Joop Zoetemelk: He Didn't Ride The Tour De France To Work On His Tan

Any New York basketball fan will tell you that Patrick Ewing is the most unlucky player who ever lived.

Why?  His career almost entirely coincided with that of none other than Michael Jordan.  Although Ewing earned many accolades and awards throughout his professional and collegiate careers, one prize eluded him:  the NBA championship.  Jordan retired with six of those.

There are similarly "unlucky" cyclists.  Perhaps the most benighted of all was Raymond Poulidor, "le deuxieme eternel"--the eternal second.  He finished the Tour de France in that position three times, and in third five times in the fourteen Tours he entered (and twelve he completed).   In spite of his consistency, he never even wore the yellow jersey.

What caused "Pou-pou" (With a nickname like that, how could his luck be anything but bad?) such misfortune?  Well, his professional career began in 1960.  Two years later, he entered--and finished third in--the Tour for the first time.  As fate would have it, Jacques Anquetil won his second consecutive (third overall) Yellow Jersey in that year's boucle.  Anquetil won the following two Tours, with Poulidor achieving his first second-place finish in 1964.

Anquetil retired in 1969, but that year another legend won the Tour for the first time. You probably know his name: Eddy Mercx.  Even though Poulidor rode his last Tour in 1976, a year after Mercx completed his last, the "Pou" still could not win the maillot jaune.

After Poulidor, the rider with the worst luck was probably Joop Zoetemelk.  He is one of only two cyclists to enter the Tour more often than Poulidor:  sixteen times, a record George Hincapie later equaled.  In those sixteen tries, he finished second six times.  And he actually won it once, during the unusually cold and rainy 1980.  I was one of the many fans who lined the Champs-Elysees on the day he circled the Arc de Triomphe and ascended to the podium in the Yellow Jersey.

He is the second-unluckiest, not only because he actually won and because he had more second-place finishes than Poulidor (though he was never third), but also because he didn't have to contend with Anquetil.  However, he pedaled through first part of his career --as Poulidor did in the latter part of his--in the shadow of Mercx.  And during his later years, including the year he won the Tour, Bernard Hinault dominated the cycling world.

While nobody can fault the way he rode in 1980, critics often point out that he achieved his victory in the year Hinault withdrew after the twelfth stage, when the weather aggravated the tendinitis in his right knee.  Hinault would win again the following year (when Zoetemelk just missed the podium with a fourth-place finish)  and in 1984 and 1985.  Zoetemelk finished his last Tour in 1986 when Hinault's teammate, Greg LeMond, won for the first time.

Few world-class cyclists have ever had fairer skin than the Dutchman.  That was the basis of a joke that went something like this:  He never tanned because he was always riding in the shadow of Mercx (or, later, Hinault).  However, fans in his home country are not the only ones who don't see him as riding in the shadows of anyone:  On its 75th anniversary, the Royal Dutch Cycling Federation named him the best rider ever to come out of the Netherlands. 


Perhaps most important of all, every cyclist who competed with and against him respected his work ethic as well as his natural talent.  More than one of his fellow riders called him "the perfect teammate".  According to Peter Post, his manager on the TI-Raleigh Team, "He followed the rules.  He got on with people...  He never asked for domestiques.  Joop never demanded anything."   A few observers also saw that as his weakness.  "He could not give instructions...when Zoetemelk won the Tour, the instructions had to come from Gerrie Knetemann and Jan Raas," according to fellow Tour rider Rini Wagtmans.  Still, he made this assessment:  "Joop Zoetemelk is the best rider the Netherlands has ever known."

Today, Mr. Zoetemelk turns 69 years old.  Wherever he spends his day, he will not be in the shadow of Anquetil, Mercx, Hinault or anyone else.

Metamorphosis: NYC Streets

Anybody who's been cycling in New York for a decade or more knows that riding this city's streets is much different now from how it was then. 

The most obvious changes are the bike lanes--which were all but nonexistent in the early 2000s--and, of course, Citibike.  Also, there are purely and simply more people riding--and, as I've recounted in other posts, I encounter other cyclists while riding along streets and in neighborhoods where, not so long ago, I would be the only person on a bike.

As I've also discussed in other posts, I don't think the changes have necessarily made this a better city for cyclists.  Some of the lanes are poorly designed (a few lead to nowhere) and built.  Perhaps even worse is that the building of bike lanes and installation of Citibike ports doesn't seem to have accompanied a reduction in motorized traffic.  Streets can't be made any wider, so the bike lanes that run along major streets and avenues were created by blocking off one of the traffic lanes.  That has led to more traffic congestion and greater tension between motorists and cyclists--and between cyclists themselves. 

Some riders, most of  whom wouldn't have been riding had the bike lanes not been built, are as rude and aggressive as some of the worst drivers I've seen.  Years ago, I knew--at least by sight--most of the cyclists I'd see on a given day.  Even if we didn't know each other by name, we looked out for each other:  We signaled turns.  We didn't cut each other off. We alerted each other to broken glass and other hazards. Today, it seems, a lot of the newbies are riding as if they have blinders on.  And the ones who ride motorized and electric bikes are even worse!

So, even though I enjoyed the film I am including in this post, I do not share the view of filmmaker Clarence Eckerson Jr. that this city is more bike-friendly as a result of the changes it shows.  Still, the film is interesting to watch because it visually chronicles some of the changes in the appearance as well as the rhythms of the Big Apple:

 

This Film Is Rated "T" (For Tweed)

Knickers.  Breeches. Knee socks.  Cardigans.  Blazers.  Rounded collars.  Pleated shorts.  Tweed! 

If you think that sounds like a sartorial portrait of a bunch of English men and women going on a bicycle tour in the country side circa 1955, well, your instincts are spot-on.  Those folks are indeed on their way to a jolly spin along the lanes that traverse  the moors and heaths, and front the castles and barns, in and around Rugby.

Apparently, the cycle-touring culture of London was still strong enough in the 1950s that British Transport commissioned a short film I've embedded here.  It chronicles a "Cyclists' Special" rail excursion from London to Rugby arranged by British Rail and the venerable Cyclists' Touring Club (C.T.C.)

It's interesting to hear discussions of "bonking" and the costliness of  good touring bikes with the then-newfangled ten-speed derailleur gears.  British cyclists only began to embrace derailleurs during the 1950's; until then, most cycle-tourists rode some version or another of Sturmey Archer's internally-geared hubs, even on frames custom-built from Reynolds 531 tubing.

I also love seeing those old wooden rail cars with rubber hooks for bicycles and the cafeteria car.  And tweed!  And some of those men are actually wearing ties.  Oh, my!

 

Cyclists Special, a short film about cycle touring in the UK, 1955 from Morgan Fletcher on Vimeo.

Approaching Weather, Seen Clearly

In Florida--at least the part where my parents live--you can ride under a cloudless, sunny blue sky and see a downpour on the horizon.  That storm might soak you in an hour, or even less.

The reason why oncoming weather (or the weather you're about to ride or drive into) is so visible is that the landscape is flatter than any of my jokes fell the one time I went to an open mike and there are no tall buildings.  That means, of course, that you would never see approaching weather so clearly here in New York, especially in Manhattan.

Or would you?

This morning I took a spin up the Hudson River Greenway up to 125th Street.  The chill in the air turned to outright cold as I approached the river, but I did not mind:  It was invigorating and the surroundings are stimulating.  However, I think I was able to see the rain that local meteorologists are predicting for tonight.  Interestingly, it is supposed to come from the north--the direction in which I was riding when I took the photo (The George Washington Bridge is behind that veil of clouds)--rather than the west, as weather usually does.

August in Florida comes to November in New York. Who'd'a thunk?

The Last Sunday

Americans regard Labor Day as the unofficial end of summer.   If it is, perhaps today--Thanksgiving Sunday, or the last Sunday of November--is the unofficial end of fall or the  beginning of the Christmas season.

Today felt like the end of a season of some sort.  The ride I took today was more than pleasant; the skies cleared of yesterday's rain and the crispness one could feel in the air a couple of days ago has given way to a bracing nip.

I rode to Point Lookout, in part because I hadn't ridden there in a while, but also because I figured that, since my route wouldn't take me anywhere near the malls or any other retail "magnet", I wouldn't encounter much traffic.  

Turns out, I was right.  In fact, the streets of Atlantic and Long Beaches--the first two Nassau County towns I encounter after crossing the bridge from Queens--were deserted.  I sometimes encounter that on Saturdays or High Holy Days, as a large number of observant Jews live in the area.  But to encounter hardly a car, cyclist or pedestrian on a Sunday, even when it isn't beach season, is unusual, to say the least.  

I did, however, notice that the bars were full, and it didn't look like the patrons were "doing" brunch.  When I glanced into one of the windows, I saw the reason why:  Most of the patrons, it seemed, were gazing at football (American-style) matches on wide-screen TVs as they munched on chicken wings and quaffed brews.

In fact, the largest congregation of people I saw outdoors were standing on line at an ice cream stand, open for the last time until, probably, March. (A handlettered sign read, "See you in the Spring!:)  Even the sorts of people one encounters along the beaches and Point Lookout in the Fall and Winter--bird watchers, philosophers and poets manques, fisher-men and -women--were gone, with a few exceptions:

It almost seemed as if the tide would have stayed out as long as that man and his dog trotted on the sandbar.  I wonder if these souls felt the same way:

Today I rode alone, by choice.  In other years, I have ridden on the last Sunday in November with people with whom I never rode--or even never saw--again.  Whether or not I continued to ride during the winter (I did in most years, though usually not as much as I rode during the other seasons), I wouldn't see them.   By the time the next cycling season began--in February or March or April, depending on that year's weather--they were gone, to new schools, new jobs, new towns (or even states or countries), new lives.

The mild weather we've enjoyed in this part of the world this fall may well continue through the next few months, and I may not cycle much less than I have ridden during the past few weeks.  Or we may be snow- and ice-bound, as we were for several weeks last winter, and ride very little.  Or there might be some other change in my life, for better or worse, that affects or doesn't affect how much I ride between now and the time lilacs and cherry blossoms start opening themselves to the furtive early-spring sun.

Whatever happens, today, like every last Sunday in November I recall, feels like the unofficial end of cycling season.  Any ride I take after today, and before the beginning of Spring or the new cycling season, will seem like an interlude rather than a normal part of the cycle. 

Somehow it seems fitting that I rode Arielle, my Mercian Audax.  Out of all of my bikes, she seems to most embody the spirit of my riding.  If I could only take one more ride, I'd choose her.  I doubt that today's trek will be my last before Spring.  Still, Arielle seems to be the right bike to ride at the end of the season.

(There isn't much to lean a bike against at Point Lookout!)

We're Not All Surly Scofflaws

When Donald Trump said that Mexico was sending rapists to this country, many people rightly expressed outrage.

Likewise, there would be plenty of righteous umbrage expressed if African-Americans were portrayed as gangsters,  "welfare queens" or even basketball players, just as we would not tolerate a broad-brushed characterization of Jews as money-hungry.

However, I've noticed that--at least here in New York--many people, including news anchors, think it's perfectly all right to characterize all cyclists as surly scofflaws.  I wish I'd recorded the segment in which an announcer on a local all-news station--the one to which most NYC taxi drivers listen--said that cyclists "never" obey the traffic law and that a proposed law would ensure that we do.

By Andreas Kambanis

Granted, there are cyclists who blow through red lights and sideswipe pedestrians and others. I don't have any statistics, but I know they don't constitute "all" cyclists, any more than the attacks in Paris or the World Trade Center are proof that "all" Muslims or Arabs, or people from the Middle East or North Africa, are terrorists.

What people forget is in painting all members of a group with a broad brush, they are further alienating themselves from that group, just as they are alienating members of that group from themselves.  That, in turn, causes some members of the group--whether they're Muslims or black teenagers or cyclists or whatever--to believe that, no matter how well they behave, they are lumped in with the worst members of their group.  So, they figure, there is no point in changing their ways--or they, out of anger, become even bolder or more brazen in their antisocial behavior.

What I heard yesterday on 1010 WINS is not an isolated example, and it is not part of a new trend.  About twenty years ago, a certain local television reporter staged an incident in which he, while crossing a street, was knocked down by a "cyclist".  (I put "cyclist" in quotation marks because, as the incident was fake, I have to wonder whether the person on the bike was actually a cyclist.  Perhaps he was just playing one on TV.)  As we were even more of a minority than we are now, there was even less outcry than there has been over more recent examples of anti-cycling bias.  Then again, the story had a shorter "shelf life" than today's anti-biker screeds.

So, I urge cyclists to be on the lookout for more examples of anti-bike bias in the meida, and to call the television and radio stations, news-papers and -sites, and other media outlets on it.  At the same time, I appeal to my fellow riders to be considerate of pedestrians, especially those who are elderly and disabled--and to obey traffic signs and signals.  After all, cyclists in Montreal and Paris do it, and it doesn't seem to slow them down.

Thanksgiving Post-Prandial

I am sure that the ride I took yesterday didn't burn off nearly as many calories as I consumed during Thanksgiving dinner.   I suppose most people could say that the bike ride, walk, run, swim, skate or whatever they took (if, indeed, they took any of those) after their holiday repasts could say  .the same.  

Anyway, yesterday was a lovely day all the way around, from the beginning.  As I left to go to my friends' place, I was greeted by this:

The window is in a building two doors down from where I live.  I had seen the cat once before; if I do say so myself, she knows she's looking at a friend when she sees me.  Were there not a screen (as there was yesterday) or windowpane between us, I'd be stroking and possibly feeding her.  I'm sure she knows that.

What's striking about that cat is that her body is white and she has patches of colors on her head and rear--a reversal of what one normally sees. (Both of my cats have colorful bodies and patches of white.)  One of these days, I'll ask her human how he or she found her.

After spending the afternoon with food and friends (possibly in that order), I snuck out for a ride before dessert.  I tried to capture, on my cell phone, a tree in near-perfect late-fall sunset hue arched over a street.  What I got instead was the beginning of the sunset.  Oh well.

From there, I rambled over to the Worlds' Fair Marina prominade, which rims Flushing Bay from LaGuardia Airport to the Flushing Bridge, a span that provides some of the most necropolitic vistas in this city. Just east of the airport, I chanced upon this schizophrenic scene:

Then I went back for dessert, which added even more calories than I burned off.  But, hey, it was Thanksgiving.  And the food and company were great.

After that, I rode to visit a friend and co-worker in the hospital.  He's in a coronary care unit, where eating isn't allowed, so I couldn't bring any of the food I'd shared with my friends.  It was sad, but it showed me a few things for which I'm thankful. 

P.S. No Black Friday for me!

A Thanksgiving Greeting

Being the person I am, I often think about roles.  That means, of course, I think of role-reversal.  So it probably wouldn't surprise you to know that I particularly enjoyed finding this:

Vintage postcard.  Posted on Bike Topeka

The poor turkey!  Someone's making him (I'm assuming that if he's Tom, he's male!) do all of the work.  Then he's going to be killed and stuffed by people who are going to stuff themslves with him, the stuffing and every other kind of food you can think of!

If that doesn't turn you into a vegetarian, I don't know what will.  (Then again, I'm not saying that you should become one.  A chacun son gout.

All right.  I know I'm not supposed to use French on Thanksgiving, the most American of all holidays.  But even Francophobes will, I suspect, forgive me this year in the wake of the Paris attacks.

Anyway...I wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving.  And, if you don't celebrate this holiday, I hope this day is joyful and fulfilling.  Finally, to my readers:  Thank you.

Jan, We Want To See You Back On Your Bike--Real Soon!

Talking about another person's misfortune is always difficult, especially at this time of year.  It's especially difficult when that person has provided us with companionship, knowledge or adds pure-and-simple joy to something we already love.

Jan Heine is one such person.  Even people who will never become randonneurs or randonneuses, or have no interest in classic touring and trekking bikes, enjoy Bicycle Quarterly, in which he shares his experiences of rides and equipment, illustrated with some wonderful photographs.  He has written and edited books about bikes and riding, all of which are as interesting and informative as they are attractive on a coffee table.

His most recent adventure, in Asia, ended prematurely during his descent of Hehuanshan Pass, the highest road in Southeast Asia.  A car travelling in the opposite direction turned left, in front of him--too quickly for him to steer out of a crash. 

He writes, "I was lucky to escape without life-changing injuries."  Still, "the impact was hard enough to break my shoulder, my arm, one or two vertebrae, and a few ribs."

Ouch!

Here's to wishing Jan a speedy recovery ... and that he rides again soon.  After all, we want to read more about his adventures and the bikes he rides, don't we?

"The Retrogrouch" posted a nice "get well" message to him yesterday!
 

Spinning Their Wheels

It rotates around an axis. At the axis is a gear, which in turn is spun by another gear connected to it with a chain or belt. 

It sounds like a bicycle wheel, right? 

Well, it could be.  Or it might be something else you've probably ridden.

I'm talking about a Ferris Wheel.  The method of propulsion may be a bit different (an engine instead of a pair of legs), but the basic operating principles are more or less the same.

So, perhaps, it's not surprising that someone has created a bicycle-powered Ferris wheel:



That, at least, makes some kind of sense.  But a Ferris Wheel-powered bicycle...I dunno:

Then again, one can argue that bicycles are powered by Ferris Wheels--or that Ferris Wheels are oversized bicycle wheels with people riding them.