and cheese from a roadside market, or the baguette or pastry from a little bakery after a few hours of pedaling is the best I've ever tasted.

So I wonder what how good lunch, or a snack, would have been had I stopped on a recent ride:

I was tempted to stop for the name alone.  The Miss America Diner's sign says it's been in business, on the west side of Jersey City, since 1942. Is the food really that good--or as good as I would remember after a long day's ride?

 

Or would it be beautiful?  Hmm...In other restaurants, the waiters sing and dance.  Does the diner have a talent competition?

I haven't followed the Miss America pageant in a while, but I hear that they it away with the swimsuit competition a few years ago.  Somehow I don't think it would work very well in an eatery.

In the not-too-distant future, I'll ride down that way again. Maybe I'll stop in the Miss America diner.  Will I remember the food the way I remember all of those things I've eaten at the end of a long ride?  Or will it just be beautiful?

Build It And...They Won't Park?

Anti-bike folks like few things more than an "I told you so!" moment.  

An example is when some piece of bicycle "infrastructure" is built and cyclists don't use it because it's useless or unsafe.  Last month, I wrote about a bike lane in Chicago that raised motorists' ire because nobody was pedaling on it.  Like too many other lanes, it begins and ends in seemingly random places--what I call a bike lane from "nowhere to nowhere" and riding it is less safe, especially when entering, exiting or making turns, than riding in traffic.

Something similar could be said for bicycle parking "facilities."  Usually, they are racks of some sort or another by a curb or building.  During the past few years, some workmanlike but useful racks have been installed on New York City sidewalks.  They don't allow for more than a bike or two at a time (five or six, perhaps, in the bike shelters), but they do the job.

They are better than too many other bike parking facilities I've seen.  An old workplace of mine had an old-school grid rack on its grounds.  It was removed because only one person was using it. (Guess who?)  Granted, fewer people were cycling to work in those days.  But I had to wonder whether some thought about riding their bikes to our workplace but were deterred by the pitiful parking provision.

Well, even today, there are racks as bad, or even worse, the one at my old job.  

It's been a while since I've heard "Up Against The Wall!"  I hope not to hear it again.  But I just might, if I ever have to park my bike in Melbourne, Australia:

Of course, the Aussies have an excuse:  The Brits sent their prisoners there.  But, it seems, their former colonizers still know a thing or two about confinement:

Maybe this Macclesfield contraption is an example of that dry British humor we don't get on this side of the pond. 

Speaking of dry, this rack in Atlanta looks more suited to making toast than parking bikes:

If nobody uses those racks, will they be removed?  Or will they be kept just so cyclists won't use them--and give drivers one more reason to be pissed off.