What We Learn About Our Bikes, And Ourselves

This post will be short.  It will also be a bit of a prologue or teaser for another post, which may appear tomorrow.  If not, you'll see it very soon.

No, I'm not going to make any dramatic announcements about life-altering events.  And I'm not going to confess any deceptions or misperceptions I might have perpetrated.

Instead, I'm going to ask a question that will be a basis of that post:  Have you ever, in the course of a ride, discovered something you didn't expect about the bike you were riding, or some part or accessory on it?  

From Bike Yogi

That surprise could be a positive or negative one, or simply a fact.  That is something that happened on a ride I took today. Don't worry:  The bike, and I are fine.  Actually, we're doing quite well.

Also, you might want to think about something unexpected you learned about yourself on a ride.  That, in a way, will also be included in the post that's coming.

I hope you've done some great, or simply pleasurable riding, this weekend.  And, if you haven't, I hope something that you've simply had a fine time.

I Tried To Be Graceful. Spoiler: He Was Gracious.

The last time I rode to Connecticut, I made a wisecrack about how the Swiss boarding schools might still be teaching good manners after all.  Well, I saw evidence of that today when—you guessed it—I rode to Connecticut.

I was riding—coasting, actually—down the same street that prompted my quip.   Although there wasn’t a street fair, a lot of people were there, shopping in the boutiques—and walking around with the frappucinos they got in Starbuck’s. (I guess the coffee purveyor is the street’s concession to mass market!)  Even though I was controlling myself, I was going at a pretty good clip, as the street slopes downward.

Sign on a shared path in Perth, Australia.  Photo by Jo Beeson.  From ABC News Australia.

A man stepped into the street, his back turned to me.  He was talking to a woman who I assume is his wife.  Both were dressed in a similar sort of high-dollar casual way.  As they talked, they stepped into the street.  The woman, a step or two behind him, tried to pull him back.  I rang my bell and shouted non-obscenities. (I guess I was trying to show that you don’t have to go to a Swiss boarding school to learn good manners!)  I couldn’t steer out of his path, as not more than the thickness of my glove separated me from a line of cars descending to my left. 

I hit my brakes—and him.  Well, not quite hit:  It was more than a graze, but I careened off his rear left side.  He staggered a couple of steps but didn’t fall.  I stopped.

Before I could ask whether he was OK, he intoned, “I’m sorry.  I’m so sorry.”

“I’m sorry.”  I meant it.  It’s the sort of street lots of people cross without looking, and the drivers seem to anticipate it. If I could have steered out of his way, I would have.  It’s useless, really, to scream at pedestrians in such a place.

“I’m really, really sorry.”

“Are you OK?” I finally asked.

I took off my sunglasses.  He looked into my eyes. I waited for him to cross.  He flicked his right hand.  “After you,” he said with a deferential smile.

“Have a good day,” I said.

“Likewise.”

They really do teach good manners in Swiss boarding schools—or Deerfield or Andover or Groton or wherever he went to school. Or maybe he’s just a gentle, polite man.  Whatever the case, I really couldn’t be angry.  And, to tell you the truth, I didn’t want to be: It was a beautiful day and I was having a great ride.

Riding And Working

Whenever I ride along the Brooklyn waterfront--especially in Red Hook or near Bush Terminal--I can shed a tear or two as I'm opening my wings.   At least, that's how it feels sometimes.  It's the joy of victory twinged with a little bit of sadness and guilt.

The views along those stretches of New York Harbor are always awe-inspiring, and not only because of the Statue of Liberty or the lower Manhattan skyline.  No matter how many towers are built along the shorelines, they are exactly that:  shorelines, which means that they can never fit into a grid pattern; they can only disrupt or stop it.  And whoever or whatever comes or goes, lives go on.  

For that is what those waterfronts have always represented to me:  lives.  Sure, the promenades and picnic fields built over the old piers are pleasant places to walk one's dog or hang out with friends and loved ones--or to bicycle.  But nearly anyone who goes to the waterfront now has never worked on the docks, on the piers.  Those who work in the concession stands or clean the paths or fields don't work on the waterfront; they work for companies in faraway places that contract with the city's Parks Department.  

That is not to say they don't work hard (for low pay).  But their work enables the leisure of others, nearly none of whom will they ever get to know.  Those who worked on the docks and in the nearby factories were working for and with other people who worked:  the people they saw all day, and sometimes at the end of the day.  They ate, drank, played ball and attended each other's (and their families') important life events.  It's hard to imagine the person making lattes in the snack bar going to the bachelorette party of someone who power-walks or takes an outdoor yoga class along the promenade.

It's still a little strange for me to be one of those people who goes to the waterfront for recreation or fitness--in my case, to ride a bicycle--after it was a place of work, and more work, for various members of my family, most of them gone now.  For that matter, the jobs or even the very work they did no longer exist:  the plant where one of my uncles made cement, the shoe factory where my mother and grandmother stitched and the old docks where two of my uncles were longshoremen--a job rendered obsolete by cranes, container ships and interstate highways.

To be sure, their work was difficult, draining and sometimes dangerous.  The pay was decent--at least for my uncles--but, really, it did not justify the risks to themselves they were expected to take.  Nobody should have to work under those conditions, or those my mother and grandmother endured.  But, at the same time, those jobs allowed people who couldn't, for whatever reasons, spend lots of time in school to make lives for themselves and, in time, to support families.  I don't think the man grilling hot dogs in the concessionaire can do that on his pay.

He, and his co-workers are probably working other jobs. And they don't have much time, or energy, for the sorts of things we do now when we visit the pier.  If he has a bike, he's probably riding it to the job and back, but not along this pier.  I'll bet he, and the woman making lattes, didn't get to see the "rainbow cloud" to the right of the Statue.

At the end of the day, they probably want to flop into a couch or bed.  I am more privileged: In the middle of a ride after work, I can enjoy the whimsy of something like this:

I imagine that the artist who created it was one of the people who, like me, cycled (or strolled or ran) along the promenade, or some path like it in his home town.  So we might say the waterfront is a place of recreation for him.  Then again, he created a public sculpture that is exhibited on the pier.  He is an artist; that is his his work.  Or is it play--recreation--for him?

I hope it's everything.  Then I will feel nothing but pleasure about it, and about having the time to ride by and see it.

Cycling Legend Attacked On NYC Street

The name looked familiar.

Someone shoved him to the ground on East 86th Street, just steps away from Gracie Mansion, the New York City Mayor's residence.

The attacker fled and hopped into a taxi.  The man suffered a broken arm and cut to his forehead.  A week later, he's in a wheelchair, still recuperating.

The man--91 years old--had gone out around 7 am last Wednesday morning to pick up a newspaper.  His attacker was, according to the police, intoxicated and "muttering gibberish" before pushing the man.

Just yesterday the man's name was released:  Fred Mengoni.  If you race, or have followed racing in the US, you have heard his name:  He has  done more than almost anyone to bring respectability, and even prestige, to American bicycle racing.

Born in the Italian Adriatic seacoast town of Alcona, Mengoni dreamed of riding in the Giro d'Italia.  He adopted what he later described as a "killer" training regimen.   Still, he came to the conclusion that he simply didn't have the talent to become a professional cyclist.

In 1957, he emigrated to the US with $50 in his pocket.  After a series of ups and downs, he invested in some run-down brownstones in then-unfashionable neighborhoods.  It paid off, leading to a prosperous real estate career.                              

 But he never forgot his love of cycling.  Nearly every day, he trained in Central Park. In 1980, he started GS Mengoni, which became one of the great teams in US bicycle racing.  Among the team's "alumni" are Steve Bauer, George Hincapie and Mike Mc Carthy.  He also became an adviser to a young rider named Greg LeMond, with whom he has had a longtime friendship.  
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Fred Mengoni with George Hincapie.  Photo from A View From The Back

He also was instrumental in developing USPRO, which he served as president for several years before the US Cycling Federation purchased it and turned it into USA PRO.  And he holds the Mengoni Grand Prix in Central Park every year.

Let's all wish Fred Mengoni a full recovery and many more years!

It's Probably A Sun Tour Gran Prix. Or A Simplex Juy Export 61.

You know that something is influential is when it is imitated--even after the original is no longer made.

Mavic 851 rear dearailleur, circa 1981.  Photo from Velobase

Several bicycle derailleurs come immediately to mind.  If you're of my generation, one is the Campagnolo Nuovo/Super Record. From the time the first Nuovo was made in 1967 until the last Super Record came out of the Vicenza plant two decades later, innumerable parts manufacturers copied its basic design.  Much of the reason for that was, of course, the preponderance of Campagnolo equipment in the elite pelotons of the world.  "If Eddy won the Tour with it, it must be the best," is what those imitators were probably thinking.

Campagnolo Super Record, circa 1983.  From Wikipedia Commons

Campagnolo Nuovo Record. From Sheldon Brown's Bicycle Glossary.

Some will stop reading this post (and, possibly, this blog) after reading what I'm about to write:  The Campagnolo Nuovo/Super Record, even when it was introduced, was not the best-shifting derailleur available.  What caused its domination at the top of the cycling world was its reliability and, well, the reputation Campagnolo built with their earlier derailleurs and other components.  Also, each derailleur (more so the Nuovo, in my opinion) had a "classic" look to it.

Kharkov rear derailleur.  Probably the sorriest imitation of Campy NR/SR--with the possible exception of the Gian Robert--ever made.  Photo from Velobase.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, when the GDR government decided it needed to bring bicycle technology up to the level of what existed in the West, one of the parts they produced was a Tectoron derailleur that, from ten meters away, looks like a Campagnolo Super Record without the logos. 

Huret Svelto.  From Bulgier.net

Another influential derailleur was the Huret Svelto.  In its time, it was rather nice:  The shifting was better (or, at least, no worse) than most other derailleurs that were available when it was introduced in 1963.  And it had a certain industrial-minimalist aesthetic. (Think of a "cold irons bound" version of the Jubilee.)  But the main reason why it was widely imitated--even Shimano and SunTour had versions, called the "Pecker" and "Skitter" respectively--was that it was made from pressed steel plates riveted together. In other words, it was cheap to manufacture.  Through the 1970s, various component makers--including Romet of Poland--were making derailleurs that looked (and shifted) like the Svelto.

Romet derailleur, Poland, 1970s.  Photo from Disraeligears

(In contrast to the Svelto, the Huret Allvit--which may have come as original equipment on more bicycles than any other rear derailleur in history--had, as far as I know, only one imitator:  the USA-made Excel Dynamic of 1975-77.  It's particularly odd that, as the first American derailleur, its manufacturer would almost slavishly copy the Allvit when many cyclists were replacing their Allvits with SunTour and Shimano derailleurs.)

1964 SunTour Gran Prix. Photo from Disrealigears

Today, if you asked what derailleur is the most influential, the answer you'd probably get is "Shimano".  No specific model would be mentioned, as nearly all derailleurs made by that company over the past thirty years share the same basic "slant pantograph" design with two sprung pivots.  Neither of those features is, of course, a Shimano innovation:  SunTour introduced the former in its 1964 "Gran Prix" derailleur, and Simplex first employed the latter feature on a parallelogram derailleur when it made the "Juy Export 61."

Simplex Juy Export 61. Photo from Cycles Cambio  (Japanese blog)


Since all but the lowest-cost derailleurs today use both features, perhaps we could say that the Sun Tour Gran Prix (or, perhaps the SunTour Competition, which came out a  year later and eliminated the Gran Prix's less-desirable features) and the Simplex Juy Export 61 are the most influential derailleurs in the bicycle world today, even though neither has been made in decades.

SunTour "U" derailleur.  Photo from Disraeligears

SunTour Honor. Photo from Bikeforums

The funny thing is that the influence of those two derailleurs--and others from SunTour and Simplex--still lives on even in derailleurs found on the cheapest department store bikes.  Shimano's less-expensive derailleurs, with the dropped rather than the slant parallelogram, continue to employ two sprung pivots reminiscent of Simplex.  Perhaps even more ironically, Shimano is apparently making a derailleur that apes the SunTour "Honor" and "U" derailleurs found on low-priced bikes during the 1970's:

I saw this derailleur on a bike parked near where I work.  I'd never seen it before.  The only difference between the Shimano in the photo and the lowest-priced SunTours of the 1970s seems to be the black plastic front knuckle and that the rear knuckle, parallelogram plates and the part that holds the top pivot seem to be more crudely stamped and finished--and possibly made from a lower grade of steel--than those old SunTour base models. 

Those inexpensive SunTours shifted nearly as well as, but developed play in the pivots more quickly than, the V-series SunTours.  (Sometimes the Sun Tour "U" was the only good component on the bike that came with it!)  I wonder how that Shimano derailleur I saw today shifts.

The Naked Truth About The Hipster Infantry

They have silly facial hair and ride single-speed bikes.  Who are they?

I wouldn't be surprised if you said "hipsters".  That's probably the answer I would give, too.

Miep von Sydow has another answer:



Perhaps not surprisingly, von Sydow is a Swedish-American military historian.  This photo, on her blog, shows a World War I German bicycle infantry unit on the Western Front in 1914.


Now, I don't think it ever would have occurred to them, or hipsters, to beat swords into plowshares--or paintbrushes or handlebars or anything else. If it had, the result might look something like this:



At least the silly facial hair isn't as noticeable on the Philadelphia Naked Bike Ride!

National Ice Cream Day And My First Century

“Buy one cone, get one free.”

I would’ve stopped for that, except that, these days, I simply can’t eat ice cream—or any other dairy product—while I’m riding. 

 

“Free scoop of any flavor.”

What can they come up with that I haven’t already tried?  Mongolian yak butter with wasabi soy nuts?  

“Buy one sundae.  Get second at half-price.”

What’s with all of those ice-cream sales?, I wondered.  Today brought hotter weather than this part of the world has experienced in nearly two years; I couldn’t imagine how special sales or other incentives were needed to sell ice cream on a day like this.

I didn’t take a long ride today, but I felt as if I saw more promotions for ice cream along the way than I’d normally see in a whole year of riding.  

 

Turns out, my perception might’ve been more accurate than I realized. When I got back to my apartment, I turned on the radio.  After mentioning the President Obama'sdate with his daughters, the newscaster mentioned that today is National IceCream Day.

If it sounds like one of those holidays only Ronald Reagan could have declared, well, there’s a reason:  He actually mandated it in 1984, while he was running for his second term in the White House.  Whether that helped him win the election, we’ll never know:  Even though he was good for business (theirs, anyway), I simply can’t imagine that Ben or Jerry would ever have voted for him.

Anyway, finally learning about this holiday three decades after it was decreed, I recalled a moment from my youth. (You knew that was coming, didn’t you?) It happened around this time of year, in the summer after my sophomore year at Rutgers.  I was working two jobs, taking a class to make up one I’d failed as a freshman and doing lots of bike riding.  All of that while living on pizza and “subs” and cheap alcohol. 

One Sunday in July, I decided to go for a ride.  I had no particular destination in mind, but I soon found myself—as I often did in those days—along the Delaware and Raritan Canal towpath, on my way to Princeton.  Going there and back would have made for a good morning ride.  But once I got to Princeton, I saw a bunch of cyclists signing up for something at a table, and a bunch more cyclists pedaling down Witherspoon Street. 

“Do you want to ride with us?”

Why not?, I thought.  I signed myself up and paid the registration fee--$3, if I remember correctly—and someone handed me a T-shirt.

That ride was one I’d do again a year later:   the Princeton Century.  A few hundred of us, I think, pedaled from the university campus into central New Jersey suburbs, the rolling farmland in the western part of the state, and across the Delaware River into Buck’s County, Pennsylvania.

In the Keystone State, we rode into a town called New Hope.  It’s sort of like Woodstock:  once an artist’s colony, it’s now home to people who pay lots of money to say they live there.  Then, as now, its main street was lined with stores and cafes that are novel or pretentious or simply way too cute, depending on what you’ve experienced before seeing them.

A few of us stopped in one of the too-cute cafes, which turned out to be an ice cream shoppe (yes, with an “e” on the end)—the first such establishment I ever visited that wasn’t a Carvel, Baskin Robbins,  Friendly’s or an imitation of one of them. 

That shop—I can’t remember its name and, silly me, I didn’t write it in my journal—claimed to make its own ice cream from fresh ingredients.  I didn’t doubt it, as its menu featured all sorts of flavors I never could have imagined.  When I go to a restaurant or café and there’s something on the menu I’ve never eaten or drank before, that’s what I order.  In that ice cream shop, there were at least twenty such flavors.  I picked one of them at random:  Ukraninan Rose Petal.

It was the worst thing I’d ever tasted.  

But all was not lost. I finished the century--my very first--and rode back to New Brunswick.  In all, I rode 137 miles: up to that point in my life, the most I'd ridden in one day.

And today, yes, I gave in to the marketing hype and celebrated National Ice Cream Day.  I didn't try anything exotic:  I went to the Baskin-Robbins around the corner from my apartment and ordered a scoop of each of my favorite flavors:  Cherries Jubilee and Pistachio Almond--on a waffle cone, which was free with the two scoops.

I'm happy.

My Kingdom For A Horse, Or Ten Kowalits For A Pair Of Wheels

I remember getting my first Campagnolo component:  a pair of Nuovo Tipo hubs.  My first nice pair of clincher wheels—Super Champion 58 rims laced to those hubs with Robergel Sport spokes—cost the princely (for a poor college student like me) sum of $100.  The man who built them seemed like a magician to me at the time:  I simply could not fathom what sorcery or alchemy turned all of those parts into a pair of wheels that would take the length and breadth of state of New Jersey, on two of the early Five Boro Bike Tours and on my first European bike tour.

It wasn’t just the parts and the build that made them seem almost otherworldly at that time.  Most clincher tires and wheels in the US at the time were 27” and the tubes had Schraeder (the kind found on car tires) valves.  Mine were 700C and drilled for Presta valves.  That was intentional:  I used the wheels on my Peugeot PX-10, which came with 700C tubular wheels and tires—and, of course Presta valves.  I’ve never seen a tubular tire with Schrader valves and the only non-700C tubulars I’ve come across were the ones made for junior racers.

Those new wheels meant that I could switch back and forth between tubulars and clinchers without having to re-adjust the brake blocks.  (I used to tighten the cable adjuster a bit for the tubular rims, which were narrower and loosen them for the clinchers.)  They also would fit on other good bikes, including a couple I would acquire later—and which would, at one time or another, be equipped with those wheels.  Also, I could use the same pump on all of my tires without having to use an adapter.

Today, those wheels would seem dated to anyone not riding a “classic” bike.  The parts were all of fine quality and lasted many rides for me.  But using those Tipo hubs would limit gear selection to whatever five- and six-speed freewheels could be found in swap meets, on eBay or in some “accidentally” discovered stash. And, as good as those rims were, the Mavic MA series rims, with their double-wall construction and hooked tire beads, introduced in the early 1980s, were lighter and allowed cyclists to use a wider variety of tires. 

But even after the MA rims—and newer hub offerings from Campagnolo, Shimano, Mavic and other companies—were introduced, there were places where cyclists would have done almost anything to have wheels like my first good clinchers.  One of those places was the German Democratic Republic, a.k.a. East Germany.  In fact, they probably would have done illegal or simply un-approved-of things to get a bike like mine—especially its Stronglight crank.  Only Campagnolo’s Record crankset was more prized.

That is the situation Gerolf Meyer describes in the latest edition of BicycleQuarterly. 

Like other athletes from his country, cyclists wanted to prove themselves against the best from the West.  As talented as some East German riders were, their equipment was stuck in the 1950’s.  There were shops that took “room dividers”—Diamant “sport” bicycles with impossibly long wheelbases—and shortened chain stays and top tubes, lowered brake bridges and did other things to make those machines ride something like racing bikes.  Engineers and technicians in factories and medical supply cooperatives made cable tunnel guides and other frame fittings and bike parts on the side. 

There were even mechanics and builders who could take the crudely-machined and –finished East German components and make them look—and even, to a degree, function—like “Campag”.  In one of the most extreme examples, Hans-Christian Smolik took a Tectoron rear derailleur—which borrowed its shape and basic function from the Campagnolo Record but and had lettering that faced upside down—and made it all but indistinguishable from the Real McCoy. 

Tectoron Rear Derailleur.  Photo from Disraeligears

 

In the 1980s, the East German sanctioned the development of the Tectoron derailleur and other parts in an attempt to catch up with the technology of Western bikes and equipment.  One of the ironies is that Campagnolo, Shimano, Mavic and other Western manufacturers were innovating in ways that would render obsolete (at least for those who simply had to have the newest and latest) the stuff the East Germans were imitiating.

Campagnolo Super Record, 1979.  Photo from Disraeligears

A fortunate few were able to obtain Western components through connections—a relative who’d retired to the West (Apparently,the East German government didn’t mind letting retirees leave, probably figuring that it would save the state on pension costs.), a partially-subterranean “supply chain” or Western racers the East Germans met at events like the Peace Race.

About the latter:  There developed a barter system not unlike the ones soldiers develop with those fighting alongside, as well as on the other side, of them, complete with its own "exchange rates". (During the first Gulf War, one French K-ration was worth five of its American counterparts.)  Sometimes  the East Germans—as well as Soviet bloc riders—would trade jerseys, pins or other souvenirs, or local delicacies. But the East Germans—and Czechs—actually made one bicycle component that was superior to anything in the West: tubular tires.  Kowalit tubular were the stuff of legend:  a light, supple tire that wore like iron.  I never rode any myself, but I did have a pair of Czech-made “Barum” tires that I rode, literally, to the tubes:  Not even the best stuff from Clement, Vittoria, Wolber, Michelin, Continental or Soyo (Yes, I rode tires from every one of those companies!) was anywhere near as good.  Ten Kowalits --or, I presume, Barums-- could fetch a good wheelset.

Of course, such deals had to be made “in the shadows”, and certainly not after the race.  Can you imagine what some East German would have offered (if indeed he or she had anything to offer) for my old Colnago?