(Almost) Empty Box Dog Bikes

There was a time when a robbery or burglary seemed to be a rite of passage for an urban bike shop in the US.  

I can say, without being hyperbolic, that every New York shop in which I worked or bought anything from the late '70's to the early '90's was victimized by crooks.  Sometimes the perp walked in and demanded whatever cash was on hand, and whoever happened to be at the counter would hand it over.  Other times, a thief would flee with a bike or two or whatever parts or accessories he or she could carry.  

In one of the shops in which I worked, the robbers actually tied up the owner and employees in the basement and made off with expensive bikes and parts. (Fortunately for me, I wasn't working that day!)  Other shops experienced similar crimes. More than one such incident ended tragically:  In particular, I recall that a robbery in Frenchie's Cycle World, a favorite of Brooklyn cyclists, ended in a gunfight that left a robber and a police officer dead.

(The robber killed in Frenchie's was a 30-year-old man.  He persuaded his two teenage nephews and teenage friend to help him.  They were captured thanks to a ruse by one of the shop's employees.)

And then there were burglaries like the ones  that finally drove Tom Avenia out of New York City. From what I heard--whether from Tom himself or others, I forget--his windows, doors and gates were all broken or ripped out so that someone could have unpaid access to his Frejus, Legnano and other Italian bikes, as well as Campagnolo equipment.  Then, one night--again, this is an account I've heard--some thief or thieves actually cut a hole in the roof of his store and helped themselves to much of his merchandise.

I was reminded of Tom, Frenchie's and the other thefts I've mentioned when I heard about what happened in San Francisco the other night.

Box Dog Bikes is a worker-owned shop in the city's Mission district.  In the wee hours of yesterday morning, Geoffrey Colburn, one of the owners, got a call from the police department after they were called by a neighbor.  

What he and the cops found were a hole--just big enough to squeeze bikes through--in the metal gate, and a shattered tempered-glass window behind it.  Inside: empty bike racks.

In all, 21 bikes--most of the shop's inventory--were taken.  They were all listed on the shop's Instagram account.  Included is a plea to call 911 for anyone who sees the bikes, along with an admonition not to fight anyone who has the bikes.  "Most of these bikes don't have pedals, so it's gonna be hard to ride them."

If that doesn't stop the thieves, I hope something else will.

A Buddy Bike For Disabled Kids

Back in the day, I served as a "captain" on tandem rides for The Lighthouse.  That meant I would  pedal and steer on the front of a tandem, while a blind or visually impaired person would be the "stoker" on the back seat.

And, yes, I followed all of the rules of being a gentleman cyclist--including that one.

I've heard that similar rides have been offered for deaf or audially-impaired folks.  That makes sense for the same reasons that tandem rides for the blind are a good idea:  It allows them to share in the joy we feel when we ride.  Also, it shows that people who partially or completely lack vision or hearing can do just about anything the rest of us can do. 

(One of the best and most creative florists I ever encountered was legally blind.  He could see colors, forms and arrangements, but had no peripheral visions.  Thus, while people and organizations called on him for weddings, banquets and other occasions, he couldn't drive!)

From The East Side Riders Bike Club website

Now the East Side Riders Bike Club (ESRBC) of Los Angeles is trying to provide a similar service for another group of people who have been, too often, deprived of the opportunity to ride and do much else we take for granted.  They work to help the Watts neighborhood (site of the 1965 riots) with bike programs and other charitable work to help keep kids out of gangs and other criminal activities.  

As it happens, communities like Watts have disproportionate numbers of developmentally-disabled children.  (When I worked as a writer-in-residence in New York City schools, I was struck by how many of the "special education" or "special needs" kids with whom I sometimes worked were residents of the projects or other poverty pockets.)  So, the good folks of the ESRBC saw another opportunity to help:  Getting kids with disabilities on bikes.

To that end, they appealed to Buddy Bikes, a Florida-based company that offers "adaptive" bikes.  Buddy Bikes is raising money so that ESRBC can get one of their machines--which cost $1500-$2000--at a reduced price.

The "Buddy Bike" that ESRBC would receive is like a tandem in reverse:  The "captain" pedals from the rear seat, while the disabled kid spins his or her feet from the front  What that means, of course, is that the Buddy Bike has a more complex steering system than what is normally found on traditional tandems.

The sad irony of this, though, is that Buddy Bikes is making their offer just as they are closing shop.  Their website says they will stay in business long enough to sell off their remaining inventory, and that they will keep their website up for another three years after.

We can only hope that the ESRBC continues their work!

So Glad To Be Back That I Want To Go Back

It's been two weeks since my trip to Cambodia and Laos.  Everyone to whom I've mentioned it is convinced that I will go back.  So am I.  Any experience that brings me tears of both joy and sadness is worth repeating.  Of course, I wouldn't try to replicate the trip I just took:  That wouldn't be possIible.  But I could return, I believe, to what made the trip so memorable.

First among them is the people.  I already missed them during my flights home.  When I visit my friends in France, I miss them when I leave.  But I can't miss the familiar in the same way I miss the people I just met because, I guess, re-connecting with those you know can't change your perspective in quite the same way as people who allowed you into their lives,even if only for a moment, the first time you met them.  Plus, the only people I've ever met in the US who can match the vitality--who, purely and simply, have the heart and soul, for lack of better terms--are either African-American, immigrants or very old.  People in southeast Asia--especially Cambodia--have survived going to hell and back.  

I thought about that, again, the other day as I was riding back from Connecticut.  The temperature reached 34-36 Celsius (92-96F), and the humidity ranged from 80 to 90 percent.  Just before I crossed the Randalls Island Connector, I rode through the South Bronx.  Three of its ZIP codes--including 10451, where I work-- are the poorest in the United States.  Many residents indeed live in conditions most Americans--certainly those of my race and educational background--will never even have to imagine.  I know: some of those people are my students.  But even they have, if not luxuries, then amenities, that are completely out of reach for most Cambodian peasants and even city dwellers like Champa, the young woman who works at the guest house or  Sopheak, the tuk-tuk driver who took me around when I wasn't cycling.  As an example, the young woman told me she can't even stay in touch with me by e-mail because she doesn't have a device of her own, and she can't send personal messages on the guest house's internet system. 

Of course, you might say they were warm and friendly to me because I'm a tourist and they wanted me to spend money. But I experienced all sorts of helpfulness and friendliness--and a cheerfulness that's not of the American "it gets better" or "when one door closes, another opens," variety.  Perhaps the best expression of it came from a young woman at a gas station, where I stopped to ask for directions. "We are here," she said.  "We are alive.  We have today."

Then, of course, there are the things I saw.  While the Angkor Wat was the main reason I took the trip, and I spent about three full days in it, I could just as easily go back for Bayon or Banteay Srei--which, I admit, is my favorite temple--or to walk along the river junction or side streets of Luang Prabang.  And, naturally, eat the food--though I won't order a fruit shake, delicious as it was, again:  I think the ice used in it came from tap water, which unsettled my stomach on my penultimate night in Cambodia.

I must say, though, that I am glad to be riding my own Mercians again.  And, as hot and humid as it during my Connecticut ride, or on the Point Lookout ride I took yesterday, I wasn't nearly as tired because, in spite of the heat, the sun is much less intense.  And the road conditions are better, even in places like the South Bronx and Far Rockaway.

Hmm...Maybe, next time I go to Southeast Asia, I have to bring one of my own bikes--though, I must say, riding local bikes made me feel a bit more "native", if only for a few hours!

The Bike I Should Have Given Her?

Today is my mother's birthday.

One year, I gave her a new bicycle.  She'd been pedaling an hour or so every day on an exercise bike.  At the time, she was relatively young (and I wasn't relatively young: I was pure-and-simple young) and I figured she could transition from indoor to outdoor cycling.

It didn't work that way and the bike was sold or given away (I forget which) when my parents moved to Florida.  She apologized for that, adding that "it was a nice bike."

It was actually a halfway decent machine:  a Peugeot mixte in a burgundy color with sunset orange graphics.  My mother even thought it was "pretty" and that giving it was "a nice thought" on my part.  Oh well.

Now, you might say I should have given her an even better bike.  I probably would have, if I knew she'd have ridden it.  

Actually, maybe I should have given her a more unique bike.  At least, when I went to visit her and saw the bike hanging in the garage, it might have been more interesting to see something like this:

The Velocino is handmade in Italy. (Remember when Colnagos, De Rosas, and all of those racing bikes were?) According to the Abici family, who make them, the "unique artisanal bike includes a "braze welded frame with three coats of paint" as well as Michelin tires and a Brooks B17 saddle. (Maybe I could ride it after all!)  It costs $980, plus $300 to ship it to the US.  The bike "ships in 1-2 weeks".  Hmm...Maybe she won't mind a belated gift.  It does look good, after all!

Oregon Handmade Show Cancelled: Will Portland Remain "Bicycle City?"

In January, I wrote about an Ohio town that was best known for the bicycle company that, from 1925 to 1953, manufactured its wares right in its center.  The Shelby Bicycle Historical Society was recently formed to commemorate the role bicycle-manufacturing played in Shelby, about 150 kilometers southwest of Cleveland.

Other communities have been defined by bicycle manufacturing.  Although Raleigh is associated with Nottingham, the center of the British bicycle industry was Birmingham, where a company bearing its name--Birmingham Small Arms, or BSA--made the most sought-after componentry in the peloton, as well as some fine racing bikes.  

Likewise, for most of the 20th Century, the nexus of France's bicycle industry was St. Etienne, a gritty industrial city about 50 kilometers from Lyon.  Many editions of the Tour de France have included a stage that began, ended or passed through the city, and a French rider winning such a stage is a point of pride for the nation.

For much of the time Birmingham and St. Etienne dominated their respective country's bicycle industries, a certain bike-maker was a major employer on the South Side of Chicago.  I am referring to Schwinn which, as Sheldon Brown pointed out, was the only American brand with even a pretense of quality during the "Dark Ages" of cycling in the US.

Chicago, Birmingham, Saint Etienne and Shelby all had their heydays as centers of bicycle (and, in the cases of Birmingham and Saint Etienne, component) making.  But, like empires, those enterprises fell.  Cheaper imports, mainly from Asia, are often blamed (less so for Shelby than the others).  But the biggest reasons for their demise are their failures to keep up with changes in demand as well as innovations.  Schwinn, like other companies, sponsored racing teams, but limited their efforts almost entirely to the US, until it was too late.  So, the Paramount line, begun in 1938, was, by the 1960s, a dinosaur (its fine craftsmanship notwithstanding) compared to racing bikes from Europe.

More recently, the US city most commonly associated with bike-making has been Portland, Oregon.  One difference, however, is that in the Rosebud City's bike-building scene has more closely paralleled its "craft" beer milieu than it has reflected trends and practices in mass-production bicycles.  During Portland's frame-building heyday, from about 2005 to 2010, it was claimed that over a hundred builders practiced their craft in a city of about 600,000 residents.  

It was during that time that the Oregon Handmade Bicycle Show began as an annual event in 2007.  Builders enthusiastically set up booths to show their creations to ever-appreciative audiences.  How much those exhibits translate into orders is, however, a topic of debate:  Many people go to "ooh" and "aah" at frames they will never be able to afford, or simply don't feel a need to order, their fine artistry not withstanding.  

Framebuilder Joseph Ahearne at the 2017 Oregon Handmade Bicycle Show

The phenomena I've described are being blamed for the cancellation of this year's show.  Some builders said it simply wasn't worth the time and money it took to, not only create and set up an exhibit, but to actually get to the show.  Portland and Oregon are more spread out than, say, San Francisco or any number of East Coast cities one can name. That means it's harder to entice people to attend when an event is scheduled to be  held in an out-of-the-way place, as this year's show was.

But other factors were chipping away at enthusiasm for the show.  One is that more people are buying bikes and equipment online.  Another, though, is the builders themselves:  Some have had to scale down their operations, move or simply leave the business altogether.  While the bicycle industry is trending larger--think bigger conglomerates selling more and more merchandise at lower prices--builders who make their frames by hand work in the opposite direction:  They sell less, and for higher prices.

What that means is that in spite of the high price tags for such frames, most builders don't get rich.  In fact, many barely make a living at all.  All it takes is a major rent increase in their workspace to put them out of business:  Building bikes requires a lot of space, and if builders are forced out of their loft or wherever they're working, they have can have a very difficult time finding a comparable amount of space for a rent they can afford.  

Especially if the city is gentrifying, as Portland is.  The things that made it so appealing--its roots as a blue-collar town, its scenery and its edgy arts and social scene--are attracting trust fund kids and other people with money.  It's more or less what happened to places like Williamsburg, Brooklyn, which is now just as expensive as Manhattan but now manages to be as much a theme park as Las Vegas but with all of the character of Davenport, Iowa.

Now, I've never been to Portland, so I can't say whether it's becoming as dispiriting as Williamsburg is to me now.  (A few years ago, I felt differently.)  But from what I'm reading, the city sorts of folks depicted in "Portlandia" are changing their careers or lifestyles, or moving out.  So are the kinds of unique and unusual businesses--including custom frame building--associated with the city?

Could it be that Portland is ceding its place as the bicycle capital of the United States?  If it is, perhaps the change was inevitable: Small, labor-intensive enterprises with niche audiences generally don't last when the real estate becomes expensive.  How many bike shops, craft beer breweries, fabric weavers or tatoo artists are on 57th Street in Manhattan?