Perhaps you've never pondered the question posed in the title of this post. Now's your chance. Actually, I'll give you one possible answer I stumbled upon.
It seems there's a particular kind of whimsy that only the English can do. And, as best as I can tell, the Brits are the only ones who've applied that sort of mirth to cycling.
And then there is the kind of humor that only the Curry Cycle Co. of Leicester could do.
Curry placed a series of cartoons called "Strange But True" in British cycling magazines during the early part of the 20th Century. Those cartoons were compiled by a correspondent with the nom de plume of "Wheeler" and were drawn by well-known Leicester artist Frank Layton. He also designed Curry's head badge.
One of my favorite of the series in No.2, which includes the high-wire cyclist and one of the best epitaphs ever written:
On this spot at half-past nine o'clock, after watching the glorious sunset of Aug 3rd 1904, Thomas Gilbert Smith, M.D., aged 56, fell dead from his bicycle. Thunder and lightning immediately followed.
Henry Curry started building bicycles in 1884. His brothers joined in the business, and they continued building until 1932, when they began to sell Hercules cycles badged as Currys. They continued with the latter arrangement until some time during the 1960's, when Hercules, along with most British bicycle manufacturers, were absorbed by Raleigh.
Even the most jaded of us are marveling at the weather we've been having. Yesterday and the day before, the temperature reached 75F (24C), which is more typical of what we have in June. And not so much as a wisp of cloud smudged the blue skies. Such clouds gathered over the course of this day; the air grew cooler and the wind blew harder. Still, it was a fine day to ride.
These few days have followed one of the mildest winters most of us can recall. Strangely, the only significant snow fell at the end of October; since then, we've had a couple of bouts of flurries but no accumulations. In spite of this lack of snow, the season has not seemed unusually dry, though I can't recall any long stretches of rain.
This weather, needless to say, has been a boon to those of us who ride bicycles. However, it has brought another benefit that I noticed as I rode today.
I can't recall seeing the streets so clear at this time of the year. Last year, in the aftermath of the seemingly endless procession of snowstorms we had, the streets were full of sand and salt. The weather, and the sand and salt, meant that there were even more potholes and other breaks in the pavement than one would normally find.
What made things worse was that there were also other kinds of debris: everything from broken bottles to car parts. The snowstorms hindered, or even precluded, trash pickup. So, refuse left at curbside took flight when the wind gusted, or simply got pushed or brushed aside from passing cars and pedestrians.
This year, I've noticed that the only streets that have a lot of problems with potholes and other instructions are the ones that carry a lot of truck traffic. In most of the residential areas, like my neighborhood, the streets seem fairly smooth.
Hmm...I wonder if I should be saying all of these things. If City officials are reading this, they might think they can cut the street cleaning and maintenance budget. And, although I know, rationally, that I have no influence on the weather, something in the back of my mind tells me that I'm going to "jinx" us for next winter.
What can I say? I'm glad for what we've had and wouldn't mind more of it.
She is British. She lived her entire life in England before I brought her over in July. So it makes sense that Vera would be accustomed to weather like we had last night.
Upon leaving work, I encountered the densest fog I can recall having seen in New York. I literally could not see from one corner to the next, a distance of about 150 metres. Yet, I didn't feel I had to make much of an effort to get home: She seemed to be able to find the way. All I had to do was pedal, and that wasn't so hard.
It seems that the debate about wheel size won't ever go away. I'm not talking only about 650 vs. 700: I'm thinking about those sizes vs. 20 inch or smaller sizes.
There has always been a contagion of cyclists, bike designers and marketers who've maintained that smaller wheels are actually faster. Alex Moulton went so far as to "break" records with his bikes. (As it turned out, he rode against records that hadn't been challenged for years, or even decades.) Whatever you think of his bikes, recumbents or other small-wheeled bicycles, they do have loyal followings, particularly in Japan and a few other countries.
My experience with smaller-wheeled bikes (apart from what I rode early in my childhood) is limited to a couple of folding bikes. Perhaps I'll have the opportunity to ride others and, if I'm feeling ambitious, make a comparison with my own and other 700C bikes.
Or I could borrow this bike:
I've just stumbled across another bike site I like: #BikeNYC.
It's photographer Dmitry Gudkov's series of portraits and profiles of New Yorkers who ride bicycles to work or simply to get around.
Included is a portrait of what I'd like to look like, on and with my bike, in my next life. And there are lots of images of attractive, stylish people who ride. But Gudokov's photos aren't just "fashion shoots" with bikes as props. His subjects work in diverse fields (lawyers, janitors and everything in between) and live in a variety of neighborhoods throughout the five boroughs. One of my favorites is a guy named "Jamaica," who lives in the eponymous neighborhood in Queens. I think I've seen him; I work not very far from where he lives.
I haven't replicated any of Gudkov's phots here; he doesn't allow anyone to copy and paste them. Given that he is a photographer, I can understand his wish (and, possibly, need) to do so. So I'll just encourage you to visit his site. While you're there, check out this portrait of Hal, the longtime mechanic of Bicycle Habitat. He's the one who turned me on to Mercians, and who built the wheels for the ones I ride.
It's hard to beat athletic events for displays of intense concentration. I don't think the competitors are being melodramatic when they grimace, shout or contort their faces and bodies, and focus their eyes, in ways that do not allow for the recognition of anything but the task ahead.
It was especially striking to see on a clear early spring (more like mid-spring, weather-wise) Sunday in a Corona park.
I try not to think or talk too much about teaching when I'm away from it. (Goddess knows that I have to spend lots of time reading and grading papers and tests, and preparing lessons.) However, I couldn't help but to think of a comparision-and-contrast exercise: between the kinds of intensity displayed by the bocce player in the first photo and Bernard Hinault in this one:
Although my ride was leisurely, the bike that got me there seemed to be focused on getting me there and wherever else I wanted to go. Track bikes, I think, are rather like that: The fixed gear wastes little energy to flexing or bending, or to the friction of the mechanisms that would be necessary to allow the bike to coast. This also means the rider can't waste motions, even when riding in the meditative way I was.
All right. Since it's Saint Patrick's Day, I'll show you a nice green bike--one that's not Vera, anyway.
I found this image of a Freddy Grubb track bike on Megadeluxe Sports. You'll find other interesting stuff there.
If you're involved in any sort of endeavor or follow any sort of passion for long enough, you see all sorts of trends come and go. So it is for me (and, no doubt, some of you) and cycling.
What inevitably happens is that some people cop the style rather than the substance of the trend. That turns the trend into a parody of itself.
I fear that may be happening with Porteur bikes and racks. When I first started seeing them here in the US, I thought "Great! People are actually going to ride to work and shop."
I'd say that more people are doing those things, at least here in New York, than were doing them a few years ago. Also, not everyone who commutes or rides to the farmer's market is a racer or wannabe, or simply a "bikehead." I see more and more people who are primarily commuters and who might, on occasion, ride for fun.
But then the look of Porteur bikes and accessories became fashionable, and those items became fetish objects for some. Now, if someone has the money and really intends to carry the loads, I can understand spending over 200 dollars on a Porteur rack. On the other hand, the fact that such racks and bikes are now fashionable makes them more inviting to thieves. I'm not so sure I'd want a fancy rack on a bike that was going to spend large portions of every day parked on the streets.
Perhaps the solution is this:
The bike is a Bridgestone from, as far as I can tell, the early '80's (pre-Grant Petersen). I think the rack came off an old pizza delivery bicycle.
For me, that begs the question of whether something can be called "Porteur" (or even "utility") if it's shiny and new.
A series of neighborhoods dangles along the banks of the East River like a cedille from Astoria Park to the Williamsburg Bridge. They include Astoria and Long Island City in Queens and Greenpoint and Williamsburg in Brooklyn. There may be more cyclists, per capita, in this corridor--in which I happen to live--than in any other part of New York City. In fact, I doubt many American urban neighborhoods outside of Portland (and, perhaps, Seattle) can rival the concentratration of bicycles and cyclists found here.
So I guess I shouldn't have been surprised to see this near the Long Island City (Queens) side of the Pulaski Bridge.
The first time I saw it, I wondered what all of those bicycles were doing in a bus kiosk. Then I saw the sign.
On the block before it, there is a row of bike racks that's almost always full.
The bike at the front makes me wonder just how good an idea unsecured open-air bike parking facilities actually are. On one hand, I'm glad to have dedicated bike-parking spaces. On the other, I can't help but to think that maybe they're targets for bike thieves and cannibals.
Maybe I'm just too accustomed to locking to parking meters and such--or not parking my bike and not doing business with stores that don't allow me to bring my bike in.
Anyway, I got in a quick ride after work the other day. At times like that, I'm thankful for Daylight Savings time, and Tosca likes rhe photo ops available on the Greenpoint (Brooklyn) side of the bridge:
Today I am going to reveal one of my dim, dark secrets. Yes, even at this late date, I still have them.
Here goes: I actually owned--gasp!--a Cannondale racing bike. One of the very first ones, in fact.
One might say it was one of my youthful follies. The year was 1984. I was working for American Youth Hostels. Back then, the organization was located on Spring Street, near Wooster, when the neighborhood (Soho) still had some halfway interesting art galleries and eccentric stores and cafes. At that time, AYH had an store and mail-order service that sold bicycling, camping, hiking and other outdoor equipment.
Back then, Cannondale was known mainly for its bags and outdoor wear. Their bike bags were actually well-made and reasonably priced: I used a few in my time. And I used one of their backpacks for the longest time. AYH employees were able to buy Cannondale goods at their wholesale prices.
So I became, in essence, a guinea pig. I bought their original model racing bike, with a full Campagnolo Nuovo Record component grouppo, for something like $500.
It was one of the first--and last--times I succumbed to the urge to be the "first kid on the block" with some new item.
The photo doesn't do justice to just how ugly that bike actually was. The welds were cobbly; later Cannondales have the smooth joints you see on today's models. Plus, the oversized aluminum tubes were very in-your-face, especially if you were used to steel-tubed frames.
Being a snot-nosed kid with something to prove, getting such a bike wasn't enough for me. I wanted to be really badass, so I got it in black. I don't remember what kind or color bar tape came with it; whatever it was, I replaced it with red Benotto cellophane tape. And, I got cable housings to match.
Aside from its proportions, another thing that struck me was how much lighter the bike was than others I'd ridden. Also, it was--as advertised--the stiffest bike I'd ridden up to that time. Maybe it's still the stiffest bike I've ever ridden.
What that meant is that the bike could go very fast. However, it also meant that it rode like a jackhammer. Even my young, sevelte self felt beat-up after a ride on it. I think that it actually slowed me down, ultimately: I can ride only so hard or so long when every bone in my body is aching.
A few people swore by those bikes. It's hard to imagine that anything Cannondale--or any other bike maker, for that matter--has made since then could be any stiffer.
Those early Cannondales came with CroMo steel forks--Tange, I think. I'd ridden the bike for close to a year when those forks were recalled. After I got my replacement, I stripped the Campagnolo components off the bike and replaced them with other stuff I had lying around or that mechanics of my acquaintance filched fetched from their shops' parts bins. And I gave that Cannondale to my landlord for a month's rent.
Those Campy components went on to bigger and better things (ha!) I'll describe in another post.
Note: The frame in the photo is larger than the one I had. Plus, it has different components.
