The Lance Armstrong--Or The Donald Trump-- Of Chess?

I rarely truck in conspiracy theories. (Really!) But, every once in a while, a seemingly-farfetched explanation for something turns out to be a precursor for the truth.

Case in point:  What Elon Musk said about the meteoric rise of Hans Niemann.  The 19-year-old Californian by way of the Netherlands and Hawaii beat the then-reigning world chess champion Magnus Carlsen last month.  

Musk claimed that Niemann had help.  OK, that's understandable:  After all, almost no-one, even in the world of competitive chess, had heard of Niemann just a few months ago, and prodigies are usually well-established by Niemann's age. But Musk claimed that Niemann's "boost" came not from friends or family, or from a performance-enhancing drug. (What kind of PED would help a chess player, I don't know.  But I'm sure there must be at least one.) Rather, the world's richest man-child came up with an explanation that even I, in either of the puberties I experienced or under the influence of anything I might or might not have tried, could have come up with. The new chess champion, Musk averred, was guided by vibrating anal beads that signaled the correct moves.

You can't make this stuff up.  At least I can't.  But Elon Musk can.  Maybe that's why he's rich and I'm not.

Anyway, it seems that Musk was right on at least one count:  Niemann cheated, not only against Carlsen, but in earlier matches.  Chess.com's investigative report says as much.  Niemann responded in true Trumpian fashion by starting a lawsuit against them, Carlsen and chess streamer Hikaru Nakamura.  

Now, to be fair, other chess masters and fans have characterized Carlsen's recent form as "fragile." In other words, it's not inconceivable that someone--even, perhaps, Niemann--could have beaten him.  And participants in the major grandmaster tournaments normally have to pass through several stages of screening before being assigned to a table and chair. 

A chess "champion" and "top" cyclist?

 

There is, however, another part of Niemann's history--or, more specifically, the way he's framed it--that could lead one to doubt his credibility.  

When he was a child, he lived in the Netherlands, where his parents--one Danish, the other Hawaiian--were working in the IT industry. He started to take chess classes at the age of eight, at the same time he was in the thrall of another kind of competition.  "He liked to get on his racing bike to participate in competitions."  An eight-year-old in a bike race is not unusual in bike-obsessed Netherlands.  So one part of his claim--that he raced--is not only plausible, but a matter of record.  

However, the way he or anyone else could categorize his juvenile cycling career depends on how he or anyone else defines a single word:  "top."  As in, "top cyclist."   As in, "one of the top cyclists in the nation for my age."

Again, to be fair, there is little doubt that he was indeed racing as a child.  Nor is it a "stretch" to believe him when he says that he was "advancing much more rapidly in cycling than in chess."  But the only results CyclingTips could unearth in its investigation were from the 2012 National Championships.  In that race--five laps on a short circuit totaling 7 kilometers, or about 4.5 miles, he finished a minute behind the leader in a 12-minute competition.  That made him 25th out of the 35 young entrants.

So...Does Hans Niemann's Trumpian relationship to the truth and fair play make him a Lance Armstrong of the competitive chess world?  Or does his Lance Armstrong-like willingness to win at all costs make him the competitive chess world's equivalent of Donald Trump?

Pierre Omidyar Led Me To This

Whether or not he realizes it, Pierre Omidyar created one of the world's major rabbit-holes.

At least it is for me. Whenever I look for something on eBay--usually some difficult-to-find small bike part or book--my search triggers other listings, some only loosely, if at all, related to what I was looking for.

Case in point:  I was looking for some brake springs.  I know I could go to Recycle-a-Bicycle or one of the older shops and raid their old-parts piles. But that might mean taking an entire brake mechanism (for which, admittedly, I probably wouldn't pay much, if anything at all) and end up with a bunch of other parts I am not likely to use.  Besides, I wanted to find a "fresh" spring if I could, not one that is rusted and has lost its springiness.

My search took me down a dark, narrow path (OK, I'm being more-than-metaphorical here!) that included this:

Now, I would buy a set of such brakes only if:  1.) the asking price was a small fraction of what the seller wants for them, 2.) I had a bike that needed such brakes or 3.) I were collecting such things.

As for the "if I were a collector" scenario:  Those brakes would definitely be interesting.  They embody almost everything that no bike builder or brake manufacturer does today. 

For one thing, they clamp onto the fork blade.  I know that Dia-Compe (a "legacy" manufacturer that's still making very nice brakes and other parts) makes a dual-pivot brake that similarly clamps onto the fork blades.  But its reach is much shorter than that of the brakes in the photo because it's mainly intended for use on track bikes. Almost every caliper brake made today mounts through a hole in the fork crown or rear seat stay bridge, or is bolted into braze-on fittings on the forks or stays. The latter includes the so-called "direct mount" brakes.

But probably the biggest difference between this brake and anything made today is in the way it's actuated. It's usually classified as a "center pull" (or "central pull," as the manufacturer called it)  because it has two pivot points at each end and its pads are pulled in toward each other when a straddle or traverse spanning the tops of the two arms is pulled away from from the tire.

Actually, "pulled" is not the right word.  That describes how the center pull and cantilever brakes we're familiar with work:  A yoke attached to the brake lever cable pulls the straddle or transverse wire upward.  The arms of one of the brakes in the photos, however, is pushed upward with some sort of cam-like device attached to the cable. Note the position of the cable hole below the spring.

Those "central pull" brakes--some bearing the name "Philco" (I still think of radios!)--were manufactured  by Phillips.  At one time, they were the second-largest bicycle manufacturer in the world, trailing only Raleigh.  In the 1960s, I believe, Raleigh bought them out, as it did to most of their competitors, though bikes--and parts--were still marketed under the "Phillips" name. Those parts include the steel sidepulls found on most British three-speeds until Weinmanns displaced them and the rod brakes on bikes like the Raleigh DL-1 that came with Westwood rims which, unlike rims made for caliper brakes, don't have flat sides.

I've never tried the Philco, "central pull" or whatever you want to call those brakes.  But, from what I've read and heard, the share at least one quality with rod brakes and the company's sidepulls:  they're better than no brakes at all, but not by much--especially in the rain.  Then again, most bikes equipped with such brakes were seldom ridden fast.

One thing I have to say for those Phillips brakes, though:  They were lushly chromed in the way only British parts from about 1970 or earlier were.  (For an example of what I mean, try to find a Cyclo Benelux Super 60 rear derailleur.)  And, well, they did make for an interesting find in the "rabbit hole" Pierre Omidyar sucked me into when I was looking for some center pull brake springs!

A Smog Chaser On A BIcycle?

No sooner had I left behind the oppressive atmosphere of the city and that reek of smoking cookers which pour out, along with clouds of ashes, all of the poisonous fumes they have accumulated in their interiors whenever they have started up, than I noticed the change in my condition.

The "city" in the above passage is Rome.  The person who made wrote that observation about it, and the change in his health upon leaving it, was the philosopher and statesman Seneca, nearly two millenia ago.

His was hardly the first observation about air pollution and its effects.  Nor would such observations cease to be made until the twentieth century.  About five centuries after Seneca, Gregory of Tours, in his Historia Francorum (History of the Franks), makes passing mention of robes smudged by smoke that lingered in the air.

But from the beginning of the Industrial Revolution until the middle of the 20th Century, air--and other types of--pollution were seen as "the price of progress" and, for some, simply making a living. (Interestingly, the Democratic Party, with was largely opposed or indifferent to environmental concerns until the mid-20th Century, while most conservationists--who weren't necessarily thinking about the overall environment--were Republicans.)  Then, a series of deadly smogs--first in mill towns like Donora, Pennsylvania and later in bigger cities like London and New York--made people aware of the dangers of air pollution.

Those toxic clouds also made lay people as well as scientists aware of the need to document specific kinds of air pollution.  Devices became more sophisticated and portable, and data analysis more granular.  But one thing those devices and pieces of information failed to convey is how widely pollution can vary in a relatively small area.  So, a city that is considered relatively "clean" can have pockets--or even larger areas--of concentrated CO2 and other contaminants.

That is where the bicycle comes in.  We all know that turning two pedals to spin two wheels instead of stepping on one pedal to propel four wheels is one of the more effective measures a person can take in helping to reduce carbon emissions.  But now bicycles themselves are being used to identify, not just large areas of pollutions, but those areas--sometimes unexpected--that have concentrations of emissions.

One of those smog-chasers on bicycles is Jordi Mazon in Barcelona, Spain.  He uses an electronic device attached to his bike's handlebars to record variations in emissions all over his city.  His work has revealed, not only variations in the levels and types of pollution, but how quickly it can spread from one area to another.  Among other things, they show us how inadequate a number for a whole city or town, especially (though he doesn't specifically mention it) when pollution disproportionately affects particular communities and people, mainly the poor and those who are considered "minorities."  

Mazon even suggests that governments deploy cyclists with the devices--which are no larger than a typical bike computer and cost around 200 Euros--to take readings in specific areas at specific times.  In addition to the relative low cost, another advantage is that people on bicycles can be sent fairly quickly into small areas without adding to the very phenomenon they are sent to measure.

Hmm...Could that be another career for me--a smog-chaser on a bike?