I've made a change to the Trek 560 I recently built.
As you may recall from earlier posts, I'd equipped the bike with a Velosteel rear coaster brake hub. Well, I swapped it for a single speed rear hub.
I might use the Velosteel hub on another bike, perhaps an old mixte or mountain bike. I hadn't quite gotten used to its idiosyncrasies They include the "dead" pedal stroke of half a pedal revolution I experienced when I started pedaling again after braking and that when I backpedaled, it seemed that the hub had to find its "sweet spot" before the brake engaged. (Other coaster brakes I've ridden would stop the bike as soon as I backpedaled.) I suppose that if I rode the hub more (I put about 200 miles on it.) I'd get used to it.
But even if I were to grow accustomed to, and like, riding with the hub, I don't think I would have wanted to keep it on the Trek--assuming, of course, I decide to keep the Trek. It's a good bike, but a little bit too large for me. Plus, for a winter/beater bike, I think I'd rather have something that can accept wider tires.
One thing you might have noticed is that some of the spokes are silver and some are black.
I didn't plan it that way: It just happened that I had 28 silver and 12 black spokes in the length I needed, and the wheel needed 36 spokes. I used all of the black spokes and 24 of the silver ones. So, every third spoke is black.
Somehow I think that might actually be a selling point!
Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that I teach.
One thing I like about my morning commute is that it offers me some time in solitude and reflection. Perhaps that seems paradoxical, as the ride is focused on getting to a particular place by a particular time for the purpose of working with and for other people.
But I am fortunate in that, at least for now, I can avoid the morning rush hour. I leave a bit later than most people and have a couple of routes that take me away from heavily-trafficked thoroughfares. And at this time of year, the weather is neither too hot not too cold for my liking. Plus, pedalling seems to open up my senses so that, for a moment, one of the many millions of trees that are changing,or have changed. color and the park benches on either side of it seem like the most beautiful things.
I'm not getting rich, or anything like it. But, at least, I don't have to contend with the traffic on the LIE or GW, or start my day with all of those angry, depressed and indifferent people you see on the 6:42 from Ronkonkoma!
Now, this looks like a tough bike ride:
Actually, the image is part of an announcement for Park Avenue Bike's annual Halloween Cyclo-Cross Race.
The Rochester shop that sponsors the race describes the course as "fast, fun and challenging" and the event as "a ghoulish recipe for fun". Mountain bikes are allowed, as long as they don't have bar-ends.
Seeing that photo is almost a temptation to go to Rochester for the ride. If it's any indication of what the race is like, I'll lose a bunch of weight very quickly!
To me, one of the great things about cycling in an urban area is the opportunity to see public art. That was one of the highlights of living in Paris: Few, if any, cities have as many artifacts--particularly sculptures exhibited en plein aire as the City of Light offers.
New York is not without its offerings. The wonderful thing about The Big Apple is that sometimes treasures, or at least things that are interesting or amusing, appear when you weren't looking for or expecting them.
I saw this in the former Coast Guard station across the road from the deactivated Fort Tilden:
To me, it looks like one of those creatures in a cartoon that could either eat or play a really wicked joke on one of the characters.
The gargoyle stands next to the pier from which tour boats depart during the season (which ends in September). Was it supposed to welcome, or scare off, anyone who wants to take a cruise?
On my way down to my meeting with The Rockaway Orca (my working title for him/her/it), I chanced upon this mural near the Greenway in Williamsburg (where else?):
Sometimes my bike rides seem like surreal gallery or museum tours!
While riding with a friend yesterday, I chanced upon this gem:
To say it's in rough shape is to be kind: It looks like it was fished from the bottom of the river. But it was probably a very nice bike of its type in its time, and could be so again today with lots of TLC.
I noticed this chainguard before I noticed the rest of the bike. In a strange way, it's baroque, art deco and modernist all at once. I'm guessing that it was chromed before turning into rust; if it was, it would have really been something to behold!
In addition to a major overhaul and refinishing, the bike needs a seat. It also might need a skirt guard. At least, I'm assuming that was the reason for the holes in the fenders.
Is this an ancestor of today's suspension systems? Or maybe it just adds to the bike's aura of invincibility.
As you may be able to discern from the headbadge, the bike is a Schwinn. From what I could see, I guessed it's from the 1930's or 1940's. I wonder whether the bike originally came with the "holey" fender. For all I know, Schwinn ladies' bikes from that time might have had skirt guards.
But the surprises didn't end with the bike:
Now, where do you think I was? The Brooklyn Botanical Gardens?
Actually, I wasn't very far from the Gardens. But this place is nothing like the Gardens:
Believe it or not, Flatbush Falls (what I decided to call them) is, as you can see, in front of an apartment building. (It's at the corner of East 16th Street and Avenue I in Brooklyn. Of course, stopping to look at it was a dead give-away that I'm not from the neighborhood. Actually, even if I hadn't stopped, I would have stood out in that neighborhood--which is home to thousands of Orthodox Jews--bceause of the bike I was riding and the way I was dressed.
Tosca's a great bike. But she's definitely not one someone in that neighborhood would ride. Nor, for that matter, is the Schwinn I saw.
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