Twin Tubes, Again

Slept late but still got out for a late afternoon ride.  Along the way, I saw someone riding a bike I haven't seen in a long time:

If it looks like the seat tube swallowed up the rear tire...it did, sort of.  That's because the seat tube isn't a tube.  Rather, it's a pair of parallel tubes, much like what one finds in place of the top tube on a mixte frame.  On this bike, the rear tire actually runs between the twin parallel tubes.


I didn't see this exact bike.  But I saw someone riding one like it.  Like the one in the photo, it was a track bike, which is the sort of bike on which this frame design seems most appropriate.


The idea behind it was to make the chainstays and wheelbase shorter, which gives the bike more torsional stiffness while making it more responsive and its handling more sensitive.  It seems that every generation or two, someone pushes the idea that stiffer is better.  And the last time that idea came around, I bought into it.  After all, I was still a guy back then. So what  did you expect.  Stiffer is better indeed.  


Anyway...before I get myself in any deeper, I'll tell you more about the bike.  I actually got to ride one when I was working in a shop about thirty years ago.  It was indeed the stiffest and most responsive bike I'd ridden up to that time.  But it was so sensitive that if you sneezed, you'd probably end up across the street.


The funny thing about Rigis was that the road models seemed to be even more extreme than the track models.  Maybe that was because the shortness of the stays and steepness of the frame angles seemed even more unusual for a road than a track bike.  Look at the photos on Bianchigirl's page to see what I mean.


Back then, we all thought the Rigi was some radical new design.  Turns out, an English builder had the same idea, and for the same reasons, before World War II:

To learn more about this late 1930's Saxon bicycle, check out Hilary Stone's article on Classic Lightweights UK, a beautiful and fascinating website for the bike enthusiast.


I guess in another decade or so, someone'll revive the design.  Plus ca change, plus la meme chose.

A Grand Record And, How I Became Queen of the Road

I didn't post yesterday because I was a bad girl.  I stayed up well past my bedtime and partied.  At least I rode my bike to and from the bash.


Being the warmest day we've had since October, lots of people were riding for the first time this year.  One of them, I suspect, rode this bike:

It was parked in the same rack, at my second job, where I've seen a Pinarello.  I couldn't get a better photo of it because the bikes were parked so close together.  But I think you can see that it's a nice bike:  a Motobecane Grand Record, circa 1973.

The frame was made with Reynolds 531 double-butted tubing, those nice curly Nervex lugs and Campagnolo dropouts.  The bike was originally equipped with a mixture of high-quality French components and Campagnolo Nuovo Record shifters.

This specimen still has the shifters.  However, the crankset was replaced with what looks like a late-model Sugino AT triple.  It's a fine piece of kit, and allows for a small sprocket of 24 teeth.  I'm guessing that its owner wanted a triple, which wasn't possible with the original crankset.

This is the Specialites TA "Professional" crankset, which is what originally came on the Grand Record.  A number of European bikes, including a couple of models from Raleigh, sported this fine piece of machining and polishing.  Notice that the chainrings were attached to only three arms, as was common on cranksets (including Rene Herse's) until the 1970's.  Nearly all modern chainrings attach to either five or four arms.  The newer designs are supposed to be stiffer and more secure.  That may well be true, but plenty of really strong riders rode--and even raced--on three-arm cranks.


Anyway, these days replacement chainrings for those three-arm cranks aren't available from many other sources besides eBay.


After work, I went to the party I mentioned.  A colleague was celebrating a round-number birthday; the guests included some other colleagues as well as friends of hers I'd never met before.  They were all astounded that I rode there.  "But it only took me 45 minutes," I pointed out.  


The colleague offered to let me stay at her place.  I would've accepted, except that I remembered Charlie and Max.  Did I leave enough food for them?  And how full was their litter box?, I wondered.


So I assured my colleague that I had a good time.  I think she knew that, as I was one of the last people to leave.  But I fibbed about something else:  I said I would ride my bike to the Long Island Rail Road station, which was only two blocks away, and take the train home.  


You can guess what I did instead.  I rode home, about twenty-one miles.  It's not a great distance, certainly, and as I didn't drink any alcohol (I never do.), I could easily ride in a straight line.  As it turned out, even if I couldn't, it wouldn't have been much of a problem because the roads I took were almost completely free of traffic at that hour.  

Surprisingly, I didn't feel tired, even though I started to ride at about four in the morning.  The weather had gotten chillier, but I didn't put on the tights I'd brought with me.  So I rode with my legs bare below the hem of my skirt.  I didn't feel cold; I felt invigorated.  And the full moon was so bright that, had I stopped, I could have read Ulysses.  But I didn't stop, not even for a traffic signal.  Some of them were blinking their red lights, but--OK, I was a bad girl--I ran a couple of red lights.  OK, maybe more than a couple.  If a girl runs a red light and no one's there to see it....


And, I'll admit something else:  I took some main roads on which I wouldn't normally ride.  I'm not talking about the Long Island Expressway; I'm talking about main local thoroughfares like Jericho Turnpike, Hillside Avenue and Queens Boulevard (a.k.a. The Boulevard of Death).  


As I was riding those nearly empty streets, I thought for a moment about a Pinky and the Brain episode.  In it, Brain carries out his latest scheme for taking over the world:  He gets Pinky to help him create an alternative planet Earth.  He lures people to it by offering free T-shirts, which he correctly identified as an irresistible draw.  So, emptied of its former inhabitants, Brain finally "takes over" this world.


The difference was that I didn't suffer the empty feeling Brain had in the end.  Instead, by the time I got home, I was starting to feel tired.  And I fell into a very nice sleep--after I fed Charlie and Max.

Green, Green Bikes

On "St. Patty's" day I found a page of--what else?--green bikes.


Here's an image that caught my eye:

Danielle of Studio 1212 created this image.  Speaking of creation and craftsmanship, check out this bike from Vendetta Cycles:

This model is called--what else?--the Green Hornet.


Better that, I say, than another green critter:

I can remember when Puma made only athletic shoes.  Back in those days, I wore some, including cycling, running, basketball, soccer and wrestling shoes.  It was all fine stuff, and they always seemed to fit me well.  


Now, this may be heresy for a transwoman to say, but I much preferred Puma that way.  Now they've become a fashion brand, or are trying to become one.  


What I like even less, though, is the bike on which they company is putting its name.  It looks suspiciously like something a shop tried to talk me into buying about fifteen years ago:

I couldn't find a photo of one in green.  Maybe they were never made.  It seems that every Slingshot I ever saw was in black, even though the one in the photo is red.


All right.  To make up for that, I'll show you a whole rack full of green bikes, courtesy of Bikehugger:

Of course, if one really wants to cycle in style on St. Patrick's Day, the bicycle can't be the only thing that's green:

On The Horizon: Spring

Gatsby had his green light across the harbor.  For me, bridges on the horizon always seem to signal something. 

I hadn't been to this spot in months.  Today I took a little detour over that way on my way home from work.  It is odd, at least for a waterfront area in New York, in that it seems to open up every time I see it.  And the bridges are somehow clearer against every sunset.

I mean that literally as well as metaphorically.  The old Fort Totten Army base, which is near the foot of this bridge, has been turned into a park and its buildings are being given over to civilian--or other--purposes:

The bunkers in the background are very similar--and are in very similar condition--to the ones in Fort Tilden (at the other end of Queens, at Breezy Point) and Fort Hancock in Sandy Hook, NJ.  As I understand, those bunkers were built during the Spanish-American War of 1898 and were little used after that.  

As much as I enjoy the beauty of the water and landscapes around all of those places, it is a little disconcerting to know that those places were all used for the purpose of conducting war.  I hope that they will never be used that way again, just as I hope la Place de la Concorde, where I have enjoyed a stroll or two, is never again used as it was in the days of Robespierre.


For now, the place has its past and I have my moment in it. 

Then there was the ride home, part of it along the paths in Fort Tilden, along Long Island Sound and underneath the bridges I saw in the distance, very close to where Gatsby saw his green light.

Next Year In Provence?

This ain't Peter Mayle's Provence:

German cyclist Tony Martin won this year's Paris-Nice race, which ended yesterday.  Here he's shown on the 27 km time trial to Aix-en-Provence.

If Monsieur Mayle were to write a book about training for the race, would he call it "Next Year In Provence"?  

The Gates To The Seasons

Today I took out Tosca for the first time since the week before Christmas.  In fact, this is the first time any of my Mercians have been out since then.


At Alley Pond Park, we got an interesting welcome:

The "gate" is in Alley Pond Park, near the Queens-Nassau line.  I hadn't been there in a long time.   In fact, the last time I was there, I was on a mountain bike.  So were the three guys who were riding with me.


We didn't need--or, in my case, want--an open gate or door. We used to feel more drawn to entrances like this one:

We were young.  They were guys; I was living as one--and trying desperately to show that I was one of them.  We wouldn't talk about the signs of spring we saw or felt; the seasons didn't really matter.  Nor did the quality of the light.  Actually, I cared about that and other things I didn't talk about then.  

At the end of the day, there was the day's ride and the bike.  Some things don't change.  In fact, even though I'm not and probably will never be in the kind of shape I was in back then, some things are better.  That includes the ride and the bike.

Each of them has brought me to the gates of a new season.

On My Bike, I Know The Season Is Changing

Tonight's post on Girls and Bicycles reminded me that cycling is, above all, a sensual experience.  After you've done some miles in the hills, any slice of pizza can seem like the manna from Heaven, and even the most ordinary cup of tea or bottle of beer (not that I've drunk the latter in a long time) can seem like the nectar of the goddesses.  


And, in the course of a ride--even a commute or a short "shake off the cobwebs" ride at this time of year--the senses attune to the subtlest nuances of light and the finest variations of clarity and mist in the air.


The photograph you see was taken from a park near the Nassau County line.  The ride there was flat yet invigorating. Perhaps that was the reason why I could sense, in every pore and orifice of my body, the play between the light that is opening from dimness to softness and the wind's inspiration turning the weariness of bare limbs stretched against gray skies into calmness that will turn to serenity as the clouds open for glimmerings of reassurance.


It's a wonderful feeling, even if it's momentary. But moments like that make rides and get you through the day, and night.  Really, what other reason is there to ride a bicycle? 

Rose, Thou Are Well

O Rose, thou art sick!

The invisible worm

That flies in the night,

In the howling storm,

Has found out thy bed

Of crimson joy:

And his dark secret love

Does thy life destroy.

I took a slightly different route to work today.  Along the way, I found this:

Does this mean the rose's (with an unnecessary apostrophe) have gotten well? 

Nuke This

I'm selling a couple of things on eBay.  So, naturally, I did a little "shopping."  In addition to bike items, I like to look for books, music and vintage brooches and other accessories.  Ebay is actually quite a good source for the latter:  When someone cleans out an attic in Iowa or goes through Aunt Hattie's estate in North Carolina, all kinds of interesting things can turn up!


Anyway, it almost goes without saying that eBay is one of the first places you check if you're looking for discontinued bike parts.  And, sure enough, something I rode about fifteen years ago and hadn't thought about in about ten appeared:

The hub is a Nuke Proof, which was made during the 1990's. That was the time when it seemed that every mountain bike bum who was still living with his parents so he could have access to his father's lathe and drill press was making what an old riding partner used to call ELS--Expensive Lightweight Shit. 

For a short time, I had Nuke Proof hubs.  Two pairs, in fact.


The bodies were made of carbon-fiber weave, and the aluminum flanges were apparently bonded to them.  With what, I still haven't found out.


Whatever it was, it wasn't very strong or suitable for the purpose. On three of my four of my Nuke Proof hubs, the flanges separated from the shells and collapsed inward toward the center of the axle.  


From what I understand, this wasn't an unusual occurence.  In fact, I know a couple of cyclists to whom the same thing happened.  


Nuke Proof replaced my hubs.  Or so they said.  To this day, I think they simply Super-Glued them back together.  About a week after I got my wheels back, the rear one on my road bike collapsed again.  They didn't want to replace those hubs again.  But Mike Rodriguez, who owned Open Road Cycles in Brooklyn, was one of NP's better customers.  He got yet another set of new NP hubs.  And he let me take a pair each of Dura Ace and XT hubs, plus some other parts, in exchange for those hubs.  I don't know what he did with them.  


Apparently, Nuke Proof is still in business.  To be fair, they made other parts, and for a time they were also making frames, or at least having them made to their specs.  As far as I know, those products held up better than those hubs I, and a lot of other cyclists, suffered with.


I never heard of anyone getting hurt from mishaps from Nuke Proof hubs. That might be the reason NP is still in business:  If nobody got hurt, they probably didn't have any lawsuits.  Still, those hubs must have cost them a lot in warranty claims!


Those hubs are easily the worst bike hubs--and one of the worst bike parts--I ever had.  


Tell me about some of the ELS (with the emphasis on the "S") you've ridden, dear readers.

Fixin' to Sleep

Well, my plan is working.


I installed a fixed gear on Marianela so that my commutes and errand rides would give me more of a workout.  


Last night, I just barely kept myself awake to read the papers that had to be read and prepare my lesson for today. I think I fell asleep immediately after dotting the last "i" or the end of the last sentence.


Then again, I didn't get nearly enough sleep the night before.