The End Of A Legend: R.I.P. Jack Taylor

Last week, I wrote a post about a Jack Taylor "Rough Stuff" bicycle designed in the 1950s and built, apparently, during the 1970s.

Jack Taylor (l) with brothers Ken and Norman

Well, the man whose name that bike bore died on Sunday.  Jack Taylor, who started building bicycles as a teenager in 1936.  At the time, he raced in the then-vibrant club racing scene in his native England.  According to legend (who started it, I don't know), he admired some high-end equipment but couldn't afford it.  So he set out to making it himself.

In the beginning, his friends Lance Bell and Jack Hood helped him.  At the end of the war, in 1945, his brothers Ken and Norman joined him to form Jack  Taylor Cycles.  Interestingly, Norman would come to be the actual frame-builder and Ken would build wheels, assemble the bikes and box them for shipping.  On each of those boxes--many of which went to the USA--Ken wrote, "Have a nice ride".  If I were a collector, I'd probably want one of those boxes almost as much as I'd want one of their bikes!

Jack, however, was the one who ensured you could tell a Jack Taylor--whether a racing, touring or "rough stuff" bike, or a tandem--from any other.  He's the one who gave the bikes their beautiful paint finishes and the box pinstriping that became his "signature", if you will.

That Jack Taylor stood out in a time and country with so many first-rate bike builders is a testament to, not only his (and his brothers') workmanship, but the ride and designs of their bikes.  They used geometries and configurations (such as curved seat tubes) that were previously all but unknown.  Among those configurations is the "Rough Stuff" frame I showed in my earlier post:  It has most of the major design elements of a modern mountain bike (high bottom bracket, sloping top tube, smaller-than-700C wheels) but was designed two decades before Gary Fisher, Joe Breeze, Keith Bontrager and the mountain-bike pioneers started barreling down Marin County fire trails on old Schwinn balloon-tired bombers.

Perhaps the most interesting Jack Taylor bikes--and the ones for which he is most renowned--are his touring bikes and tandems.  Those bikes are also the reason why JT was often called "the most French" of English bike builders.  The features that made them so well-suited to their purposes were adapted from constructeurs like Rene Herse, Alex Singer and Goeland:  frame geometries, integrated racks and fenders, oversized headsets and down tubes and brazed-on cantilever brakes, which hadn't been used much in England before JT started using them.

Many Taylor bikes (of all kinds) were also built without lugs in a technique called "filet brazing" or "bronze welding" which made the frames look as if they were sculpted from one piece of metal and polished.  (My  old Land Shark was constructed that way.)  Jack admitted that, as much as it made some of his bikes look as if they were built by one of the constructeurs, he did it because lugs and some other materials were scarce during the years just after the war.  However, even after he had an easier time finding the lugs he liked, he continued to make many of his bikes without them. Sometimes customers preferred them that way. But, more important, it allowed for greater flexibility in design:  an especially important point when building tandems.

Just about all Jack Taylors were built from Reynolds 531 tubing.  Jack developed a close relationship with the company.  For one thing, it guaranteed his supply.  But more important, it meant that Reynolds would make variations on their tubing--such as the curved and oversized tubes--to suit Taylors' unique designs.  In fact, Reynolds made some configurations of their tubing for Jack Taylor an no one else.

Jack retired in 1990, but Norman--who died six years ago at the age of 84--continued to build frames for another decade or so.  They had the same build quality as the older bikes, but because the paint and finish work was outsourced, they did not have the unique, distinctive beauty of the earlier bikes.

So goes another legend of the cycling world.  You can read another tribute (possibly better than mine) on a favorite blog of mine:  The Retrogrouch.

Afghan Cycles: Women In Solidarity

Recently, a colleague at work told me, almost sheepishly, that she doesn't ride bicycles.

I reassured her that I know plenty of people who don't ride, so she needn't be embarrassed.  She was anyway:  "I never learned how," she explained.

Nothing new there, either.  I've known others who never acquired one of the few skills one never loses.  One such person of my acquaintance grew up in a large, traffic-knotted city where even children didn't ride bikes.  Others simply didn't have a bicycle, or access to one.  The reason my co-worker gave, though, was one I'd never considered:  She grew up in a milieu in which females didn't ride bikes because the males considered it "too provocative".  In fact, women didn't participate in sports at all and a "good woman", as she says, "didn't move her body without a man telling her to".

So it was very gratifying for me to come across a website that documents the Afghan Women's Cycling Team.

Kudos to Shannon Galpin, founder of the non-profit Mountain2Mountain, which has done much to support the team and women's rights in general. Ms. Galpin met the women while working in Afghanistan.  She also just happens to be the first person (not just the first woman) to mountain bike in Afghanistan and the first person to cross the Panjshir Valley on a bicycle.

Here is a video that highlights her work with the team and on her upcoming documentary, Afghan Cycles:

 

Liv Beyond - Shannon Galpin as Liv Ambassador from LET MEDIA on Vimeo.

Election Day: My Endorsements Are At The End Of This Post

Today is Election Day here in the US.  I am not going to make any endorsements, but I think that if you've been reading this blog (or my other), you have a pretty good idea of who I would--and wouldn't vote for.

It's interesting, though, to see how bicycling has become, as it were, a campaign issue in some places.  In San Francisco, the Bicycle Coalition has a pretty detailed list of positions and endorsements on its website.  From what I've been reading, cycling and progressive mass transportation policies are very much on the minds of large numbers of voters in the City By The Bay.  I haven't been there in a while, but I can't say I'm surprised to read about such developments.

I've never been to Austin but, from what I know about it, I'm not surprised that cycling safety is also an important issue there on this election day.  Pedestrian safety is also a priority. I don't see much about mass transportation:  I can only guess that there isn't much of it--or, at least not as much as in cities like San Francisco, Boston and New York--there.  I am making such an assumption based on what I saw in my admittedly-limited time in other Texas cities.

Perhaps one of the cleverest attempts to use cycling to "get out the vote" is taking place in Denver.  B-cycle, the city's bike-sharing program, is waiving its one-day membership fee today. 

Being the cynical New Yorker that I am (ha, ha), I wonder whether some candidate is behind the freebie.  Even if that's the case, I still applaud the move.  A free bike share is better than a lot of other things politicians have given people whom they want to entice to vote for them.


Speaking of politicians and bicycles:  The 1946 Schwinn catalogue featured, among other things, a President-to-be and his first wife with Schwinn Continentals, "the only really fine lightweight bicycle made in America today".

Whatever you think of his politics, you've got to admit that very few people ever looked better with Continentals (which, at the time, had Sturmey-Archer three-speed hubs) than Ronald Reagan and Jane Wyman.  In fact, those few included a couple of other Hollywood stars featured in that year's catalogue:

Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall will always get my votes!



 

What They Know About Hipsters In Malaysia

Here's something for your hipsters in your life:



This comes to us from our friends at USJ Cycles in Selangor, Malaysia.

Day Of The Dead, On Two Wheels

In Mexico, today is celebrated as el Dia de Muertos, or the day of the dead.  The holiday originated with indigenous people, and current ways of celebrating it can be traced back to the Aztec beginning-of-summer festival honoring the goddess Mictecacihuatl  (If anyone has an Aztec spell-check, let me know!)  After los conquistadores arrived in the 16th Century, the holiday was moved to the beginning of November to coincide with the Roman Catholic feast of All Saints' Day.

In France and some other countries, families leave crysanthemums on the graves of deceased relatives on Toussaint.  (During my childhood, many Italian-American families did the same thing.)  In one of her essays, Marguerite Yourcenar observed that autumn rites are among the oldest and most universal, and are held after the last harvests, when "the barren earth is thought to give passage to the souls lying beneath it".

Anyway, I actually found a Day of the Dead bike jersey:

and some artwork, including this tandem bicycle hearse, if you will

 Take the motors away from Hell's Angels, and you get this:

Believe it or not, some people actually get married on this day:

Now, if any of you gear freaks are looking for the ultimate bike part, check out this seat:

Finally, if you want something that expresses the spirit of this day better than this blog post, check out this poem from--who else?--Emily Dickinson:

Because I could not stop for Death

He kindly stopped for me – 

The Carriage held but just Ourselves – 

And Immortality.

We slowly drove – He knew no haste

And I had put away

My labor and my leisure too,

For His Civility –

We passed the School, where Children strove

At Recess – in the Ring – 

We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain – 

We passed the Setting Sun –

Or rather – He passed us –

The Dews drew quivering and chill –

For only Gossamer, my Gown –

My Tippet – only Tulle –

We paused before a House that seemed

A Swelling of the Ground –

The Roof was scarcely visible –

The Cornice – in the Ground –

Since then – ‘tis Centuries – and yet

Feels shorter than the Day

I first surmised the Horses’ Heads

Were toward Eternity –

Hoist On An Old Parking Meter

New York is a city full of creative people.  I would argue that the most creative of all now live in Queens.  Of course, that's not an unbiased opinion, coming from someone who has lived in Astoria for 12 years. ;-)

Our creativity extends to all sorts of things, including our bikes.  Some folks are creative in getting their bikes to work:  They install or remove all sorts of things even the most imaginative mechanics would never dream of!  Others are creative in painting, accessorizing or decorating their bikes.  

Still others are creative in how we park our bikes.  There have been times when I've locked my steed to things I never could have imagined it could be locked to.  But I don't think that even I, in all of my ingenuity (ha, ha) ever did anything like this:

How does the bike feel about being in such a compromising position?

All right, I'll restore whatever dignity it has left, being exposed to the elements and all:

This was right around the corner from my apartment.  Was I being a good neighbor in exposing this bike's plight?

Fear Of Felines

Quick question:  What did Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Gengis Khan, Napoleon, Hitler and Mussolini have in common?

They all were ailurophobic.

(Hitler and Mussolini:  two ailurophibic who tried to take over  the world at the same time. Imagine that!)

I wonder what they did on Halloween.  They wouldn't have wanted to be with me on my most  recent Point Lookout ride.

It's a good thing I'm not ailurophobic.  I really, really had to go to the bathroom!

Happy Halloween! 

 

1939 Suspended By Simplex

Some of my favorite civil structures are suspension bridges.  Perhaps my taste was developed by seeing the construction of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge--still one of my favorites (Would I feel that way if I had to pay the toll every day?)--as a child.  Of course, I also love the Golden Gate Bridge as well as the George Washington (I don't have to commute over it every day!).  The Bronx-Whitestone is also quite nice, in my opinion.

The Bronx-Whitestone opened in 1939.  Somehow it seems entirely appropriate:  There is a certain distinctive style--epitomized by that year's World's Fair in New York-- to the buildings, vehicles and much else from that year, and the bridge fits it perfectly.  It, like the exhibits at the Fair, was vaguely futuristic but harkened to the Art Deco designs that had recently been popular. 

So why am I giving you an entirely amateur history/critical analysis of the art, architecture and design of a year and a period?  Well, I recently came across a photo of a bicycle accessory.  Before I read the caption that accompanied it, something in my mind said, "This could have been made only in 1939."

And, indeed, it was.  Apparently, it was produced only during that year.  Now, given that it was made in France, the fact that production stopped probably had more to do with a certain event that started late that year than to any change in tastes.  Like so many other things that stopped because of the war, production of it never resumed.  Some things can't be picked up where they were left off.  But, in this case, I think that the real reason Simplex didn't start making it again when they got back to manufacturing derailleurs, chainrings and other components and accessories is that Simplex simply stopped making bottle cages altogether. Or so it seems.

It looks great with the rust and patina.  I can only imagine what it looked like when the steel reflected the sun and sky:  Somehow I imagine that seeing it would feel a bit like looking at one of those bridges as ripples of water flickered at its feet.

I'd bet that it made a bottle look like it was suspended from the bike--especially if it was mounted on a handlebar, as this double version of the cage probably was.

Rough Stuff From The Brothers

Back when mountain bikes were new--well, they weren't.  Not really.

When Gary Fisher, or whoever, broke his twentieth or thirtieth balloon-tire bomber frame while barreling down the fire trails of Marin County and decided to fashion a lighter, stronger frame with the same geometry--and provisions for multiple gears, dearailleurs and cantilever brakes--it wasn't a radical new idea.

That's not to say that it wasn't important, which would be like saying that Levi Strauss has had no effect on the way people dress.  At the time Gary Fisher, Keith Bontrager and those mountain-bike pioneers were introducing their rigs, almost no other Americans--or, for that matter, people in other parts of the cycling world--had seen a bike made for the rigors of trail riding.

The idea of such a bike has been around since the dawn of cycling itself.  It makes sense, when you think about it:  When the first vehicles we recognize as bicycles appeared about 130 or 140 years ago, there were few paved roads.  Riding even those could shake one's bones even more than the "boneshakers" of that time.  Bikes at that time had to withstand being ridden over ruts, rocks and sometimes roots.

Some might argue that the velos a ballon one still finds in the French countryside are forerunners of today's velos a tout terrain. Other possible ancestors of today's mountain bikes could also include any number of wide-tired bikes used for transportation and even recreation in various parts of the world.

In England, there was a genre called the "Rough Stuff" bike.  Jack Taylor Cycles, most renowned for their tandems, actually used the catchy phrase as the name for  one model  of single-rider bikes they made. 



Isn't it funny how so many ideas that seemed so radical in the 1980's are present on a bike designed three decades earlier?  I'm talking about the sloping top tube, high bottom bracket and small (compared to a typical road bike) diameter wheels.  Also, this bike has the Mafac cantilever brakes and Specialites TA ProVis 5 (a.k.a. Cyclotouriste) cranks. 

Before the tries and cables were replaced.

The bike was first produced from drawings submitted by a nature photographer.  In the early 1950's, photography equipment was much bigger, bulkier and heavier than it is now.  The built-in rear rack, like the whole bike, is built to withstand the rigors of carrying such a load in the wild.

Here is a BBC documentary about Jack--and his brothers/fellow builders Ken and Norman--that aired in 1986:


 

Curious George Rides A Bike

Normally, I can't bring myself to watch movies made from TV shows or books--especially books--that I liked when I was a kid.

A few years ago, someone persuaded me to watch the Curious George movie.  I was pleasantly surprised:  It mostly kept to the spirit of the books I loved as a small child.  My only real criticism of the movie was that it downplayed George's mischievousness, his most endearing quality.

Yesterday, on my way home from work, I saw a kid carrying a copy of Curious George Rides A Bike.  Perhaps there is hope for the current generation after all! ;-)