The Good News, And More (I Hope)

In a literal way, this sign can tell you where I'm not right now:

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During one trip to California, I got about as close as one is allowed to the sign.  I'm not anywhere near it now.  However, this sign inspired a sign I saw where I am now:

In a way, I can understand why that "Bonne Nouvelle" sign is done in a similar style to the "Hollywood" sign.  The latter reflects, I think, the exuberant optimism in which the film industry was created. And the neighborhood in which the "Bonne Nouvelle" signs are posted also has a long association with the performing arts.

However, the area around the "Bonne Nouvelle" sign bore  its namesake centuries before the station bearing the sign was built.  

The Bonne Nouvelle district--and the station--are named for the Notre Dame de Bonne Nouvelle.  That good news is,  I am very sure, different from that for a Hollywood producer.

Of course, you surmised that I am in a French-speaking locale.  I am indeed in Paris, again, visiting a couple of friends.  The station is one at which I transferred--on my way to pick up a bike, though not either of the ones I mentioned in yesterday's post!

Something Else That Isn't New, And Something That's Even Better

So...You think Shimano introduced the low-profile cantilever brake as part of its then-new XTR mountain bike group of components in 1992.

Well, when I first saw those XTR low-profile brakes, I had my suspicions.  Like most Shimano "innovations", some other company had tried it before.  Some, like the dual-pivot brakes by GB, Altenberger and Weinmann, didn't work very well, and Shimano was the first component manufacturer to make it work.  Others, like indexed derailleur shifting and hubs with integrated cassette bodies, were successful in earlier iterations (in both cases, from SunTour), but the cycling public wasn't--for various reasons--ready for them.

So...It probably wouldn't surprise you to learn that Shimano didn't invent the low-profile cantilever brake after all:

I don't know when this brake was made.  I'm guessing that they came as original equipment on the bike and, from what else I saw on the bike--a Motobecane city or utility bike--it was made in the 1960s, or even earlier.  Perhaps the brakes were made by one of the familiar but now-extinct manufacturers like Mafac, CLB or Weinmann.  Or they might have been made by some other company that went out of business even earlier than those firms.  

A sign announcing the bike was for sale hung from its top tubes.  The price was pretty low.  I thought about buying it, except that I don't have the time or resources to restore it.  Its owner might have ridden it for years without lubing (let alone replacing) the chain or cables, or cleaning and greasing the bearings.  But, as you know from reading this, that's something I would never do if I could help it.

Also, the logistics of getting the bike to my place would have been difficult, to say the least, for reasons I will reveal in a future post (possibly tomorrow).

In the meantime, I'll leave you with another interesting bike I saw today.  Given the way it was parked, I couldn't take better photos.  

You know that at some point, this bike was owned by someone who rode a lot--and not just from the French Cycle Touring Society sticker on the fender.

I'm guessing that the bike originally had dropped handlebars and, possibly, a Brooks or Ideale leather saddle.  Should we be upset that the bike now has flat bars and a thicker saddle?  Although I would have liked to see the bike in its "original" state, if the bars and seat are the thing that makes the bike a rider rather than a wall hanging, I won't complain.

The frame is made of Vitus 888--in its time, the chief European rival to Reynolds 531 and Columbus SL or SP. Also, the components are among the best of their time:

Now, you know the Specialities TA crankset, Huret Duopar derailleurs and Maxicar hubs spell "top of the line touring bike."  But this bike's owner (or builder) knew a thing or two:  the front sported a Mafac Racer brake, but the rear featured a Mafac Raid.  (Can't you just see and hear the bated breath and Velo Orange and Compass Cycles?)  And those pedals, from Specialites TA:  possibly the finest quill pedals ever made.  

My favorite feature, though, is this:

No, it's not a funky shifter for a front derailleur.  Instead, the lever operates this:

Some cyclists believed that when Sanyo chainstay-mounted dynamos were made (in the 1980s), they were the best available. I never used one myself, but I knew a few cyclists who did.  All claimed the generator was more efficient than any other available at the time--as long as the tire wasn't knobby or slicked by snow, ice, mud or oily rainwater.

Whatever you want to say, Meral bicycles reflected a lot of attention to detail.  It's too bad we didn't see more of them in the US.

(Yes, that last sentence is a clue as to why I decided not to buy the Motobecane with the low-profile cantilever brakes!)

Going Up, By Whatever Means

I never, ever walked my bike up a hill.  At least, I didn't for more than twenty years.

I swear, it's true!  To me, dismounting and pushing my bike up where I wanted to pedal was the ultimate humiliation--at least, as a cyclist.  Second was probably standing up to pedal, but even that didn't come close to hoofing it when I could have let the bike do the climbing.

Someone I saw today reminded me of that.  He was pushing his bike up a moderate hill.  I caught his glance, he gave me a defensive "You didn't see that!" scowl.  When I turned away from his face, I noticed that his pedals were moving along with his wheels:  He was riding a fixed gear bike.  I was tempted to assure him, "It's OK", but that probably would've made him angrier, or at least more defensive.

These days, I've become less judgmental, at least about things like pushing bikes up hills, however small.  I don't even feel a twinge of superiority when the hill isn't long or steep, or the person isn't riding a fixed gear--or is riding a bike with a "granny gear".  I guess it's something that comes with age:  I really am less judgmental about things besides willful stupidity, arrogance and malice.  Maybe understanding my own frailties and vulnerabilities--which means, of course, understanding that at my age, I'm not going to blow past some riders I might have "left in the dust" in my youth--has made me happy that people like the guy I saw today are on (or with) their bikes.

From AhPekBiker

All right:  I have a confession. (You knew that was coming, right?)  On my way back from Point Lookout on Saturday, I walked up a hill.  Actually, it's worse:  I pushed my bike up the inclined ramp to the walkway of the Cross Bay Bridge.

Now, if you've lost all respect for me, I understand: I would have reacted in the same way, in my youth, to such a rider.  In fact, I would have thought live burial was preferable to becoming such a cyclist.  But I have an excuse  a reason.  Really, I do.

Getting to that ramp, at least from the Rockaways Boardwalk or Rockaway Beach Boulevard, requires a series of sharp turns.  The worst part is that along the way to such turns, or in them, you might have to stop for traffic because the Boulevard and other main thoroughfares of the Rockaways too often become drag strips in the manner of Gerritsen Avenue, which I mentioned the other day.  And I'm not just talking about young guys in love with speed and power but no place to exercise either.  The families in SUVs are just as bad, if not worse.  I guess if I were driving a vehicle full of screaming kids and spouses, I'd probably direct my energies in a way similar to those drivers.

Sometimes they don't stop for traffic lights or "stop" signs, or even slow down for intersections and merges.  And, worst of all, when they park, they'll park anywhere, including in bike lanes--or, worse yet, on the dip in the curb where cyclists--as well as people in wheelchairs--access the ramp for the bridge.

The curb around the dip is simply too high to hop, especially if you're riding a lightweight or fixed gear bike.  I would have had trouble with it even when I had a mountain bike with suspension and was riding it frequently on, as well as off, the trails.  I saw a sliver of space between the SUV parked at the ramp entrance and the spot where the dip curves upward into the curb. I rode through it--but not after losing momentum from having to make the turns I described and stopping at a light just before the entrance.  Then, after making a disjointed snake-curve turn around the rear of that SUV, I had practically no momentum left.  In other words, I had to start at the bottom of an incline.  And, being an old ramp, it is fairly steep.

So, yes, I did walk up it.  Please, please, don't tell anybody.  And, if you push your bike up a ramp, your secret will be safe with me! ;-)

Full Moon Ride

This illustration alone would be enough to entice me to go on the ride it's advertising.  The only thing is, it's in Omaha, and I'm not going to be anywhere near there. But we have a full moon here in NYC!

From Omaha Bicycle Company

A Moment Of Tragedy: Cyclists Run Down In Brooklyn And Indiana

One of my favorite films is Night On Earth.  I won't argue that it's a great film or that Jim Jarmusch is America's answer to Fellini or Truffaut.  It's not the sort of film that will teach you any great lessons or makes any grand artistic statements.  Rather, it reveals people without judging them, which is--to me--one of the best things an artist can do. 

What all of the characters share is the kinship of the night and the confines of taxicabs.  The film shows us what happens inside cabs on a particular night in five different cities:  Los Angeles, New York, Paris, Rome and Helsinki.  Some of the actions and interactions are very, very funny--especially in the New York sequence.  But all of them reveal hopes, vulnerabilities, resentments and so much more.

I've often thought that if I were a filmmaker, I'd want to do something similar with cyclists.  Perhaps I could show a messenger in New York or London or San Francisco, for example, and, say, someone riding to or from work (or to shop) in Paris or Amsterdam and other kinds of cyclists in other places.  Of course, the point of such a film--if indeed there was one--would be to show what it means to be a member of the family of two wheels, if you will.

But there would be a terrible flip-side to such a narrative:  Cyclists who are on the losing end of encounters with motorists, or who are involved in some other kind of mishap.  I was reminded of this when I learned of two tragedies that occurred at around the same time, in two different parts of the United States.

One unfolded in my own backyard, more or less.  Thomas Groarke--suspected of driving drunk--ran down 17-year-old cyclist Sean Ryan near Marine Park, at the far southern end of Brooklyn.  Ryan was pedaling along Gerritsen Avenue, where I have ridden many times.  As the street is long and flat, and the streets that feed into it see little traffic--and even less from people who don't live in the neighborhood--some drivers seem to see it as a local version of the Daytona Speedway.  And, because the area is relatively remote, on the edge of Jamaica Bay, it is not as well-patrolled as some more central areas of Brooklyn.

The impact of the crash severed the bicycle in half.  I shudder to think of what it did to Sean Ryan's body!

Police investigate the scene where Sean Ryan was run  down.

A few hours after that tragedy unfolded on the East Coast, in the middle of Indiana, 36-year-old Theresa Corey Burris was riding to work, on US 40, just east of Hancock County Road 250W.  An 18-wheeler driven carrying an oversize load--a huge concrete slab that protruded onto the shoulder of the road--struck her.  Its driver, 55-year-old Reed Thompson, apparently was unaware he'd run her over until police stopped him half a mile from the scene.  

At the scene where Theresa Corey Burris was run down

Sean Ryan and Theresa Corey Burris were both riding at around the same time.  That unites them; so, unfortunately, is the way they met their endings.  I would prefer that we, as cyclists, share different bonds and that our fates are not similarly bound in a tragic moment.