29 November 2010

Temptation Under My Feet

White Industries Urban Platform pedals




I succumbed to temptation and it arrived today with the guys in brown shirts.


No, I'm not making Nazi porn.  (Ironically, it was popular in Israel during the 1960's and is enjoying a resurgence.)  What I mean is that amid all those boxes from LL Bean and Macy's, the UPS guys (Yes, they were men.) delivered something I swore I wouldn't buy.


It's a pair of pedals that, even at the lowest online price and with a coupon from the retailer, still cost me more than the first ten or so bikes I owned.  But I have a rationale, if not a justification (I believe that, ultimately, humans cannot justify anything.) for my purchase.


On all of my Mercians, I've been riding MKS GR-9 pedals.  They're platform pedals, which can be ridden comfortably with any shoes heavier than ballet slippers, at least for a few hours. They're the closest thing I could find to my favorite pedal before I went clipless:  the Lyotard No. 23, a.k.a. the Marcel Berthet.


Lyotard No.23 "Marcel Berthet" Pedal


I did my first three European tours on those pedals.  They enabled me to ride in sneakers or trainers I could wear off the bike.  The only other shoes I brought with me were a pair of black cotton Chinese "coolie" shoes.  I could wear them with the dark pants  and polo shirt I brought with me and get into just about anyplace.  


The Berthets were a great design in all sorts of ways.  Even though they were made entirely of steel, they were lighter than the alloy Campagnolo pedals and their clones.  The bearings weren't as high quality as the ones on the Campy pedals, but they were rebuildable and spun freely.  And, did I say they were the most comfortable pedals I've ever ridden?


But today's package didn't contain a pair of them.  They can be found on eBay, but the prices for new ones are nearly as high as the lightest carbon and titanium clipless models.  That's no surprise, really:  Many other longtime cyclists would echo what I said about them, and they've been out of production for about 25 years.  Plus, Japanese collectors prize vintage French bikes and parts above all others. 


Of course, I could have bought used ones. But a "vintage" with a "patina" might mean that someone crashed it thirty years ago and nobody remembers because it's been sitting in a barn or basement ever since.  And that magnifies the one flaw that Berthets had:  They weren't the sturdiest of pedals.  I broke a few axles on them.  Then again, I was riding with, to put it euphemistically, youthful exuberance.  And, in a way, it wasn't so terrible to break them, even on my student's budget:  They cost about a fifth, if that, of what Campys cost.


MKS GR-9
When I decided to stop riding clipless, the nearest pedals I could find to the Berthets were the GR-9s.  MKS has always made good products at reasonable prices, so I was confident of their performance.  However, the platform is narrower, even at its widest point, than the one on the Berthet.  And, although they're comfortable, after more than a few hours--especially on a hot day--they're not quite as nice as the Berthets.  That's because of the way the toeclip attaches to the pedal:




The main part of the clip attaches slightly below the platform.  You can feel it if you're wearing a thin-soled shoe; even with thicker ones, it can create a "hot spot" (though not as severe as the ones on some caged or even clipless pedals).  


On the other hand, clips on the Berthet were level with the platform.  That is one of the details the White Industries Urban Platform pedal captures:




OK.  Now you know the temptation I was describing. I had the chance to try them on someone else's bike and immediately felt the difference.  Not only is the platform wider, it seems to be, if not more ergonomic, at least more suited to the foot.  


The body looks a lot like the Berthet, except that it's made of a high-strength alumunum alloy.  And it has a flip tab that, like the Berthet's, makes entry into toeclips amazingly easy.  




But, aside from the superior metallurgy, the WI pedals have another advantage over the Berthets:  high-strength stainless steel axles and sealed bearings that spin on them. The latter is another rationale for buying them:  On all of my Mercians, the other bearings are sealed.  And I've always thought that pedals were the best place on the bike to use sealed bearings.   


They're going on Arielle, as it's the bike on which I do my longest rides.  But, as finances allow, I'm going to equip my other Mercians with them.

27 November 2010

WWRKD (What Would Ralph Kramden Do?)

Today I had to take the bus to the Jersey Shore.  Now, you're probably looking at my last name and wondering whether I did myself up like Snooki.  As if I could, or would want to...


Anyway, on the way out of , and back into, New York, I passed through the Port Authority Bus Terminal.  I committed, shall we say, a few of my youthful indiscretions there.  So did more than a few other people.  In recent years, the place has been cleaned up and made much safer, along with neighboring Times Square.  (Once, when I was drunk, I stopped a would-be mugger by laughing in his face.)  But the ticket counters are just as understaffed, and the staff in other parts of the terminal are just as rude and surly, as they were.


But I digress.  On my way out, I noticed a monument to a character and TV show that, as far as I can tell, are acquired tastes that I never acquired.  




Ralph Kramden was always threatening to send his wife Alice "to the moon."  I can only imagine how he'd talk to cyclists.  


To be fair, when cycling, I don't have many encounters with long-distance bus drivers, as we tend not to be on the same roads.  However, some of my more harrowing experiences in city cycling have been with bus drivers.  They're not as reckless as some cab drivers, but they are angrier.  I guess having to maneuver a bus into the same tight spaces afforded taxis would make anyone surly, if not psychotic.


How would Ralph Kramden have reacted to a lycra-clad messenger on a hipster fixie?

26 November 2010

The Cycles of Black Friday

No, I didn't go to any of the "Black Friday" sales today.  To me, they're like New Year's Eve in Times Square:  something to be done once, to say that you've done it.   Yes, I've done both.  No, I don't intend to do either again.


The simple explanation is that I don't like being among the BF or NYETS crowds.  Actually, I don't like being among crowds generally.  So what am I doing living in New York, you ask.  Well, I live in the Big Apple precisely because I don't like great masses of people, just as I became a writer and teacher because I was, and in some ways still am, shy.  No, I'm not being cute, contrarian or Zen.  Actually, I never have been any of those things, and Zen is the only one of them I have even the remotest chance of becoming.  But I digress.


It goes something like this:  the more I like people--well, some individual people, anyway--the more I dislike being among masses of them.   And the more I live with and by my shyness, the more I find to say and the more I have the need to say it.  Likewise, the more I enjoy shopping, the less I like to be part of the throngs who are hunting bargains.


All of this has to do with what led me to a lifelong passion for cycling.  When I first started to take long rides and realized that I would benefit from a bike with gears, pedaling while astride two wheels when you were old enough to step on a gas pedal and accelerate four wheels was still something of an act of rebellion, at least in the US.  Also, counterculturism and consumerism were still seen as antithetical to each other:  Birkenstocks weren't yet a brand, or at least a consumer tag.  I still believe that good consumer choices might save you money, but they're not going to save the planet.  I also realize what a position of privilege it is to be able to make choices according to a company's "carbon footprint" or to be a locivore.  Maybe that's the reason I never was a liberal and never will be a hipster.


Anyway, I have my own bragging rights.  I once moved myself from one apartment to another entirely on my bicycle.   Black Friday shoppers, including the one in the photo, had nothing on me(!):


25 November 2010

Giving Thanks on a Quick Morning Ride

I heard it was going to rain today.  So I tried to sneak in an early ride:  just a few miles on Tosca.  It felt about ten degrees colder than it was when I pedaled home last night after teaching in the technical institute.  And yesterday was at least that much colder than the day before.  At least, it seemed that way, for the wind blew hard enough to strip nearly all of the remaining leaves from wizening branches. 


One of the things that amazes me about cycling is that, even after all of these years, I can ride down some street I've pedaled dozens of times before and a moment, an image, will imprint itself in my mind.  Just south of LaGuardia Airport, in East Elmhurst, an elderly black woman stepped, with dignity if not grace, from behind a door on which dark green paint bubbled and the wood splintered and cracked into ashen hues like the ones on her coat, which she expects, or at least hopes, wil get her through another winter.


She is probably thankful for even that.  You might say that I am, too, for being able to ride by and see that, and to be able to ride home, then to Millie's house for Thanksgiving dinner.


I hope yours was at least as good as mine.

23 November 2010

Riding Into The Sunrise...All Right, It's My Morning Commute!

OK.  So yesterday I embellished things just a bit when I said I rode off into the sunset.


Well, this morning, my commute took me into the sunrise.






I always thought it was kind of strange that when the guy got the girl, he rode off into the sunset with her.  I mean, if they're starting a relationship, wouldn't a sunrise be more appropriate?


And what about when the girl gets the guy?  Or when the girl gets the girl?


For any of those scenarios:  Should the guy-who-gets-girl, girl-who-gets-guy or whomever-gets-whomever ride tandems?  Or should they ride solo bikes abreast of each other?  Or single file--and who should lead?


If these questions are academic, well, I guess that's appropriate.  After all, I am riding off to teach in a college.


Into the sunrise.  In Queens, yet!