From Cars To Bikes, On A Highway

Twenty-five or thirty years ago, streets in Chinese cities were as choked with traffic as the Long Island Expressway (a.k.a. The World's Longest Parking Lot) during peak commuter hours.  The difference was, of course, that the throngs of people going to work or school in Beijing or  Shanghai weren't enclosed in four-wheeled motorized vehicles.  Instead, they were astride bicycles:

Westerners--especially Americans--were amused by the idea of "bicycle traffic jams."  The Chinese who were part of them, like people stuck in any kind of traffic jam, probably weren't (or so I would assume).  But within a decade or so, their problem would be "solved":  Instead of being surrounded by cyclists on their way to work, they would be stuck in automotive gridlock that would make a trip across the George Washington Bridge at 8 am seem like, well, a bike tour along la route departementale 618 from France to Spain.

Now some folks in Beijing are realizing that driving isn't always as quick or convenient as they'd hoped. They, especially the young are--you guessed it!--getting back on their bikes.

I haven't heard any reports of bicycle traffic jams like the ones the city experienced when few people had cars.  But city planners might be anticipating them--or responding to folks who want their bike commutes to be safer and more convenient.  To that end, construction on a 6.5 kilometer bicycle highway is set to begin this September.  

Because it will cross major highways, much of the bike route will be elevated.  There will be no traffic lights, and its use will be restricted to pedal bicycles without motors.  Moreover, it will have a gated entrance--a feature borrowed, along with others, from the world's longest elevated bike path in Xiamen.

That southeastern Chinese city was mainly a port city until three decades ago, but has morphed into a center for financial services and technology.  It has also become, interestingly, the city frequently cited as "greenest" or "most livable" in the country.  The influx of highly-educated professionals probably has something to do with that.

Those are the same sort of people who live and work in Zhongguancun, the district in the northwestern part of Beijing where the new bike highway will be built.  It's often called "China's Silicon Valley."  If the area's scientists, engineers, venture capitalists and creative people are anything like their counterparts in California, it's not surprising that they've taken to cycling--and want better conditions for it.

What I find fascinating is that the move from bicycles to cars and back has happened more or less within a generation.   Here in the US, the cycle has taken a century--that is, in those areas where there are people who ride to work and school, and for pleasure.

Ride And Remember

Is there a Tomb of The Unknown Cyclist?

One could be forgiven for believing such a thing, especially after the way the Cynergy Cycling Club (of southern New Jersey) publicized its Memorial Day ride two years ago.

Whatever you do today, I hope you ride and remember!

What's The Difference Between Security And Entanglement?

These days, we see lots of bicycles on the "Web".

But unless you let your bike sit too long without riding it, you're not likely to see a web on your bicycle....

From The Web Awards

...unless you had to park and forgot to bring your lock with you!

When Nutley Ruled The (Cycling) World

Even during mountain biking's peak of popularity--about a quarter-century ago--most mountain bikes never saw a trail or dirt, let alone a mountain.

These days, something similar might be said about track bikes.  If someone is obsessed with building a bike that's NJS-compliant, chances are that it will never go anywhere near a velodrome.

It's just as ironic that as track or fixed-gear bikes have grown in popularity, interest in track racing, as a participant or spectator sport, doesn't seem to be on the rise.  Most fans, at least here in the US, seem to focus their attention on major road races like the Tour, Giro and Vuelta.

Time was, though, when track racing was more popular than any other sport in the 'States, with the possible exception of baseball.  In fact, the top cyclists earned even more money than guys who could hit or throw spheres of stitched horsehide.

There are few remnants of that time because, for one thing, most of the great riders of that time have passed on.  Also, most of the venues in which they rode are gone.

One of them was located about a morning's ride--half an hour on a ferry and two on a bike--from my apartment.  In its day, it hosted some of the best cyclists of the day--including Alfred Letourneur, the French rider who set speed records on both sides of the Atlantic, as well as local heroes like Charlie Jaeger and Frank Kramer.

Jaeger and Kramer hailed from Newark, then a major cycling center.  After that city's velodrome closed in 1930, a businessman and cycling enthusiast from neighboring East Orange tried to keep the torch burning, if you will, and built a new velodrome on the site of a former quarry.

Joseph Miele's track, the Nutley Velodrome, opened on 4 June 1933.  Twelve thousand fans turned out that day to see Letourneur and Jaeger, as well as other star riders like Italy's Giovanni Manera, Belgian Gerard Debaets, Franz Deulberg of Germany and Brooklyn's own Paul Croley.

For two years, Nutley was "an international dateline," according to Michael Gabriele, whose book, The Golden Age of Bicycle Racing in New Jersey was published in 2011.  "All the wire services covered the events," he explained.

But around 1936 or 1937, the popularity of six-day and other track races declined, and the velodrome was used for boxing matches, midget car racing and other sports.  The venue's last event was held on 15 September 1940, and it was demolished in 1942.

A few months before the Nutley Velodrome's last event, another event was held that would continue New Jersey's status as one of cycling's US centers:  the Tour of Somerville.  For decades, it was the single most prestigious bike race in America, and one of the few that attracted riders from abroad.  It also ignited the popularity of the criterium, which continues to be the most popular type of cycling race.

Though the Nutley Velodrome, which opened 85 years ago next month, lasted less than a decade, it still holds an important place in American cycling.  Nutley provided thrills for thousands of people, but in recent years the city has done more to calm people down:  Until 2013, it hosted the US headquarters of Hoffman-Laroche, where Valium and Librium were developed. 

Because They Are Able

The Place de la Concorde is one of the world's most impressive public squares.  The first time I saw it, however, I tried to imagine it "covered with blood," as more than one writer of the time described it, as members of the French nobility and royal family were guillotined.

I have seen other beautiful places with terrible histories.  Sometimes their histories make their beauty all the more wonderful, in much the way lilacs are (and smell even better) because they bud and bloom at the end of winter.  

(Last week, I clipped some that were growing in a lot near the RFK Memorial Bridge.  They're some of the latest I recall picking or buying, and their scent was all the more intoxicating because it seemed our winter simply would not end.)

All of this brings me to Elliot Lake, Ontario.  It's in the northern part of the Canadian province, above Lake Huron.  I've never been there, but the photos I've seen are enticing.  I hear that people go there for outdoor sports--or to retire.

Not so long ago, however, it was known as the "uranium capital of the world."  Just about any kind of mining is dangerous to the miners and the place being mined:  All you have to do is look at parts of West Virginia and Southeastern Colorado to know that.  The Elliott Lake area is no exception.  Though it doesn't seem to have suffered the environmental devastation some mining areas incurred, plenty of miners and other workers were injured, disabled or even killed while doing their jobs--not to mention those who got sick from uranium poisoning.  

Well, today some cyclists are going to set off from Elliot Lake and ride 170 kilometers to two other former mining centers in Ontario:  Massey and Sudbury.  What's interesting about this ride is that some of the cyclists were themselves injured or made ill on their jobs.  Friends and family members will ride with them, in part to support injured workers, but also to protest the cuts in benefits paid to such workers.