Yesterday’s military parade in Washington DC was a birthday bash for the Fake Tan Fūhrer, I mean, celebration of the US Army’s 250th anniversary.
I’ve marched in a few parades but I am not a fan of them in general. If I were to have one, however, it might look something like this:
A bicycle company rolls out a prototype of a new bike. Someone wins a race on it. The Union Cycliste Internationale bans it.
All right, that’s not the exact sequence of events. But it’s close, and the reality is as absurd as I’ve made it seem.
Jake Stewart pedaled Factor’s prototype aerobike to victory in the Criterium du Dauphine, a multi-day stage road race in France. At or around that moment—no-one seems to agree on the timing—the UCI issued a new set of rules that includes regulations on frame dimensions, in particular rear stay and front fork width.
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| Image Credit: Will Jones, Cycling News |
While none of the journalists covering the race could get close enough to the bike to measure it, almost all agreed that it’s at or beyond the limits, which will bind road bikes starting the first of next year and track bikes one year later.
Focus, perhaps not surprisingly, does not want to release details about, or grant access to, the bike. I can just imagine the reaction of the company’s designers, engineers and marketing folks if the UCI bans the machines, as I don’t think enough everyday cyclists, no matter how wealthy, would be in the market for it for the company to continue producing it.
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| Image credit: SW Pix |
But if the timing is anything I described at the beginning of this post, I can imagine the folks at UCI exclaiming, “Oh merde!” when Jake mounted the podium—and not only because Stewart is British.
Yesterday I pedaled to Point Lookout via the Rockaways. This is an interesting time of year for such a ride: it’s almost or actually summer, depending on whom you ask, but the temperature difference between the “mainland” and beach areas still is, or at least feels, as pronounced as it is early in the Spring. According to some reports, temperatures reached 85-88F (29-31C) around my apartment and in other central areas of New York City. But the lifeguard stations along the Rockaways Boardwalk indicated 72F (22C). It certainly felt that way, with wind blowing from 59F (14C) water.
I didn’t need to know the numbers, however, to explain something I saw: Many people walking or riding the Boardwalk but hardly anybody swimming. And those statistics couldn’t have explained the differences, however subtle, I noticed in the light and color of the sky and water.
