I Hope Santa Doesn't Leave Coal In My DeFeet Socks

Am I so influential as a blogger that I now have a curse or jinx?

Or is my internalized Catholic Guilt kicking in?

The other day, I wrote about Anthony Hoyte, a.k.a. the Pedaling Picasso, whose rides have been making images of Santa Claus, Frosty the Snowman and other Christmas-related motifs on Strava.

Well, Santa and his reindeer aren't bringing good tidings or shiny new bicycles to some folks who work for the company that gave us the app 100 million cyclists, runners and other athletes use to record and share their rides and workouts.  

The company got caught in the crosshairs, if you will.  The COVID-19-induced surge in demand for bicycles, tech products and services and all things related to both has cooled off.  Also, three years after the pandemic began both industries have been plagued with supply-chain issues and some of the sharks have swallowed the guppies--or, as the business media likes to say, there have been "consolidations."

It's not clear as to which forces, specifically, have led Strava to laying off 40 employees, or about 15 percent of its workforce.  But, being both a bike- and tech-related company right now is, I guess, a bit like being a real-estate and finance company in 2008.

If I jinxed or cursed those now-former Strava employees, I am really, really sorry.  I hope Santa doesn't leave coal in my DeFeet wool socks--though, I imagine, it's difficult to leave some of the sustainable energy sources.  I mean, even though I have pretty big feet, a wind turbine--even a teensy weensy one--probably won't fit!

Should The Pedaling Picasso Become A Planner?

Who is an artist?

More specifically, what makes an artist an artist?

OK, I know that you (some of you, anyway) don't come to this blog for answers to questions like those.  Greater minds than mine can't come up with them, so I won't try to formulate any on this blog, let alone in this post.

There are, however, cyclists who make, if not objets d'art, then at least conceptual creations when they ride.  

Anthony Hoyte, a.k.a. The Pedaling Picasso, created this Strava image of Pere Noel in and around Paris.  While pedaling 109.7 miles over 13 hours and 19 minutes does not yield an impressive average speed, you have to remember that works of art, great or not, take time.  In Hoyte's case, he probably spent much of that time simply navigating his route.

Likewise, his GPS must have worked overtime as he pedaled sketches of Frosty the Snowman, a reindeer, Santa's head and the words "Merry Christmas in and around London and Birmingham.

If he could make street-level route maps of those images, they would be more useful than some of the "bicycle infrastructure" built lately:

I mean, what is the point of a "roundabout" in a bike lane? An intersection with signal lights synchronized so that cyclists cross before the traffic would be infinitely  more practical--and safer. 

A true artist would know better, I think.

Will There Be Another Bicycle Man--Or Woman--In Fayetteville?

I don't know at what moment, exactly, I stopped believing in Santa Claus.  I'm guessing that it came when I was about four or five years old and I saw four "Santa Clause"s on the same block of 18th Avenue in Brooklyn.

If my belief held on beyond that moment, it probably would have ended when I realized that Santa Claus would've been centuries old.  At least, he would have been the  Santa who piloted a reindeer-drawn sleigh across the sky and descended chimneys for kids like me was the same one that did those things for my parents, grandparents and other kids who came before them.

On a more serious note, it's hard not to wonder how many programs ,especially the informal ones, that distribute bikes and other things to needy kids survive beyond their founders or volunteers.

Moses Mathis, the Bicycle Man, with a kid whose Christmas he brightened.

That question entered my mind when I saw a news story about such a scheme--one that I'd mentioned in a post five years ago. One day, Moses Mathis asked a little boy in his Fayetteville, North Carolina neighborhood what he got for Christmas. "A raggedy old bicycle," he said.

"Bring it up here and we will fix it."

Word got around and other kids came by. The next thing he knew, the Mathis' garage was full of bikes. 

That's when the idea of a bike giveaway came to Moses. So, thirty-two years ago, Moses Mathis began a beloved holiday tradition  that earned him the moniker "The Bicycle Man." A few days before Christmas, he allowed kids to choose from among the bikes he'd fixed--without any adult, besides him, present.  He continued this holiday ritual every year until he died in 2013.  Ann, his widow, kept her promise to continue his legacy until she couldn't.

Ann Mathis, in blue top and black jacket, with some of "her" kids.

Well, that day has come.  She has announced that this year's bike giveaway will be the last.  When she started working alongside Moses, she was "a young girl," she explained.  "I'm old now."  After many years of service to her community, she wants to spend more time with her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

The last day for donations will be the 15th of this month, and kids will be allowed to choose their bikes and helmets on the 17th.  

Will there be another "Bicycle Man" or "Bicycle Woman"--the local version of Santa Claus for three decades--in Fayetteville, North Carolina?

He Gave Us A Great Ride

 Charles M. Schulz, who created one of the world’s best-loved comic strips—Peanuts —would have been 100 years old yesterday.

What would Thanksgiving, Christmas and other holidays have been like without the animated cartoons that featured Charlie Brown, Linus, Peppermint Patty and all those other characters who were like kids we knew—or ourselves as kids—only more so.

Oh, and Schulz gave us one of my first heroes.

He’s still one of my heroes!

Me, Dad, Ian, Rita, Maureen And Delilah

The other day I took a ride to the ocean. 

And I took another yesterday.

From those images, you probably can tell that I'm not talking about the Rockaways, Point Lookout or Coney Island, my most common sea-bound treks.

For that matter, I don't mean the Jersey Shore, where I haven't gone in some time.  Rather, for the past two days, I've done two other seaside rides I've mentioned--though, again, not for some time--on this blog.

I arrived in Florida on Friday evening.  The purpose of this trip is a visit with my father, whom I hadn't seen in three years, since my mother's funeral.  We'd planned another visit but, like so many other plans by so many other people, it was put on hold when "COVID happened."  

Since arriving, I've had nearly perfect weather for cycling and, of course, have taken advantage of it.  The bike I rode during previous visits--a balloon-tired beach cruiser--got rusty and dusty. My father, thinking the bike was beyond redemption (it just looks that way) went and bought another bike--a cheapo full-suspension bike--from a friend.  I rode it on Saturday, along the Lehigh Trail, over the bridge in the first photo and up Route A1A through Beverly Beach and Painters Hill.

Along the stretch from Flagler Beach to Beverly Beach, I was looking at some of what Hurricane Ian wrought.  While the damage wasn't nearly as widespread as what befell Sanibel Island or Fort Myers, there were piles of debris on roadsides, testaments to damaged or destroyed buildings and trees. As I looked at one of those ruins, a car door opened.  Just when I thought I was about to be "doored" again, a woman emerged from the half-opened portal and said, "You write a bike blog!"

Nothing like being famous, eh?

Actually, she is someone I met during a previous visit, about seven years ago.  I'd stopped at a gas station-convenience store for a cup of coffee or to use the bathroom--possibly both--when Rita broke me out, for a moment, from my stereotypical New York "don't talk to strangers" mode. (If I recall correctly, I had just arrived the night before.) We stayed in touch for a time but I think her number was part of the data that didn't transfer from my old to new phone, in spite of the salesperson's promise that everything, including a bunch of photos, would make the journey.

I didn't experience a near-catastrophe-turned-happy-coincidence the following day, when I pedaled up to the Castillo San Marcos in Saint Augustine--49 kilometers, or 30.5 miles--into a gusty wind, on the rusty and dusty balloon-tired beach cruiser.  Upon arriving, I wended through the shops and houses of the historic old town before enjoying a picnic lunch on the waterfront promenade and riding back--with that same wind, of course. So, I reckon that I at least rode a metric century on that rusty beach cruiser, though that was not the point of this trip.

After that ride, I showered, got dressed and went out to Mezzaluna for a delightful meal of mussels in a sauce of butter, garlic and lemon with even more delightful company, which included my father and his friend Maureen, a retired Canadian nurse.  She, as it turns out, was something of an avid cyclist and hiker before, as she said, "arthritis found me."  Afterward, we went to her house, filled with her plants and handicrafts, photos and paintings by friends and her late sister, all against backdrops of walls and alcoves painted in very Floridian shades of blue, green and yellow, and "guarded" by my newest friend--Delilah, her cat.

So now there are two Delilahs--well, a Delila and a Dee-Lilah, on this blog. Both are synonymous with delight, even if one is furry and black and white, while the other is lilac-colored and probably would have loved the ride I took today.

So why did I come to the Sunshine State this weekend?  Well, today is Columbus Day, Italian American Pride Day or Indigenous People's Day. (I prefer the latter because, not in spite of the fact that, I'm of Italian heritage: Why should our "pride" day be in honor of a guy who got lost?)  That meant a long weekend and, while some people traveled--There were quite a few out of state plates along A1A and foreign languages spoken at St.Augustine--it isn't nearly as hectic or expensive as traveling at, say, Thanksgiving or the Christmas-New Year season.  Plus, I didn't want the focus of my visit to be a holiday. Rather, I wanted to see Dad again, and because I wondered what it would be like to meet him without Mom or other family members.

I met him into a new phase of his journey--and, I suspect, mine, as I took familiar rides for the first time in a long time.

 

He Didn’t Wear Lycra

 Here in the United States, today is Presidents’ Day.

When I was a kid (really, I was!), two separate holidays were celebrated:  the 12th for Abraham Lincoln’s Birthday and the 22nd for George Washington.  That meant two days off from school unless, of course, the holiday fell on a weekend.  In the 1970s, those fetes were eliminated in favor of a Monday holiday in February.

The resulting long weekend gave stores (and, now, Internet retailers) a day to mark down prices on stuff they couldn’t sell for Christmas or other holidays—and customers an excuse to shop.

As I wrote a few years ago, during the 1890s-early 1900s Bike Boom, Washington’s Birthday was Bicycle Day. Bicycle makers debuted new models in splashy shows, and with sales, in much the same way the day would become the occasion to introduce new car models. 

From what I’ve read, that day was chosen because, at this time of year, people sense that Spring was around the corner—and, in the warmer parts of the country, it had all but arrived.  In those balmier locales (and some less temperate), the day also began the riding or racing season.

Our current President, Joe Biden, has been spotted riding with his wife, Jill, on more than one occasion.  His predecessor who shall not be named did everything he could to denigrate bicycles and cyclists.  But Obama, Clinton and both Bushes were at least occasional cyclists. So was Jimmy Carter, until recently.

I don’t think Ronald Reagan ever mounted two wheels while he was in office, though he was known to ride in his younger days.  And another president I shouldn’t name—let’s call him Tricky Dick—is probably the last person in the world I would expect to see on a bike. (Peter Sagal quipped that in San Clemente, he was seen surfing in his dress shoes.  So it’s not surprising to see him cycling in, shall we say, non-cycling attire.

From The Bicycle Story

Extending The Day, And The Season

 Yesterday I went for a late afternoon ride and noticed that, among other things, late afternoon is stretching later into the day.  I shouldn’t have been surprised:  Almost a month has passed since the Winter Solstice.

Something else I noticed also shouldn’t have surprised me, but did: It seems that Christmas decorations have remained on homes and businesses, and in public places, for longer than in any other year I can recall.  I’m sure it has to do with the fact that nearly two years have passed since the COVID-19 pandemic arrived here.  Some people, like health care workers, are tired in body; many more, I am sure, are fatigued in spirit.  Perhaps putting up those decorations, or simply trying to muster up some cheer, sapped them. 

Or they may simply want to cling to whatever flickerings of joy that are illuminating days that, while lengthening, are still followed by long nights.

I suspect that such is the story of the Toufous family, who gives our neighborhood one of the best and most extravagant holiday displays I’ve ever seen:

They’ve put on a great show for years,  But I think they outdid themselves to honor the memory of a family member.

They, like so many people, have endured so much during the past year.  If they want to leave that display up all year, even if only to make themselves feel better, I’m all for it!

What I Need After The Past Two Years

Here is what I would have posted yesterday, had I not invoked the Howard Cosell rule for someone who deserves it as much as anyone:  Desmond Tutu.

On the day his illustrious life ended--Boxing Day--I rode out to Point Lookout.  I woke, and started my ride, late:  It was close to noon before I mounted the saddle of Zebbie, my red vintage Mercian Vincitore that looks like a Christmas decoration. (I don't say that to throw shade on her; I love the way she looks and rides.)  One consequence is starting late, and stopping for a late lunch at Point Lookout, is that it was dark by the time I got to Forest Park, about 8 kilometers from my apartment.  That also meant, however, that I saw something that made me feel a little less bad about not traveling this year, or last.

Because the Rockaway Boardwalk rims the South Shore of Queens, you can see something you don't normally associate with the East Coast of the US:  a sunset on the ocean.  From the Rockaway Peninsula, the Atlantic Ocean stretches toward New Jersey.

The next time I feel as if I have no influence on anybody, I'll remember yesterday's ride. As I stopped to take photos, people strolling along the boardwalk stopped and turned their heads.   One couple with a small child actually thanked me:  "Otherwise, we never would have looked:  It's perfect!," the man exclaimed.

It was about as close to a perfect sunset as I've seen in this part of the world, and I've seen some stunners--in Santorini (of course!), the Pre Rup temple (Cambodia) , Sirince (in Turkey), .Le Bassin d'Arcachon (near Bordeaux), Lands End Lookout (San Francisco) and from the window of an Amtrak Coast Starlight train.  

All right, I'll confess:  I'm a sucker for sunsets--and bike rides.  Either one is a form of "redemption," if you will, for a day that could have been lost from having beginning  too late.  And they make a difficult year, a difficult time, more bearable--especially in a moment when I don't have to feel, or think about, anything but my legs pumping away, the wind flickering my hair and colors flowing by my eyes--and, in spite of--or is it because of?--the cold and wind, a glow filling me:  what Salvador Quasimodo meant when he wrote,

 M'illumno 

d'immenso.

He probably never met Audre Lorde, but I think she would appreciate that, and he would understand what she meant when she wrote, "Caring for myself is not self-indulgence.  It is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare."

Now, I don't claim to be the world-changer that she or Desmond Tutu were.  But on more than one occasion, I've been chided over my passions for cycling and cats.  I derive no end of pleasure from them, to be sure, but they also have kept me sane, more or less, as I navigated this world "undercover" and "out."

Power Sources

In all of the Anglophone world, except for the United States, it's Boxing Day.

I can remember when the biggest disappointment, for some kids, was getting a toy they couldn't use on Christmas Day because it didn't have the required batteries. Because stores were closed, gratification had to be delayed until the following day, when those Eveready C and D cells could be bought.

Things are a bit different these days:

Kid, you plug your feet onto the pedals!

Can You Imagine These Powered By Pedals?

I had lights on my bike when I did my Christmas Eve ride. Perhaps I didn’t need them: 

 "

Laughing All The Way

 Tell me...Who wouldn't like getting a new bike for Christmas

or taking a ride dashing through the snow, laughing all the way

especially if he's going to meet a friend?

Merry Christmas!

Flights Of (Holiday) Fancy

 Christmas Eve.  The sun chased the morning rain, but not the cold. Still, the weather was good enough for a late afternoon ride to Fort Totten.

On the way out and back, I wended along the Flushing Bay promenade, past the World’s Fair Marina—and within arm’s length, or so it seemed, of the new LaGuardia Airport terminals.

Few things are driven more by technology, and less by aesthetics, or at least visual displays, for their own sake than the design of aviation facilities.  Still, for a moment, one could believe the new terminal was decorated for Christmas:

Will They Get Bikes For Christmas?

If you've tried to buy a bike, or replace parts on one you have, you may have had a difficult time.  COVID restrictions has stopped production and interrupted shipping and distribution all over the world. In the meantime, demand for bikes and parts has increased, as people were reluctant to take mass transportation (or, in some places, it was shut down altogether) and people found that cycling is one way to get to where you're going, get exercise along the way, and adhere to social distancing protocols.

All of that meant a boom in business for bike shops--as long as they had stock.  When supplies dried up, some kept their doors open by doing repairs, as people grew frustrated at not finding the bike or accessory they wanted.  But when supplies of new parts disappeared, those shops cannibalized other bikes for parts---until those ran out.

Thus did a sad irony unfold:  The very "boom" that led, for some shops, to their best profits in years or decades also led to their demise.  Not even well-established and well-respected shops were immune, as we saw when Harris Cyclery shuttered in June.

Now, this pandemic could claim another casualty:  Programs that give bikes to kids from needy families.  One such program is in Mississippi. The Community Benefit Committee of the Lowndes County Sheriff's office has been giving out bikes for the past ten years.  Some of those bikes come through donations, but the majority are purchased, wholesale, from Huffy.  The money comes from events like the Haunted House as well. 

This year's House brought in more than enough money to purchase the bicycles.  But Huffy says it doesn't have bikes to sell them.  Neither, of course, does the local Wal Mart.  

CBC founder and director Rhonda Sanders still holds out hope that there will be some bicycles available. But, just in case there aren't, she is making alternate plans to bring toys to younger kids or technology-related items for older ones.

Learning about Sanders' and the CBC's situation, I have to wonder how many similar programs are in jeopardy--not only this year.  After all, once factories that make bikes, parts and accessories are operating at full capacity, and shipping and distribution channels are flowing freely, warehouses and shops won't be fully restocked overnight.

Their Sales Came On Two Wheels

Five years ago, I wrote about "Bicycle Day."

During the first "bicycle boom," bicycle makers debuted their new models on what was then called Presidents' Day. At that time--the last two decades of the 19th Century and the first of the 20th-- the holiday was observed on George Washington's Birthday, 22 February.  Later, Lincoln's Birthday (12 February) would be observed and, finally, during the 1970s, the two fetes would be merged into Presidents' Day, observed on the third Monday in February.

"Bicycle Day" was a big deal in the days before motorcycles and automobiles because it was the first mode of transportation that was potentially faster--and lower-maintenance--than horses or horse-drawn carriages.  The bicycle also remains, to this day, the only amplifier of human energy, meaning that it's the only known device that can take the energy a person would expend to walk or run and turn it into a faster form of forward motion without any other input.

Bill Clinton, riding indoors

Just as the bicycle has been called, with good reason, as the "parent of the automobile and grandparent of the airplane," Bicycle Day can be seen as the forerunner of other retail traditions.  As motorcycles and, later, automobiles became the "main event" of American capitalism, companies debuted their new motorcycle and car models on Washington's Birthday and, later, Presidents' Day--and dealerships held sales and other events to mark these events.  

Some car and motorcycle dealerships continue the custom to this day. More common, however, are the myriad of Presidents' Sales, on everything from lingerie to Legos, in brick-and-mortar stores as well as online retailers.  In some circles, Presidents' Day has come to be known as the "second Black Friday" or "second Cyber Monday," as store owners and website managers stoke their "bottom lines" after the lull that follows the Christmas-season rush.

Ronald Reagan with first wife Jane Wyman, presumably during their Hollywood years.  When was the last time you saw someone smoking a pipe while riding a bike?

Whether or not they are aware of it, those businesspeople are carrying on a tradition brought to them on two wheels, via Bicycle Day.

(Photos are from The Bicycle Story.)

Reflecting Phantoms and Sting Rays

Some Christians celebrate today, the 6th of January, as the Epiphany.  It's the day after the Twelfth Night of Christmas, so this day is often regarded as the end of the Christmas season.

While some folks take down their Christmas trees and decorations the day after the holiday, or on New Year's Day, I've known many others who put away their holiday decorations on this date.  Also, many decorations in public places like shopping malls and town squares are removed on or around this date.

Such places include the Atlas Park, about 10 kilometers from my apartment.  It's an open-air mall very similar in design to European Village of Palm Coast, Florida.  Both opened around the same time:  just in time for the financial crisis of 2007-2008.  But while EV was built on previously undeveloped land, AP was constructed on the site of Atlas Terminal Industrial Park, which once housed General Electric, Kraft, Westinghouse and New York Telephone as well as other manufacturers.

I don't know whether any Christmas decorations were ever made there.  In the confines of ATIP, however, a company made functional objects that could have served as tree or window ornaments:

If you're of, ahem, a certain age, you might have ridden a bike equipped with those reflectors.  You might still have them, or these:

Gulco "6 pie" reflector, above and below.

6

Schwinns and other bikes from the 1940s through the 1970s came with Gulco reflectors.  Sometimes the company's information was engraved on the metal backing:  Charles Gulotta Company (hence Gulco) of Glendale, New York.  

We all know that modern reflectors and lights do their jobs better than their earlier counterparts.  But you have to admit, those old lights and reflectors had style, or at least character, you just don't find in the new stuff.

Bikes from the 1940s and 1950s used the "bubble" or "jewel" reflectors, while Sting Rays and "muscle" bikes from the 1960s and 1970s came with "2 pie" or "6 pie" reflectors.   All fetch premium prices on eBay.  So does the special bracket that attached "6 pie" reflectors to "banana" seats on Sting Rays.

The small "jewel" reflectors were sometimes attached to the end of leather strips wrapped around hub shafts.  Hipsters and other urban fixed-gear riders sometimes replicate those "hub shiners" on their new machines.

Gulotta/Gulco didn't make reflectors only for bicycles.  The smaller ones were often used to attach license plates to cars and motorcycles; other "shiners" were also found on boats, trucks and other vehicles.

During the 1970s, Japanese bicycles found popularity among American cyclists.  Much about them was equal or superior to their American and European counterparts:  the lug work was often cleaner (at least on the lower- and middle-priced bikes), the SunTour and Shimano derailleurs were easier to shift and more precise and the bikes  represented better overall values for the money.  The Cateye reflectors that came with Fujis, Nishikis, Miyatas and other Japanese bikes were brighter, lighter in weight and sturdier (or at least less delicate).

I tried to obtain information on how long Gulotta/Gulco continued to manufacture.  All I could find were reports that "Charles Gulotta Co Inc" was first registered as a business name in 1925; a trademark application was filed in 1960, approved the following year and renewed in 1981 and "dead/cancelled" in 2002.  So, my guess is that Gulotta/Gulco was making reflectors--though, possibly, not bike-specific ones--into the 1980s, and possibly the 1990s.  By 2000, Atlas was no longer functioning as an industrial facility.

If you're restoring a Schwinn Phantom or Sting Ray, it simply wouldn't be complete without the right reflector--made in my neighborhood, more or less!