Is This What The Vikings Had In Mind?

Today I am going to create a post that will get lots and lots of views for all of the wrong reasons.  I will express shock and moral indignation. (What other kind of indignation is there, really?)  I will protest some more...and more.  And, well...we all know what happens when the lady doth protest too much.




Sometimes I think a good working definition of the word "model" is "someone who is better--or, at least more attractive--than the product he or she is being employed to sell."   Such is the case with the young woman in the ad for Crescent Bicycles, which appeared in Bicycling! in 1975 or thereabouts.

The bicycles she was trying to entice young men into buying were made in Sweden and bear no relation to velocipedes bearing the same name that were made in the USA at the end of the 19th, and the beginning of the 20th, centuries.  The bikes looked cool in a funky '70's sort of way:  orange paint with checkerboard (that, I think, was supposed to represent a checkered flag) graphics.  That, actually, was fairly surprising for something that came out of the land of Queen Christina.  

Even more surprising was the workmanship--or, should I say, the lack thereof.  This was even true on the higher models made from Reynolds 531 tubing.  I worked on a few of those bikes and found, not only fairly sloppy braze works around the lugs, but globs of molten metal that cooled into unfinished edges of metal at the points where the bottom bracket shell and seat lugs met the frame tubes.  This made it difficult to fit parts such as bottom bracket cups and seat posts accurately.


Perhaps the worst problem of all, though, was the toe clip overlap.  Mind you, I don't mind some toe clip overlap.  But I think that had my shoes been any bigger, I could have flicked the quick-release lever on the front wheel with my toes.  All right, that's an exaggeration.  But I don't recall any other bike--not even the most extreme track machine--that placed a rider's lower digits so close to the front wheel spokes.  As Michael Kone and Sheldon Brown wryly noted, most of these bikes probably "met untimely deaths in commuter hell accidents."


Those young women really should have been wearing helmets and using foot retention!

Hitched And Kickstanded By Stephen Baird

One of my favorite non-cycling blogs is Nikon Sniper.  In it, photographer Stephen Baird showcases his beautiful and, at times, touching photographs.


Apart from the visual lushness (Is that a word?) of his images, I find myself drawn to his blog, in part, because it is so different from my own.  His posts consist almost entirely of his photos with occasional brief comments; mine are lots of words (I'm a writer, after all) interspersed with images that are nowhere near the quality of his.  


When I fist started following Nikon Sniper, most of Stehen's photos seemed to be of natural settings:  sunsets on bodies of water and in canyons, flora and fauna (although, thankfully, they didn't fall into the sentimentality that is a peril of such photos), mountains and the like.  That makes sense, as Steve is obviously an outdoorsman.


However, lately, Steve seems to have branched off into "slice of life" and shots that are the still-photo equivalents of cinema verite.  Or, perhaps, he'd been making such photos all along, and simply decided to start sharing them.

"Hitched And Kickstanded" by Stephen Baird, In Nikon Sniper

In any event, I decided to post a photo he posted today.  Not only does its content appeal to me, but also the feelings it evokes in me.  It reminds me that, in at least one way, a bike is a metaphor for life:  It doesn't have to be perfect to be beautiful and useful, and to make its owner happy.


Plus, as wedded as I am (for now, anyway) to city life, I'd love to be able to park my bike with such a thin cable lock!

The Tides And A Perfect Ride

Some would say today was a perfect cycling day in these parts.  It was certainly one of the prettiest we've had in a while.  Nary a cloud hazed the blue sky; the air was warm and dry.  The sea was calm; by the time I got to Point Lookout, the tide was out, but not did not leave us.

I can never get over those long sandbars exposed when the waves recede.  The tides usually leave things, and sometimes people, to the sand or rocks.  But when they leave, those people can roam, and sometimes play.

When the tides retreated, Arielle and I came in.  We'll be back. And so will the tides.

John Forester As Literary Critic

In a previous post, I mentioned that a new edition of John Forester's Effective Cycling has been published.


Not long after learning that, I stumbled over an essay he wrote but which, to my knowledge, isn't in the book.  It's about a topic that I have never heard discussed in any English or Literature department--or, for that matter, in any educational institution.  


In his essay, Forester asks why cycling has played only an incidental role in literature, and why there are so few works of literature about bicycling or cyclists.


This is not to say, of course, that there is little writing about pedaling two wheels.  As Forester points out, there are any number of "travelogues" about bike tours and races, most of which center on the locales rather than the rides.  There are also any number of books, magazines and blogs, some of which include some very good writing.  However, as he points out, they are not literature because very few, if any, non-cyclists could find anything of interest in them.  That is because none of them connect cycling to the overall human condition and quotidian life as most of us know it.  Plus, most such works "get it wrong" about the way cyclists actually ride.  Even the "major" authors, some of whom make cycling a part of some of their stories.

Allez Eddie!

If you were following bike racing in 1974, when this photo was taken, you'd know that the racer in front is none other than Eddy Mercx.  I mean, who else had muscles like that in his legs?


Now, the question:  Was this photo taken in le Tour de France, which he won that year?


Well, from what I'm told, the fans were shouting "Allez! Allez!" to Eddy.  That would probably rule out le Tour, as French cycling fans actually weren't very fond of him.  


So let's see...Where else would people have been shouting 'Allez!  Allez!" ?  Specifically, where would they be directing it at Eddy?


Hmm...His home country of Belgium, possibly?  Of course, it would mean the race was in Wallonia, or possibly around Brussels, which is a bilingual city.  Either one is a possiblity:  He seems to have been popular in those areas, though not as well-loved in his home region of Flanders.


Switzerland is a possiblity.  After all, there's a mountain in the background.  And, he seems to have been more popular in the Francophone Helvetian provinces than he was in France.  


We could rule out the French-speaking African countries, as Eddy never raced them.  Ditto for French Guiana and the departements in the Caribbean.  


Saint Pierre and Miquelon?  We're getting closer:  At least we're on the right continent (more or less).  If we go a few hundred miles west, we come to a city whose flag is a white field with a clover, thistle, rose and fleur-de-lys.


You guessed it :  Montreal.  A few weeks after his fifth (and final) Tour de France victory, Eddy won the first World Professional Championship held in North America.  In the photo, he's ascending Mount Royal (for which the city is named), a climb he described as one of the most difficult of his career.

Now that we've placed it geographically, there are a few clues that tell us that the photo was indeed taken in 1974.  One, of course, is that Eddy is still young.  Also, the bike he's riding is a give-away.  But most important of all, in my opinion, are the clothes of a fan near him.  I mean, he wouldn't have gotten away with wearing them--especially those pants!--a year or two earlier or later.