Most schools and workplaces have dress codes. So do some societies and countries. Then there are the unwritten rules about what you should or shouldn't wear. Bike clubs and sometimes even informal groups of riders have them. Rarely, if ever, is someone barred from a ride that isn't a sanctioned race for not wearing the "proper" attire. But sometimes the body language and facial expressions of other riders tell you all you need to know:
You're riding in a race or event, or with your club or a friend or two. The hill climb feels more arduous than usual, the wind stiffer than what the weather forecasters promised or that straightaway longer than you remember from the last time you rode it. You take a bite of your energy bar, gulp down some water (or Gatorade). They don't help. Nothing does. You feel that instead of the scenery, the weather or anything else about the ride itself, everyone is noticing that you're struggling to keep up.
Someone asks, "Are you OK?" Or maybe they don't have to ask. Their gaze, their facial expression tells you they know. Do you deny that anything is wrong? Or do you say, "I didn't sleep last night," "I'm not feeling quite right" or offer some other excuse that implies you're normally a stronger, faster rider than the one they're seeing.
Perhaps you blame the bike.
That's what Colombian Fernando Gaviria did after finishing second in a high-RPM sprint in the fifth stage of the Giro d'Italia.
He bounced his front wheel as he crossed the finish line. Then he got off the bike and pounded the saddle with his fist. He unleashed an exclamation they probably didn't teach you in Italian 101: "Che bici di merda!" Translation: What a shitty bike!
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| Gaviria and Arnaud Demare at the end of the sprint. (Image from Sprint Cycling Agency) |
He couldn't get into specifics about the problem, he said, because he'd "get told off." But a video suggested a shifting problem: As he spun his pedals faster and faster, his chain seemed stuck on the 14-tooth cog. For a sprint finish, he would have wanted to change to a higher gear.
Perhaps his complaint is legitimate. But I must admit that it would be funny to see an overweight chain-smoking desk jockey blame his $12,000 rig when he couldn't get up a bridge ramp without seeing stars.
Sometimes I and other longtime cyclists blame e-bikes, motorized bikes and scooters for "ruining" or "wrecking" cycling. They have all but taken over some bike lanes in my city, New York, where some of those lanes are just barely wide enough to accomodate two cyclists approaching each other from opposite directions. And the majority of those e-bikes and motorized bikes are ridden by delivery workers racing to meet ten- or fifteen-minute delivery windows guaranteed by restaurant delivery apps.
Now, an e-bike is to blame for destroying actual bicycles. Well, sort of. On Monday afternoon, an employee at 5 Hermanos bike shop--less than a mile from my apartment--plugged an e-bike's lithium-ion battery for charging. That employee and others, as shop owner Jorge Molina Carranza explained, understand how dangerous those batteries can be and therefore don't leave them to charge overnight.
His and employees' precautions, however, weren't enough to prevent what happened next. "It was very sudden, like firecrackers," Molina Carranza explained. "When that battery exploded, all the other batteries started to explode as well."
The result was a two-alarm fireball that destroyed his and his employees' work. All of the inventory--which included regular pedal bikes, mainly used, as well as parts and accessories (The shop seemed to make much, if not most, of its money from repairs.) burned. "I lost everything," Molina Carranza said.
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| 5 Hermanos, after the fire. Photo by Kerry Burke. (Somehow I didn't feel right about photographing it myelf. ) |
Although it wasn't my regular shop, I would sometimes stop at 5 Hermanos for a tube, cable or some other small item, or simply to say, "Hola, como estas?" The folks in the shop, including Jorge, were friendly and seemed not to mind my gringo accent.
Anyway, I hope he and his employees recover and prosper. If they re-open the shop, I wonder how they'll deal with e-bikes. Their mishap is not the first I've heard about batteries catching fire or exploding even as people take proper precautions while charging them.
