What If They Had Bicycles?

Some of us have cycled for so long, or done so much cycling, that we simply cannot imagine our lives without it.  So, it's hard to remember that, even though the bicycle has a longer history than most forms of transportation, it's still a recent invention.

Knowing that, I found myself wondering what some of the most important, wonderful and cataclysmic events in history, literature and art would have been like if bicycles had been available.

One of the first events that comes to mind is this:

Now I find it ironic that the culmination of the greatest technological advances of the time made the world stand still for a day. I know; I remember that day:  20 July 1969.  Everything, it seemed, was closed--and everywhere you looked, you could see the lumescent gray and silver shadows bobbing from television screens through windows.  Quite possibly more people heard this phrase--"One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind"--at the moment it was uttered than heard any other phrase at the exact moment it was spoken. 

I was eleven years old at the time.  It was hard not to be mesmerized by those (literally) otherwordly images; even adults forgot whatever else they'd been doing so they could see an event that, until then, had been in the realm of fantasy.

Now I wonder:  How would history (not to mention the Space Program) been different if Neil Armstrong had a bicycle to ride in the low-gravity atmosphere of the moon. (If nothing else, there would have been no excuse for using carbon fiber!)  What if those lunar footprints had been, instead, tire tracks?

What if the battles of antiquity had been led by generals or muses on two wheels?

Or what if the people of Concord heard the cry  "The British Are Coming!" over the whirr of two wheels?

Wouldn't you love to see that on the next Tweed Ride?

Speaking of Tweed...Imagine how fashion could have changed if the bicycle had come along earlier in history:

Now she's definitely someone who could have benefitted from having a Mercian!

A Helmet Meets A Name

Last year, I contrasted the two places in which I'd been teaching in terms of the number and kinds of bikes parked by them.  Since then, what was my second job became my main job.  And, at my now-main job, all of the racks are full on nice days, and one can find some bikes parked on campus even in the winter--except when there's a foot of snow on the ground.  On the other hand, at my now-second job, my bike is usually one of only four or five parked on campus.


What's just as interesting at my main job is that sometimes I'll see signs that some faculty or staff member is  riding to work:  He or she is carrying a bag that is obviously intended for use on a bike.  Or he or she is wearing cycling shoes.  Or, most commonly, a helmet is dangling by its straps from his or her fingers.


Yesterday, on my way to my first class, I crossed paths with a helmet-toter as I climbed, and she descended, the stairs.   "Elena" works in one of the offices that provides services to students;  she accompanied the director of her department. I'm guessing that Elena is within a few years, in either direction, of my age, and she has been cycling to school or work, she said, ever since she was an undergraduate at a nearby college.  

It was one of those conversations in which we talked about one thing and another before we learned each others' names.  They were surprised to find out that I, indeed, am the name that they've seen any number of times on the college's online "Community Dialogue."  What surprised them, I don't know.  Perhaps I don't look like the opinionated  and, if I do say so myself, passionate person they've seen in my comments, criticisms and responses on eCollege.  


The director had to go to a meeting, but Elena and I continued to talk about some of our "war" and horror stories about cycling to the campus, and generally.  It was good to know that I'm not the only cyclist on campus who believes that the bike racks, as they're set up, are impractical.  She said she'd spoken with campus officials about this and other matters.  I offered to help in any way I could to encourage more people to cycle to and from campus, and to make it more convenient and safer for them to make such a choice.


Now that I think of it, we could start some sort of organization for cyclists on campus.  There are certianly enough of us for that.  I wonder, though, how long it will take for us to get together if anyone else is meeting his or her cycling colleagues in a way similar to the way I met Elena yesterday.

Mid-Life Cycling Mysteries

I've been cycling for a long time.  Well, at least, I've been riding for longer than most people, though the current shape of my body might belie that. Still, even after more than three decades of riding even when I had no logical reason for doing so, there are still some things I can't explain.


Here's one of them:  In spite of my advancing age and declining strength, my past few rides--whether commutes or pleasure rides--have been faster and smoother than I expected them to be.  Now, what I am saying is completely unscientific: I am saying them mainly on the basis of having finished the rides I took in less time than I anticipated, or than I would normally take to do them.  And this has happened without any effort on my part to make to make "better" (i.e., faster) time.


What's more, I have noticed this on riding three of my four bikes:  Arielle, Tosca and Vera.  I guess if I want to make a really valid claim, I have to take Helene out, too. (It's been a month or so since I've ridden her.  I can rationalize it this way:  For the rides on which I would have taken Helene, I rode Vera in order to fine-tune her.)  But if I were to ride her with the intention of testing this hypothesis, it would sort of invalidate what I'm saying, wouldn't  it?


On the other hand, there have been times in my life when I was in much better shape than I'm in now, yet the rides were slower and more arduous than the past few have been.  


Have you, dear readers, experienced anything like what I've described?  If so, can you account for it in some way?

The Tour I Missed

All right. I'm going to show you some photos I took during my ride yesterday, and I'll let you guess where I rode.


My first stop brought me here:

Here is another shot from that same stop:

A few miles later, I was struck by the lines of the tree in the foreground:

A bunch of miles later, I took a detour.  Actually, I think Tosca detoured me, for she felt right at home here:

Some more miles later, I stopped to visit some friends:

They weren't far from this:

or this:

And thus did my journey end:

All right...So you want to know where I rode?  Well, I'll tellya:  What I just said ought to be a clue.  I was in da Bronx.  My detour, during which Tosca posed in front of the floral shop window, took me through the Westchester County communities of Mount Vernon and Pelham Manor.


I had planned to join Lakythia and Mildred for the Tour de Bronx, one of the few organized bike rides that's still free.  I've always known that there were a surprising number of good places to ride and interesting sights in what may be New York City's most maligned borough.  And, I'll admit, I wanted the opportunity to show them to Lakythia and Mildred.  However, teaching evening classes has thrown off my body rythms, and I don't get up as early as I did when I was teaching day classes.  So I got to the Bronx after registration had ended and the riders left.  I thought I might catch up to them, but I might've made a wrong turn or two. Plus, I realized that in a large organized ride, I might not find them.  So I gave up and gave into a ride that basically happened.  When I'm riding alone on as beautiful a day as we had yesterday, I don't mind that.


I must say, though, that today I noticed changes in tree coloration for the first time this year.  I'm not the only one who think it's happening late this year.  Although trees and plants have their own internal "clocks", at least one person who's knowledgeable about such things has suggested that that the relatively warm and very wet season we've had might've wreaked havoc with the trees' timing.


In any event, it was a fine ride, but it would have been better with Lakythia and Millie.  Does this mean I should return to teaching day classes?

A Preliminary Ride Report: Vera's Verities

Vera, the 1994 Miss Mercian I bought in July, has become my commuter.  So, I have ridden her for a pretty fair amount of time which, I believe, gives me a basis for making some preliminary observations and comparisons.

As I expected, Vera offers a very nimble but comfortable ride.  Still, I was surprised (pleasantly) to find that she cuts as much as twenty minutes off my previous time for the ten-mile (each way) commute I do three times a week.  That, when carrying a full load of books and papers, a strong lock and sometimes a change of shoes.

What I really wasn't expecting, though, is that the rear triangle is not as stiff, or as stable, as that of Helene, my other Miss Mercian.  Vera's twin lateral top tubes extend all the way back to the rear stays, near the points where they're brazed to the drop-outs. In theory, this is supposed to make for a stiffer rear end than that of a more traditional women's or mixte bike like Helene, on which there's a traditional top tube that ends at the seat tube.

It occcured to me even though Helene and Vera are about the same size and are similar kinds of bikes, their geometries might vary, however slightly.  Measurements I took the other day confirmed this hypothesis:  Vera's chainstay is seven millimeters longer (434 vs. 427) and its overall wheelbase spans 19 more millimeters (1031 vs. 1012).  For comparison, the chainstay and wheelbase measurements are 987 and 415 on Arielle, my Mercian Audax road bike, and 980 and 412 on Tosca, my Mercian fixed-gear bike.

Now, of course, some of the componentry is different on each bike.  Though I'm running 700x32 tires on both Helene and Vera, the tires on the latter bike are about 170 grams heavier.  Plus, the components are a bit heavier on Vera, which makes her a somewhat heavier bike overall.  But those factors should not account for the difference in ride that I noticed, while the differences in geometry should.

What I've noted about Vera should not be taken as a complaint.  She is an extremely pleasant bike to ride; even though my commutes are faster, I feel less beat up after pedaling  over streets that, in some places, resemble the Ho Chi Minh trail.  For that reason, I could see taking her on longer rides; however, on multi-day rides, I would probably want a dropped road-style bar like the Nitto Noodle.  And, just for fun, I might try riding Vera with the lighter tires I use on my other bikes to see just how fast she can be.  I don't envision her as my "speed" bike, but I am curious to see what she can do.

On the subject of handlebars: Vera now has a pair of flipped-over North Road-style bars.   I believe that it, rather than the design of the frame itself, is the reason why--perhaps paradoxically, given its longer wheelbase and (seemingly) longer fork rake--the front seemed twitchier at first.  I flipped the bars back to the position for which they were designed, and the steering more stable, though still more responsive than that of other bikes I've ridden with upright bars.  That is to say, it felt a bit more like Helene.

So far, I am very happy that I gave in to my impulse to buy Vera.  She is both the fastest and most elegant commuter I've had:  Nearly any time I ride her, she gets compliments.

I will probably write more about her ride qualities, and those of my other Mercians, in later posts.

A Fisherman's Vessel

If you've been following this blog, you know that I cycle to and around Rockaway Beach fairly frequently.  In the summer, of course, it's crowded with swimmers, bathers and families.  However, at this time of year, one sees the more eccentric--and, to my mind, interesting characters.


One of them rides this bike:

Notice the hooks attached to it.  On them, he hangs the buckets he uses to haul his fishing poles--and, on his way home (wherever that is), whatever he catches that day.

I have seen him for about as long as I've been riding to Rockaway Beach--about two decades, give or take.  As you probably figured, this is not his first bike.  However, those hooks have been attached to every bike I've seen him ride.


In all of that time, I have not talked to him--or, for that matter, gotten much closer to him than I did the other day, when I took those photos.  Any time I've seen him, he's been fishing at the point where the surf meets the beach.




He would be interesting to talk to--at least to me, anyway.  But somehow I think he'd prefer to be left to his fishing.  Also, I imagine that he would find my style of, and reasons for, cycling to be utterly preposterous.  

Chacun a son gout.  Still, I'm always glad to see him.  Somehow I think the communities of Rockaway Beach--and cycling--would be poorer without him.

Feeding Stops

Today was the sort of day of which almost every cyclist dreams.  It was warm, but not uncomfortably so, and not humid.  And the sky, like the ocean, was almost perfectly blue, with just a touch of autumnal haze.

So, naturally, I took Arielle for a spin to and from Point Lookout.  Along the way, we rolled and clacked along the boardwalks of the Rockaways and Atlantic Beach.  Actually, I was surprised at how few people were out, or strolling or pedaling the boardwalks, at any rate.  Of them, a few actually took a dip or a swim in the ocean, which is still fairly warm at this time of the year.

The Atlantic coast of the Rockaways and Long Island is directly in the migratory path of the Monarch Butterfly.  They reach this shore, where I rode today, at this time of every year en route to South America.  (Perhaps I should play "South American Getaway" for them. ;-) )

Anyway, as I was enjoying a "parfait" of yougurt, strawberries and granola, I caught this lovely creature enjoying a feeding stop:

Now tell me:  When have you seen another living being that looked so lovely while eating?

Doing An Involuntary Track Stand

Eight blocks from my apartment....Up to that point, it had been a routine ride home.  But, suddenly, my rear wheel stopped dead.  My feet locked in an involuntary track stand:  I couldn't push the pedals forward or backward.   


Fortunately, I skidded only a few feet and teetered only slightly to one side.  Pulling my left foot out of my pedal, I set it down on the pavement and kept myself from falling.  I had just passed through an industrial area of Long Island City where, at that hour, there was no traffic.  So, I lifted the rear and looked at the rear wheel in the middle of the street, where the lights were bright enough that you could have read the instructions in a Rema patch kit. 


What I saw puzzled me at first:  It looked like a four-or five-centimeter gap behind the locknut on the right side of my rear wheel.  I pulled the bike over to the truck bay in back of one of the buildings.  Even though the trucks were gone, the loading docks and driveway were lit by large kleig lights, which allowed me to see my problem clearly:  The locknut on the drive side had unscrewed from the bearing cone, which tightned against the bearings so that the wheel could not spin.  


Of course, I didn't have the tools I needed to remedy the problem.  (Do you carry cone wrenches on your daily commute?)  So, I had to lift the rear wheel and roll the bike on its front wheel for a bit less than a kilometer to my apartment.


When I got home, of course, I hoisted the bike onto my repair stand and took the wheel off.  The latter task proved difficult, as the wheel had wedged itself even more firmly between the dropouts, which made it difficult to unscrew the quick release skewer.


But once I got the wheel off, I discovered the problem:  The cassette shook from side to side as I moved the wheel.  Once I took off the cassette, I saw that the cassette carrier was very loose on the hub.  


On most Shimano rear hubs, like the one I was riding (It came with the bike), the cassette carrier (what you slide the cogs onto and screw the lockring into) is held onto the hub body with an allen-head bolt that takes a 10 mm key.  


The hub originally came with a seven-speed body; because seven-speed cassettes are becoming more difficult to find, I decided to swap the body for one that is compatible with 8, 9 and 10 speed cassettes.  If you ever do such a thing, remember that the bolt has to be tight!  Otherwise, you will have a mishap like the one I had.  When the body loosened, it wobbled.  And when it wobbled, one of its edges probably caught the edges of the locknut, which caused it to unscrew from the cone.


If that ever happens to you, you won't be able to pedal, even if you use the smallest chainring on your TA Cyclotouriste crank and the largest cog on one of those old SunTour freewheels!  


As I fixed the hub (I cleaned it, packed it with fresh grease and replaced the ball bearings, for good measure), I thought of the time, years ago, when I was riding home from Bear Mountain.  I was pedaling along the long flat stretch of Route 9W just south of the state line to the George Washington Bridge.  In those days before indexed shifting and cassette hubs, I rode a Regina CX freewheel on my racing bike.  It was one of the lightest freewheels available and, being Italian, it seemed like just the thing to ride on a Campagnolo hub. 


Anyway, as the day was mild and the air was calm, I had little trouble in keeping up a high rate of RPMs, even though I had already ridden close to a hundred miles.  Suddenly, I had no choice but to keep on pedaling:  The ratchet mechanism inside the freewheel broke, which meant that I couldn't coast.  And I couldn't stop because, behind me, about a hundred other cyclists were riding at high RPMs and I didn't want to start a pile-up, especially if I would end up at the bottom of it!


Well, I made it home, but not after riding about ten miles on what was, to my knowledge, the world's only bike with twelve fixed gears!


At least the problem I had last night wasn't a complicated fix and didn't require any expensive new parts.  My Regina freewheel, on the other hand, was toast.

Balancing Acts

Meteorologists are saying that this is already the seventh-wettest year on record here in New York.  And we have almost three months left in the year.  So, while we may not have the wettest year ever, it seems that this year will almost certainly be among the wettest five, or even four.


Don't you just love it when TV and meteorologists talk about "going for a record," as if there's anything we can do about it? I mean, it's not like we're sprinters and this is the Olympics or the Tour de France. Or--given that this is October--it's not like we're Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera in the baseball playoffs.


It does seem, though, that anything done outdoors--whether riding a bike, playing a baseball game or holding a street fair--involves striking a balance with the risk of rain.  How much of a chance do you want to take?  How much can or will you do before the rain falls, and under what conditions do you want to continue?  


Anyway, the other day Lakythia, Mildred and I went on one of those "playing chicken with the rain" rides where we did some miles and stopped in a couple of bike shops. Mildred didn't like the bike she'd just bought, so she wanted to exchange it.  However, she also wanted to see another had to offer before going to the shop where she bought the bike.


She'd bought some absolutely hideous-looking Trek road model.  I don't know how it rode, but I could understand her wanting to exchange it because of its sheer garishness (Is that an oxymoron?) alone.  In its place, she got a much prettier (white with emerald green panels and black trim) Specialized Dolce, which I think also fit her better.  


Anyway, our ride ended when she exchanged the bike at Bicycle Habitat in Soho, where I was fitted for, and purchased, Arielle, Helene and Tosca.  I was going to ride with them to Brooklyn, then back to my place, but the Brooklyn Bridge was closed in the wake of the protests.  


And it was starting to rain.  I confessed, "I might just wimp out and take the train home."  


"I simply can't imagine you doing that!," said Lakythia.


So, even though the rain was falling harder by the minute, I rode.  The funny thing was that I somehow felt safer than I would have had the weather remained dry.  Perhaps it had to do with the fact that fewer people were out than one might normally expect when it's getting dark on a Saturday.


At least I didn't suffer what this rider experienced:  

No, I didn't ride with an umbrella the other night. However, I have done that trick before, and I've seen other cyclists--particularly in England and France--using one hand to navigate and the other to (perhaps futilely) keep dry.


Now, of course, everyone who's ever made deliveries on a bicycle has ridden one-handed while using his other hand to carry whatever he was delivering.  Plus, I'm sure many of us have stopped, bought (or picked up) something and carried it home in one hand.  


Once, I carried home a chair I picked up from a curbside.  Another time, I lugged a torchiere-style floor lamp.  I can recall a couple of times when I brought back pizzas that I balanced on one hand (once when I was drunk) as I piloted the bike with the other.  


But, perhaps my strangest (and noblest) bit of one-handed riding came when I picked up a little dog that, apparently, got lost or was abandoned and had never been outside her home before. She looked like one of those dogs that Posh Spice might carry as an accessory.  No one claimed her, and she had a collar but no tag.


I was riding home from a late class and I pedaled down one of the neighborhood's main commercial streets in the hope of finding a vet's office or animal shelter.  No such luck.  Even I'd found one, it might have been closed at that hour.  So, after ambling down that street, and another commercial area, I brought the dog--I don't know what breed she was, exactly--to the local police precinct.  I hoped that, from there, she made it home, or to a home.  At least, I figured, she was off the streets, where she could easily have been run over.  I have to admit, though, that I enjoyed bringing that dog in just to see the expressions on the police officers' faces:  There's nothing like watching macho guys get mushy.

What have you carried during a one-handed bike ride?

A Fellow Alum Does Good

Today I did something I've never done before, and may never do again:  I actually read an article in Rutgers Magazine.


Why does that matter?  Well, I am an alumna (I was once an alumnus...) of the school on the banks of the Raritan.  I graduated a long, long time ago.  And I've been back to the school maybe three or four times--the last time about twenty years ago.  That, even though through most of my adult life, I've lived within a day's bike ride of the place. 


The day I graduated, I wanted to get as far away from it as I could.  About the only thing I liked about being there was that there was some good riding--and New York--nearby.


Today the latest edition of the alumni (Don't they realize they're being sexist when they use that term?) magazine arrived in the mail.  As I normally do, I flipped through it during a potty break.


A pretty picture of a pretty shiny thing got my attention:

It's quite possibly the first photo of a bicycle ever to appear in the magazine since the days of the six-day races, if indeed Rutgers had an alumni magazine back then.  I am sorry I couldn't reproduce the quality of the image in the magazine.  But I think this shows how warm and eye-pleasing the color combination is.


One Jay Zand, Class of '82 (I'd never heard of him, or anyone else in the magazine, until today.  Now you know why I don't read it.) purchased the bike from Eddy's Cycle City in Bayonne, New Jersey  (the hometown of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons).  Zand, who's an optometrist, paid 300 dollars for the bike, which was in pretty rough shape, with the intention of restoring it.  He had never undertaken such a project before.


He sent the bike to California for repairs and refinishing, and even had tires custom-made for the maple rims.  The bike, as it turned out, was made over 100 years ago by the Middlesex Motor Company of New Brunswick.  Eddy's purchased it from the Metz Bicycle Museum in Freehold (Bruce Springsteen's hometown).  Metz is dedicated to the heyday of cycling--around the time the bicycle in the photo was built--in New Jersey.  Turns out, Jersey was a veritable hotbed of racing, and Newark even had a well-regarded velodrome.


All the bike needs now is a honey-ish brown saddle to go with the grips and rims, although I think it looks really nice as it is.


It's nice to see fellow alums doing good things.  I might even start referring to Rutgers as "my alma mater."  Now, if I start attending tailgate parties, then you should worry about me!

A Cyclist Who Definitely Has Her Own Style

Today, on my way to meet Lakythia for a ride, my rear tire blew out.  I cursed my own stupidity:  I tried to milk a battered tire for whatever miles I could get from it, instead of replacing it as an older, wiser cyclist (which I'm supposed to be, hence the title of this blog) would.


Lakythia was a sweetheart about it:  She met me at B's Bicycle Shop on Driggs Avenue.  There, I bought one of the cheaper tires they had (a wire-bead Vittoria Randonneur).  As I installed it, Lakythia test-rode a Fuji single-speed/fixed gear bike.  (See what a bad influence I am on her?) Then, we were on our way.


Well, not quite.  As we were about to set off for a ride along the New Jersey Palisades, someone who doesn't look like any other bike-shop customer you've ever seen rode in. Well, actually, she walked her bike in because she had a flat.  Either way, getting to the shop was a respectable feat, in part because of what she had on her feet.

You know you've spent too much time in bike shops when you ask whether a pair of stiletto heels is SPD or Look compatible.  Sheryl (a.k.a. "Bitch Cakes), as you can see, doesn't ride either kind of pedal.  Her Hello Kitty-mobile has classic cruiser pedals, which makes sense when you look at the bike.


Although I usually ride in skirts, and sometimes in heels, to work, I am a slouch compared to her.  Last week, she rode 120 miles in the dress and shoes, and on the bike,  you see in the photo.   The Transportation Alternatives-sponsored ride took "all day," she said, and included "all kinds" of people.  I did a few of their rides back in the day and I don't doubt what she says.


I must say: Back then, my fantasies included looking something like her, or at least exuding style and being a memorable presence in a similar sort of way.  To tell you the truth, I still wouldn't mind it, although I'm not sure I could pull of her look.  And, frankly, I'm too much of a scaredy-cat to get all of those tatoos, even if they would go with her Hello Kitty purse--which, of course, went with her bike.


We only got to talk briefly because, after her flat was fixed, she had to go to a photo shoot.  But I enjoyed talking with her, as I found her to be friendly and articulate.   


So, of course, is Lakythia, which is one of the reasons I enjoy riding to her.  Plus, anyone who can put up with my scatter-brainedness and complete lack of navigational ability is exactly the sort of person I want and need as a riding buddy, and friend!

Actually, she's checking her GPS just in case!  Me, I prefer riding off into the sunset, even if it's seen through a gate!

One For Vera? Or Is It An Internal Matter?

I promise:  Vera will not end up looking like this:

However, she may end up with a fixed gear or a "flip-flop" hub.  Now that she's become my regular commuter, I'm really thinking about dispensing with the derailleur.  


Some of you will tell me to consider an internally-geared hub (IGH).  I am. However, I haven't had the best of luck with the ones I've had.  Hal, the Bicycle Habitat mechanic who's built any wheel I ride and haven't built myself (and who set up Arielle, Tosca and Helene) says the only IGH he likes is the Rohloff, which costs more than my first ten or so bikes.  


And, I'll admit that I like the elegant simplicity of fixed gears, and even single speed freewheels.  But don't worry:  If I go that route, or give in to an IGH, I won't do anything silly like cutting off the derailleur mounting "ear" on the rear dropout.  In fact, I don't want to cut, drill bend or otherwise mutilate the frame for any modification.

Bike Thieves and Squeegee Men

Just before I got home, I stopped at Tony's Bicycle Shop in Astoria.  Even before I moved into the neighborhood, I used to go there whenever I happened to be riding that way because I liked the old proprietor and they had all sorts of then-unfashionable parts that would soon come to be known as "old school."


Anyway, I didn't have my camera with me, so you will be spared from one of the more hideous sights I've seen in Tony's shop.  A Pinarello racing bike was clamped into one of the repair stands.  It had one of those awful 1980's fade paint job.  Strangely, it was tricolore, but in (from the rear) blue, white and red.  


To tell you the truth, I've seen worse fade jobs, and, ironically, the addition of another color--yellow--in the saddle and the bands of the tire treads made it almost tolerable.  However, one of the mechanics was in the process of turning the bike into a real aesthetic monstrosity:  He was wrapping the handlebars with Cinelli "Italian flag" cork tape.  I know, the bike is Italian, and some guys just want to flaunt the Italian-ness of their bikes.  But, please, have some respect for a country that produced Michelangelo, Leonardo Da Vinci, Botticelli and Titian!


However, I noticed something even more disturbing while at Tony's.  It had nothing to do with anything any of the shop employees did.  Rather, it echoed and confirmed an impression I've had lately:  Bicycle theft is on the rise.

Another customer came in looking for something she could use to keep her wheels and seat from being stolen.  Several of her friends had already lost those items on their bikes, one of them in the hallway of the building in which she lives.  She also mentioned that a friend of hers caught a thief in the act; when the friend confronted the thief, he cursed the guy out and went about his business.

I found the above image on "A Short Introduction to Cycling,"  a British cycling blog.  As the author points out, it's unusual to get such a good shot of the perps in action.  Most of the time, as he points out, we have only grainy images from security cameras.  And, the thieves in those images are usually of hooded young men, and the graininess of the images renders them even more non-descript.  


Lots of people would say something like, "Those guys don't look like bike thieves."  What I find even more remarkable, though,is that they did it in an open public area of London, not on some shady venue.  Seeing that photo reminded me that bike theft, and crime generally, is becoming more brazen as well as more frequent than they have been in a long time.


The image also brought to mind something from around 1990--around the time bike theft and all sorts of other crime were at their peak here in New York.  I had gone to the Paris Theatre, which is right across West 58th Street from the Plaza Hotel, to see a film--I forget which, exactly.  


I think I was upset about something or another that day.  That was when I was living in my previous identity:  I was, of course, Nick.  I was two decades younger and riding my bike much more than I do now, and I was lifting weights every day.  Plus, even if I weren't upset about something specific that day, I carried the sort of anger--Some people who knew me said they could see it in my shoulders--that caused complete strangers to cross the street when they saw me approaching.  


Anyway, I left the theatre and turned left on 58th Street.  In front of one of the buildings was a bicycle rack.  A guy who was built about the same way I was lifted a Motobecane and began twisting it, expecting to break the lock.  I approached him from behind and tapped my finger on his shoulder.  He turned, took one look at me and bolted.


He wasn't trying to steal my bike.  But the fact that he was trying to take anybody's bike--possibly someone's transportation or simply someone's pride and joy--did nothing to quell whatever rage I was feeling.  


I would love to have a photo of that, though I hope not to see anything like it again.  And I still hope that we won't have anything like the tide of theft we had in those days.  However, things haven't been looking good:  The squeegee men are back.

Going Dutch When It Gets Ugly

In today's post on Lovely Bicycle!, "Velouria" presents the Trek Cocoa, which seems to be Trek's "take" on what is commonly called the Dutch-style bicycle.


Way back in 2000, Tammy and I took a trip to France.  We talked about buying two bikes like those and bringing them back.  Buying the bikes wouldn't have been so expensive, at least relatively speaking as, in those pre-Euro days, the dollar enjoyed a favorable exchange rate almost everywhere on the Continent.  However, we figured out that we would have had to buy another plane ticket to get them back.


They might have worked for us as commuters or "town" bikes, and they certainly would have been conversation pieces, as almost no American who hadn't spent some time in Europe knew what a "Dutch-style bike" is.


But I digress.  I agree with Velouria that the Cocoa is a lovely bike. So was the Belleville, Trek's take on the traditional mixte bike.  I was tempted to buy one of the latter, which seems to have been discontinued, before I decided to save my money for Helene.  However, two mechanics at a shop that sells Treks talked me out of buying a Belleville.  Of course, one shouldn't infer that the Cocoa isn't a good bike:  Perhaps Trek learned from something from making the Belleville.

I will admit that both are very nice bikes to look at.  It seems, though, that Trek applies Newton's First Law of Motion to the aesthetics of its bikes:  For every pretty bike they make, they make a really ugly one. (One might also say that it's a Hegelian dialectic.)  To wit:

In case you're a glutton for visual punishment, here's a detail:

It used to be that bike makers' racing bikes were their prettiest.  That was especially true of the Italian bike makers but was also the case for nearly all makers, big or small, in the days when nearly all quality frames were lugged steel.  


Then again, at the same time Trek introduced the Belleville, they also came out with this monstrosity:

The graphics and color scheme reminded me of a Huffy, circa 1978.  Why anyone would emulate a Huffy in any way is beyond me.

A "Duck" Bicycle Rack And Two Interesting Shops

This might be the very first "duck" bike rack I've ever seen:

So what does this bike rack have to do with ducks?, you ask. Well, as you'll notice, the rack is made of bike frames--or, at least that's what they appear to be.


On seeing it, I couldn't help to think of the "Duck" building on Long Island:

Built during the 1930's, it was located on the site of a onetime duck ranch. (That seems almost oxymoronic,doesn't it?) For decades, duck and other poultry were sold from it.  After the owners of the duck farm retired during the early 1980's, the state bought the building and moved it a few miles from its original location.


As corny as the building might be, I daresay that it's aged better than almost any piece of Brutalist architecture ever has. 

But I digress.  Mark, the owner of Zukkie's Bicycle Shop, told me that a nearby metalworking shop made the rack for him. It's apt for his store which, until recently, was a vintage/thrift shop.  He still has some of those interesting, old and odd items he had in his emporium's earlier incarnation, but he is expanding his bike line.   The main emphasis seems to be on repairs and used bikes, though I did see a new Raleigh single speed there.  


The store is on Bushwick Avenue, near the point where the eponymous neighborhood borders on hipster haven Williamsburg.   It's still an ungentrified area; housing projects stand only three blocks away.  His emphasis on used bikes and repairs, and the shop's lack of "bling"--along with its reasonable prices--show,if nothing else, an attempt to fill the divergent demands and needs of the neighborhood.


Lakythia and I went there after the rear tire of her GT mountain bike flatted twice.  I didn't have a spare tube in the size she needed and, as it turned out, even if I'd had one, she'd have gotten another flat because the rubber rim strip wouldn't stay in place.  Mark fixed that problem and, while we waited, Lakythia took a quick spin on Tosca.  It was her first experience of riding a fixed gear; she seemed to see it as a challenge.  I've a feeling she's going to try it again, if for no other reason that she was amazed at how responsive the bike is, especially after riding a mountain bike.


Anyway, after she and I parted, I stopped in another bike shop on my way home.  I had an excuse:  It opened only recently, and my curiosity got the best of me, as it often does.  

Silk Road Cycles is found just past the end of the Kent Avenue bike lane in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.  An unprepossesing sign that reads "New Bicycle Shop at Calyer and Franklin" is the only indication of its existence.  However, the space, though small, is clean, uncluttered and very inviting.  The last quality has, in part, to do with Eric, the manager and Brendon, the owner.  They are very good about answering questions and can discuss bike-related (and non-bike-related) subjects intelligently.  And, in their interactions with other customers that I observed, they are not condescending and have none of the wannabe-racer or hipster attitude one finds in many other shops.


What I liked best, though, is that their emphases seem to be on quality and practicality.  While they had a couple of racing bikes, most of what I saw on the floor were bikes and accessories meant for transportation, day-tripping and touring.  There weren't any 'hipster fixies." Most of the bikes were steel, and they stock a number of parts and accessories from Nitto and Velo Orange.  I have been looking for a front rack for Vera; given their selection, I think I'll give them some business.  (Don't worry, Bicycle Habitat, I'm not abandoning you!)