With Every Paper We Deliver

But February made me shiver
With every paper I'd deliver

You've all heard those lines in Don McLean's "American Pie." When someone asked him what the song meant to him, he Said, "That I'd never have to work another day in my life."

For me, it evokes memories of delivering the Asbury Park Press forty (!) years ago, right around the time McLean's masterpiece lorded over the airwaves.  One of my few achievements in life--and one I'm talking about for the very first time--is having been selected "carrier of the week".  No one ever explained the criteria used in making the choice; for all I knew, they just pulled a name out of a hat.

I mean, other carriers had longer routes or delivered more papers.  I was an honor student, but so were some of the other carriers.  And they won bonus prizes the Press offered for one thing and another, as I did.

Stranger things have happened.

I was reminded of that experience, and McLean's song, by a story someone passed on to me.  




I delivered newspapers all through three New Jersey winters.  I guess that's a respectable accomplishment, but I can't hold a candle to Bud Schaefer, who's been delivering 37 copies of the Rochester (MN) Post-Bulletin in the Minnesota winter.

He admits that when the snow piles up, he delivers his papers by car and rides a trainer.

Still, he has my admiration.   And my respect:  He's 86 years old, and my mother taught me to respect my elders.

More Commuting In Bike-Friendly Communities

Here's something that will surprise no-one:  Bicycle commuting is growing much faster in bicycle-friendly communities.  And it's growing more slowly, or not at all, in communities that aren't bicycle friendly.

So we learn from an American Community Survery, which was reported in the League of American Bicyclists  blog.

Across the United States, bicycle commuting increased 47 percent from 2000 until 2011.  During that time, it shot up by 80 percent in bike-friendly communities and but inched up by 32 percent in non-bike friendly communities.

Some good news is that even the increase in non-bike friendly communities has outpaced population growth.  Still, it pretty much goes without saying that the best way to get more people to commute by bicycle is to create conditions that are conducive and make people safe and comfortable in riding their bikes to work.

What They Didn't Have

From Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid

More than three decades ago, Hal Ruzal, the Mercian maven and mechanic par excellence of Bicycle Habitat, rode his bicycle across the United States for the first (!) time.  

A friend who accompanied him had several flats and was down to his last inner tubes when they were in Kansas.   Now, I've never been to Kansas, but I don't imagine that, even today, it's as easy to find some bike items there as it is in, say, Portland, Minneapolis or Boston.  However, in those days, according to Hal, "there wasn't a single Presta valve tube in the entire state of Kansas."

He can tell a good story, but I don't think he was exaggerating. I don't think the very first shop in which I worked--in New Jersey--had Presta valve tubes, either. For that matter, I wouldn't be surprised to know that most shops in the Garden State circa 1975 didn't have them.


If they didn't have Presta valves,  it meant they didn't have sew-up tires, and probably didn't have the high-pressure clinchers (like the Michelin Elan) that were just starting to become available around then--or the new rims Mavic and Rigida were making for use with them.  

If you were in a rural area, it could even be difficult to find things like toe clips and straps. (The only clipless pedal available then was the Cinelli M-71, a.k.a. "The Suicide Pedal.) Around that time, John Rakowski, who rode his bicycle around the world, ordered the Karrimor panniers and handlebar bags he used directly from the manufacturer in England:  Very few shops carried good touring gear, and supplies were sporadic, to put it mildly.

Those times were probably the heyday of mail-order shops.  Sometimes the shops' proprietors (who were almost invariably the buyers, if their wives weren't) didn't even know where to find high-quality bike items.  Or, if they could find a source, the prices would be exorbitant because they were ordering only one, and paying the full shipping costs.

The lightest bike sold in the first shop in which I worked was the Raleigh Super Course.  

Raleigh Super Course, in the 1975 catalogue.

It was a pretty bike, I thought, especially in that shade of candy-apple red. (The green wasn't bad, either.)  But I would soon find myself riding a bike that, in almost every way, exceeded that one.  I didn't get it in that first shop in which I worked.  I couldn't have.