Would you ride your bike in this?
The weather report called for a "wintry mix." I always thought that was a seasonal roll of Life Savers that could include, say, peppermint, spearmint, Wint-O-Green and Blue Crystal or whatever they call that flavor.
Our "wintry mix" turned into hail some time early this evening. I heard it rattling against the awning in front of the house.
Tomorrow's weather isn't supposed to be much better. And to think that less than a week ago the temperature had climbed into the 70's and the winter seemed like just a memory! Well, I guess we'll have more weather like that soon enough.
Once again, I cut through Flushing Meadows-Corona Park on my way home from work. It was the site of the 1964-65 World's Fair, for which its iconic Unisphere was built. Nearly three decades later, Men In Black was filmed there.
A German tourist I met in the park reminded me of that. In fact, he said, it was from watching Men In Black that he first learned about the borough of Queens. I was reminded of the time three young Germans approached me near the West Fourth Street subway station in Greenwich Village. They asked me how to get to the South Bronx. They wanted to go there because they had recently seen Fort Apache, The South Bronx. I tried, to no avail, to dissuade them from going.
But I didn't have to do anything like that for the youngish man from Munich I met today. He remarked on the wonderful light of this afternoon turning into this evening in that park as I took this photo:
All of the light has seemed different since my moonlight ride on the wee hours of Saturday morning and the "Super Full Moon" that rose that evening. Plus, it seems--even more than other full moons I've seen--to have brought some strange sights my way.
I encountered one of them in the bike rack at work:
I wondered whether that vestige of a downtube was there only to support the front derailleur. There seems to be no other rationale for it. Maybe it was conceived by someone who believes that we have heads so that we'll have someplace to put our helmets.
Or maybe it was designed by the same person whose bike was attached to a fire hydrant by the longest chain made of 3/4" thick case-hardened links I ever saw. I doubt anyone could have cut that chain, at least not with the sort of tools bike thieves carry with them. But it didn't take someone with a PhD in quantum mechanics to figure out that he could lift that bike and chain over the hydrant and into the back of his van. (I didn't see the theft. I just know that professional thieves, at least at that time, used vans. So, that bike's owner and I assumed that scenario played out.)
The sad thing is that faux seat tube isn't even the worst piece of bike design I've ever seen. Actually, I've seen a lot of things much worse than that. You tend to come across them when you work in a bike shop for a while.
Maybe the designers of that bike and the owner of the bike that got stolen from a fire hydrant could have blamed the moon--even if it wasn't the Super Full Moon.
And that friendly German tourist and I can blame it for the photos we took in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park.
A dreary, rainy, chilly day. Amazing, how spoiled one can get after a couple of nice days. But it's officially spring. And we had a "Super Full Moon" the other night. No wonder my late night-early morning ride didn't seem so dark!
Tomorrow it's supposed to clear up. I'll ride to work and, hopefully, for a bit after that.
I'm going to build a new rear wheel for the rear of Marianela. A couple of spokes have broken on the one I have. I think it had to do with the build quality of the wheel. So I'm going to build with another flip-flop hub (Formula sealed bearing under the IRO brand.) and a Sun CR-18 rim. Normally, I prefer Mavic rims, and that's what Arielle, Tosca and Helene have. But Mavic doesn't seem to be making anything in the 27 inch diameter these days, and I don't want to take chances with used rims. The alternatives are Weinmann (which I used to like, but seem to get mixed reviews these days), Alex and a couple of "mystery" brands.
I know, 700 C is the standard diameter. That's what all of my Mavic rims are. But Marianela came with 27" wheels, and the rear brake is a long-reach centerpull with its pads about as far down as they'll go. I really don't want to get a longer brake, as all that seem available are BMX-type brakes, which wouldn't work well on the bike or with the levers I'm using. Plus, in spite of its length, the rear brake is powerful. That has to do with the long straddle cable which wraps around the lug that joins the stays to the top tube.
The wheel will probably cost more than the bike did. But I figure that it's still cheaper than buying a new hybrid or low-end road bike. I've done that before, and within a year I end up replacing all of the parts. Plus, for a heavier bike, I like the way Marianela rides.
