So...where in the world is Justine Valinotti now?
OK, you know this isn't the Ponte Vecchio. Or the Pont Neuf. Or the Tower, Verrazano or Golden Gate Bridges.
For all I know, the local transportation authorities don't even classify it as a bridge. It doesn't connect countries, states or even two sides of a neighborhood. The houses on each side of this bridge are even considered part of the same development.
The body of water spanned by that structure looks like this:
Seeing that birthday party baloon floating in the effluvium surprised me more than seeing a creature that could have caused me harm would have--or, for that matter, almost anything else I might have encountered.
It's a canal, and from what I've gathered, it was used for irrigation, as it doesn't look terribly navigable. (Now tell me, who else uses phrases like "terribly navigable"?) It runs behind the house where I'm staying.
You've probably figured, by now, that I'm visiting my parents
in "The Sunshine State."
It sounds like a corollary of Murphy's Law: You escape from the cold only to run into the rain.
We might get more rain tomorrow. I might chance a ride, but if I don't, skies are supposed to clear--and the temperature drop--the day after. I wouldn't mind that.
Nor do I mind today which, so far, has included a leisurely lunch with my mother and one of her friends. It's fun, and part of my education!
Some of us have difficulty with authority figures. It might be the result of experiences with teachers, parents, clergy people or agents of the law. We might be scolded for talking back or other forms of defiance, but those who scold us sometimes tell themselves, and each other, that one day we will "grow up" and "grow out of" our distrust of people with power over us.
But some of us learn, as we get older, to be even more skeptical of anyone we're supposed to obey or "respect". I mean, how many--ahem--elected officials make you want to be a more compliant and amenable to those who have license--however they might have attained it--to make decisions that affect us? And, given the scandals we've seen everywhere from the church to the entertainment industry, what would persuade anyone to give more credence to someone just because he or she has a title, money or a reputation, however any of those things were acquired?
Of course, the question of who merits our obedience and respect has been around for as long as humans have organized themselves. Practically all philosophers, and more than a few poets, writers and artists have dealt with this issue, if obliquely. And past as well as recent events give us reason to wonder just who, exactly, should be obeyed, much less revered.
One such event occurred 75 years ago this month in Flagstaff, Arizona. The previous month, gasoline rationing had begun in the US. Interestingly, the reason was not that petrol was in short supply. Rather, rubber was, because the attack on Pearl Harbor a year earlier cut off most of the supply--and military needed whatever was available. Thus, it was believed that the best way to reduce rubber usage was to reduce driving. So was gas rationing begun.
Five different kinds of ration cards were issued. One, the C ration, was given to "essential war workers" (including police officers and letter carriers) and did not restrict the amount of gas they could use. In Flagstaff, one recipient of the C ration was a fellow named Reverend George Gooderham.
That didn't sit well with another Flagstaff denizen--one Perry Francis. But he wasn't just an ordinary citizen: He was the sheriff.
So how did Sheriff Francis express his resentment toward the Reverend? Get ready for this: He took the minister's bicycle.
A few hours later, the man of the cloth realized his wheels were gone and went to the local constabulary. The folks in the sheriff's office led him on for a while before "finding" his bicycle and returning it to him.
It's often said that there is honor among thieves. But what about cops who steal--from clergy members, no less?
Which will come first: a perpetual motion machine, or Donald Trump not taking credit for something?
Or a bike share program without theft or vandalism?
A little more than two years ago, I found a Citibike that someone attempted to camouflage with gold rattle-can paint. That bike was one of hundreds that have been stolen from New York's bike-share program during its four and a half years of operation. Most other large-city share programs have had to deal with prodigious pilferage; some, such as the one Rome had, ended because of it.
Turns out, municipal bike share programs aren't the only ones whose bikes are swiped. On its sprawling Mountain View, California campus, Google offers bikes for its employees to use. The problem,it seems, is that not everyone who avails him or self to that service is an employee--or remains on the campus after grabbing the handlebars.
It seems that some local residents view the bikes as part of "the commons" and "borrow" them in much the same way some folks "borrow" shopping carts from their local supermarkets or "find" milk crates nearby. Some of the bikes have been found on lawns of nearby homes, roofs of hotspots and even in a local TV commercial. Even Mountain View's mayor has admitted to riding one of Google's bikes to the movies.
Perhaps not surprisingly, Google's bikes are adorned with the Lego hues of its logo. While this makes them distinctive, it hardly makes them impossible to camouflage. While Citibike and most other municipal share bikes are shaped differently from most bikes you can buy, Google's frames, with their sloping twin-lateral top tube, have a form similar to that of many European-style city or commuter bikes--including at least one from a certain company located at the other end of Silicon Valley. Thus, it wouldn't be too difficult to disguise a purloined Google bike.
That might explain why some have been found as far away as Alaska and Mexico, and why one turned up at Burning Man in Nevada while others ended up at the bottom of a local creek. It also explains why Google is now doing something that, frankly, I'm surprised they didn't do earlier in the program: They are attaching GPS tracking devices to the bikes.
Hmm...Can you imagine if supermarkets and dairy companies started implanting chips in their carts and crates?
Was this ever a functioning bicycle?
Or was it intended as a bike rack?
Could it be that whoever created it is laughing at people like me for spending time--and a blog post--on it?
If you've been reading this blog, one thing you know is that I'm a Mercian fan. I generally like traditional-style lugged and fillet-brazed steel frames, and Mercian is making, in my opinion, some of the best iterations available today. And, of course, their older frames are great examples of everything I (and, possibly, you) love about vintage bikes.
Still, there are a few Mercians I would never ride. Actually, the ones I wouldn't ride are, mostly, the ones I could not ride. Here is one:
Of course, the reason I never could ride such a frame is that it's waaay too big for me. The seller says it's a 71cm frame. All of my Mercians--as well as my Trek and Fuji--are in the 56 cm (center to center seat tube) range. So were most of the bikes I've owned and ridden for nearly four decades.
If I were a collector, though, I would want that frame. How many other people have a Mercian with lateral tube inside the "diamond"? I know a few bike makers and marketers, such as Rivendell, make or offer bikes with similar designs. And, I would imagine, Mercian and other builders would make such a frame for you as a special order. I would guess, though, that they would want to build such a frame for you if you really needed it--say, if you were very tall (as the owner of that frame probably is/was) or were going on a world tour and carrying all of your worldly possessions along paths that make the Ho Chi Minh trail look like a Beverly Hills street.
If you've been reading this blog, you probably can tell that I like the colors on that frame, too! Just sayin'....
