I’ll Keep It Charged For The Ghost

 Riding in New York City can, at times, feel like an archaeological expedition. Urban treks reveal artifacts of a city past, and one that is passing.  Sometimes I see “ghost” signs of long-gone businesses, political campaigns and products.  (One of my favorite non-cycling blogs, Ephemeral New York, has devoted several posts to them.)

Those signs also marked things that were once ubiquitous but have all but disappeared, at least in much of the developed world:

I spotted that sign on Van Dam Street, in an industrial area of Greenpoint, Brooklyn.  The phone was nowhere to be seen.  A truck driver who was munching on a sandwich waved to me.  I asked him whether there was a public phone anywhere in the vicinity.  He laughed. “Haven’t looked for one of those in years,” he said.

We wished each other a good afternoon.  “Be safe,” he avised me. “And keep your phone charged!”

All-Wheel Drive “Fat” Bike

Some of you ride cranksets, chainrings or other components or accessories made by Specialites TA in France.  “TA” stands for “Traction Avant,” or forward drive.  

Before he started making the parts for which the company would be renowned, founder Georges Navet tried to make, and market, a front-wheel drive bicycle.  High-wheel or “penny farthing” bikes had pedals attached to cranks fitted directly to the axle on the front wheel, which was much larger than the rear.

Navet, however, wanted to make a modern bicycle (two wheels of more or less the same size, propelled by a chain-and-sprocket drive) with front-wheel drive after seeing cars with the then-new innovation.  I would not be surprised, then, if some cyclist, especially one who rides off-road, looked at, say, a Subaru Outback (or, perhaps drives one) and wondered, “Why can’t my bike have this?”

“This” would be all-wheel drive. Someone called “The Q” may have been that cyclist.  Check out his attempt to make an all-wheel (OK, two-wheel) drive fat-tire bike:

To Continue His Work—And Passions

At schools and universities, celebrated alumni are memorialized with libraries, collections, laboratories, galleries and other facilities named for them.

Not many, though, have bicycle repair shops or programs that bear their names.

I must say, however, that few people would want to take the route to fame, if you will, of Sam Ozer.

Last year, days after his graduation from the AIM Academy in Philadelphia—where he was the co-captain of the mountain biking team—was riding along Henry Street when he was struck by a vehicle.

The fatal crash was accompanied by some terrible ironies:  It was Fathers’ Day and he was going to spend time with his Dad, Sidney—who, along with Sam’s grandfather Morris, were founding members of the Bicycle Club of Philadelphia.

Even if he hadn’t been working at the Trek Manayunk Bicycle Shop on Main Street, Anne Rock, his cycling coach, would not have been exaggerating when she said bicycling was “in his blood.” His passion for cycling was accompanied by his love of the outdoors, which may have been inculcated by his mother, Mindy Maslin, the founder and program manager of Tree Tenders for the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society.

Thanks to her, her husband’s, Ms. Rock’s and other people’s efforts, Sam’s school will have a bicycle repair shop and program.  Aside from commemorating the “grit” Ms. Maslin recalled in her only son, the shop and program are appropriate in another way:  The AIM Academy is a school for intelligent and gifted kids with dyslexia, and bicycling and bike repair helped to put Sam Ozer on a road to becoming a confident adult.  Before he graduated, he took two college courses and had been accepted in all six colleges to which he’d applied.