OK, I'll admit it: The real reason I've been denigrating all of those "hipster fixies" is that I've wanted one.
Well, now I've made my wish come true:
Happy April 1st!
I must say, I like the ride. But it's a little on the heavy side. So to keep its fine ride qualities, I'm going to do what we used to do back in the day to lighten up:
It just happens that someone gave me a nice old drill with some nice hard bits.
And all of us old-school cyclists know that "an ounce off the wheels is worth two off the frame." So if I like the ride now, imagine if I made the wheels lighter. And the tires...
One of the reasons I haven't ridden with a club in a long time is my aversion to groupthink. As often as not, they're riding the same bikes or the same few bikes, and the componentry and accessories tend to be the same, or similar on each club member's bike. They might even be wearing club jerseys.
No, I have no desire to be a Stepford cyclist.
Seeing everyone riding the same bikes, wheels or other components has no appeal to me. But, to me, it would be downright creepy if everyone rode the same seat. That is definitely not an area in which one should be a slave of fashion:
If the Tour de France riders were to use his seat, they never would have to worry about taking l'arret pipi.
It's really strange. The other day, when I was out riding through some old stomping grounds and along seaside bikeways battered by winter storms, I saw maybe two other cyclists. Granted, the weather was chilly and breezy, but it was still more conducive to cycling than what we had through much of the winter.
Today, if anything, was colder and windier. Yet, during my commutes, I saw even more cyclists than I saw during our "heat wave" (when temperatures climbed over 70F) about a week and a half ago. Some were dressed, as I was, in clothes we'd wear to work; others came wrapped in lycra on their racing bikes. I'm happy to see them all: They're definitely signs of spring, even if the weather isn't.
And the bike rack at my second job was full. It was yet another sign that the bike season is, if not in full swing, at least on its way.
But one thing tells me it's not quite spring yet, whatever the calendar says: the hue of the water. The other day, when I crossed Jamaica Bay and clattered along the Rockaway boardwalk, the water took on an almost metallic, cobalt-like hue:
In some places, along the beaches of the Rockaways, that color was made a bit earthier, as if the dunes were spilling into the tides:
Of course, the water is still much too cold to swim, and will be until some time around Memorial Day. But the tone of the water is enough to tell you that we haven't quite left winter yet.
But sometimes I think that we, as cyclists, have our own clocks, much as other living beings have internal chronometers to tell them when to stay, fly away, change colors or go to sleep. We are all just starting to wake up.
Today I parked my bike in a place where I never before parked it.
The funny thing is that it was a place where I used to go almost daily for about two years. That was about a dozen years ago, at least, and I hadn't been back since. I had no bad feelings about the place; I simply hadn't been in its vicinity.
The reason I never parked there is that I never needed to. I worked just across the street from it and parked in a storage area of the building. So I never knew whether or not the place would allow my bike to accompany me.
And I found out that the proprietor would let me park there the same way R.J. Cutler, the director of The September Issue got to talk to Anna Wintour: he asked.
Actually, the proprietor is nowhere near as ferocious as the famous (or infamous, depending on your point of view) Vogue editor. But he is an intense man who seems not to have aged at all since I last visited the place. For that matter, the place hasn't changed since then--or, it seems, since the 1970's or thereabouts:
I mean, when was the last time you saw stools with Naugahyde in that shade of mustard-beige, and lampshades to match?
The menu seems not to have changed, either. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if it hasn't changed since the 1950's, if the place has been around that long. And most of its patrons--including yours truly--wouldn't want it to. It consists of the sorts of sandwiches and dishes diners in New Jersey and New England (away from the Route 128 corridor, anyway) would have served during that time: things like spaghetti with fish cakes, meat loaf, roast beef sandwiches and some Greek and Italian specialties.
Back in the day, I would buy a cup of coffee and a corn muffin on my way in to work. Sometimes I would go there for a sandwich. It was all really good. But today they had sold out of muffins and donuts and looked ready to close: apparently, on Sundays they stay open long enough only to serve people going to, or coming from, church and the ones finishing up the weekend shift and the nearby bus yard.
So, I had a baklava and cup of coffee. These days, I don't normally drink coffee, but this was one good time to make an exception. It was as good as I remember from back in the day. And the baklava was not soggy, as it is in too many places: The buttery texture of the flaky pastry really tied together the tastes and texures of the nuts and honey it contained, and the slight taste of cinnamon was the perfect "foil" for the rest of it.
The funny thing is that the proprietor was looking at me as if he were trying to remember where he saw me before. Finally, I said, "I used to work in this neighborhood, and I used to come here."
"When?"
"A long time ago. About twenty years ago." I stretched the facts a bit, but the truth is that it seemed even further in the past than that. It was, almost literally, another lifetime.
The proprietor's wife, who had been putting away dishes of butter and jars of jelly, overheard us.
As I left, she said, "Come back, will ya?"
I promised her that I would, next time I'm down that way.
Last year, at least, I had an excuse. I was shaking off the cobwebs at this time a year ago because of my surgically-induced layoff. But this year...Well, OK, the streets were covered with snow, slush or ice, or some combination thereof, for a good part of two months. Still, I feel that I'm getting off to such a slow start to my cycling season.
Now I can recall years in which there wasn't a cycling season. It seemed that for a few consecutive years at the end of the last century, we had mild winters. In fact, there were a couple of years where we barely seemed to have a winter at all. The cold has never been a deterrent for me, but even with studded tires, commuting is not always feasible when there are snow and ice on the roadways.
Even so, I've never been tempted to move to a warmer climate. Somehow I can't think of cycling, or anything else, without the rhythm of the seasons. However, if I were to move to, say, Southern California, I suppose I'd adapt: When you come right down to it, most people do what they need to do in whatever situations they find themselves. It's a bit like learning foreign languages: Lots of people, at least in this country, never do and assume they can't. However, I would think that at least some of them would learn, in one fashion or another, if they moved someplace else.
Ever since the warm weather we had a week ago, it seems we've returned to winter. I suppose that if I were more religious or believed more in any sort of cosmology than I do, I'd say this was retribution for my arrogance in riding in the middle of major local roadways under the biggest, brightest moon I'd seen in a long time and thinking myself Queen of the Road, or some such thing.
All right...If I get out for a good ride tomorrow, all will be right with the world. Maybe I'll still be off to a slow start. But even a slow start is a start, and a move forward.
Hpw could I resist posting this photo of a 12-year-old Elizabeth Taylor on her bicycle? This was taken by Peter Stackpole and published in Life magazine.
Yesterday, Riding Pretty posted this shot of Liz:
A few people were simply born to be on camera. Liz was one of them. I think that was what defined her more than anything else. She was a good, though not great, actress. But she was a riveting, if not commanding, presence. That, and her complete belief in herself and whatever she deemed just, made her an effective spokesperson for AIDS activism and research, and LGBT equality. That is why she could get away with supporting those things when almost no one else could, or would.
And she sure looked good on a bike. That's reason enough to miss her!
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.
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.
It just happens that someone gave me a nice old drill with some nice hard bits. 
