I tried, really tried, to get Caterina, Charlie I, Candice, Charlie II, Max and Marlee to ride with me. I even promised to get a recumbent bike so they could curl up in my lap as I pedaled. Alas!
Now I understand the problem: It’s not that they didn’t want to ride with me. They wanted (and Marlee wants) to ride with, shall we say, their own!
Europeans sometimes forget that things they’re at are considered normal in their home countries can get them into trouble here in the good ol’ USA.
I was reminded of this about twenty years ago, when I was starting my gender affirmation process. Michéle (whom I’ve mentioned in my posts about my Paris visits) came to town with Jeanine, who has since passed away and Marie Jeanne.
It wasn’t the first trip to New York for any of them. They therefore weren’t interested in the usual tourist spots. Instead, they liked to see unique and unusual sites.
So, that day, we took the D train to Brighton Beach. a.k.a. Little Odessa by the Sea. We, of course, did some shopping and bought, among other things, bread, sausages, cheese and pickled vegetables for a picnic on the beach.
It was a warm summer day, so they all decided they wanted to go swimming. I would have liked to, I explained, but I didn’t have a bathing suit with me. If I recall correctly, I was wearing a ruffled top and flowy skirt.
“Aucun problème,” intoned Jeanine. She, it turned out, packed a swimsuit. At first I didn’t think it would fit: She was about eight inches shorter than I am, though a bit wider in the hips than most French women. (Her grandparents were Russian and Azerbaijani.)
She motioned for me to change. “Je pourrais être arretée pour ça!” I cautioned.
They shook their heads. “Ici n’est pas France,” I protruded. They all gave me that, “come on, there’s nothing to worry about,” expression that I believe the French have patented. Marie-Jeanne, the only one of the three anywhere my height, held up a beach towel to my right. Michéle, who is only slightly taller than Jeanine, held up a blanket to my left. Thinking, “I’ve done riskier and stupider things,” and seeing no cops, I changed. Much to my surprise, I fit—though barely—into the swimsuit: It was made of Lycra or some other stretchy material.
(Turns out, Michéle, Jeanine and Marie Jeanne were wearing swimsuits under their clothing. Jeanine explained that they heard “Beach” and so prepared themselves—and that she always packed an extra swimsuit.)
Michéle and I laugh about that now. But Laurens ten Dam and Thomas Dekker weren’t so lucky. The Dutch former professional road cyclists went to Kansas for this year’s edition of Unbound Gravel. After a training ride, they drove to a supermarket and department store in Marietta where, after previous rides, they’d gone to change out of their cycling clothes and freshen up before a meal.
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| Laurens ten Adam |
But a tornado destroyed both the supermarket and department store. There were other options for meals, including the Mexican restaurant they chose. But where to change out of their sweaty cycling kit and wash up?
They came up with an idea that reminded me of my day with Michéle, Jeanine and Marie Jeanne at the beach. They opened the doors on one side of their car. Between them, the cyclists took off their bike gear and poured water over themselves for a makeshift “shower.”
Well, if they weren’t cognizant of a cultural difference between the US and a European country that is, arguably, even more liberal than France, it’s understandable that they wouldn’t know that there is almost as much difference between different parts of the US—like, say, Marietta, Kansas and my hometown of New York.
As they “showered,” ten Dem recalled, “I heard a man screaming.” The next thing they knew, he and Dekker were in handcuffs and clad in a way they’d never anticipated: all in orange, but not that of the Dutch national football team. Oh, and they were fingerprinted.
They spent the night as Inmates ten Dam and Inmate Dekker in a Kansas jail cell under “inappropriate behavior in public spaces” legislation.
After spending the night in un-anticipated accommodations and paying a $185 bail fee, they continued their preparations for the Unbound Gravel race, where ten Dam finished 42nd and Dekker 50th.
This will be one of the saddest posts I’ve written.
As you may have heard, Mercian Cycles ceased trading about two weeks ago.
I found out just the other day, when I realized I hadn’t received any notices from them in a while (I was on their mailing list) and went to their website. Their closure wasn’t exactly front-page news because Mercian isn’t like Schwinn, Raleigh or any of those bike manufacturers even non-cyclists know.
Mercian, you see, was one of the last frame builders to make their bespoke and stock frames with traditional methods and materials, even if the latter were updated (e.g. Reynolds 853, 725 or 631 instead of 531 tubing). As for the methods: Mercian’s framebuilders joined those tubes in hand-cut lugs that were pinned and brazed in an open hearth before being finished with deep stove enamel paints. A single builder made the frame every step of the way before the frame was sent to Mercian’s paint shop.
The result was frames that were more beautiful than even most other hand built frames, and certainly more elegant than almost any modern bike. More to the point, Mercian’s work resulted in bikes that you could forget you were riding—they seem to disappear under you—and, barring a crash or other mishap, could outlast you. I know this because I’ve been riding one of my Mercians—Tosca, my fixed-gear—since buying it in 2007, while another of my six Mercians—Negrosa, a 1973 Olympic I bought six years ago—rides as smoothly as it ever has. Oh, and Dee-Lilah, my Vincitore Special (the one with the head lugs in the photo) feels like a magic carpet.
I didn’t want to believe that no more of those wonderful bikes or frames would ever come out of that Derbyshire workshop (or that said workshop would become something else, or be demolished). So I sent an email to Grant and Jane, who had owned Mercian since 2002 and to whom I had spoken and written numerous times. In my response to my “say it ain’t so, Joe” message, I received this:
Hello
This is an automated reply.
Thank you for your email, Mercian Cycles Ltd has ceased to trade, and
we have instructed an Insolvency Practitioner to assist us with taking
the appropriate steps to place the Company into Creditors’ Voluntary
Liquidation.
We have instructed Opus Restructuring LLP and should you have any
queries their contact details are nottingham@opusllp.com.
I hope that some other builder or small company keeps the name and tradition alive (as Woodrup did for Bob Jackson a few years ago) and that Mercian doesn’t become another once-proud name affixed to cookie-cutter bikes from China, Indonesia or some other “sweatshop” country.
