Where Did You Leave Your Bike?

When I go to work, I park my bike on the rack in the college's parking lot.  There, a Peugeot mixte from around 1985 has been parked for at least a couple of years.  I can so date the bike because it's the same model I gave my mother:  a basic carbon-steel frame painted burgundy with yellow and orange graphics, equipped with European components except for the Shimano derailleurs and shifters.

At least one security guard has asked me whether I know who owns that bike.  I don't:  It was just there one day, and has been there ever since.  In the meantime, the chain has turned nearly as orange as the graphics, and other parts are tarnishing or rusting.  The paint still looks pretty good, though, which means that the bike probably wasn't ridden much before it was parked on that rack.

Campus security personnel want to clip the lock and give the bike to a charity or someone in need.  But, as one officer said, "The day after we get rid of it, its owner will show up."

So the owner of that bike remains a mystery. Perhaps she (or he) rode in one day, had some sort of emergency and never returned.  Or perhaps s/he decided that one ride was enough and simply abandoned the bike.

We've all seen bikes like that chained to trees, signposts or other objects for what seem like geological ages.  Once, I went with my parents to the Post Exchange (PX) at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, when my father was a reservist.  I saw a nice Fuji--an S10S, I think--chained to a pole seemingly since that base opened.  A soldier noticed that I was eyeing the bike. He said "the guy", meaning the bike's owner, probably "shipped out."  In the military, they can tell you to go to the other end of the world literally on a moment's notice, he said.

How many "orphan" bikes are there?  What are the stories of the people who left them behind?

Those questions have been asked for years about a bicycle on Vashon Island, Washington, about 15 minutes from Seattle.  This bicycle, though, isn't locked to a tree:  It's in the tree.

Not surprisingly, a few legends have grown about, and claims have been made for, it.  In the latter category is the claim made by Don Puz, who grew up on the island.  When he was a child, his family's house burned down.  Donations to the family included a bicycle, which was too small for Don and had hard rubber tires.  He says that one day in 1954, he rode his bike into the woods where he met some friends.  They weren't riding bikes, so he walked home with them, leaving the bike in the woods.  He simply "forgot" about it, he says, until it showed up on Facebook.

Which brings us to the legends--one of them, anyway.  According to the Facebook posting, "A boy went to war in 1914 and left his bike chained to a tree.  He never came home."

That myth isn't hard to refute:  It's very unlikely that a  boy small enough to ride that bike would have gone to war. Also, if he was American, he probably wouldn't have gone to war in 1914, as the US didn't enter World War I until 1917. 

As for Don Puz's claim, it's plausible if one question can be answered:  How did the bike end up as part of that tree?  Hmm..Dear readers, are any of you dendrologists?   

The World's Fastest Man: A Century Before Usain Bolt

I haven't owned a television in about six years.  I do, however, listen to a fair amount of radio, mainly the local public and independent stations.

One program to which I listen pretty regularly is "Fresh Air," which is something like a radio version of 60 Minutes dedicated to the arts or contemporary issues.  A couple of nights ago, "Fresh Air" featured Dave Davies (no, not the Kinks' guitarist) interviewing journalist Michael Kranish, whose latest book just came out.

The World's Fastest Man:  The Extraordinary Life of Major Taylor, America's First Black Sports Hero documents, not only Major Taylor's athletic exploits, but his contributions to the cause of civil rights.  He was, arguably, as dominant in cycling of his era as Eddy Mercx or Bernard Hinault were in theirs, and towered over his sport the way Michael Jordan, Martina Navratilova and Wayne Gretzky did in their primes.  But, perhaps even more important, he was as unflinching in the face of discrimination as Jackie Robinson and Muhammad Ali were more than half a century later.



I haven't yet read the book, but I plan to. One reason is that, from what I gather in the interview, Kranish's book shows how bicycle racing was the most popular sport in America and much of Europe and Australia during Taylor's time.  Also, he seems to cover in greater detail the discrimination he faced, not only from restaurants and hotels that refused him service, but also from other racers who sometimes even tried to injure him before or during races.  Finally, during the interview, Kranish mentions business ventured that failed--including one from which a white competitor stole his idea after no bank would finance him.

You can listen to the interview here:

Can You Hold It?

Do you really need to blow your nose right now?

Chris Froome probably wishes he'd asked himself that question--and, more important, answered it with a firm "No!"

For unexplained reasons, he blew his nose during the time trial of the Criterium du Daphine last week.  He may have breathed (That's the first time I've ever used that verb in the conditional present perfect tense) easier, but only for a brief moment.  A very brief moment.

He crashed.  That left him with a fractured femur, elbow, neck and ribs and with two liters less blood than he had before he blew his nose.



The result:  Not only was he out of commission after the fourth stage of the race; he has also forefitted much of the remaining season.  At any rate, he won't get to ride in the Tour de France, which he's won four times.

That, of course, has led to more than a few conspiracy theories.  After all, the record for TdF victories is five.  And the four cyclists who share the record are Continentals: Eddy Mercx is Belgian, Miguel Indurain is Basque/Spanish and Bernard Hinault and Jacques Anquetil are French.

I mean, how would that look if a Brit entered that lofty company--just as his country was pulling out of the European Union.

Hmm...Could some anti-Brexiteer have dusted the air in front of him?

(I confess! ;-)

Bike Biennale

Say "Biennale" to intellectual snobs like me (We're the kinds of people who tap our index fingers to our chins and say, "Interesting" when we're looking at something we don't quite understand.) and we think of an art exhibition that takes place every two years in Venice--or other exhibitions that have stolen appropriated the name.

Now there's another kind of Biennale--one for bicycle architecture.  Even for someone who's as jaded as I am has as realistic expectations as mine for bicycle infrastructure, it looks like an enlightening (no, I won't say "interesting") exhibit.  And it would be even more enlightening for most of the folks charged with planning and executing bicycle infrastructure in most places.

This Biennale, which opened in Amsterdam (where else?) the other day, features bicycle infrastructure that's recently been built as well as design proposals.  In the former category are two lanes in Limburg, Belgium I'd want to ride because they seem so other-worldly. One slices directly through a pond, so that cyclists are riding at eye level with the water. (I think now of tour buses "parting" the "Red Sea" during the Universal Studios tour.) The other rises as high as 32 feet into the canopy of a forest.  Both of those lanes are intended to entice more people to ride.  

Among the proposals is one that, if built, I would be able to experience regularly.  It would be built on an abandoned rail line in my home borough of Queens.  In its path, an "upside down bridge" would feature a community center at the base, a "floating forest" at each end of the top and bike paths along the side.

I hope that this Biennale will show not only can bike infrastructure be both practical and beautiful, but can be built in places not called Amsterdam or Copenhagen.
  

Trade War Sends Giant Back To Its Roots

When Trumplethinskin announced tariffs on goods from China, one thing was clear to anyone with an IQ of room temperature or higher:  Jobs would not suddenly re-appear in Ohio and Michigan and Pennsylvania.  Of course, El Cheeto Grande, not being a member of that exclusive club, went ahead with his move.  

Maybe I am not giving him enough credit for his intelligence:  After all, sold the promise of jobs returning, as if they'd simply migrated for a season, to large numbers of people.  Then again, at least some of those people are as desperate as he is avaricious or delusional, depending on what you believe.

So what are the results of those tariffs, so far?  Well, for one thing farmers--many of whose livelihoods are tied to exporting what they grow--are losing sales.  And it doesn't look like jobs are coming back to the US, at least not in the bicycle industry.

Prices are already increasing for many bikes and related goods.  But the world's largest bicycle producer found another way to deal with those new import taxes:  going back to its roots.

I am talking about Giant.  Chairwoman Bonnie Tu said, "we took it seriously," when Trump announced a 25 percent surcharge on almost everything coming from China.  "We started moving before he shut his mouth."

Giant's factory in Taichung City, Taiwan

That meant, of course, she had a very short window of time in which to act.  But act she did:  She shifted production of the company's US-bound bikes from its Chinese factories to the company's headquarters in Taichung City, Taiwan.

The first Giant bikes sold in North America during the 1980s were made in Taiwan.  So were all of the products the company exported to the America, and most to the rest of the world, during the 1990s and early 2000s.  

Bonnie Tu

Ms. Tu says, though, that the company's long-term plan involves moving as much production as possible as close to the markets as is feasible.  Right now, in addition to its Taiwanese facility and the five factories it operates in China, Giant also has a plant in the Netherlands and has announced they are building another in Hungary.

Will Giant start making bikes in the US?  Ms. Tu hasn't said as much, but it wouldn't surprise me if they set up shop in some low-wage "right to work" state in the South.  If they do, I just hope the bikes are better than some of the stuff that came out of Schwinn's since-shuttered Greenville, Mississippi plant.