27 October 2023

Les Freins Sur Jante Sont Morts. Vive Les Freins Sur Jante!

Tell me if I am the only cyclist who's seen a hundred articles or blog posts announcing The Death Of The Rim Brake.

I don't call myself a "retrogrouch":  At least one other blogger has laid claim to that title.  I also do not, however, use the newest and latest stuff just because it's the newest and latest stuff.  My bikes have steel frames (Reynolds), downtube shifters (except for my fixie), pedals with toe clips and straps, Brooks saddles, hand-spoked wheels and, yes, rim brakes:  dual-pivot side pulls on three of my bikes, single-pivot sidepulls (!) on two others and cantilevers on still another.

The reason I'm not making the switch is that the none of the cycling crashes or other accidents I've experienced had anything to do with braking power, or lack thereof.  Then again, I learned a long time ago to keep things in adjustment, replace cables and pads  before they seem to need replacing (every year or two, depending on the conditions in which I've been riding) and to clean my rims and brakes after wet or muddy rides. I use high-quality pads (Mathauser Kool Stop) and cables  employ good braking technique:  I usually anticipate my stops and apply the brakes accordingly.

Now, if I were riding carbon-fiber rims, I might understand the "rim wear" argument.  But even on a relatively light rim like the Mavic Open Pro, I manage to ride many, many miles (or kilometers) without significant wear.  And there might be other extreme conditions which I have yet to ride, and probably won't at this stage of my life, that could warrant disc brakes.


It works! (From Black Mountain Cycle)



But my dual pivots (Shimano BR- R650 and R451 and Dia Compe BRS 100), single pivots (Campagnolo Record) and cantilevers (Tektro 720) have all given me more than adequate stopping power.  Best of all, I can make adjustments or replace parts easily, whether I'm at home or on some backroad in Cambrai or Cambodia, without having to "bleed out" lines or deal with the other complications of disc brakes.

And, as much as I care about my bikes' aesthetics, they're not the reason I'm not using discs.  Actually, some of the discs themselves are rather pretty, and I suppose that in carbon or other modern configurations, the cabling and other necessary parts integrate well. But I still like, in addition to their pretty paint jobs, my bikes' clean lines which, in a sort of Bauhausian way, reflect the simplicity and elegance of their function.

Eben Weiss discusses the virtues I've outlined in his most recent Outside article--and how bike companies are squeezing rim brakes, for no good reason, out of the market.

26 October 2023

Bike Share Program Comes To The Valley

 In the 1960s, anarchists painted bicycles white (Witte Fietsen) and left them on Amsterdam streets for anyone to ride. Some see it as the first public bike-share system.  Others argue that the French city of La Rochelle, during the following decade, started the bike-share movement when it made 350 yellow bicycles available for anyone who wanted to use them.  The contention that the La Rochelle's program was "first" is based on the fact that it was offered by the city government and thus the first to be sanctioned by any organized official body.

Anyway, the movement to make bicycles available to everyone at a nominal fee really took hold from about 2005 to 2015, when cities like Paris, Barcelona, Mexico City and New York started their schemes.  Since then, it has come to be associated mainly with such large metropoli. Lately, however, smaller municipalities have seen the benefits of making bicycles (and scooters) available and have begun, or are exploring, share programs of their own. 

 As an example, the Westchester County city of New Rochelle (which is named for the La Rochelle natives who settled there after fleeing the French religious wars) has had such a program for several years. Although much smaller in size and population, it shares some of the problems of New York City, about 18 miles to the south:  Its narrow streets and compact (some would say claustrophobic) downtown simply can't accommodate any more cars or trucks than already use it.  

I am very familiar with this landscape, if you will, because I cycle through New Rochelle whenever I ride to Connecticut or any point north of NYC on the east side of the Hudson River.  I am also somewhat familiar with Passaic, a New Jersey city I have ridden a few times.  Located about 20 miles (32 kilometers) west of New York and about the same distance north of Newark, it has roughly the same population as La or New Rochelle and an old (for the US, anyway) downtown district and infrastructure first developed before automobiles. 





So, perhaps, it's not surprising that the city is also exploring a bike share program* which, they say, will be modeled at least in part on New York's Citibike (which has expanded into Jersey City and Hoboken). Passaic, named after the river that forms part of its valley, has been mainly a working-class industrial city:  It saw what was, at the time, one of the largest labor strikes in history when textile workers walked off their jobs in 1926.  The city--whose name means "valley"--also was the corporate headquarters and main manufacturing facility for Okonite, which made the some of the first telegraph cables and the wiring for Thomas Edison's first power generating plant (on Pearl Street in NYC).  And it has been called "the birthplace of television" as the experimental station W2XCD transmitted its first signal, in 1931, from the DeForest Radio Station in the city. Its chief engineer, Allen DuMont, left the station a few years later to start the pioneering television manufacturer and the first commercial television network:  DuMont Laboratories and the DuMont Television Network.

So, one might say that bike share programs are like the tech industry:  they're not just in the city (e.g., San Francisco); they're also in the valley.


*--I have tried to link an article about this, but it's behind a paywall: 

 https://www.northjersey.com/story/news/passaic/passaic-city/2023/10/25/passaic-explores-bike-sharing-system-to-help-ease-parking-shortage/71300087007/

25 October 2023

Why You Should Be Worried About Him

 For this post, I am going to invoke my Howard Cosell Rule.  That means this post won’t be about bicycles or bicycling, at least not directly.

As you’ve probably heard by now, Mike Johnson has been elected as Speaker of the US House of Representatives.  That means he is, after Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, next in line to become the President.

Kevin McCarthy, the ousted House Speaker embodied a particular kind of venality that happens when mediocrity and ambition comes within reach of power. He wanted to be Speaker because he wanted to be President, but he had to know, deep down, the Speakership was as close as he’d come to it.

But his lust for power isn’t the reason why his fellow Republicans, who make up the majority of the House ousted him. They weren’t happy that he was willing to make a deal with Democrats in order to pass a  budget and prevent a government shutdown.  And some felt that he wasn’t sufficiently loyal to Trump/MAGA supporters who are no longer a “wing” of the Republican Party: They, along with white Evangelical Christians and conservative Catholics, are the Republican Party.

Which is why they chose Mike Johnson.  He—who played an important role in the attempt to overturn the 2020 Presidential election—is  an Evangelical Christian Nationalist who wants to turn this country into Gilead. He wants to not only outlaw abortions but also to arrest, prosecute and imprison women who have them.  And, not surprisingly, he wants to rescind any laws that enshrine LGBT equality.





Johnson and his ilk have developed a symbiotic relationship with the Trump/MAGA folks:  Their support of Israel will hasten the coming of the Kingdom of God they want—or so they believe.

One thing both groups have in common is their support of the fossil fuels industries—which, not surprisingly, donate generously to their campaigns—and antipathy to anything “green” or “sustainable.”  That is why their attitudes toward cycling range from indifferent to hostile.

Even if their anti-cycling, anti-LGBT, anti-woman policies weren’t bad enough, the fact that Johnson is, as the saying goes, only two heartbeats away from the Presidency is almost as terrifying as the prospect of a convicted felon returning to the Presidency.