The Boneshaker Big Wheel

Some of us try to turn our commutes into mini-workouts.  There are all sorts of ways to do that.  One is to simply ride at a vigorous pace.  Another is to ride in a higher gear than we'd normally ride on a given road or path.  (Or we might ride a fixed-gear bike.)  Still another way is to ride a heavier bike than we'd ride for fun.  Or we might find routes that are more challenging or simply longer than the ones we might've otherwise taken to work.

I have been choosing the latter option. Even though the cycle/pedestrian bridge from Randall's Island to the Bronx has opened, I've been taking the old walkway on the west side of the RFK Bridge spur because accessing it involves pedaling up a fairly steep ramp that zig-zags.  So, for a moment, I can pretend I'm pumping my way up the road on l'Alpe d'Huez as I'm on my way to work in the Bronx.

I admit, it's not a long incline.  But it at least provides a challenge, however brief, on an otherwise flat commute.  Maybe I'll find a route from the new bridge to my workplace that is a bit more challenging (or, again, simply longer) than the one I took the couple of times I've ridden over that bridge.

Now, if I really wanted a workout, I suppose I could ride this:




The Boneshaker Big Wheel, by artist Ron Schroer, is described as "the steampunk love child" of a boneshaker and a penny-farthing.  Riding it to work would certainly be interesting.  Parking, even more so, I think:  Would it attract a would-be thief?  Maybe.  Then again, someone who tried to take off with it probably wouldn't get very far--unless, of course, he had experience in riding boneshakers or penny-farthings!

Today, After Sunset

Time was when urban parks were places where old people sat on benches and, perhaps, fed squirrels or pigeons or watched grandchildren run, jump, climb and swing.  

At least, my earliest memories of a park--specifically, Sunset Park in Brooklyn--are like that.  Yes, my grandparents were the "old" people on the benches, though I now realize that my grandmother, then, was younger than I am now.  Sometimes I was one of the grandchildren in the scene I described; other times, I was sitting between my grandmother and grandfather, or in the lap of one of them.

Sunset Park covers a hill that rises from the surrounding neighborhood that shares its name.  Standing in that park, even on the murkiest of days, we had a better-than-postcard panaromic view of the steel and cobalt water, the gray tanks and white ship hulls that--as I could not know at the time--would soon start turning to rust, and the stone loft buildings and concrete piers where some of my relatives worked. Neither they, it seemed, nor I nor anyone else could see the gray bubbles dissolving or the cracks between them, whether they were bathed in sun or swept by shadows.

It occured to me today, as I rode along the Brooklyn waterfront, that if I had followed one of those shadows, one of those rays of the sun or the wing of one of the pigeons that often alighted from the park, I would have ended up at the water, in a spot not far from this:

The park, between the Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges, brackets a neighborhood called DUMBO (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass).  Nobody called it that when my grandparents and I spent afternoons in Sunset Park; in fact, nobody (at least in my milieu) ever imagined spending time there except to work.  People didn't live, or even make art, in lofts back then--even if those lofts had the best views of the harbor and the Manhattan skyline.

In fact, the waterfront itself was a place to which someone went only if he worked there.  And, yes, almost anyone who worked there--including the relatives I mentioned--was male.  A woman by the waterfront was questionable or worse according to all of those unwritten, unspoken rules we learned; no responsible adult brought a child--his or her own, or anyone else's--to the river, to the harbor, to the bay.

Back then, you looked at the waters of New York Bay and the Hudson River only from a place like Sunset Park, high on a hill.   You certainly didn't ride a bike to, or along, the waterfront.  Actually, if you were an adult--especially an older one who sat on park benches and fed pigeons and squirrels--you probably didn't ride a bike.

Today I rode along the river and the bay, under the bridges and past piers that stand, and have long since been swept away.  I would not change anything about the ride or the park or the waterfront, any more than I would change the park where I spent those afternoons with my grandparents.  The funny thing is that, even at my rather advanced age, the hill doesn't seem as steep as it did then.  And the water--like the park--seems so much closer.

Hershey's, Naked

If I offered you something "naked" with a name you would normally associate with chocolate, would you:

• grin
• take out your camera, or
• report me?

Well, someone once offered me just what I've described.  I was younger and in better shape than I'm in now.  Perhaps that was the reason I was offered said item for free.

Now, one of the first things I teach young people is that if something is free, you should take it and figure out what to do with it later.  And, back when I was made an offer I couldn't refuse (well, I could've, but it would've taken more self-discipline than I had), I took it.  So if you are one of the young people to whom I've offered said advice, at least you know now that I'm not a hypocrite!

Anyway...nakedness and chocolate.  Believe it or not, those two qualities are associated with a bicycle component--which is what I was offered, and took! 

(Was this your idea of "bike porn"?)

That bike part was made by Hershey. If you are like me, when you hear that name, you probably think of the maker of Kisses and Reese's Peanut Butter Cups (and, in the US, of Kit-Kats).  Or, perhaps, an actress who, for a time, was known as Barbara Seagull might come to mind.  Unless you were cycling during the '90's (when else?), however, you might not associate the name with componentry.

The decade was actually wonderful in all sorts of ways.  In the world of bike--especially mountain bike--parts, though, it was absolutely whacky.  As I've mentioned in other posts, it seemed that as if every 20-year-old in California whose father had a lathe was making bike parts and anodizing them in never-before-seen colors with names that made the ones given to shades of Opi nail polish seem like RGB codes.  I mean, Kooka and Topline cranks broke at inopportune moments (Does anything ever break at an opportune moment?) but you had to love the fact that you could ask for either with a 3D Ultra-Violet finish.

Now, I don't know whether Hershey Naked hubs were as fragile as those cranks.  Although I accepted the one I got for free, I never built or used it:  I traded it, I think--whether for something bike-related or not, I forget.  For one thing, I didn't need another wheel (especially a front) at the time.  For another, I was riding a set of wheels with similarly-constructed hubs from another maker and had a problem with them.

All of Hershey's hubs, including the Naked, were constructed with flanges bonded or pressed to a shaft.  In contrast, hubs from Campagnolo, Mavic, Shimano and other more traditional manufacturers are made with forged one-piece shells.  The Hershey Naked hub's shaft was made from some sort of clear plastic material that wasn't called plastic.  I guess it was supposed to save weight.  It did, of course, allow you to see the inner workings of the hub, just as the clear face of a "skeleton" watch reveals the gears and wheels behind the "hands" and numerals.

At the time I was gifted with the Hershey Naked hub, I was riding wheels with Nuke Proof hubs that, like the Hershey, consisted of aluminum flanges attached to  shafts.   The shafts on my Nuke Proofs were carbon fiber; they--like the Hersheys--were also available with titanium or alloy shafts. (To my knowledge, NP never offered a clear shaft.)

As I related in another post, the flanges of my Nuke Proofs actually detached from their shafts and collapsed toward the center of the hub.  Other cyclists I knew had similar experiences with those hubs, and others that were similarly constructed.  Now, for all I know, a Hershey hub--even a Nude version--might have fared better.  But I didn't want to take a chance.

I haven't thought about that Hershey hub in a long time.  Now I wonder whether the person who got it from me ever built it.  Since it was the '90's, I can imagine him--or someone--building it with "rainbow" spokes, and Velocity rims and alloy spoke nipples in colors (anti-freeze green, anyone?) that clashed with the 3D Ultra Violet finish of the hub flanges!