The George Zimmarman Verdict

Alert:  Today's post has nothing to do with bicycling--not directly, anyway.  But I thought the issue was too important not to write about.

Being a trans woman, I know what it's like to be presumed guilty simply for being who and what you are.  And i have had people--including someone I mentioned recently on my other blog--use that aginst me.  And he got off nearly scot-free.

When a jury acquitted George Zimmerman in the death of Trayvon Martin, the storyline included everything in the previous paragraph, except for the trans part.  Zimmerman saw a black kid in a hoodie and figured he must have been up to no good.  And he knew that in an almost entirely white and very conservative part of Florida, many people would share his assumption of Martin's gullt.

To be fair, the jury--which consisted entirely of women, some of whom were mothers--expressed justifiable doubts about what they were hearing in both sides of the case.  Beause Trayvon Martin is dead, there is much that we will never know; whatever happened, George Zimmerman was probably not in a normal state of mind, so even if he was being entirely honest, his testimony (let alone his lawyer's) could not be entirely accurate.

Even if he were in a "normal" state of mind--which would have been all but impossible in such circumstances--I would still have doubts about his account of events. However, even if I or anyone else were to discount such doubts, I still believe that Zimmerman should have been indicted for something, if only manslaughter.

When I was in ROTC (!) a long time ago, I underwent firearms training.  The instructor--who, I was convinced at the time, could have ended up in prison instead of the Army had the screw been turned just a little differently--told us something I never forgot:  "If a gun is in your hand and a bullet comes out of it, you are responsible for where that bullet goes and what it does."

In other words, he said, if your gun fires "accidentally", you are responsible for whatever damage or loss of life results.  "If the bullet from your gun hits me, it'd better kill me," he warned.  "Otherwise, I'll find you wherever you are and finish the job."

That is not only the best (well, only)  instruction I ever got on firearms safety; it's one of the best lessons on personal responsibility anyone ever gave me.  

And so, whether Trayvon Martin was on top or on bottom, or wherever George Zimmerman aimed or didn't, he was responsible for Trayvon Martin's death. Perhaps the jurors didn't understand that, or whether or how they could have voted for a manslaughter convicion.  Or they may have simply been exhausted.  Whatever the case, justice was not done for Trayvon Martin and his family.

Le Quatorze Juillet: Victoire Sur Ventoux, Mais Pas Pour Un Cyclist Francais

Aujourd'hui, c'est la fete nationale francaise:  le jour de la prise de la Bastille.

If any Francophones or Francophiles are reading this, I apologize that I don't have diacritical marks on my keyboard!

Anyway, I spent le quatorze juillet in France four times, two of them on my bicycle.

In France, this date is always one of the most important in the Tour de France.  Or, at least, it's one of the dates on which the French pay most attention to the race.  Perhaps the best way I can describe it for Americans is this:  Imagine that, on the Fourth of July (le jour d'independence american), there was one baseball game.  Imagine what it would be like if most of the nation (or what seems to be most people in the nation) watched it before enjoying barbecues with families and friends and fireworks displays in their communities.

On all four of the years in which I was in France for le quatorze juillet, I was also there for le quatre.  On two of those occasions, I was in Paris and there were celebrations of American independence.  (The French--even Parisians--don't hate Americans, contrary to what you've heard.  It's more complicated than that.)  But in the other two years, when I was in les pays, enjoying the festivities of le quatorze made up for The Fourth simply being another day.  Well, almost:  The Fourth also happens to be my birthday!

Anyway, in the glory years of French cycling--when riders like Jacques Anquetil, Bernard Thevenet and Bernard Hinault won the Tour--a win in the stage on the 14th was almost expected.  And, in recent years, when the races has been won by cyclists from Spain, Italy, Colombia, the US (Greg LeMond still has his titles.), Germany and--helas (if you're French, anyway)--Britian, French cycling fans could console themselves with a victory--or the prospect of one--by a French rider on Bastille Day.

However, this year, it was not to be.  However, today's stage had an interesting outcome, in its own way.  Chris Froome--a Briton by way of Kenya and South Africa--won today's stage, which ended on the Tour's most difficult climb, Mont Ventoux.


Froome spoils French party by omnisport-uk

Ventoux is inherently a difficult (rated hors de categorie) climb.  But what makes it even more difficult for Tour riders is the fact that, unlike climbs like Galibier, les deux Alpes and Peyresorde (all of which I've done!), Ventoux is not part of a mountain chain.  It seems to come out of nowhere, so it's a shock to riders who've spent the day on the rolling-to-flat terrain that surrounds it.

One of the reasons why Froome's victory on Ventoux is so interesting is that the mountain claimed another famous British rider.  In 1967, Tom Simpson become the first cyclist from Albion to wear the yellow jersey, signifying the race leader, in the history of the Tour.  Some believed he would win the whole race, as he'd had an enormously successful racing season.

However, in pedalling up Ventoux, he suffered a stroke that killed him.  An autopsy revealed--to the surprise of few--that drugs played a part in his death.

There is a memorial to Simpson, and every Tour cyclist pays tribute--whether by waving his cap or with some other gesture--to the rider whose death, some argued, set back the hopes and dreams of British racers for at least a generation.

Three years after his death, one of Simpson's former teammates (on the French Peugeot team) won the stage that ended on le geant de Provence and paid tribute to him.

He was, arguably (Well, I won't argue, anyway!), the greatest racing cyclist who ever lived:  Eddy Mercx.

Dodging The Rain For The Light

The past two days have included bouts of rain.  A deluge bore upon us just after I woke up this morning; after that, it seemed to rain every two hours or so.

This afternoon, I decided to do one of my "playing chicken with the rain" rides.  I got on Tosca (She really seems to like those rides!) and dared the skies to spill their wrath on me.


After riding cirlicues of cul-de-sacs and alleys around La Guardia Airport and the World's Fair Marina, I pedaled up the incline from downtown Flushing to Bayside Avenue, which took me to the eponymous neighborhood--and one of my favorite cycling destinations in Queens:

Fort Totten, as I've mentioned in other posts, was built at the point where the East River (which separates Queens from Manhattan, the Bronx and Rikers Island) opens into the Long Island Sound.  Some say that this is where Gatsby's "North Shore" begins.  

It offers one of those "I don't believe I'm in New York City" views.  The great thing about it is that it's as wonderful on a day like today as it is when the sun is shining and there isn't a cloud in the sky.

Some would call the light I saw today "subdued" or even "melancholy".  I wouldn't disagree with either, and enjoy both aspects of it.  In a way, it's rather soothing, even forgiving:  It reminds me, just vaguely, of the light that illunminated many days (especially in the early spring or fall) I lived in Paris and some of the time I spent in Prague.  Although it's a light you in which you can immerse yourself after long periods of difficulty, it is not merely soothing for it brings a lot of things into relief in a way that most people (I include myself) could never do on their own.

As for "playing chicken with the rain":  I felt a few raindrops as I took the photo.  And a few more whisked me as I rushed through Jackson Heights.  But, at the end of the ride, most of the moisture on my skin was my own sweat:  As you might expect, the day was very humid.

Christo, Bike Burritos and a Peugeot P8

By now, you've seen the Bike Burritos I attach to Arielle and Tosca when I don't need a larger bag.

Now I'm going to ask a question you'd probably never ask: What might a bike look like if it were finished to match my Burritos?

Well, it's not an exact match, but you get the idea.  I saw the bike parked in Tribeca, near the home of the Film Festival named for the neighborhood.

If you look closely, you realize the bike wasn't painted in that pattern:

The "finish" seems to be some kind of contact- or wall-paper wrapped around the frame tubes.

From the unwrapped parts of the bike, I guessed that it's a Peugeot P8 from around 1983.  I feel confident in saying that because I assembled dozens of them while working at Highland Park Cyclery.

Now I know what one of those bikes might have looked like if the creator of the Bike Burrito and Christo had collaborated!

Croix de....?

Just a couple of pedal strokes away from my apartment, I chanced upon this:

I don't know whether the two crossed posts were intended to prop up the wires or the light fixture.  Perhaps they were intended as a monument to something.  Whatever their purpose, they looked ominious against a sky ready to drop its wrath.

For a moment, I recalled a cross I reached (but didn't bear) on bicycle:

Photo by Mute*

Yes, that is the Croix de Fer on top of Mount Royal in Montreal.  It's visible from just about anywhere in the city. (At least, it seemed to be when I last rode there, about a dozen years ago.)  The 1974 World Championships were held in Montreal; a Belgian racer said the climb up Mount Royal was one of the most difficult climbs he encountered in his career.

Said Belgian won the race.  Three guesses as to who he was...

(Yes, Eddy Mercx.)

Now, I wonder what the "cross" in my neighborhood was made from.  I don't think it's fer.

An Old Conversion

In an earlier post, I wrote about the Schwinn Super Sport, a bicycle Schwinn produced from 1962 until 1973. 

At the time, Schwinn marketed it as a “lightweight” model.  It was indeed lighter than the Varsity or Continental, which were essentially ten-speed tanks.  The Super Sport featured a frame made of Chrome-Molybdenum tubing and most of its components, including the rims, were aluminum alloy.  One of the notable exceptions was the one-piece “Ashtabula” crank of the kind commonly found on cruisers, heavyweights and kids’ bikes.  (Some of those kinds of bikes, on which weight is no object, still come equipped with such cranks.)

However, it was possible to take a couple of pounds off the bike by changing the crankset.  At least one company offered a bottom bracket assembly that allowed the use of cotterless alloy cranks on frames made for Ashtabula cranks.  They seem to have been most widely used on motocross bikes; around the time that sport was developing, Gary Fisher, Joe Breeze, Tom Ritchey and other early mountain bikers were using crank adapters on old Schwinn balloon-tire bikes they adapted for use with derailleur gears.  (Most of those bikes came with single-gear coaster brake hubs as original equipment.)  I haven’t seen, or even thought about such a crank conversion in ages—until today.

This bike was parked, with a few other bikes that were being used for deliveries, outside a bodega/takeout luncheonette not far from where I live.  I spotted it on my way home from a lunchtime ride:

Unfortunately, as the bikes were locked to each other, I couldn’t get a better photograph.  But I think you can see how the bike was converted.

I’m guessing that this conversion was done some time ago, as the crank is a Sugino Maxy from the mid-1970’s that shows its age.  At the time, they were one of the least expensive cotterless cranksets made.  Many mid-level Japanese bikes—including the Nishiki International I once owned—came with the Maxy as standard equipment.

It wasn’t bad:  It was definitely an improvement over the cottered steel cranksets found on most European bikes in the same price range, or Ashtabula cranks.  On the Maxy (and other cranksets like the Takagi Tourney), the large chainring was “swaged” (pressed) onto the inside of the right crank arm, and the smaller chainring was bolted to it.

That meant, of course, that the outer chainring couldn’t be changed.  But cyclists rarely wanted to make such a change:  Outer chainrings usually had 50 or 52 teeth, and the smallest cog on most freewheels had 14 teeth.  (Thirteen-tooth cogs were still exotic items used by professional racers.)  And, it was believed, few people would ride enough miles to wear out the large chainring. 

Anyway, the Super Sport was probably the one full-sized, derailleur-equipped bike on which such a crank conversion made sense.  (The next model up in Schwinn’s lineup, the Super Sport, came with a Nervar or TA cotterless crankset.) 

Because the Maxy is of more or less the same era as the bike (and the conversion kit), it didn’t look out of place.  All of the other components, save one, were original.  The rear derailleur—an all-black Shimano Deore—is definitely an improvement over the Schwinn-branded Huret Allvit that came with the bike.  I couldn’t photograph the bike from an angle in which I could show the derailleur, but I think you’ll understand (and perhaps agree) when I say that it screams “replacement part” in a way the crankset doesn’t.

A Frustrated Mechanic?

Most of the world uses the Metric system to measure things. 

My recalcitrant country-men and -women (I'm not politically correct enough to say "countrypeople"!) will have none of it:  We still cling to the Imperial/Avoirdupois system, and measure heat or cold in Farhenheit rather than Celsius temperatures.

About three decades ago, the powers-that-be in the world's bicycle industries talked of adopting a universal standards. At the time, most of the world's bikes came with English, French or Italian threadings for bottom brackets, freewheels (There weren't any cassette freehubs in those days.), headests, stems and pedals.  English measurements were expressed in inches, while French and Italian were in milli/centimeters.  Older and lower-priced American bikes had unique threads and other dimensions that were expressed in fractions and inches. But most bikes from Japan and current or former British colonies had English threads, while most Continental European bikes that weren't from Italy had French threads.

A strange thing happened, though.  French threading was dropped altogether.  Italian bikes--and some French and other Continental (e.g., Belgian) racing bikes adopted Italian standards.  But the rest of the world adhered to English standards--at the same time they started to size their bikes (even those intended for export to the US) in centimeters rather than inches and equipped them with 700C rather than 27" wheels.

I thought about all of this on seeing this graffito:

Was this person protesting the adoption of the Metric system?  Perhaps he/she was accustomed to ordering pints of beer in a bar/pub. Or, perhaps, he or she was a good ol' Amurrrikun mechanic who's sick of the half-Imperial, half-metric system we have in bicycling.

Topless Or Fat-Bottomed?

If you're my age, or older, you remember the hoopla that accompanied the release of Queen's album Jazz.  It's the one that includes, among other songs, "Bicycle Race" and "Fat Bottomed Girls", which were also released as a "double-A side" single record.  

To promote the record and album, Queen staged a bicycle race with 65 nude young women:

I'm in the third row, fifth from the left.

As you can imagine, they had to retouch that photo (There was no Photoshop in those days!) any number of times to keep from running afoul of various local decency laws.  

Fast-forward thirty-five years:  Within the past month, dozens of municipalities--including Portland, San Francisco and Mexico City--staged massive nude bike rides.

I was almost tempted to find such a ride.  The weather has been so hot here!  That got me to thinking about one thing I can't do now that I could do until a few years ago.

You guessed it:  riding topless!  Actually, back when I was the "before" photo, I very rarely rode without a jersey or some other kind of top.  For one thing, I have always looked better with clothes than without. (Most people do. Trust me, I know!)  But, more to the point, I have fair skin and therefore burn easily.  And I always found sunburn on my shoulders, neck and back to be particularly painful. That, by the way, is also the reason why I almost never rode in a tank top or sleeveless jersey.  

But, one day, I just might ride au naturel.  If I'm doing it with a hundred other cyclists, maybe nobody will notice.  They just might compliment my bike!

Wheels By The Tower

The Astro Tower, an iconic but decaying structure by the Coney Island boardwalk, swayed in the wind.  It hadn't been in use for a few years, so it was already starting to crumble before Superstorm Sandy struck.  So, it's really no surprise that the Tower was teetering.

The operators of Luna Park, the Cyclone and other Coney Island attractions feared that they'd have to close for the Fourth of July weekend.  That might have put a few people out of business altogether.  Fortunately for them, enough of the Tower was removed for the city to declare the area safe for tourists.

The Daily News--which has long billed itself as "New York's Picture Newspaper" published, not surprisingly, some stark if somewhat sensationalistic images of the Tower.  However, in its article announcing that Luna Park would be open for the weekend, the newspaper's editors included a photo that only tangentially related to the story.  Still, it was my favorite:

The Tower is the white structure to the left.  The main part of the photo seems to be a composition of wheels.  It could almost be included in an ad or article about alternative energy sources.

Rad Dogs And English Bikes

The three H's:  hot, humid, holiday.

This weekend has had all three.  Normally, I wouldn't cycle to a beach area on such a weekend--especially on a Saturday.  However, there was so much of the first two H's that I went because I figured, correctly, that it would be a bit cooler by the water.

Also, Arielle wanted to sunbathe:

I never would have expected that of her.  But it makes sense:  Being a Mercian, she's finished with some good, old-fashioned English stove enamel.  Besides, Brits like to spend time in the sun and by the surf as much as anyone else does!

So, apparently, do dogs:

Yes, people actually walked those dogs into the water.  The tide was so far out at Point Lookout that, it seemed, people could have walked across the bay.

Actually, those canines are patrol dogs and the folks walking them are trainers.  Someone told me they're trained to rescue swimmers on Jones Beach, just across the inlet from Point Lookout, and that those dogs can actually swim from PL to JB.

As swimmers and sunbathers don't normally go to Point Lookout, it wasn't crowded.  However, Atlantic, Long and Rockaway Beaches, all of which lost most or all of their boardwalks during Superstorm Sandy, were full of beachgoers.  Still, except for a stretch of Long Beach, there wasn't as much traffic as I expected.

I'm glad that people are going to those beaches again.  I just don't want too many of them to go when I want to ride my bike to them!