In the middle of the journey of my life, I am--as always--a woman on a bike. Although I do not know where this road will lead, the way is not lost, for I have arrived here. And I am on my bicycle, again.
Last night, I stayed at work a bit later than I expected. What that meant was, among other things, encountering less traffic than I usually see. It also meant dealing with a change in the weather. In the morning, I rode to work in a drizzle that occasionally turned into rain. But, by the time night rolled around, a dense fog blanketed the city. Normally, I can see the towers on the Queens spur of the RFK Memorial Bridge as soon as I make the turn from 132nd Street onto the Randall's Island Connector. At that point, the entrance to the RFK Bridge lane is about 1 3/4 miles, or about 3 kilometers, away.
Last night, though, I could not see the towers or cables until they were right in front of me--when I was in the lane. When I reached the middle of the bridge, over the waters of Hell Gate (which I couldn't see), I looked back at the soccer field on the Randall's Island shore:
In your travels, you have no doubt seen something like this:
Such speed limit detectors usually show your speed in amber lights, unless it is over the limit, in which case the number flashes in red. Have you ever noticed that these devices sometimes register your speed when you are riding a bicycle--but sometimes they don't? Those of you who are engineers (or simply more tech-savvy than I am) may be able to provide an explanation of why. I have always surmised that it had something to do with the position of the speed detector: The ones placed above the traffic lanes don't register bikes riding on the shoulder or even the far right side of the traffic lane. Then again, I've seen detectors on the side of the street or road--and, in a couple of cases, right in the middle of a bike lane!--that did not track me. An article in the IEEE Spectrum--the journal of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers--may shed some light on why this is so. In it, Spectrum contributing editor Peter Fairley describes the advances made in detection systems used in robotic (self-driving) cars. The best such systems could spot only 70 percent of cars just a few years ago. Now that figure is nearly 90 percent. Similar improvements in noticing pedestrians, and even birds and squirrels, have come. In contrast, those same systems can detect a bicycle from 59 to 74 percent of the time. While that is an improvement from a few years ago, the advancement doesn't come close to what has been accomplished in tracking other beings and objects. According to University of California-Berkeley research engineer Steven Shladover, "Bicycles are probably the most difficult detection problems autonomous vehicle systems face". Down the coast, in UC's San Diego campus, visual computing expert Nuno Vasconcelos offers a possible explanation as to why: "A car is basically a big block of stuff. A bicycle has much less mass" and, he says, "there can be much more variation in appearance--there are more shapes and colors and people hang stuff on them." Vasconcelos' explanation makes sense, as far as it goes. In the article, however, Fairley posits that part of the problem is how those systems are "trained". Actually, they "train themselves", if you will, by studying thousands of images in which known objects are labeled. Most of the training, Fairley says, has concentrated on cars, with very little on bicycles. I will not address the question of whether robotic technology can or will replace human drivers: Folks like the ones Fairley cites (or, for that matter, Fairley himself) can say far more about it than I can. From what I've read, however, I believe I can surmise that self-driving technologies have a better chance of working on Interstates, Autobahns, Autoroutes or other high-speed, multi-lane highways where bicycles are seldom seen, or are banned outright. Likewise, detection technologies have a better chance of detecting speeders on such highways than they have of catching me riding my bike over the speed limit on city streets!
Believe it or not, there was a time in my life when I could hear the word "trigger" and not think about shifters. For that matter, there was even a time when that word would not bring firearms to my mind. The reason for that is that I was born a little too late to watch '50's TV shows and movies when they first ran. I did, however, get a fairly steady diet of them in reruns. It seemed that whenever you flipped the channels, you could find an episode of "I Love Lucy" or "The Honeymooners". Or "Lassie" or "Dragnet". And, of course, there were the shows that continued to produce original episodes well into my childhood, and even on the eve of my puberty: I am thinking now of "Perry Mason" and "Leave It To Beaver". It also seemed impossible to escape from showings of films like "The Ten Commandments" or "Ben Hur". Another movie that, as I recall, often showed on the small screen was "Son of Paleface." In the latter, one of the "stars" was a Palomino horse named--you guessed it--"Trigger". Astride him in "Paleface", and in many other movies, was none other than Roy Rogers. Because he and his cinematic (and real-life) partner Dale Evans so often appeared with their equine companion, it's not easy to imagine either of them riding anything else. But, apparently, they did, every now and again, trade their spurs for pedals and hooves for wheels:
Today is Super Bowl Sunday. It's been years since I actually paid attention to what happens between commercials and performances by has-been entertainers--I mean, the game. (That I haven't referred to it as The Game should tell you something.) It's in Houston this year. I have to admit it's been a while since I've been there, so it might be very different from my memories of it: a city that seemed to be bigger than a few states and countries I've visited, hotter and more humid than the most brutal summer days in New York and with less mass transportation than on one block of the Big Apple. In fact, it reminded me of the stereotype of LA in that everything was connected--by freeways.
Anyway, I see they have a bike share program, called B-cycle. For the past week, shares have been free for those who reserved. After the Super Bowl, it will offer "Bike Share Free Fridays" through February and March.
Now, if you could go for a ride and see this, why would you want to watch the performances--of the athletes or the entertainers?
It was cold ,at least compared to the weather we've had. It was windy. So what did I do today? I went for a bike ride. That is not, in itself, so unusual (at least for me). For one thing, the cold and wind were balanced out by the bright sunshine.
So, perhaps, you can understand why I rode along the bay and the ocean: to Howard and Rockaway Beaches, then to Breezy Point (which certainly lived up to its name!) and Coney Island, from which I pedaled along the Verrrazano Narrows and under the bridge named for it.
The funny thing about the beach areas, at least around here, is that they are usually a couple of degrees warmer than the areas only a couple of miles inland. The wind, however, makes it feel colder, which is why I had long stretches of shore, beach and boardwalk almost entirely to myself.
Even on Coney Island, where I often find couples, young and old, strolling in the shadow of the Parachute Jump and and men fishing from the pier, I felt as if the boardwalk was my own personal track.
Speaking of which: I rode Tosca. Yes, my Mercian fixed-gear. Pedaling into the wind on a fixie is good training, to say the least. But riding with it--especially on such a flat ride--feels almost like cheating!
When you think of high-quality bicycle tires, some names that might cross your mind are Michelin, Continental, Panaracer, Schwalbe and Vredestein. Panaracer is a subsidiary of the Panasonic corporation. People who aren't familiar with the brand, or cycling, might think it odd that an "electronics company" makes bike tires--and some very nice ones, at that. Or, for that matter, bikes, which is probably the reason why they didn't sell as well in the US as, say, Fuji. Schwalbe doesn't seem to be similarly connected to some larger industrial concern. At least, I couldn't find any such connection. All of their tires, it seems, are made for bicycles, e-bikes, scooters or wheelchairs. The other three brands I mentioned--Michelin, Continental and Vredestein--make tires for motorcycles, automobiles and other kinds of motorized vehicles (including industrial machines) as well as bicycles. In an odd way, their practices parallel those of North American manufacturers in the days when few adults rode bicycles--and, as a result, demand for high-performance bikes and tires was minimal--on this side of the Atlantic. If you rode a balloon-tired cruiser, whether from Schwinn, Columbia or Huffmann (Huffy) or long-gone marques like Elgin, Rollfast or Monark, it probably was shod with rubber from Goodyear, Goodrich or one of the other companies that made tires in the US for motorized vehicles. (In fact, B.F. Goodrich also marketed bicycles, manufactured by Schwinn and other bike-makers, under their own name before World War II.) Another of those US-based tire manufacturers was Carlisle. From what I could tell, they were the only one of those manufacturers to make the transition from heavy balloon tires to lightweight high-performance tires. In fact, not long after Michelin introduced the "Elan"--widely considered to be the first high-performance clincher tire-- in the mid 1970s, Carlisle produced its own narrow low-profile clincher tire, available with a folding or wire bead, called the "Flyte". I never rode Flytes myself, but they seemed to be of good quality, if a bit heavier than Elans and their imitators. I had not thought about them for a long time until I came across a listing on eBay:
The tire for sale is wire-beaded, though a folding version was also made. My impression of Carlisle 700C and 27 inch tires comes entirely from the ones I saw in the shops in which I worked. I don't recall selling, or knowing anyone who rode, them. Part of the reason they didn't catch on, I believe, is that most cyclists who were looking for high-performance clinchers were, by that time, riding European and Japanese equipment. We were, by then, already accustomed to looking toward companies like Michelin--and Wolber, Clement, Panaracer and IRC, which would adapt and, in some cases, improve upon, the design of the Elan--for our pneumatic needs. Panaracer and IRC, Japanese concerns both, would also make tires for a then-fledgling company called Specialized Bicycle Imports. Today, of course, you know it as "Specialized", and its "Turbo S" tire was probably the first to weigh (with the tube made for it) less than most racing tubulars while offering most of the ride quality of such tires. By that time--the early 1980s--Carlisle was just barely hanging on in the bicycle world. In fact, it was the last company to manufacture tires for non-motorized two-wheeled vehicles in the USA. Today it is part of a group called Carlstar, which makes tires for industrial and agricultural vehicles and machines, ATVs and other outdoor vehicles--but not for bicycles. Interestingly, they also seem not to be making car tires, but they offer after-market and custom car wheels under their Cragar, Black Rock and Unique brands.
Today is Groundhog day. As you know, if the motley marmot sees his or her shadow, there will be another six weeks of winter. If he or she doesn't, spring will arrive early. The most-watched woodchuck of them all, Punxsutawney Phil, saw his profile. His New York cousin, Staten Island Chuck, didn't see his. So what am I to make of it? Well, while pedaling to work this morning, I didn't see my shadow. Did you see yours? Did other cyclists see theirs? This fellow was riding the TransAmerica. What did his profile portend for the road that lay ahead?
These guys, apparently, didn't see theirs. Does that mean the rest of their race was "smooth sailing"?
Then again, those guys were in England. If Phil or Chuck or any of the other furry forecasters were there, would they see their shadows?
Back in April, I wrote about the Sladda, Ikea's foray into the bicycle market.
Well, perhaps not into the bicycle market, per se. The company recognizes that the majority of its customers are young or youngish urban dwellers, many of whom are living in very small spaces. And, although they might ride to work or the farmer's market--or even, on occasion, for pleasure--they don't necessarily identify as cyclists. Certainly, most don't know how to do even the most cursory sorts of bike maintenance and, even if they knew how, they probably wouldn't do it.
So how does this bike fit its intended demographic? Well, for starters, it's made to pack flat, so that it fits as a layer in one of the Swedish retailer's shipping containers. So it fits alongside or behind their Burrow sofas. Another way in which the Sladda would appeal to such customers is that its accessories--which, for the moment, include a front basket, a rear rack and a cart--are all easily attachable to the bike's "click system" ports. The bike's designers say that more accessories are in the works and liken them to "tablet apps". Finally, as for the maintenance issue: The Sladda has an internally-geared hub that is driven by a belt rather than a chain, much like the drivetrains of the Trek District and Soho. They do not require oiling and, according to Ikea's literature, are good for about 15,000 kilometers (9,320 miles). The company is offering a ten-year warranty on it (and 25 years on the rest of the bike), which tells me that the bike is not designed with a high-mileage rider in mind. The Sladda has been available in Europe for about a year. When I wrote about it in April, IKEA planned to release it in North America in August. Well, a couple of weeks ago, the company announced that the date has been rolled back to February--i.e., this month. I don't think I'll buy one: I already have a few bikes and ride each of them more in a year than most of Sladda's intended customers will ever ride it. Plus, my apartment doesn't have the Millenial Urban aesthetic, so the bike wouldn't fit. (Then again, my apartment could be described as "chaotic" or "eclectic", depending on your point of view. So anything--or nothing--might fit!) But if I am near an IKEA store, as I occasionally am, I might just stop in to take a look at it.
If you mention English three-speed bikes, the first brand that comes to most people's minds is Raleigh. That makes sense when you realize that not only did Raleigh make more such machines-- and make them for longer-- than any other bike maker, they had also, by the late 1950s, acquired BSA, Sunbeam and other manufacturers of such machines. If you aren't a three-speed enthusiast or haven't worked in a bike shop, you probably aren't aware of those brands. Most people have seen bikes from those marqes but didn't notice because they don't know or care about such things, or because those bikes looked so much like Raleighs that they didn't notice the brands. So it's not such a surprise that English bicycle saddles have a similar history to the bikes I've mentioned, especially when you realize that most English bikes (as well as machines from many other countries), until the 1970s, came with British leather saddles. Now, a cyclist who isn't of a certain age can be forgiven for thinking that Brooks is the only British company to have made those iconic perches from hide stretched across rails. Turns out, up to about the 1970s, a number of firms in Albion were making saddles similar to the ones Brooks offered.
You may have ridden one of their wares, perhaps without realizing it. Among those saddle makers were Lycett, Wrights and one I re-discovered recently. They all have remarkably parallel histories: They started as makers of horse saddles or other leather goods, and they all were based--as was much of the British cycling industry--in and around Birmingham.
(The name of that city is pronounced "burr-mean-gum" with an accent on the first syllable. Folks in Alabama will tell you their largest city is "Burr-ming-ham", with the last syllable accented.) Recently, I saw an old Holdsworth parked in my neighborhood. I wish I had taken photos of it: The frame was obviously from the 1960s or earlier, but it was kitted out with a combination of modern, mostly Japanese, components. The bike, however, sported one item that was very distinctively of its place and time:
I rather liked the nameplate, with the Middlemore name bookended by an enlarged "M" and "E" at the beginning and end, respectively. What puzzled me, though, is this:
So the rear plate says "Middlemore" but the side emblems read "Middlemores". It would make more sense if the latter contained an apostrophe, as in "Middlemore's saddles". Instead,it looks as if someone couldn't decide on the singular or plural. The makers of that saddle can be forgiven. The B89, which I believe was the model I saw on the Holdsworth, looks like a cross between a Brooks Professional and B17. At least, the width seems to be somewhere between the two. And the leather on it was as thick as I've seen on any, and appeared to be of very good quality. Whoever's been riding that saddle seems to have taken care of it. In doing some research, I found an entire blog devoted, not only to Middlemore(s) saddles, but to other items--some not related to bikes--made by the company. Apparently, the firm was known as Middlemore & Lamplugh after the two firms bearing those names merged in 1896, and continued to make saddles under both names until 1920, when the firm was dissolved and one of its factories was sold. Middlemore once again became a separate company, known as Middlemores Coventry, that continued to make bicycle saddles. As Raleigh was acquiring many of the old British bicycle marques, a rival company, the Tube Investments Group, was buying up the bike makers Raleigh hadn't collected. By that time, Raleigh also owned a number of component manufacturers, including Sturmey Archer---and Brooks. In 1960, TI bought Raleigh, which meant that, in essence, they controlled the British bicycle industry. TI would then "retire" some of the old bike and parts brands that had previously competed with Raleigh and its affiliates. Somehow, though, Middlemore(s) managed to remain independent. During that time, the B89 came out; later, a cutaway version (like the Brooks Swallow), the B89N, was offered. And their tri-sprung saddle, the B3, found a following among some more leisurely cyclists. According to one former employee, Middlemore(s) even made a saddle for Princess Margaret. By the 1970's, however, much of their dwindling income came from rebadged saddles they made for a few bike manufacturers, including Lambert/Viscount and Moulton. But as companies like Lambert/Viscount died out, were acquired or moved production overseas, Middlemore(s) dwindled and seems to have stopped making saddles altogether in the 1980s, although it existed on paper until 21 May 1991. At that time, Middlemore(s) was one of the most longevous manufacturing firms of any kind in Britain or the world. It had, in fact, existed for even longer than Brooks or Raleigh. Across the Channel, a number of French firms made leather saddles similar to the ones made by their counterparts in Blighty. Some were of decidedly inferior quality, like the Adga Model 28s that came with Peugeot UO8s and other similar French bikes. (The Adga 28, as Sheldon Brown wryly notes, probably did more than anything else to turn people off suspended leather saddles.) Then there was Norex, a "second line" of saddles from Ideale, the best-known French maker. Ideale seems to have gone out of business in the mid-1980s or thereabouts. From the next two decades or so, Brooks was just about the only brand of leather saddles available (and then only sporadically) in the US and much of the world. A Dutch company continued to make similar products, which seemed to be of decent quality. One possible reason why they weren't imported to America, or to most of the English-speaking world, might have been its name: Lepper. Note: The images in this post came from "VeloBase".
I was brought up--or, at least, inculcated with the notion-- that we are the Primary Primates. So from what, exactly, does our primacy derive? Well, for one thing, humans are the only beings capable of speech and language. Esteemed scientists said as much. For another thing, they also declared that only homo sapiens can think and reason. And equally esteemed philosophers and theologians insisted that non-humans could not feel empathy or love, or have any sense of the possibility an after- life. Thus, they concluded, non-human animals did not have souls. Early on, I realized that all of the arguments for the superiority of humans were premised on some thing or another that humans could do but other living beings couldn't. That got me to thinking: What if we constructed a hierarchy of living things based on whether or not they could ride a bicycle? Why would we do such a thing? I don't know. One thing I know, however, is that Max and Marlee wouldn't be too happy if I did--especially if they were to see this:
Of course, the fact that my favorite felines can't ride a bike (not yet, anyway! ;-)) doesn't make them less than any other living being, in my eyes!
