These Wheels Are Returning To Their Roots

Henry Ford was a bicycle mechanic.  His first car was basically two bicycles connected to a carriage and a motor.  But, even though he made four-wheeled motorized vehicles available to the masses, Ford never abandoned his pedaled two-wheeled.  Even after he became one of the world's wealthiest individuals, he took a three-mile spin every day after supper.  Time magazine showed him on one of those rides, which he took on his 77th birthday.

Around the time Ford was fixing bikes, two brothers in Detroit were doing the same. They would patent a dust-repellent hub and bottom bracket and found a company that manufactured some of Detroit's earliest bicycles.  Later, they would enter the same line of business that would make Ford--and Detroit--famous.

The siblings in question are John and Horace Dodge.  

Then there was a bike mechanic and racer from France who, like Ford and the Dodges, would turn his energies from two wheels to four and add a motor.  He achieved renown as one of the early auto racers and, like Henry, John and Horace, would start his own auto-making company.

I am referring to Louis Chevrolet.

Of course, if you have too much time on your hands and idle brain capacity, you can speculate about what bikes might be like if the companies Ford, the Dodge brothers and Chevrolet made them.  

Actually, we might get an idea of what Chevrolet Cycles might be by looking at what's on offer for 2019.  Chevrolet, of course, became one of the most iconic marques of General Motors.  

Yes, GM is going to make and market two models of bicycle for the coming year.  But they won't be like the offerings of Shinola or the Detroit Bike. Instead, the company's two-wheelers will be pedal-assisted e-bikes.  General Motors CEO Mary Barra said, in a press conference, that the new e-bikes would be "designed to help people stay mobile in an increasingly difficult-to-navigate urban landscape."

There is a kind of irony or poetic justice in all of this:  GM, Ford, Chrysler and other auto companies helped to make the "increasingly difficult-to-navigate urban landscape."

Keep Moving--On A Divvy, Manta-Ray or Featherstone

Some motorists see us as invaders, or as over-indulged, when we "take" "their" roadway and parking spaces simply by exercising the rights we have--let alone when bike lanes are built. 

Others, though, simply are baffled by us.  They are unaccustomed to seeing us, mainly because few, if any, Americans living today can recall a time when bicycles and cyclists were major presences in their cities or towns.  They certainly can't recall a time when bicycles were important parts of their community's culture and economy.

In some places, such a time really wasn't so long ago.  Detroit, Boston, New York and a few other cities had vibrant, if small, cycling communities during the "Dark Ages" of US bicycling:  roughly the two decades or so following World War II.  Also, a few colleges and universities, including Princeton and the US Military Academy (West Point) had very competitive cycling teams.

There are, however, a few more communities in which bicycles as well as bicycling were an important part of the history and culture, and even the economy.  One such place was Shelby, Ohio.  So was a much larger city about 500 kilometers west:  Chicago.

Mention the "Windy City" and, in regards to cycling, a certain name enters people's minds.  Hint: It starts with an "S".  If you grew up in the US, there's a good chance you rode--or had--one of their bikes. And, if you became an active rider or simply an enthusiast, you might have bought one of their top-of-the line bikes.

I'm talking, of course, about Schwinn, which manufactured bikes on the city's West Side for nearly a century.  But in 1900, it was just one of 30 bicycle manufacturers making its wares along Lake Street!  Perhaps not surprisingly, the "Second City" was also home to one of the most intense racing scenes, and vibrant cycle cultures, to be found anywhere in the US, or even the world.

While much of the current bicycle culture in American cities began with young, educated and affluent people--and is frankly consumeristic--Chicago's cycling culture thrived, then survived to the degree that it did, largely because of its industrial, working-class roots and immigrant (particularly German) communities.  This story is  one that the Chicago Design Museum tells with "Keep Moving:  Designing Chicago's Bicycle Culture," an exhibit it recently opened.

The Museum places a Divvy (from the city's bike-share program) alongside a Schwinn Manta-Ray and an 1891 Featherstone-- believed to be the first US bike offered with pneumatic tires--and other bikes that were made, or had some other significant connection to, Chicago.  There is also memorabilia related to the bikes, including material from Carter Harrison's successful campaign to become the city's mayor.

So why is Carter Harrison's important in the story of cycling in Chicago?  Well, to demonstrate his athletic bona fides, he wore his Century pin--signifying that he'd done a 100-mile bike ride--on his chest while riding his single-speed bike.  

And to think that a certain presidential candidate ridiculed a Secretary of State for falling off his bicycle! Hmm...Would El Cheeto Grande have won Harrison's election?

His Travels With Mona

Many years ago, I read John Steinbeck's Travels With Charley.

In the book, he and his traveling companion set out on a trek that took them through 40 of the 50 US states.  He took this trip, he said, because he felt he'd lost touch with America.  If anything, he might have been trying to recapture his youth:  He was nearing 60, and his physical and mental health were failing him.  I suspect he might've been suffering from "writer's block."

So, he outfitted a three-quarter-ton pickup track as a camper and set out from his Sag Harbor, NY home.  And he allegedly recorded--and replicated in the book--a number of conversations with "ordinary" Americans.

Even at such a tender age, I had my suspicions about his account.  Some things just didn't seem quite right; later on, when I'd read more of his fiction, I felt as if some of those conversations sounded like the dialogue in his stories.  And I had to wonder whether he was alone--save for Charley--and roughing it as much as his book made it seem he was.

Still, I enjoyed it:  after all, Steinbeck could tell--or, more precisely, reveal--a story.  In fact, Travels With Charley might have been the first book that showed me how the truth of the story is more compelling than the mere chronological or spatial correctness of its facts.  Even if he wasn't in Alice, North Dakota at the exact moment he related in the book, what he was learning while traveling the windswept plains is interesting and, at times, compelling.

I'm mentioning Travels With Charley because of the traveling companion in Steinbeck's title:  his French poodle.  I must say that I like French poodles as much as anyone else, but I'm not sure that it would be the breed I'd choose to accompany me on a trip.

Perhaps I'd choose a hound--at least for a bike trip, as hounds generally like to be outdoors.  Now, I'm sure Paul Stankiewicz didn't choose his "Charley"--whose name is Mona--specifically for his trip across the USA.  But the pooch--an 8-year-old mixture of English fox hound and Egyptian Pharaoh hound--accompanied him on a drive from their New Hampshire home to California and, more important (for this blog, anyway), on an 8000 kilometer (5000 mile) bike ride back to the Granite State.

They arrived two weeks ago--he, 10 pounds lighter than he started and she having survived being struck by a car.  Fortunately, she suffered nothing more than a few scrapes and a stiff neck.  Perhaps not surprisingly, she and Stankiewicz developed a bond after spending four months on the road together.

He undertook this journey on a Trek 520 he bought used and "fixed up for touring" with lower gears and new brakes.  I'm sure he needed both in towing a trailer that carried Mona, as well as supplies for him and her.

Mona, recovering from her injuries

Now that he's home, he's looking for a job.  At least, the news reports and blog he kept of his journey can vouch for what he did during that four-month employment gap in his resume.    

And, on returning home there have been adjustments.  For example, he says that on such a trip, "You kind of lose track of time, like it's a Sunday afternoon."  That's a pretty fair description of how it feels in the middle of a multiday (or multiweek) trip.  That might be the reason why, he now feels like he's "going so fast" when he's driving his car at 30 or 40 miles per hour.

It Could Have Been Me

Today I could have posted something faux-spooky or silly for Halloween.  But, as today is the one-year anniversary of a tragedy that hit close to home, I am going to repeat my post from the day after Halloween:

It could have been me.

I could not get that phrase out of my mind as I rode to work this morning.

It could have been me.

Today dawned bright and clear for me, as it did for them--yesterday.  A beautiful mid-autumn day, sunny, a little chilly but not unpleasantly so, with strong breezes shaking leaves turned red and yellow from their branches and rippling reflections of the sky, glass, steel and concrete at the mouth of the Hudson. 

In other words, the sort of day people picture in their fantasies about bike-riding in New York.

It could have been me.

And so they went for a ride, for fun.  I was riding, too, in an entirely different part of town, from my job back to my apartment.   Though they weren't going to work, many others who followed their path, on bike or on foot, no doubt were.  I myself have ridden along that path, to work and for the same pleasures they were enjoying.

I could have been one of them.

Five came from Argentina--old friends celebrating the 30th anniversary of their graduation from their high school.  Another came from Belgium, with her mother and sister.  They survived because they weren't with her.

I could have been her.

So could any of the kids who were leaving Stuyvesant High School at that very moment.  No doubt some of them sauntered along, or pushed or shoved each other (as high school kids are wont to do) into or along the path.  They would hang out with other kids.  Or they would go to practices in sports they play, languages they are learning, plays in which they are performing or skills for tests they will take and essays they will write in the hopes of getting into the colleges they or their parents choose.  One assumes that one day, at least some of them will be part of some 30th anniversary celebration, wherever in the world they may be.



They could have been among them.

Still others walked dogs, pushed strollers and held hands as they strolled along the nearby piers.  Or they sluiced through crowds on skates and skateboards.  They were all mere blocks away from the 9/11 Memorial and even closer to--though, as fate would have it, a world apart from--the Argentinian and Belgian tourists on bicycles.

I could have been with them.

For a time in my life, I was riding daily along the stretch of the Manhattan Greenway known officially as the Hudson River Greenway-- or more commonly as the West Side Highway Bike Path-- along the stretch that separates Greenwich Village, SoHo and Tribeca from the river.  At that time, it was part of my route to work.  Before and since then, I have ridden there for pleasure--sometimes as part of a city jaunt, as the tourists did yesterday; other times en route to a ferry or bridge that would take me to another part of my ride.  More often than not, I rode alone, but sometimes I'd accompany whomever I happened to meet--along the way to my job or wherever else I happened to go.

They could have been with me.

Every time I pedaled along that path, I was home within a few hours.  Today I will be home about 40 minutes after I leave work and get on my bike.  They, I am sure, thought they were going home, too--today, tomorrow, next week or the week after. 

I could have gone with them.

But they are not going home.  They probably never even imagined that they wouldn't:  They could not have foreseen the way their rides, their vacations, their journeys, would end.

It could have ended that way--for me, for anybody.

The Argentinians, the Belgian, never suspected that under a clear autumn sky in New York, death would descend upon them.  They certainly never expected it to come in the form of a van jumping the barrier that kept all of the other West Street traffic away from them, or for said van to be driven by someone who knew nothing about them except that they were riding bicycles peacefully.  On their bikes, they never expected to meet the fate of the folks sipping drinks at Le Carillon or listening to music at the Bataclan.  Or the ones enjoying a fireworks display on Bastille Day or shopping in a Christmas marketplace.  Or simply out on a summer day.

No one expects it to end that way.

Of those five Argentinians and the Belgian who went for a bike ride--and two others who went for a walk--on the West Side Bike Path, all that remain are mangled bicycles and shards of clothing and other personal items.  They went for a stroll, they went for a ride, and each of them is gone, gone, gone.

It could have been me.


I can only be grateful that it wasn't.  My thoughts are with the victims.

Where They Weren't Supposed To Go

Immigrants crowded together in conditions roaches and rats would have protested had Jacob Riis.

A couple of decades later, another exploited (and, to many, invisible) group of people had Lewis Wickes Hine.

Nearly a century before YouTube or podcasts, photographers Riis and Hine exposed the squalid and dangerous conditions in which the poorest and most vulnerable people lived and worked.  

Riis is most famous for his dispatches (He worked as a journalist.) from New York's Lower East Side--in particular, the Five Points area, which was believed to have the highest rates of population density, infectious diseases and murder of any urban neighborhood in the world.  Before Riis' photographs were published, few in New York's--or America's--more privileged classes had any idea of how people in such areas lived.

Hine, on the other hand, roamed the country and turned his focus (no pun intended) on child laborers.  Just as housing, health and safety codes were nonexistent during Riis' peak years of the 1880s and '90's, so were laws against child labor in the early 20th Century, when Hine did most of his work.

Among the laboring lads Hine documented were bicycle messengers, at least one--like the youngster in the following photo-- as young as ten years old:

In the documentation accompanying the image, he is identified only as "Western Union No. 5", working as an "extra" in Danville, Virginia.  He told Hine his boss was goint to lay him off for being too young, but an older messenger admitted they were trying to have him booted because he ate into their profits.

Earle Griffith and Eddie Tahoory worked for the Dime Messenger Service in Washington, DC. They said they never knew when they would go home at night--or whether they might get a call to the red light district.  "The office isn't supposed to send us" but "we go when we get the call."  As if to soften the blow--for themselves, perhaps--one of them added, "not very often."

Marion Davis, 14 years old, also made runs he wasn't "supposed to do" because he was under 16:  He went to the (Alabama-Coushatta) Reservation.  "The boss don't care and the cops don't stop me," he explained.

Here is another Texas messenger:

Unnamed, the 15-year-old was working for the Mackay Telegraph Company in Waco.  He seems almost stylish--or is he just cocky?  And is that a pipe in his mouth?

Also, look at his seat angle.  Did he have any children?

Speaking of style, look at the handlebars ridden by Percy Neville of Shreveport, Louisiana.

Like Marion Davis, he was working in an area where he "wasn't supposed to":  the city's red-light district.

Fall Contrasts

I'll admit that I've spent time looking at dying leaves, I mean, fall foliage.  This year it seems late in coming--or, at least, a little less colorful than usual.  I'm seeing fallen leaves in bike paths, on sidewalks and in other spots, but the leaves still on trees are green.

More noticeable signs of fall came, for me, on my ride to Point Lookout yesterday.

The reeds on the islands, and the plant life on the shore, never fail to reflect the season's colors.

Even more reliable, to my eyes,is the light surrounding them--especially on overcast days.  Clouds gather and seem to take on the depth of the sea; the sea and sky darken without actually becoming dark.  Yet the reeds and grasses stand, even as they age and turn sere.

Each of them stands alone.

I took a brief ride the day before, between bouts of torrential rain.  Ironically, I saw more color on one corner in Harlem than on my longer ride.

Looking at this building, you might guess that it's a studio or gallery. The latter assumption would be correct:  All of the work on the walls is done by local artists.  But this building serves another function.  Can you guess what it is?

Believe it or not, it's a pediatrics office.  Pediatrics 2000, to be exact.  Two doctors, as well as nurses and other professionals who help children, practice there.

Kids actually enjoy going there.  Their parents seem to like it, too.  The art is one reason.  Another is this:

There are no stairs anywhere in the building.  Only ramps connect the levels.  So, no kid (or adult) is stigmatized for being in a wheelchair.

The best thing is that everyone seems to think as highly of the doctors and other professionals in that building as they think of that building itself.

The kids get culture while doctors take their cultures. It sounds good to me!

Not What Vittorio De Sica Had In Mind...

In Cambodia and Laos, I didn't have to worry about the bikes I was riding.  Nobody tried to steal them:  not the people, nor the macaques (who will steal just about anything else, if it's edible) nor the elephants or other creatures.

I never heard anything about the sun bears, which are endangered.  Now, black bears--which don't live in that part of the world--are another story.

Here in the States, you just don't know who you can trust!

(Somehow I don't think this is what Vittorio de Sica had in mind!)

My Kingdom For--Three Feet?

How is this so complicated?  Just like when a slower vehicle is in front of you, wait until there is no oncoming traffic and pass them.

Give credit to Shaun Jordan for exhibiting common sense (Some would argue that phrase is an oxymoron!) in assessing a new law.

That law is commonly called the "three feet rule", for the berth motorists have to give cyclists when passing them.  This law was passed in Michigan, partly in response to the horrific crash that, two years ago, took the lives of Debbie Bradley, Melissa Fevig-Hughes, Tony Nelson, Larry Paulik and Suzanne Sippel near Kalamazoo.  

(I must say that even though I've never been to Kalamazoo or knew the victims, and have written about them before, I still find it difficult to write about them!)

After that crash, politicians as well as everyday citizens spoke of the need to make the state's roads safer for cyclists and pedestrians.  But the backlash against the new law is widespread, as it always is when motorists "lose" their "rights."  As one Debbie Brown Donaldson whined, "This is sooo stupid!  We need to slow down to practically nothing for a NON-motorized vehicle that isn't registered or licensed.  Who the (fill in the blank) makes these rules?"

Well, Ms. Donaldson, what if that "NON-motorized vehicle that isn't registered or licensed" were a horse?  Or what about any other animal--or pedestrian?  Would it trouble you to slow down for them?  Or would you run them over?

At least other commenters had more sense--and less of a sense of entitlement--than Ms. Donaldson. "Everybody that is up in arms about three feet.  Honestly?" wondered another.

Is Amazon Sending UPS Back To Its Roots?

I could've been....a UPS delivery person.

Actually, I was, for about four weeks.  The venerable delivery company hired me one holiday season:  from the day after Thanksgiving until Christmas Eve.  Back then, the company employed a lot of "helpers" during that time of year.  Many of us were students, as I was.  We didn't drive:  We rode the trucks for a minute or two, leaped off, delivered a few packages, leaped back on and repeated a few hundred times.

I don't know whether UPS still hires extra help during that season.  The pay, as I recall, was decent, but as my driver said, "You earn it."  He was right:  Even though I was young and in good condition (mainly from cycling), I was still tired at the end of a shift:  I'd have just enough energy to ride my bike home.  But it was, in some ways, a satisfying job, at least for those few weeks:  People were usually happy to see us, and I got a few tips and gifts.

That driver, and our supervisor, suggested that I might want to get a driver's license and work for them permanently.  Sometimes I wonder whether I should have:  I understand the retirement benefits are good, and I could have retired by now.  Then again, even if I had more desire to drive at all, I'm not sure that I would have wanted to do it all day.

If I'd been born a few decades earlier, I could have been a bike messenger for them.  After all, I later plied the streets of Manhattan on two wheels, delivering everything from slices of pizza to documents pertaining to mergers, divorces and every other proceeding you can think of--and a few small packages with mysterious contents. (Well, at least I wasn't supposed to know what was in them. But, given their destinations, it wasn't hard to tell.)  And UPS was in the bike messenger business.

In fact, that's how it started more than a century ago:  a few young men delivered packages by bicycle and on foot in Seattle.  Now, it seems that UPS is returning to its roots, sort of.

It's partnered with the Seattle Department of Transportation and the University of Washington in a pilot program to make deliveries in the city's downtown area, around the Pike Place Market.  The program will involve e-bikes pulling wagons with detachable cargo trailers.  Those vehicles remind me a bit of the tuk-tuks I rode while in Cambodia and Laos. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the designers were inspired, at least in part, by them:  these containers can carry up to 400 pounds, and four adult humans (of Western size) can ride in the cab of a tuk-tuk.

According to Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan, the alliance will "help us better understand how we can ensure the delivery of goods while making space on our streets for transit, bikes and pedestrians."  Seattle, like other American cities, has experienced an increase in motorized traffic in spite of growing numbers of cyclists, pedestrians and people who use mass transit.  

While UPS and other couriers (including the US Postal Service and Fed Ex) can't be blamed for it, one could say they are vehicles (no pun intended) for it:  According to a report from the World Economic Forum and Deloitte, in the decade from 2005 to 2015, the global total number of parcels delivered increased by 128 percent.  Much of this increase, according to researchers, is a result of consumers increasingly having single items shipped at a time.  This trend has been fueled, in large part, by retailers like Amazon and Walmart--who use UPS and the other carriers I've mentioned--who make it easy to order, and offer free shipping on, cheap items.   

If the collaboration between the UPS, the city and the university proves successful, UPS says it will be expanded to other parts of the Emerald City.  It could also be exported to other cities experiencing traffic congestion problems.

It Really Is Good For You!

The other day, I went to my doctor.

Everything is just fine, he said.