Vessels Of Reflection

The heat's been turned up, again.


No, I'm not being chased. (Nor am I chaste--at least not by choice!)  And, thankfully, I'm not talking about my apartment or workplace, at least not now.

Instead, I'm talking about the weather.  The weekend, clear through Monday, was very mild for this time of year.  So I did a couple of good rides--ones I've written about before on this blog, but pleasant to do again nonetheless.

Yesterday the heat and humidity began to creep up.  Today's a full-blown "dog day".  I'm glad I brought a water bottle with me when I rode to work.  If this weather continues, it's going to get a lot of use.

If you've been following this blog, you've probably noticed that I use stainless-steel bottles.  I got into that habit around the time Chris started Valo Orange.  I think my first, or possibly my second or third, order from them included two of those bottles.

Like most cyclists of the past half-century or so, I'd been using plastic bottles.  I think the best was one of the first I had.  Specialites TA of France made it. 

At the time, I had no idea that my bottle differed from the ones used by most riders in the European peloton only in the graphics.  More precisely, mine had none:  It was just plain, stark white.  But what made it so great was its nozzle:  To this day, I haven't used any other that's easier to drink from while riding.

Specialites TA continues to make bottles and cages to this day, but they seem to have discontinued the nozzle I've mentioned not long after I got my bottle.  I know that if I really wanted another one, I could get it on eBay. All I'd have to do is outbid some Japanese collector who would pony up $200 or so.  I don't know which would be more questionable:  paying that much for a plastic bottle (even if it is TA!  even if it is French!) or drinking from a 40-year-old plastic bottle.

Before plastic, there was stainless steel, which brings to mind the joke about the "permanent" that's guaranteed for 90 days. (Old stainless steel took six months, vs. three for normal steel, to rust.) And there was aluminum, which most cyclists used.

Of course, aluminum had its own hazard:  People were poisoned by bottles that weren't properly cleaned or aired out.  (I heard of similar stories about aluminum canteens, like the one I had when I was a Scout.)  But they certainly had style.

So did the folks who decorated them:

Now, here's a question for all of you straight guys and lesbians:  Does this heat you up more than the water in it could cool you off?

If you prefer fast machines to fast...well, OK, I won't go there...here's something for you:

Interestingly, Monet Goyon was a manufacturer of motorcycles as well as bicycles in Macon, France.  Believe it or not, there were once two dozen or so French companies making motorcycles (or motorized bicycles of one kind or another) on French soil.  Most, like Peugeot, Motobecane and Solex, started as bicycle manufacturers.  Some abandoned either the motorized or human-powered markets; others, like Monet Goyon folded altogether.  Today there are a number of specialty and custom motorcycle makers, as well as a couple of reincarnations of old marques, making their wares in France.

Now, for those of you who don't care about motorized vehicles or gender politics, and are saying to yourselves, "I came here to read about bicycles," here's something you might prefer:

Actually, even if you don't care about bicycles, you might like that one.  I think it's one of the more tasteful testaments to France's most famous bicycle manufacturer I've seen.

All of the bottles pictured in this post are reproductions and are available from Vintage Bike Shop.

If You Crossed Daniel Rebour With James Thurber...

Now I am going to pose a completely pointless question, as I am wont to do.

Here goes:  What would Daniel Rebour have drawn for the New Yorker?

I think I've found the answer:








The man responsible for this drawing, Jean-Jacques Sempe, in fact did a cover for the publication E.B. White made famous:

  

He was born in Bordeaux in 1932 and is, from what I understand, still active.  He is very well-known in France as well as other countries, mainly for the often-whimsical and often romantic, if sentimental (sounds really French, doesn't it?) work for Paris Match. Here in the US, more people have seen his work than know of the man who did it.















Can you imagine Sempe in a room with James Thurber--or Daniel Rebour?

The Lunartic

For a moment, I thought someone tried to ride a handcuff.





Turns out, the contraption is even cleverer (Now there's a word only a Brit can get away with using!) than that. 


That strange-looking rear wheel is belt-driven and hubless.  (Could even a Brit get away with saying "hubless"?)  The moving parts are housed, which makes the bike's wheelbase. 


Luke Douglas, the wheel's creator, said he was trying to make a bike as compact as possible without having to fold it.  He said he was also trying to eliminate the awkward ride qualities of many folding or collapsible bikes.


At the time he designed it, he was a student at the Loughborough (UK) Design School.  He entered it in the 2011 competition for the James Dyson Award.  Alas, he didn't win.


He should have gotten some kind of award, though, for the name he gave his invention:  the Lunartic.

Sunday Sailing

I admit this photo hasn't much to do with cycling, save for the fact that I took it on Point Lookout, one of the places to which I pedaled last week.

But somehow it seems right for a Sunday afternoon in summer.  And I suppose it has something like composition and a balance of tones in it.  Even if it doesn't, I hope you like it.

The Bike That Meant Everything

Having your bike stolen is never a happy experience.  Even if it's an old rust-holder or is ridden only occasionally, losing your bike means losing a part of yourself, however small.

The reason, I believe,is that any bike we own holds some part of our experience.  Of course, if it's a bike you ride every day, whether to work or for pleasure, it's a companion.  If you took a once-in-a-lifetime tour, or raced, on it, it was an extension of you.  And, even if your relationship with your steed isn't so intimate, you have a memory of acquiring it.

If the bike was previously ridden by someone dear to you, of course that makes it all the more precious.  Just ask Mikaela Rogers.

Three decades earlier, a teenaged Mike Rogers got tired of riding pieced-together hand-me-downs and saved the wages of his minimum-wage job for a black Bianchi Sport SS.  He rode it to school, on a tour and the bike paths that were later built in Minneapolis, near his home turf.  But one day he noticed that riding left him even more fatigued and in pain than usual.  He thought he was just out of shape and that he could pedal his way back to health.  If only...

He died three years ago from Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, also known as Lou Gherig's disease.

After he could no longer mount the Bianchi, Mikaela--who was, by that time, almost the same age Mike was when he bought it--rode to and from school and around town much as he did three decades earlier, even though the frame was much too big for her.  She simply wouldn't dream of riding anything else.

So, of course, one of her most heartbreaking experiences--short of losing her father--was going to the family's shed and not seeing the bike hanging from its usual perch.

Fortunately, this story has a happy ending.  Someone found the bike abandoned on a street corner, placed an ad in Craigslist and reunited the Bianchi--and the memories of the man who bought it so many years earlier--with a young woman.