What Would They Make Of Us?

Whenever I see a public statue of some historical figure, I wonder what someone from another planet, or another galaxy, would think of it.  I find myself asking that question even more when the statue is of a famous person--usually a military or political figure--on a horse.  To me, horses almost always look noble, which may be the reason why warriors seem even more belligerent astride them.


Now that I think of it, I haven't seen very many statues of people riding bicycles.  I've seen a fair number of paintings, drawings and photos of cyclists.  But I definitely can't remember the last time I saw a public statue of anyone on a bicycle.


They could be very interesting. What would our friend from another part of the universe think about if he or she were to see a statue of Lance or Eddy or Jacques pedaling up an Alpine virage or a Pyreneean pass?  Or, what would our visitor make of a sculpture of someone like John Rakowski or Ian Hibbell on the pannier-laden bikes they rode around the world?

Maclean Featherweight

I only see porn when I stumble over it while looking for other things.  Really, I swear, it's true.


That includes bike porn.  All right, maybe this isn't quite bike porn:  It's actually quite dignified.  But pretty nonetheless:

It's a Maclean Featherweight from 1950.  Don Maclean formed his namesake company during the 1920's and employed several builders.  Apparently, they built frames and bikes for about 40 years, until they were bought up by the Holdsworthy company.

You can look at some more photos of this bike here.  Enjoy!

Advice from Brian May

If you're of my generation--or a Queen fan (Come on, admit it, you loved Night At The Opera!)--you surely remember the Brian May song Fat Bottomed Girls.

Even though the song was recorded more than 30 years ago, it remains one of the few to celebrate those of us who aren't built like fashion models. 

If you remember the song, good for you. If not, listen to it.  And note that line:  GET ON YOUR BIKES AND RIDE!

Would that Brian May weren't the only one giving that advice.  I did find this entry on Women's Cycling.ca encouraging us to do just that.  (The photo came from that site.)  However, I find that as the cycling industry is taking more of its cues from the mass media, the cyclists portrayed in advertising, videos and films about cycling,  seem to be more and more like those you see in ads for gyms and J.Crew.

And some bike shops perpetrate the bias against avoirdupois.  One day, in the last shop in which I worked, a woman who was (at least by most standards I'm familiar with) at least seventy-five pounds "overweight" came in.  She had been very athletic all through college, she said, but the detours of her life had taken her away from exercise and good eating habits.  Plus, after a surgery she needed following an auto accident, her doctor prescribed a medicine with steroids in it, which put additional weight on her.

She wanted to get back in shape, but because of knee and other injuries, her doctor (who cycled and played tennis, if I recall correctly), advised her not to run or play basketball.  Rather, he recommended cycling--an activity she once enjoyed--because it would put less strain on her damaged joints and ligaments.  So, she said, she was looking to buy a bike.

One of the sales people in that shop told her she should come back to the shop after losing weight. 

I felt badly for that woman, but I did nothing to help her. I hadn't thought about her in some time, and I've related the story as best as I can remember it.  

Did you notice that near the beginning of this post, I wrote, "those of us who aren't built like fashion models."  Yes, I include myself.  Of course, when I was training as if I were going to enter the Tour de France for 40-and-older riders, I woulnd't have said anything like that about myself.  Granted, I was trimmer and had more strength.  But almost no one has the same sort of body in middle age as he or she had when young. (Trust me:  I know that as well as anybody can!)  Sometimes it has to do with life taking the turns I've mentioned; it also has to do with the way our bodies age.  Also, in my case, taking hormones added a few pounds to the ones I was already gaining by other means.

And,  let's face it, most people aren't born to be a perfect size four.  (I'm talking about dresses, not Euro racing kit! In my prime, I wore a size three.)  So why should that bar any of us from cycling?  Is there any law that cyclists have to be, as one New Yorker columnist put it, "lycra sausages"?

A Cool Idea?

According to the weather reports, we have a major heat wave coming our way.  Today was warm and humid, but the weather had been either one or the other, but not both, for the past few days.


This has been one of those years "without a spring."  Or so it's seemed.  We had chilly and wet weather for much of March, April and May.  In fact, we had so much wet weather that it became difficult to open and close doors because the wood in and around them swelled.

Artist's rendition of proposed air-cooled bike path in Qatar.

I remember reading that there were plans to build an air-cooled bicycle path in Qatar.  I wonder if anything has become of them.  Can you imagine something like that along Fifth Avenue?

Being Avant-Garde, After A Fashion

As some of you might recall, a couple of weeks ago I sold a few things after doing some very late "spring cleaning."  Thanks to a posting on this blog (which I've since removed) and an announcement on a discussion group, I was able to sell my stuff without going to the dreaded Craig's List or,egad, eBay.


However, I did scroll through listings on both of those sites.  On eBay, I saw a couple of things that appeal mainly to people with more money than miles on their bikes.

You simply have to get a pair of wheels to match your Louis Vuitton purse--or, better yet, your LV custom saddlebag and handlebar wrap:

I can almost see some Japanese tourist in Paris, circa 1985, with these wheels.  


The person selling them claimed that they came with a bike he bought and they  weren't his style.  Apart from the graphics on the rims, I thought the spoke patterns and colors were also wild:  black radials on the front, alternating red and white, laced two cross, on the rear.    I'd like to see the bike that came with these wheels.


The cyclist in me wonders why the rear hub is a Phil Wood but the front is a Formula. I ride three pairs of wheels with Phils and one pair with Formula.  While I can't think of a better hub than Phil's, I think that Formula is a great hub for the money.  But--perhaps this isn't apparent in the photos--the style of each of them is very different and I wonder why someone who was apparently trying to coordinate everything visually would so mix the hubs.  As a practical matter, the mix actually makes some sense:  The quality of the rear is more critical than that of the front, and whoever built those wheels saved a bit of money on the front.


As you may have guessed, the rims were made by Velocity.  I wonder whether it's some sort of special edition, and for how long they will be made.  After all, I have to get a pair and build them when I have some money! ;-)


To be fair, Velocity is the only brand of rim besides Mavic I would use on a pair of wheels I were building, or having built--unless, of course, I were building in a size not made by either of those two companies.  Sun rims, I've found, are strong and are usually good values for the money. But they are considerably more difficult to build and true than Mavic or Velocity rims.


They should paint this next item to coordinate with the wheels:

After all, if you're going to get aerodynamic rims, you need an aerodynamic bell to go with it, n'est-ce pas?  And not any old aerodynamic bell:  It absolutely must be titanium, like this one.  A couple of years ago, I would've said that titanium is, like, soooo 1996. But, as I understand, this year stuff from the fin de siecle is going to be all hip and retro.  But just in case you're a year too early, remember to get the bell painted white and stenciled with Monsieur Louis' "V's."

Girls, Bikes And The City

On my way home from my "Hasidim and Hipster Fixies" ride, I met and chatted with another woman on a bike.   She's been living in Brooklyn for a while and wants to find some new rides.  And Bruce has told me that I make a good tourguide. So, we exchanged e-mail addresses and today we went for a ride along the Brooklyn and Queens waterfronts, across the RFK Bridge into Randall's Island and alongside the East River in Manhattan. 


Helene was definitely "up" for this one.  She's wanted to have a girl's night, or day, out in the city!

One of the wonderful things about introducing someone to places you know well is that you discover new things in and about them.  We ventured into a part of Greenpoint I hadn't visited in a while, where we found a workshop of some kind:

Look at her, and look at the second statue from the left.  Of course, I had to get into the act:

I guess I'm not quite the performer she is.  Then again, I may not have had the right role.  Last week, in the midst of the sleep deprivation nearly all instructors experience at during the last days of a semester, one of my colleagues said I was looking a bit like Pierre de Wissant as he appeared in Rodin's Les Bourgeois de Calais.  

Anyway, I enjoyed the ride and the company of my new riding companion.  After we parted, Helene insisted that we stop here:

I mean, she has a point:  I have three Mercians (including her) with paint finish number 57:  a purple that turns green when you look at it from certain angles.  So now I need a house to go with them.  Hmm...If my book sells....

Reflections Cycling

All of my kidding aside, I really am a rather reflective and contemplative woman.  I've had to be.  Maybe that's why I sometimes, while riding, I see images of cyclists I might have been, or appeared to be:

Was this man riding to exhale?  Or would he be inspired?  Or some of both?  Actually, those questions apply to just about every cyclist one might encounter as a Saturday afternoon turns to dusk behind a curtain of high clouds.  For that matter, those questions could apply to pretty much anyone who cycled, walked, skated, skateboarded, fished from, or sat on the benches lining, the promenade that passes under the Verrazano Narrows Bridge.


But what of two people on a tandem on the Coney Island boardwalk?

One doesn't see tandems very often in New York.  I'm guessing that the riders are a father and son or, perhaps, an uncle and nephew. 


When I was growing up, there still weren't very many adults who cycled.  None in my family did.  Even the owners and operators of most bike shops weren't riders:  They, like most adults, saw bicycles as the means of transportation people used only until they got their driver's licenses.  


The few adult cyclists one saw were almost invariably male.   And now I realize that, even today, the vast majority of adults I see riding are male.  Perhaps that is the reason why I see those images of who I was, or might have been.

Now I remember cycling along the ocean in New Jersey as a teenager.  From Sandy Hook south to Sea Bright, the wind and tides exhaled through shells and bones on the other side of the sea wall that separated the ocean from Route 36; south of Sea Bright, they sluiced through mounds and valleys of sand that stretched even farther than I could have cycled on any day I cycled, or the one after it, or the one after it.  How far, exactly, would it go?  To Key West?  At least I knew that if I were to cross the ocean--which, of course, I couldn't do on my bike--I'd end up in Portugal, in Spain, in France.   


Nobody I knew then had been to any of those places.  And they hadn't been to the places where they wanted me to go:  the colleges, Annapolis, West Point or any of the other Armed Forces academies.  Or, for that matter, the offices  they hoped I would occupy, or even the schools in which I would study and teach.


None of those schools existed, at least for me, when I was riding along the ocean so many years ago.  And nobody followed me:  nobody, that is, except for a middle-aged woman who told me to inhale deeply and exhale completely, and that everything would be all right because she was going to be there for me, no matter where I rode. 


And I was present today, as I always was, for that teenaged boy who spent sunny days and overcast afternoons cycling the Jersey Shore.  Perhaps I saw the person he might have been, too.  


  

Nocturne

Today I didn't go to a social function that I didn't really have to go to, but it might have been a good idea even though I might not have had the chance to see and talk with the people I really would've hoped to see there.  You probably have an event like that every year or two, or even more, especially if you work in the arts or "people-oriented" or "helping" areas like education.


Truth is, I was tired and wanted to sleep late.  I took care of a couple of errands and, at the very end of the day, took a quick spin out past PS 1 to the Long Island City piers.

The Long Island City Piers is one of the places to which I would bring a first-time visitor to New York.  I think the only  way one can get a view of the Manhattan skyline that's as good as the one from the LIC piers is to go to the Brooklyn Heights promenade, or to take the B, D, N or Q subway lines across the Manhattan Bridge or board the Staten Island Ferry in Staten Island.  However, each of those views is more limited in scope.  The wonderful thing about the view from the piers is that it's just about picture-postcard perfect, for only the narrowest part of the East River separates it from the United Nations, Chrysler Building (which has always been my favorite New York skyscraper) and Empire State building.  

Actually, the half mile width of the East River (which is really a tidal basin) wasn't stretching in front of me, exactly.  It was Marianela who got up-close and personal:

As I was sitting on one of the benches, munching on something called a "French wrap" (ham, Brie, Dijon mustard and a couple of other things) I recalled the times in my youth when I watched the sun set from the Christopher and 14th Street piers in Manhattan.  It was all lovely, although the view wasn't what I had today.  From those piers, you can look only toward the New Jersey side of the Hudson River.  That I sat there and gazed for as long as I did tells you that I was indeed intoxicated.  I can say that, as it was more than half of my lifetime ago!


So, instead of alcohol and illicit substances, I got "high" on the ride, the food I was eating and the view.  To all of you young people:  This may be what you have to look forward to in middle age!

Back in the day, I didn't know about the view from the Long Island City waterfront.  Then again, the piers were falling apart and the neighborhoods around them were a mix of grimly entropying industrial and residential areas.  That's also a pretty fair description of  what the 14th and Christopher Street piers, and their immediate environs, were like .  

As it got dark, I started to feel chilly and I hadn't brought a sweater or jacket with me.  That was all right:  I left feeling peaceful yet energized with twilight images of the city I reached on my bike.

One Year Today

I can hardly believe it:  One year ago today, I made my first post on this blog.  


It's a strange thing:  I'm still figuring out what this blog is really "about."  I mean, I'm writing about bicycles and bicycling, and about rides past and present, in my middle age.  And I started this blog nearly a year after having my genital reconstruction surgery (what used to be known as the "sex change operation").  So, I'm guessing, as I did then, that I have a point of view that, if it is not unique, is at least one that not too many other people have.  As to what, exactly, that means, I'm still finding out.

Shifting Gear

If you've been following this blog for the past couple of weeks or so, you may have noticed some ever-so-subtle changes to my bikes.  I have documented how Arielle traded a triple crankset for a Sugino Alpina double. Well, I've also installed an Alpina double, albeit with different chainrings, on Helene.


And you may also see that I have Carradice Barley bags on all three of my Mercians. (Tosca, as well as Arielle and Helene.)  I think I may just leave them on the bikes, as it will make it easier to carry my camera, notebook and an extra layer of clothing, if I need it.  I can also pick up some goodie or another in a bakery or flea market en route!  So, the Bike Burritos I had been using are inside the pockets of the Barleys.  I liked the way the Burritos looked on the bikes, but they also serve nicely to keep my tools and tubes organized and separate from whatever else I put in my bags.


Finally, there is this change I made on Helene:

I purchased a pair of shifter pods from Velo Orange. They function in the same way as the ones Paul Components makes.  However, VO's cost a good bit less and fit a wider variety of handlebars.  The VO Porteur bars on this bike are of the same diameter as road bike bars. (Most flat and upright bars are the same diameter as mountain bike bars, which are of a smaller diameter.)  


The problem with Paul's--and many other thumb shifter mounts--is that they will fit one type of bar of the other.  But the ones made for road-bike bars will fit only on the "sleeve" of the bar, which is the section nearest the stem clamp.  That "sleeve" is a wider diameter than the "body" of the handlebar. 


Of course, one probably could put a shim or tape underneath  a Paul clamp.  But who wants to do that after spending 75 dollars for the pod?


The VO pod has a hinged clamp instead of the solid clamp found on the Paul pods.  That, of course, allows for greater adjustability.  Plus, VO supplies the pods with some nicely-machined aluminum shims.  And, for those of you who care, the VO pods are silver, while Paul's are black. 


The pods are made to be used with Dia Compe Silver downtube shifters, which is what I had been using before I bought the pods.  I happen to like the lever very much, so I was happy to keep it.  I was able to mount the shifters so that I could reach them as I was holding the straight part of the bar, which is where the brake levers are located.  As I have them mounted, I can actuate the brakes with two fingers and the shifter with one.


As much as I like the position,  I'm still getting used to the shifting.  A basic rule of thumb is:  The longer your cable, the slower, less precise and less crisp your shifting.  That is one reason why you just about need either a ratchet mechanism (like those on the Silver levers, or the old Sun Tours), a retro-friction mechanism (as used on the Simplex "teardrop" levers) or an indexed mechanism (as found on Ergo and STI levers) if you're using a handlebar-mounted shifter. 


I think that I should be accustomed to this setup fairly soon.  After all, I once had a bike with Sun Tour shifters that mounted on top of the bars.  After a while, I found the shifting just as predictable, if not as quick, as on my bike with downtube shifters.


And, oh, yeah, the bright pink Cinelli tape. Turns out, the gray tape I had on the bars wasn't long enough once I installed the new shifters.