Somewhere in my dim dark past I learned that when glaciers recede, they take away pieces of whatever they covered.
That theory would seem to hold up in light of what I saw this morning:
About two weeks ago, this bike was buried under about two feet of snow:
Now, I'd like to think that the bike had a seat (and post!) when it was parked before the snowstorm. Although I'm a hardened New Yorker, I'd still rather believe that the seat and seatpost were swept away by retreating snow and ice than to know that they were taken by someone.
And, just as the backtracking snow and ice cut crevasses and tear chasms into the earth, so did the retreating remnants of this winter's storm rend this vessel of urban transport:
Do we pity the bike or simply attribute what it's endured to the march of history?
While surfing eBay, I came across a listing for this classic beauty:
It's a Mercian from 1980, made--as nearly all Mercians had been, up to that time--of Reynolds 531 tubing. The components on it are what one might expect on a top-level touring, randonneuring or audax bike from that time: Stronglight triple crank, Huret Duopar derailleurs, early Phil Wood hubs.
It's even in a color I like. While my favorite is #57 on the Mercian color chart (Why else would I have three bikes in that color?), followed by numbers 17, 9, 53 and 39, I have a soft spot for British Racing Green. Most bikes I've seen in that color have white lug outlines, panels and other details. But I thought the gold panels on this Mercian gave BRG a glow and warmth I hadn't expected.
Now, tell me, how can anyone so deface such a lovely bike?
Around the time that Mercian was made, the tacky accessory you see on its downtube first came onto the market. It's called the Flick Stand, and it was made by Rhode Gear.
The idea was, of course, to keep the wheel steady when the bike was standing. It could have been very useful when there was a load on the bike. In fact, I had one on my bike for my first European tour. It lasted about three days: The part where the metal loop attached to the bracket cracked and broke.
Every once in a while, I see a Flick Stand. I also sometimes see remnants of them: The metal loop broke off and the bike's owner didn't bother to remove the clamp.
If that design flaw had been eliminated, the Flick Stand could have been very useful. It still would have been ugly on a nice bike, though.
I first started to ride long distances at a very interesting time, at least for cycling. The so-called Bike Boom of the early-to-mid 1970's was in full swing. I, like other Americans, was learning about the differences between various drop-bar bikes and what made one derailleur better than another.
Adolescents like me could only drool and dream over bikes with Campagnolo kit. However, there was a small group of cyclists who were engineers or machinists by profession and believed that Campagnolo's products could stand improvement. In fact, Weyless** founder Bill Tabb was said to be envisioning an entire line of components, all of which would have had more advanced design than any others that were available at the time.
The first products Weyless (Aren't their graphics sooo '70's?) offered were their hubs. They weighed about 25 percent less than Campagnolo's counterparts. And they cost about that much less. They were made with sealed cartridge bearings. Today that seems commonplace; however, when those hubs were introduced around 1974, it was exotic. So was the mirror-bright finish that was anodized with a clear coat.
That same year, Weyless came out with a pedal that was orginally designed and made by Bob Reedy. If it looks familiar, that's because a number of pedals that came into the market, and which are in use today, were inspired by--or are outright copies of--this simple, elegant design.
Soon afterward, Weyless came out with a two-bolt seatpost that served as the inspiration for SunTour's Superbe post as well as other designs. So far, so good. Right?
Well, a couple of things happened that neither Tabb nor anyone else in the company anticipated. The first was the Oil Shock of 1974. That should have gotten more people to ride bikes and use their cars less. But, for reasons no one has explained, things didn't work that way.
By the time the Oil Shock hit, most people who were inclined to buy new bikes had already bought them. As good bikes are durable items, their owners would not be on the market for another any time soon after buying their first (or only) bike. Plus, many people bought bikes and rode them once or twice before giving up. That's why some of you have been able to find some nice vintage bikes in good condition.
That also meant fewer people were in the market for bike parts, let alone cutting-edge ones. And, instead of going ahead with the rest of a component lineup--which could have found a niche market--they decided to make a line of bike clothes out of what may have been the first high-tech Merino wool.
That in itself might not have been a problem save for the fact that those garments were guaranteed not to shrink. And guess what happened? What the company had to pay in replacements and reimbursements for their jerseys alone was enough to sink it. It seems that, all told, Weyless was in business for no more than five years.
Today Weyless is one of those names that's been relegated to the footnotes of cycling history. But, whatever the faults of their clothing or business model were, their parts--which were made in Rochester, NY--would serve as models or inspirations for other bike parts made decades later.
**The Weyless company I'm discussing in this post bears absolutely no relationship to a line of parts and mountain bikes by the same name that was marketed by the mail/online retailer Supergo during the late 1990's and the first years of the 21st Century. Supergo would be acquired by Performance Bicycles, which apparently killed off the Weyless and Supergo brands as well as Scattante, Supergo's house brand of road bikes.
Just when I thought we were going to have clear roads and the last of the sooty snow residue was gone, we got a couple more inches. It was pretty wet, dense stuff, so it didn't stay for very long. But we're supposed to get more snow tonight and tomorrow. So what will that mean for my commute?
Well, if I do ride tomorrow, it will probably mean that in at least one of my schools, I won't be able to use the bike rack.
Now I'm really wondering what the Ground Hog saw almost three weeks ago. Do we really have only three remaining weeks of winter?
You all know that Robert Browning wrote "Less is more." OK, if you studied English Lit instead of architecture, you'd know that. At least I now know that my degree was good for something.
Anyway, it's become a guiding principle behind changes I made to two of my bikes.
The irony of that is that when I first started cycling, I--like most people--thought, well, more is more. Young kids rode bikes with 20 inch tires. In my parents' time, and when I was a young child, bikes for bigger kids and adults (the few who were riding in the US at that time) had 26 inch tires. Ergo, bigger wheel meant better bike. So those Bike Boom-era ten-speeds with their 27 inch tires had to be le ne plus ultra, or the bee's knees, or whatever you wanted to call it, of cycling.
Then we learned that the really high-quality bikes--which included ones with tubular or high-performance clincher tires--had 700C tires. They were sometimes referred to (quite erroneously) as 28 inch tires. They were, however, slightly smaller than their 27 inch counterparts.
There was a corollary in gearing. Most kids' bikes had single-speed coaster brake rear hubs. Only the more grown-up "English racer" bikes had multiple speeds. Three, count 'em, three gears!
Then the bike boom came along, and "ten speed" became synonymous with a higher-performance bike. Over the years, the bikes designed for the most serious and discerning (or simply status-conscious) riders had more and more gears. By the turn of the millennium, one of the advantages cited for Campagnolo over Shimano was that the former had ten speeds in the rear, while the latter had "only" nine.
Ten speeds in the rear. Whooda dreamed of that back in the days when ten speeds for the whole bike was as exotic as the doors on the de Lorean?
Then, of course, Campagnolo came out with an eleven-speed system a couple of years ago. So, anybody using it with a double front chainring has 22 speeds. That's more than what could be had on two bikes forty years ago!
About two years ago, I went back to my roots and gave up on STI/Ergo in favor of friction down tube shifters. I use them now with 8 speed cassettes in the rear.
Why? Well, even if you spend all of your free time scouring e-Bay for screw-on freewheels, you're not likely to find a wide variety of sizes. And they're expensive. On the other hand, decent quality 8-speed cassettes can still be had at reasonable prices, and a wide range of sizes is available.
Plus, the cassette system makes installation and removal easier, and is stronger than the old screw-on frewheel system. And the chains are a bit thicker than those for nine, ten or eleven speeds, and therefore wear longer.
Now, after riding for some time on 8 speeds, I decided to "downsize" some more when I replaced the triple crank on Arielle with a "compact double." So now I have 16 speeds instead of 24. Although I'm not a weight weenie, I note that the new setup is a bit lighter. More important, though, is that shifting is simpler and more reliable. That has to do with having fewer gears to shift, but it's also a function of the fact that this setup allows me to use short-cage derailleurs, which shift more crisply.
I have the same sort of setup--albeit with lower gears--on Helene.
It seems, though, no matter how many gears I have, I seem to ride in the same three or four on any given bike for about 90 percent of my riding. Many other experienced riders say similar things. So, you may be wondering why we don't ride bikes with only our three or four favorite gears. Well, we like to be prepared, especially if we're far from home or the nearest bike shop. So we want a couple of lower gears for the hills we may encounter or the wind we run into along the way. And, of course, we want a couple of higher gears, at least, for more optimal riding conditions.
So, you ask, how much less is more? Well, that's a question you answer from your own experience. Robert Browning, after all, wasn't writing about bike gearing!
How much difference can a day make?
Yesterday, when I was riding home from work, the temperature was 70F (21C). I was tempted to stop somewhere and take off my pantyhose, just to feel the unseasonably mild air against my legs.
And I was wearing a short-sleeved lavender top and an amethyst-colored overshirt made of a silky material much like that of the blue and gray printed skirt I wore.
Today I wished that I'd worn heavier tights than the ones I wore, even though my riding consisted of a few short errands that totaled no more than 8 miles.
It's about 30 degrees F as I write this, a day and four hours after yesterday's ride home. And the winds were powerful enough to topple utility poles in Westchester County and New Jersey.
Tomorrow's supposed to be much like today. So are the couple of days after that.
Lately I've been debating to myself whether I want to get a Brompton (when I have the money, of course!). On one hand, there are ways I could use a folding bike. And most Brompton owners seem happy with their machines.
On the other hand, I have had one folding bike, which I sold within a year because I didn't like it. That was a Dahon model with a five-speed internally-geared Sturmey Archer hub. It's the only bike I've ever owned that felt both squishy and harsh at the same time. On top of that, the quality didn't seem very good and there were a bunch of proprietary parts. Hal at Habitat says that the Brompton has even more of them.
Perhaps the folding bike I'd really want was made more than forty years ago:
Yes, it was by none other than Rene Herse, who is shown with his creation in the July 1970 issue of Bicycling!
Don't you just love those knickers he's wearing?
Yesterday was cold, but clear. And it seemed that the streets were finally clear of ice and snow. So I rode to work. It felt suprisingly normal, and good, considering how little riding I've done this winter. The ride to my main job, and from there to my part-time job, were actually pretty routine.
And so was the ride home. I know that, bit by bit, we're getting closer to spring because it wasn't dark when I got on my bike at the end of my workday. Rather, I started pedaling around the time the sun was beginning to set.
As I often do, I cut across Flushing Meadow-Corona Park. It's kind of odd to say "cut," as going through the park actually lengthens my ride. But I don't mind, as riding through the park is usually pleasant in and of itself, and it allows me to bypass the worst traffic between my home and work: the area around Main Street in Flushing where, it seems, a whole continent's worth of cars--and driving skills--swerves, squeezes and wedges into four lanes of traffic.
Some night when I don't have any pressing appointments, I plan to actually stop by the Main Street area. It may have the widest and best selection of Asian food available in the US, with the possible exception of what's found in a couple of cities in California.
Anyway...My ride home hit a bit of a snag right in the middle of the park:
OK, so Marianela's not the Titanic and the Park isn't the far North Atlantic. But at times like that, I really wish that ice would remain in little paper cups, where it belongs, with lemon or cherry flavoring.
The ice spread around the Unisphere to the other end of the park. So what to do? Option A was to backtrack and ride up to Main Street. I had scarcely enough time for that. Option B wast to walk across. But I figured I had just as much chance of slipping and falling if I were on my feet as I'd have on my bike. That left me with Option C. That involved riding through the parts of the path where the ice was rutted with patches of exposed asphalt.
This may have been the only time in my life I chose to ride through anything resembling potholes. Maybe the near-constant vibration kept me from thinking about the ice and other hazards. Whatever the reason, I made it out to the other side of the park. And the rest of my ride home was as unremarkable as the segment before the park.
Today I was drifting aimlessly in cyberspace when I really should have been doing other things. And, somehow, I came upon this:
Someone rescued a few sets of bags like these from an old newspaper building that was being torn down. Now he's selling them.
I'll bet that some of you have never even seen, much less used, an old-fashioned newsboys' bag like the one pictured. In cities, home delivery of newspapers is all but gone. And in some cities, newspapers themselves, at least the print versions, are a dying breed.
In fact, I haven't even heard the term "newsboy" in a long time. I wonder if that job still exists. And if it does, is it done only by "newsboys?" Back in my day, it was.
Yes, it was a gender-specific job. I don't think there was any rule against girls delivering newspapers; it just didn't happen. Or so most people think. Little did they know...
Yes, I was a newsboy. At least, that's what I was called. I started delivering papers a year after my family moved to New Jersey, if I remember correctly.
And--again, I'm depending memories not only of a long-past time, but of someone I have not been in a seemingly long time--I was even named Carrier of The Month, or some such thing, by The Asbury Park Press. After I was delivering for about a year, our job titles were made gender-neutral: newsboys became newspaper carriers. I could not show the sigh of relief I felt within me when that happened!
I don't think I've looked at the APP since I stopped delivering it. I've found the online edition, which I've linked. But now I wonder whether they still have a print edition.
If they don't, what are all those newsboys--er, news carriers--going to do? After all, that experience must have something to do with the person I've become!
At my part-time teaching gig (which may well become full-time), I've become friendly with a few people in my department. Actually, they've all been friendly to me, but because of my schedule, I don't get to see all of them all of the time. But there is a recurring cast of characters, if you will, and I find myself becoming friendly with a few of them. One in particular shares a few interests with me, including cycling.
To all of you guys: She's married. Of course, that doesn't make any difference to me. Our common interests include poetry and, as you can see from the photo, cycling.
Now you know I'm not the only one in NY crazy enough to cycle in a skirt through cold weather!
I'm mentioning her because, for one thing, she looks even better on a bike than I do and I don't begrudge her at all. But more to the point, she's the only cycling colleague I've had in all of the time I've been teaching in higher-education institutions.
The colleges in which I've worked have had cycling profs. Not many, but they were present. However, I've never had a cycling colleague in a department in which I've taught.
I've done all of my college teaching in the five boroughs of New York City. So I don't encounter as many profs on bikes as I might on a suburban or rural campus. However, I can't think of an explanation as to why none of the velocipedic academics I've met have been in English departments or writing or basic-skills programs, which are the departments and programs in which I've always worked.
Are cyclists in English departments as rare in other colleges as rare as they are in the schools in which I've worked?
