If You Have To Bring Your Bike Back To The Shop...

I've worked in a bicycle shop during the week between Christmas and New Year's Day.  A kid and his or her parent (or some other adult) would come in with the bike the kid got as a present.  One or both of the wheels would be shaped like tacos, pretzels or some other appetizer or snack served before or after the holiday dinner.

The kid or adult would claim the kid "was just turning the corner" when "it bent."  When the kid's puppy-dog eyes didn't elicit a free replacement of the wheel or bike, the adult would demand a refund.

Other current and former bike shop employees have told me similar stories.  No doubt the one who made this graphic has heard it, too:

By Jessica Psy De Lacy

Wearing The Pants

Back in 1984, Levi's was the official outfitter for the US Olympic Team.  That year, the Games were held in Los Angeles.  In those days, Levi's blue jeans were made up the coast, in San Francisco.

That was during the time in my life when, off the bike,  I wore nothing but Levi's 501s with button-down, polo, rugby, flannel or T-shirts, depending on the occasion. Sometimes I wore those things while riding, too.  And, of course, when the weather was warm enough (and I could get away with it), I wore 501 cutoffs.  

I know lots of cyclists could have said the same thing about their sartorial habits.  I'll bet there are plenty of cyclists today who could.  Thus, I am still amazed that Levi's never came out with a line of cycle clothing--at least to my knowledge.

I got into this rumination of threads past when I saw this ad:

 
 Apparently, someone named M Schwab designed it during the 1970's.  I wonder what he/she is doing now.

The Comfort of a November Sky

A couple of weeks ago, I noticed that I was feeling sad.  One reason is that a few people who have mattered to me died around that time of year--including a family member who was a couple of years younger than I am now and a female friend who committed suicide.  But another cause of my tristesse is the days growing shorter.

Interestingly, I don't notice the lack of light as much when I'm riding my bike.  In fact, the graying November sky becomes rather comforting, like a shawl spread across bare, wizening limbs and rocks:

 
And the November dusk has its own sort of lumination, like a sort of wisdom revealed:

A little bit of that light crossed my path--or so it seemed:

When I stopped, he rubbed against my ankles.  When I dismounted and squatted next to my bike, he rubbed his face against my hand.

He brought me joy tinged with a note of sadness:  A cat so friendly could only have been abandoned by someone.   

In that sense--as well as in his physical appearance--he's like Max.  My friend Mildred, who rescued him, told a similar story:  He, who had never before met her, approached her as she walked down the street.

I didn't have a bag or basket, but I was tempted to find a way to bring my new-found friend home.  I gave myself all of the reasons why I couldn't.  A woman sitting on a nearby bench told me not to worry:  He's been living on that stretch of the Rockaway boardwalk for "about three years" and she and other people feed him.  

I guess he manages to sleep and survive with that sky as his blanket and the sand as his mattress.

What Will Be The Latest Diet Craze For Bike Parts?

It looks like we're about due for a wave of insane measures to save weight on bike parts.  Of course, some might argue that we are in one.  In any event, it seems that such a cycle comes every other decade. 

In my cycling life, I have witnessed two such bouts of insanity. The first came during the '70's.  Those of you who weren't into cycling (or weren't around) then probably remember other ridiculous fads like disco, droopy mustaches, pastel-colored suits and mood rings.  Well, in cycling, there was something almost as absurd:  an attempt to turn seemingly every bicycle part into a wedge of Emmentaler (or, for us Americans, a piece of Swiss cheese).

  
 Ah, yes, drillium.  I remember it well.  Along with it came slotted brake and shift levers.  Ironically, Campagnolo's cut-out Super Record brake levers actually weighed a few grams more than their smooth-surfaced Record levers.  A company rep said that Campy made the material thicker so to make the levers safe for slotting.

Along with grunge rock and "indie" everything (To me "indie" meant, in the '90's. more or less what "gourmet", when used as an adjective, meant in the '80's:  "pretentious".), the final decade of the 20th Century took slotting one step further.  It seemed that every kid who had an Erector Set as a kid came of age during that decade and either made bike parts or opened a "high concept" shop that sold them:

What will this decade's insane attempt to save a gram bring us?  I would argue that it already gave us one such trend:  almost everything made of carbon fiber.  Now, I can understand why racers would want a carbon fiber frame, and perhaps even a set of wheels--as long as his or her sponsor is paying for them.  But a carbon fiber seat post rack?  Any kind of rack made of that material?  The day we see a carbon fiber GPS system for bikes will be the day when, as Pere Teilhard de Chardin said about the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, technology has triumphed over reason.

Regimented

As you may know, my bicycles were made in a part of England that was part of the ancient kingdom of Mercia.  Some people and things from that region--like my bikes--are still called Mercians.  

So, not surprisingly, there's a Mercian Regiment of the British Army:

I always find it kind of amusing when military and paramilitary organizations make "ladies'" pendants, brooches or other accessories.  I think I gave my mother such a pin on some occasion from Scouts or the Army, I forget which.  Maybe she still has it.  

Anyway, learning about that regiment, for me, begged the obvious question:  What bicycles do they ride?

A Transgendered Bicycle?

Mixte frames are often referred to as "unisex".  Although the top tube, which is horizontal on a diamond or "men's" frame, slopes downward (and is sometimes split into smaller twin parallel tubes), it doesn't tilt as far downward as the top tube of a traditional "women's" bike.  Also, the top tubes of  traditional women's bikes are often curved near the point where they meet the seat tube.  

Whatever the designations and nomenclature,  the truth is that, at least here in the US, female cyclists are much more likely than males to ride mixtes.  And one rarely, if ever, sees a male cyclist of any age on a traditional female bike.

Some comedian--I forget who--once joked about getting hand-me-downs, and his older siblings were all girls.  I wonder how many boys have gotten bikes their older sisters rode before them.  And, of course, some girls received bikes their older brothers rode.  Believe it or not, one girl I knew was gifted with her older brother's Columbia diamond-frame (a.k.a. "men's") after its top tube was removed to turn it into a "girl's" bike!

But I never heard of anyone turning a female bike into a male one--until I saw this:

From Bicycle Shaped Objects

T

 As a result of "surgery" performed on it, this vintage Schwinn cruiser no longer has a down tube.

I have to admit:  I love the style.  But I'm not so sure I'd want to ride it!
 

Pour la Victoire!

Views After My Commute

After I rode home from work, Vera and I were ready for a little more action and some visual stimulation.

So we climbed the stairs to the walkway/bike lane of the RFK/Triborough Bridge.  We could not have had a better view of Upper Astoria clothed in fall colors:

It's a New York view most people never see.  But, when I turned around, I encountered the sort of vista almost everyone expects late on a mid-autumn afternoon in the Big Apple:

Even the Hell Gate railroad trestle took on the hues of foliage reflected in the late-day sun:

Vera was being modest about helping to make this mini-revelry possible:

 

November Discs

Those of us who are writers or other creative artists have our own ways of getting started.  One obvious way for a writer is, of course, reading.  But many of us also follow visual cues such--or, as you might expect, take walks or bike rides.

When I first started writing poetry, I would sometimes begin my work with word associations.  For example, if I looked at the sky, I might write that word, then "flight", "wind", "skip", "bliss" or other words, and write a couple of lines using those words.

These days, I sometimes play a version of that game, if you will, on Google or some other search engine.  I might type in a word or phrase and see what comes up.

I did that a moment ago.  I typed in "bicycle november" and came up with a bunch of things, including a shop called November Bicycles.

Of course, I checked them out.  They're very much a racing-oriented shop, so I may not ever buy anything from them.  However, I like its owners' philosophy--or, at least, what I gleaned of it from the blog that's part of their site.

For one thing, they feel that racing bikes--and, especially wheels--cost too much.  So, as they explain, they market their own products and bypass many of the distribution channels through which other retailers obtain the merchandise they sell.

And they clearly have their own opinions about riding and equipment.  At least those opinions seem to be based on experience and common sense--and, unlike at least one other would be philosopher-bicycle retailer, they're  not evangelizing or selling a lifestyle.

Mike and Dave of November Bicycles

One blog post I found particularly interesting was "My Opinion On Disc Brakes."  In it, the author admits that he uses discs on at least one of his bikes.  But he also doesn't relish the prospect of them becoming the de facto industry standard for all bikes.  For one thing, trying to squeeze them into a road bike, which has narrower frame spacing than a mountain or cyclo-cross bike, can be problematic, especially if the bike has an 11-cog rear cassette.  The only way it seems possible to make it work is to use a brake with a smaller rotor, which negates most of the advantage a disc is supposed to have over caliper brakes.

About that advantage, he's skeptical, if not doubtful.  He also mentions problems in keeping them adjusted:  On some models, on some bikes,it's all but impossible to keep the pads mounted close enough to the rotor so that braking response is quick and powerful, without the pad occasionally rubbing on the rotor as you ride.  So you choose between response, power and modulation or being able to ride at more than a snail's pace.

What I found interesting is that the arguments he makes against disc brakes--except for the difficulty of using them with 11 (or even 10) cogs are ones I and any number of other mechanics could have made thirty years ago.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, "new" ideas in bike design (or almost any other area, for that matter) almost always are reiterations of things that had been done before.  For example, German manufacturer Altenberger made dual-pivot sidepull caliper brakes during the 1960's and '70's.  A few bikes were equipped with them; as one mechanic lamented, "They have the worst features of center pulls and side pulls, and none of the good features."  About twenty years ago, Shimano resurrected the dual-pivot concept and eliminated most of the problems encountered on the Altenbergers.

So it was with disc brakes.  As I recall, a Japanese company, a French company and Phil Wood made them.  For the latter, it was probably the only faulty product he ever made:  They were recalled.  But they, and the others, had the same problems with adjustability and issues with rotor size the author of November Bicycles mentions.  

Back in my day, the only bicycles that used discs were tandems.  Because tandeming has always been one of the smaller niches of the bicycling world, ideas, innovations and products developed for them rarely find their way onto other kinds of bikes.  That, and the problems I mentioned, are the reasons why disc brakes all but disappeared by the mid-1980's.

As I Ride, The Season Turns

I must be really photosensitive or something.  I seem to sense the movements of the seasons, the mood of a moment and much else through changes in the light that surrounds them.

We are deep into the middle of autumn now. Today, during my ride to Point Lookout, I could feel a turn within the season as the sky became a prism that refracted the hues of the earth into glacial shades.

About 15 km (10 mi) into my 105 km (65 mile) ride, I encountered this just before I entered the Addobo Bridge:

Even the evergreens and meadow grasses next to Jamaica Bay seem to be saying that summer is long, long past, and there is no going back, not for a long time.  However, by the time I got to Point Lookout, the season had indeed turned:

If this doesn't foretell the coming of winter, I don't know what does.