1973 Raleigh Sports Bicycle & a 1973 Bike Repair Book

Someone who I know who is in a retirement home decided he wasn't going to be using his bike and offered it up on a listserv, with more information than that it was a "used bike in rideable condition" - when I learned it was a Raleigh, I decided to take it.


Raleigh Sports from 1973 - seen from above

In the 1960s when I lived overseas, my parents bought me a bike much like this one, with the three speed hub shift and full painted fenders. This is a somewhat later model but much the same thing - a 1973 "Sports" model. Despite the name, the bike was a utilitarian transportation vehicle-bicycle and not particularly sporty. However I remember it was great fun to run when I was in fourth and fifth grade. (Unfortunately later my parents decided we should get rid of it, which probably made sense since it would have been too small - but still, a little sad now.)

The Sports model is described by Sheldon Brown - including this paragraph:

Most modern bicycles are designed with the primary intent to catch your eye on the sales floor, and persuade you to buy. That is not what a Raleigh Sports was about...these were designed to provide solid, dependable transportation for the British public, at a time when only the upper classes had motorcars. These bikes were built to last 100 years, with reasonable care.

The condition, given that the bike is more than 40 years old, seems very good to me. It shows signs of even use and OK routine maintenance. The paint is chipped in many places and the handle bars and other chromed components have rust spots. On the other hand, the brakes work OK and the three speed shift works well, although it required some adjusting. The pedals spin better than all the pedals on my newer, nominally better bikes (which is food for thought ~). Unfortunately at some point someone removed and replaced the Brooks leather saddle with a very crummy modern foam thing, which is extremely ugly. For now I am just riding this bike to and from Shirlington nearby and it is fine for that.


Drive train works flawlessly


The chips in the pain are visible, but don't affect the way the bike works - and it does work

The fellow who gave me the bike more or less insisted I take a helmet and this book, published in 1973, which gave me the first clue as to what year the bike was purchased (although the hub is dated clearly, so that was an easy determination). This seems to be the first edition of "Glenn's Complete Bicycle Manual" - at that time it wasn't unreasonable to publish a book with that title that has reasonably complete coverage of issues one might encounter on most quality bicycles.


Cover of "Glenn's Complete Bicycle Manual" that may yet turn out to be useful


Sample pages showing photographs to provide guidance on how to make bicycle repairs correctly


Note hot pants-wearing model demonstrating a bike with the saddle at the correct height

Page with one of about a dozen photos of young woman on bicycle in then-in-vogue so-called hot pants. In one photo, Glenn is shown measuring her with his tape measure. It is a somewhat wacky aspect to this otherwise straightforward and serious book.

Pro Cycling on $10 a Day by Phil Gaimon (Book Review)

Road Rash and Ramen Noodles: True Tales of Pro Cycling on $10 Dollars a Day by Phil Gaimon

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


The first odd thing about this is that the print edition I read had the title that the Kindle edition carries, Pro Cycling on $10 a Day: From Fat Kid to Euro Pro. Both editions are from Velo Press. This seems . . . odd.

Gaimon blogs for VeloPress, for example this blog post. Having read a few of these, I was hoping for an enjoyable reading experience and I was a little let down by what I found, thus three stars.

I am a long time bike commuter and I have the usual too-many-bikes and even blog about cycling history myself but I realize that my interest in professional bicycle racing these days is pretty low. I was more interested a few years ago, but unlike those who were turned off by doping, I am turned off by the adoption of new bicycle technology and parts that are clearly I will never adopt, I suppose largely because of the cost but also because the marginal gains are so small. And yet I still look at VeloNews many days of the week and read a few stories and vaguely follow some of the big stage races. So one question is why I even read a book like this - I guess because bicycle racers are the most noticed practitioners of cycling in our society and because I have read a number of such books and enjoyed some of them in the past.

Phil Gaimon is now a rider for Garmon-Sharp. The book (memoir?) in an autobiographical account of what it took to get to that point, including a longer-than-usual amount of time in what amounts to the minor leagues of cycling before arriving in the big leagues.

Right at the start, Gaimon announces he is clean and that in this his book is different than the Tyler Hamilton etc body of work that has been published by former dopers. OK fine; the attempt at humor he used to announce this at the start of the book alerted me to a problem I would have throughout, which is that Gaimon has one sense of humor and I have a different one and most of what is recounted as humorous didn't seem very funny to me. He also boasts that "these words are mine" (that no ghostwriter helped) which is fine, but one wonders about the editing - the writing could have been better.

Aside from not being written by a doper, a major plus this book has over recent cyclist memoirs by Tyler Hamilton types is that it skips details on his upbringing and proceeds quickly to what most readers are interested in. So that is a plus.

The book has a "confession," a preface, and introduction, then eight chapters and an epilogue. The chapters are entirely chronological. Fine - but (I guess) because he is someone who has published lots of blog-length writing, each chapter is subdivided with headings in bold, like "stop and smell the ham sandwich" or "speeding gets you there faster." Since the book flows chronologically in its telling, there is no particular reason for this approach except to simplify transitions, or so it seems to me. Perhaps this is more about how I read than a valid criticism, but I feel the book would be a more pleasing read without this choppy approach. (A Dog in Hat, also published by VeloPress, demonstrates this is possible - it is a much more flowing read.)

VeloPress is a niche publisher of cycling books, but I got mine from a public library. Presumably the audience is expected to be people who know a fair amount of bicycle racing, particularly in the United States, because there was little background information provided if the reader didn't already know these things. (There is a silly glossary at the book that in several pages tells you more about Gaimon's sense of humor than anything else.) What I'm getting at is that readers who don't know something about professional bicycle racing and races in the U.S. may lack the context to understand some of this.

I pay far more attention to my local professional baseball team than I do to professional cycling and I have the strong impression that the baseball players often have rather juvenile ways of acting out to amuse themselves and others. I think Gaimon went further than necessary to provide examples of such behavior among his fellow cyclists.

Gaimon criticizes a few people quite directly by name; since most of these names didn't mean much to me this provided mild entertainment but I assume some of these people are pretty annoyed. He has a particular problem with Francisco Mancebo, to the extent that he ends up something like the villain - he is still muttering about him in the last pages of the book.

The highlight moments of the book are when he retells some of his race experiences in detail, when his unusual choice of words works in combination with his efforts to convey what is like for him in the moment. There are a lot of good moments like that in the book.

I hoped for more than I got, but it is good. You have to give Gaimon credit for trying.




View all my reviews of cycling books on Goodreads.

Health Benefits of Cycling (1890s)

From "Plain home talk about the human system--the habits of men and women--the cause and prevention of disease--our sexual relations and social natures" (1896)

Cycling is recommended for exercise to improve health:

Among popular modes of exercise, outing, and "sport," bicycle riding is the fin-de-siecle craze of the nineteenth century, and has, without doubt, tempted more people of all classes to healthful effort than any other form of exercise. It has been taken up by men, women, and children, of all ages from three to eighty, and is even being recommended as a new "cure-all" for a large variety of common complaints. Many physicians have not only experimented with its effects upon themselves, but also made a close study of the effects upon the people in general. Veteran riders have been subjected to inspection, to discover if any impairment of physique or function has been occasioned by it, but the tests thus far reported are very favorable to riding ,; the wheel." The lung capacity is markedly increased (about half an inch), and the heart (itself mainly a bundle of muscles) is somewhat increased in size and power — an effect which may in some cases be carried too far. In short, the whole muscular system shows development, for the muscles of the back, chest and arms are largely called into action, as well as those of the legs. Even in the men who ride "hump-backed" it has not been possible to discover any permanent physical deformity : but taking a spin, those who carry bicycling to excess, especially when not originally extra robust, are likely to suffer from nervous exhaustion, or by over-strain of the heart and arteries; and many sudden deaths, some from apoplexy, have followed speedy or long "runs."

Woman depicted riding a bike in an ad in The official directory of the World's Columbian exposition, May 1st to October 30th, 1893.

Text of the ad:

YOU NEED EXERCISE-there are several REASONS WHY-

IF YOU ARE A BUSINESS MAN, to clear your brain, to smooth off the rough edges of business cares. The Rambler Bicycle affords a medium/air excellence for "comfortable exercise."

IF IN POOR HEALTH s you can regain good health through the judicious use of the Bicycle — the Rambler Spring Frame reduces excessive vibration and makes exercise safe.

IF IN GOOD HEALTH,, Bicycle Riding will keep you so. In your children the Bicycle lays the foundation of a healthful and useful life. A good intellect reaches its highest excellence only in a healthy body.

IF YOU ARE A WOMAN, the Bicycle affords a most pleasant means of obtaining exercise, which you, of all others, most need. Riding any Bicycle is exercise — riding Rambler Bicycles is "comfortable and luxurious exercise."

IF YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL, Bicycle Riding will preserve your beauty. Exercise means health. There is no real Beauty without Good Health.

IF YOU ARE NOT A BEAUTY, you may at least make yourself more attractive. The Bicycle brightens the eye, puts a flush of health on the cheek, takes you out to nature, to the pure fresh air. They are yours ; enjoy them — do it "luxuriously" on a Rambler Bicycle.

Today any number of health and exercise benefits are claimed for bicycling - just Google "health exercise bicycling."

Innovative Bicycle Design Not Appreciated (1893, today)

Caption: First annual run of the International Crank Inventors Cycling Club

This is something a cartoon in the March 3 1893 issue of the "Wheeling and Cycling Trade Review". At this point inventors were constantly developing, patenting, and trying to sell innovative new bicycle designs of all sorts. For the bicycle trade generally this was likely a little tiresome, thus the attempt at something like humor.


A Kickstarter for an innovative bicycle design that is a little too innovative, apparently, judging by its lack of success.

It probably would have surprised the cyclists and bicycle sellers of the 1890s to learn that people are still trying to overhaul the basic design of the bicycle today.

Life is a Wheel: Love, Death, Etc., and a Bike Ride Across America (Book Review)

Life is a Wheel: A Passage Across America by Bicycle by Bruce Weber

My rating: 1 of 5 stars


A few years ago when I read the NYTimes more regularly, I saw an article by this fellow describing part of a bike trip he was making solo coast to coast across the US. I read it but for some reason I found it less than compelling and didn't bother to try to find other articles in the series.

More recently while trawling in an online catalog for new-ish books about cycling, I found a record for this book, which he created by reworking and expanding on the articles published in the Times. Somewhat oddly, the sub-title as reported in GoodReads isn't the same as what is on the book itself, which is "Love, Death, Etc., and a Bike Ride Across America" (and not "A Passage Across America by Bicycle").

Keeping in mind that the GoodReads "my rating" reflects _my_ impression of the book and is not a more general (or generic) assessment of the book as others might find it, I gave it one star because I simply lost interest (as in completely - I stopped reading it at page 83). People have been writing books describing their long distance trips by bike since bikes were first invented (a particular favorite of mine is "Around the United States by Bicycle" published in 1906 - the authors managed to ride at least a bit in each of the states in the continental U.S.) and there is a kind of continuum from "more about the _bike_ trip" to "more about the _author_."


Around the United States by Bicycle (1906) - route map

When on page 83 of the print edition he starts in on "background" about one of his past girlfriends (not his current girlfriend at the time of the trip), that was the end for me. I felt like this was too much memoir about this fellow who had drawn me in with a promise to describe a bike trip that only appeared in the narrative from time to time and was not sufficient to hold my interest.



View all my reviews of cycling books in Goodreads.

More Images of Cycling History to be Found Online

"Millions of historic images posted to Flickr" explains how the Internet Archive is harvesting millions of images from books digitized and online into a new Flickr account for Internet Archive Book Images.

At this point, having put "only" 2.6 million images online taken from books, it is not clear exactly which books were harvested from, but a simple search on "bicycle" produces interesting results.


A very early bike carrier for an automobile in use

The above image was found simply by browsing results of a search for the single keyword "bicycle" - the search looks at the title of the book but also (most usefully) text that is captured that appears before and after the image. This can be a somewhat "noisy" search but for bicycles it seems, mostly on point. The above image is amusing since the bicycle is being carried on the automobile as backup transportation, not to take the bicycle to some location to ride.

Speedway is a believer in the motor vehicle as the conveyance of the future, but in the present, that he may always feel safe from having to walk home, he has his motor car equipped in above fashion.

An early bike rack, from 1896

There are some problems, but not too serious. The two examples above were pulled from the trade journal, "The Wheel and cycling trade review," which Flickr identifies as being from 1888, but that is when the magazine started - these images are from 1896, which can be determined by looking at the links to the pages where the images appear in the digitized publications like this one.

Etape: The Untold Stories of the Tour de France's Defining Stages (Book Review)

Etape by Richard Moore

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I read Moore's "Slaying the Badger" about the competition between Greg LeMond and Bernard Hinault (known as the Badger) - it was a compelling read about the Tour de France towards the end of the "pre-EPO" era.

Moore is a good writer, and this is a well thought out selection of stages. The use of EPO is not ignored but doesn't overwhelm the stories, either.

I didn't realize it before starting in, but the author did interviews with most of the key participants in the stages he described to prepare this book - this contributes considerably to the quality of the book.







View all my reviews of cycling books in Goodreads.

Videos on Cycling in the Netherlands

Other than the first and last ones, I have included these in previous blog posts.


Utrecht summer cycling 2014

Slow paced review of the kinds of riders one typically sees in a Dutch city.



Cycling in Amsterdam 1950

"More than three million two-wheelers in Holland" - usual U.S. newsreel voice over of the time.



Dutch cyclists talk helmets and bicycles

The discussion of helmet use reflects considerable difference from the reaction of most people here, but then the Dutch are riding in a very different environment.

Are there really too many bikes in Amsterdam? from STREETFILMS on Vimeo.

Video response to a silly NYTimes article claiming that there are "too many bicycles" in Amsterdam.



Cycling in the US from a Dutch perspective

A short documentary-like presentation.



Infamous (more than a million views) compressed rush hour in Ultrecht - 2 minutes


Rush hour in Ultrecht in real time (not sped up)

Timelapse Weesperzijde / Nieuwe Amstelbrug Amsterdam from Bernard Wittgen on Vimeo.

Parke Davis' employees leave work, many on bicycles

We have video of a significant percentage of employees leaving a U.S. workplace on bicycle, but unfortunately it dates to 1899. Between then and now, things changed.

YouTube channel "Bicycle Dutch - All about Cycling in the Netherlands" is a good place to find more video of cycling in the Netherlands.

Loop-the-Loop Images - Finding Them

The Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Blog has a blog post that includes a digitized photograph of a cyclist performing a loop-the-loop on a bicycle in 1905. I had a blog post of my own describing the same thing, looking at images from Chronicling America (digitized newspapers) from 1902. I thought if these images were online I would have seen them, but apparently not.



Title: [Diavolo performing his bicycle daredevil act before a large audience]
Creator(s): Mathiessen, G. Fred, photographer
Date Created/Published: c1905.
Medium: 1 photographic print.
Summary: Photograph shows a large crowd watching a man riding a bicycle upside down doing a loop and topsy turvy somersault.
http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2011660995/



Title: The Loop
Date Created/Published: c1903.
Medium: 1 photographic print.
Summary: Man riding bicycle around loop, at circus.
Reproduction Number: LC-USZ62-58887 (b&w film copy neg.)
Library of Congress
http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2005693259/



Title: Looping the Loop
Date Created/Published: c1903.
Medium: 1 photographic print.
Summary: Person going around large upright loop on bicycle.
Reproduction Number: LC-USZ62-89003 (b&w film copy neg.)
Library of Congress
http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2002718388/

Bicycling Essential Road Bike Maintenance Handbook

Bicycling Essential Road Bike Maintenance Handbook by Brian Fiske

My rating: 1 of 5 stars


So this is mostly a rant and not a review, I suppose - and not really justified (much) since I didn't waste my own money on buying it but looked over a copy from the public library (that however used my tax dollars to buy it . . . )

As noted in the Goodreads summary, this is an abbreviated version of a much longer reference book on road bike maintenance - this is supposed to be a version you can take with you.

Really?? (As they say ~) Is there someone who does that, carrying a how-to-repair-my-bike-book with them? I am doubtful. I think this is more an attempt to repurpose content already created for one container that Rodale sells into another one that costs little to create.

If you are going to spend money on a how-to-repair-a-bike book, you might as well get a good one - for me that would be the Park Tool Big Blue Book of Bicycle Repair. It provides enough detail to avoid getting into too much trouble and one might even get some useful things done correctly.

Perhaps part of the problem is that I take a bike with a title like this to include "the essentials" but it is somewhat amazing how much obscure stuff is in this tiny book. 15 pages (of 166) on Shimano Di2 and Campagnolo EPS V2! When your book includes this much information on these, your audience is clearly people who don't know when to stop spending money.

And there are just random oddities - the photographs and line drawings are downsized versions, but for a how-to book, they then lose their usefulness in many cases. Dang.

Perhaps the most useful part of the book are the "seven rules of bike repair" on a page at the beginning of the book. The first rule is, "think safety first" that includes the advice to wear rubber gloves (to protect against solvents, as far as safety is concerned) but in all the (little) photographs, the hands are bare. "Do as I say, not as I do." Fantastic.


View my cycling book reviews on Goodreads.

Bicycle History Program at Library of Congress August 8

Staff at the Library of Congress have organized a display of items from the collections related to bicycle history, which is described in a blog post and a press release.

From the blog post: The Library’s curators and specialists are gearing up and pounding the pedals for an exciting tour of the Library’s collections related to the history of cycling for visiting historians of the International Cycling History Conference. On Friday August 8, 2014 from 1:30-3:00 p.m. the Mumford Room, in the Library’s Madison Building, will be the hub for a special display of “Pedaling Through History: A Look at Cycling Collections Across the Library of Congress.” This special display is open to the public and will feature over 20 tables of show-and-tell items in all formats on the art, history, and science of wheelmanship (aka cycling).

From the press release: The display will draw from collections throughout the Library. There will be photographs, magazines, newspapers, comic books, maps and atlases, film footage, catalogs, sheet music, advertising posters and more. These materials will highlight an array of topics, including general bicycle history, European bicycles, bicycle races (including races from the early 1900s), bicycles in the military, trick riding, safety films and fashion.

The following divisions of the Library are contributing to the display: Science, Technology and Business; Prints and Photographs; Geography and Map; Manuscript; Rare Books and Special Collections; Serials and Government Publications; Motion Picture, Broadcast and Recorded Sound; European; Music; and Humanities and Social Sciences.

Déesse 16, rue Halévy, Paris - a poster of the sort to be on display

1902 Bicycle Demonstration Centrifugal Force

How a Thrilling Circus Feat Teaches a Scientific Law

From the Anadarko [Oklahoma] Daily Democrat, May 29, 1902.

This article, reprinted from the Chicago American, describes the effect of centrifugal force, (which I thought was centrifical force but that's apparently not the better term) on a cyclist in a high speed loop. I should admit, I'm not sure if the 1902 physics is correct or not. The same article appeared in the North Platte [Nebraska] Tribune, May 16, 1902 and the [Louisiana] Jennings Daily Record, May 26, 1902 - it was fairly common for human or general interest articles to be reprinted in this way across the country.

The bicycle "loop" presents a most interesting demonstration of a great scientific principle, which plays its part in preventing the earth from dropping into the sun, and the moon from being precipitated upon the earth, no less than in keeping the rider and his wheel from falling to the ground when he hangs, head downward, In midair, at the top of the loop.

A different article about a particular example of such a loop-de-loop was published that same year around the same time in the Cook County Herald, May 17, 1902 (Grand Marais, Minnesota). The second article is more interesting for a cyclist since it describes the particulars of his bicycle.

A group of circus men, newspapermen and photographers last week saw a dare-devil bicycle rider loop the loop at Coney island. With no other aid than the velocity accumulated by a rush down a steep incline the man rode up the concave surface until he hung head downward and continued on down out of the loop to dismount, cool and collected, 100 feet away. The bicyclist was Robert B. Vandervoort, an electrician, who has gone over the loop-the-loop railroad known to almost every visitor to Coney Is­land until he has come to look upon centrifugal force as a real, tangible thing.

Vandervoort's wheel is one especi­ally constructed for the daring ride. It weighs about sixty-five pounds, has pneumatic tires on broad rims of steel, no pedals, no chain or gearing and no brake. There is no way for the rider to stop himself once mounted and in motion, except to fall off, and there is no mechanism to allow of the rider's attaining motion. It has two footholds for the rider's feet, where the crank shaft os a bicycle usually is.

The same idea, but running rather than riding a bike ~

Cycling and Drones

In a blog post a few days ago, I discussed a video of a mass cycling event in June in Moscow. I didn't think much about it at first, but the aerial shots were not done by a helicopter but by a drone (or drones).


At 1:31 there is a drone visible in the upper left of the frame

This was surprising to me since one wonders about the permissions required to fly a drone for an event in Moscow - I have yet to see any drones hovering around the National Mall here in Washington. Perhaps in Moscow such things are easier?

Of course people are still thinking up things to do with drones - thanks to Amazon, the notion of having drones as delivery vehicles is out there, even if it may turn out to be impractical. As a kind of hip joke (but to get the students to ask questions about library services) the University of Virginia claims to be developing a drone-driven Air Freight Delivery Service for library materials. (I am aware that there is no connection to bicycles directly in this, but I'm a librarian. So humor me.)


Apparently the idea of delivery by drone is more real than delivery by bicycle messenger

I suppose that in the future many bicycle races could be filmed by drones - it isn't quite as spectacular as the real time coverage by helicopters as in the Tour de France.

As I said, people are still trying to come up with ideas for drones - in January a design company suggested the "cyclodrone" that would "be configured to fly ahead of and behind a [solo] bicycle rider on roads to improve visibility and reduce the chances of being struck by a vehicle." Somehow this seems . . . very unlikely. Even more unlikely than delivering library books by drone.

However preventing accidents involving bicycles and cyclists is clearly good. I just read this news item with video about a Russian teenager who was "run over by a truck" and survived, apparently without serious injury.


Caught on camera: [Russian] Teenage cyclist gets run over by 20 tonne truck - and SURVIVES [from the land of the dashboard camera]

The article states: "In the UK, heavy vehicles are disproportionately represented in crashes resulting in deaths and serious injury of cyclists. In London they make up just 5 percent of traffic, but are involved in 50 percent of cyclist fatalities."

Perhaps we did need escort drones.

Moscow & Washington - Cyclists & Infrastructure

Whatever else may be clear, Washington supports bicyclists more than Moscow - of course, Moscow's climate isn't particularly bicycle-friendly much of the year. (I do have plenty of people who don't think Washington's summer weather and humidity are very bike friendly either, but the problem isn't to be compared with riding in Moscow's snowy roads treated with huge quantities salt and chemicals.)

Nevertheless there is some advocacy in Moscow for cycling - for "bicycle culture" (velocul'tura) and seeking more cycling infrastructure, present on the Internet via this site and this site and a few others. (No, I don't know why the one Russian organization has a name, "Let's bike it" that is in English, not Russian.) The online map of cycling infrastructure in Moscow mostly references bicycle parking and rental, not bicycle lanes or trails, which are apparently pretty limited.

Recently the Moscow city transportation department and a number of informal and commercial organizations organized the third annual "Bike Parade" on June 29th in downtown Moscow, attracting thousands of riders for a 16 kilometer (around ten miles) ride on a closed course, much like Bike DC that the Washington Area Bicyclist Association used to organize as a fundraiser (although I guess they had some permit problems this past year). There was a fairly good video produced and available on YouTube of the 2014 Moscow "Veloparad." (I am not sure that having a car company, Opel, as a sponsor of a bicycle event would happen in most places other than Moscow ~)


Московский Велопарад 2014 - the 2014 Moscow bicycle parade

As I said above, I think of Washington as being ahead of Moscow in "velo-culture" but this past week a Washington Post columnist set things back somewhat by writing a column in which he suggested that DC area cyclists are "terrorists" and that perhaps a 500 dollar fine for hitting one with one's car isn't too high a price to pay (entitled "Bicyclist bullies try to rule the road in D.C."). Charming. (I only learned about this second hand; I don't pay for the online or paper Washington Post because it is so much worse than the newspaper I grew up with and giving them any of my mind might signify approval of their present editorial views and approach to journalism - also, it turned out to be quite easy to live without it.) The Washington Area Bicyclist Association has a response to the cyclist=terrorist column and others organized a lunch-time ride to the Washington Post to protest.


The 1986 Washington Times published regular full pages of news and information for cyclists, wanting their readership-imagine that!

Unfortunately since I don't subscribe to the Washington Post, I can't cancel my subscription in a huff. Oh well.

To circle back to cycling in Moscow, the comments at the end of the video (embedded above in this post) are what you would expect about how much the ride was enjoyed, but two of the comments say that the riders were sorry the ride was not longer, which I think is surprising since ten miles for something like this in a city like Moscow seems pretty good. (Oddly I could not find a map showing the route and only found in one place mention that the length of the ride was 16 km.) They were certainly lucky with the weather and it looked like great fun.

Fast Commute to Work

My route from south Arlington to Capitol Hill

According to the GPS driven app on my phone, the distance from my front door to work is 9.25 miles using my usual bike route. Today, thanks to some wind from the south (which is unusual in the morning), it took only 34 minutes and 18 seconds and my average speed was 16.2 mph.

Just to be clear, I'm not someone who obsesses about the speed of my bicycle riding efforts, but someone was asking about how far my occasional lunchtime jog is and I now have a so-called smartphone and found an appropriate app, so I was curious mostly to know what it would report as the distance of my commute. Years ago I estimated using Google maps that it was around 9.6 miles, so apparently I was a little high since it is almost exactly 9 1/3 miles. Oh well. I was amused today when I used the app riding in when I realized that the wind was coming from the south and that I would be a "fast" time (fast for me) because that wind pushing me up the river makes a difference. I don't think there are too many days where my commute is under 35 minutes. (Again - not that I'm paying much attention.)


Fanciful sail-bikes from 1894

One of those ideas from the 1890s that didn't catch on.

July Fourth Bicycle Race, 1902

From the the New York Tribune, July 5, 1902, an article about a bicycle track race on July 4, 1902. (I on the other hand went to Nationals baseball game today.)

c

CYCLING. KRAMER DEFEATS LAWSON IN STRAIGHT HEATS - BALD WINS HANDICAP IN CLEVER FASHION.

The largest attendance of the year — fully eight thousand people — witnessed the bicycle races at the Vailsburg track, near Newark, yesterday. While no records were broken, the sport was excellent throughout, and the onlookers watched the finishes of the races with the closest attention. The weather was a little too warm for the spectators, but was of the ideal sort for the racing men, who do their best work when the sun scorches the pine ooze out of the board track.

Vailsburg is a merrymaking sort of a place. The enthusiasts who went to the track yesterday carried their pockets full of firecrackers and pistols. When a finish was to their liking the men and boys arose to their feet and let off noise and din, giving full play to their patriotism and satisfaction at the same time. When Kramer defeated Lawson, just returned from abroad, there was a fusillade of fireworks which made the rafters of the grandstand tremble.

And how did [Eddie] Bald win "in clever fashion?"

Bald, who had a lead of 100 yards, was in in good position from the start. Entering the homestretch Bald was in front riding with all of his oldtime fire and spirit, with nearly a dozen riders in a close bunch behind. One hundred yards from the wire one of the riders In the front rank went down with a bang bringing down five others with him. This left Bald with a clear field before him. He won by nearly twenty yards. None of the riders who fell were severely injured,

Tour de France in the American Press - 100 Years Ago

I'm confident that there was more reporting in the U.S. press 100 years ago than I found, but there certainly wasn't much in Chronicling America. In fact, I just found the one story from 1913 (not 1914).

From the New York Sun for July 28, 1913. This would seem to be all the coverage for that publication for the entire race.

BIKE RACE GOES 3,367 MILES

Winner Covers Distance In 197 Hours 54 Minutes

Special Cable Dispatch to The Sun.

Paris, July 27. The bicycle race round France, which began on June 29 with 140 competitors, wound up to-day, The total distance of the race was 3,387 miles and It was run in fifteen stages.

Twenty-five survivors started in the last stage of the race this morning from Dunkirk to Paris, a distance of 212 1/2 miles. All of these arrived here within twelve to fourteen and a half hours. The two leaders made the same time for this leg of the race, 12 hours 5 minutes.

Theiss [actually, Phillipe Thijs, of Belgium] won the first prize of $1,000, besides other prizes for different wins at various stages. He made the total distance in 197 hours and 54 minutes. Garrigou, who finished second, went over the entire route in 198 hours. The first and second men averaged more than seventeen miles an hour for the 3,367 miles.

The race was run again in 1913 but then World War I intervened so that the next running after that was in 1919. Note that in this article, the phrase "Tour de France" does not appear; it is "the bicycle race around France."

Four Mile Run Detour Re-Opens

This past Monday the detour for the Four Mile Run trail near the south end of National Airport was removed. The section of the trail that was under the bridge that was removed (see above) was widened somewhat and is edged on the inner side with some raised concrete. Work was being completed yesterday but the fences that enforced the detour were completely removed, so I am fairly sure it is OK to say the detour is done. It was open again this morning on the way to work.



The photo above shows the trail east of where the detour started - you can see that the bushes have taken over some of the trail while the work has been going on. Presumably Alexandria (I think this part of the trail is theirs) will send someone along to trim things up.

I was stopped to take this photo and blocking about 1/3 of the trail. The fellow in the photo came upon me and said, "excuse me" in a cranky tone which I took to be his way of complaining that I was blocking his speedy transit of this area. I don't know why people don't communicate more directly. What he clearly meant was, "you are in my f---ing way." Oh well. Mostly other cyclists seemed extremely pleased that the detour was over. I agree.

31.5 Pounds of Fun

Pink Electra Townie - 31.5 pounds

This bike belongs to my wife but I ride it to and from a shopping area that is about a mile away on the weekends sometimes. The three-speed hub shift reminds me of riding a bike-share bike except it has a coaster brake, which takes some getting used to - it also has a rim brake for the front wheel, which does most of the real work of stopping.

The odd geometry that makes it possible to put one's foot on the ground easily while sitting on the seat works for me OK but I sort of feel like I'm hanging on the handlebars somehow.

I guess some components are heavy - given that the frame is aluminum tubing, 31.5 pounds seems a lot. But then the kickstand probably ways several pounds . . .

How Bicycles Are Built (in 1896)

How Bicycles are Built. (article)
Author: Monroe Sonneschein
Publisher: [Chicago : : R. Sonneschein], June 1896.
Journal title: American Jewess : Vol 2 : Issue 9.; Page(s) 457-465.

This article provides a surprising type and amount of information compared to others I have seen from this period, particularly since it was intended as a tutorial for women readers assumed to know little about bicycles who would use this information to inform purchase of a bicycle. (While I think it is a interesting article, I'm not so sure that much of what is covered would be useful for a successful bicycle purchase, however.) I think it is worth looking at the entire article - here are some highlights:

HOW BICYCLES ARE BUILT. This article is written with a view of enlightening the purchaser of a wheel, who, as a rule, knows nothing about the construction and mechanical advantages of one bicycle over another.

Scientific men who have made bicycle-building their study all agree that the construction of a modern safety is one of the most delicate and intricate problems in mechanics, easily taking rank with locomotive or bridge-building. In most high-grade wheels there are about one hundred separate and distinct parts. Including duplicates, there are some seven hundred and fifty pieces in all. The puzzles and conundrums propounded by the wise men would seem easy of solution in comparison with the task of assembling the parts of a bicycle into one compact, rigid and smoothly-running machine. It is an undertaking requiring the highest degree of mechanical intelligence.

In a gun,"the factor of safety," as it is termed by engineers, is never lower than 12, which means that it is designed to be 12 times stronger than the strain it is calculated to withstand. In general machinery, the "factor of safety" is from 4 to 5; but in a bicycle it is but 1 1/4, in order that the machine may be as light as possible. It can therefore be readily understood that the greatest care must be exercised in its manufacture.

Guns are designed to be safer than bicycles?? Apparently.



Image from the book "A Wheel Within a Wheel: How I Learned to Ride the Ricycle. . . " by Frances E. Willard, 1895. This book is available here - hdl.handle.net/2027/wu.89098879422

More from "How Bicycles Are Built:"

A bicycle frame must be designed to withstand all manner of strains, such as longitudinal, tortional and vibrational, and their many combinations. It must stand up well in collision and the shock consequent to a fall at high speed. And right here let me state that too much rigidity in a frame is almost as faulty as not enough of it.

The bearings of a bicycle are perhaps its most interesting feature. The wear upon these parts is almost constant, and the material used should be of the finest steel tempered in oil all the way through, and not only case-hardened, because casehardening is merely hardening the outside of the metal. When such a temper is used, the hardened surface soon wears through; and the balls, reaching the softer metal of the inside, in a very short time eat away the bearing.

After the frame, the putting together of a bicycle wheel is the most important step in cycle-building. Each spoke is tested to support a hanging weight of not less than 1,000 pounds. The hub-the foundation of the wheel-is turned from a solid bar of steel. A hole for the axle is bored lengthwise through its center, as well as many smaller holes in the flanges around the outside of its ends, to hold the spokes.

In the wooden rim there is, of course, a hole for each spoke. These holes are "countersunk," and "washers" are introduced to prevent the spokes from pulling through the rims; for it is an interesting fact that, while the weight in a wooden wheel stands on the spokes, in a bicycle wheel it hangs on the spokes, the spokes above the hub supporting most of the weight. Were it otherwise, the wheel would quickly collapse; for while the tiny wires are capable of bearing an enormous lengthwise strain, they would immediately bend under a trifling compressional one.

Wheels with rims made from wood were still common at this point.

There is no device known to mechanics which minimizes friction to so great an extent as the ball-bearing. Running parts equipped with it may truly be said to possess the poetry of motion; yet how few among the thousands of wheelmen understand its magical workings!

The complete articlehas additional details about bicycle manufacturing practices of the 1890s.

A Norwegian Approach to Routinizing Climbing of Steep Hills

They could use something like this in Seattle

Pretty flat around Washington DC, but I can easily imagine having something like this in various places I have been.

It does not seem, however, to have caught on even in Norway where they developed it, so probably not very likely to been seen in this country any time soon.

Commuting - Racing or Relaxing?

From user Landahlauts via Creative Commons in Flickr

In Paris for a week, I commuted about 3-4 kilometers back and forth to the National Library every day from the hotel to attend a conference. I would wear the clothes I would be in all day and didn't take a helmet to Paris, so no helmet. I mostly rode at a much more leisurely pace than I do at home but then the bikeshare bikes don't support much in the way of speed (or braking either, so perhaps that's good).



In my Arlington-Washington commute, I spend most of the time on trails and wear bicycling garb (ie, lyrca etc.) and try to maintain a high rate of speed - I work up a sweat. I shower and change at work. But then the distance is more like 17 kilometers one way. And I wear a helmet.


Parke Davis employees of 1899 leaving work, many on bicycles

Before cars become popular and extremely inexpensive, bicycles were briefly used by some for commuting much like Parisians do now, or so evidence like this short film clip seem to suggest.

I have given some thought about the similarity and differences between the commuting I did in Paris, which is less of a production (in the sense of not wearing special clothes, helmets, etc.) and what I do at home. I have concluded that the similarities (it is still biking) are more important than the differences. I regard Capital Bikeshare riders here as fellow travelers, so to speak, in a real sense.


Something unusual - an abandoned (unlocked) Capital Bikeshare bike

One thing I really enjoy about bikeshare biking, which I have done in Paris several times and in Boston, is that I immediately lose any concern with my rate of travel - unlike when I am on a road bike and I sometimes have to fight a desire to go fast (or as fast as I can, anyway). A typical bikeshare bike immediately says to me as I sit on it something about the improbability of going fast (I guess) so I don't think of the experience in terms of speed, but simply of pleasing forward motion. Since my misguided competitive urge that appears while sitting on a road bike disappears, the experience seems better than riding a road bike! (But I may be reading too much into this since I have done most of my bikeshare biking in Paris, and being in Paris may have something to do with this.)

Velib' - the Best Part of Paris?

Getting a bike near the hotel


In Parisian traffic



Rush hour


All the slots are full!

Bike Share Pricing, Paris vs US

Me some years back with a Velibe bicycle in Paris

I am fortunate enough to have a trip planned to Paris in a week. I will be at some meetings at the national library for most of the week. Very nice. The hotel I will be at is about 3 km from the national library, along the Seine river. It is very easy to navigate back and forth using a bikeshare bike from Velibe.

I have already purchased my seven day subscription for Velibe when I will be in Paris. The cost is only 8 Euros for a week. By comparison, CitiBike in NYC is 9.95 (plus tax!) for one day and $25 (again, plus tax!) for a seven day "access pass." Capital Bikeshare here in the DC area is at once more and less - $7 for 24 hours but there is no seven day option, rather one can pay $15 for three days - uck. (Taxes are apparently included for Capital Bikeshare.)

The American view of pricing bikeshare is that the operational costs are supposed to more or less be covered by the user fees - but typically the short term rental folks are subsidizing those with annual subscriptions so it is all relative. In Paris they must be taking the view that bikeshare is more like public transit, where typically "the farebox" (revenue direct from users) is only a portion of the support. This so-called farebox recovery rate can be all over the place - in Austin Texas, it seems to be less than ten percent! - while in Chicago it is more than 50 percent. But for now Americans want bikeshare to pay for itself - 100 percent.

Hmm. Ironically my use of Velibe in Paris will be covered by the American taxpayer who will be funding this incidental expense of my trip, so the French taxpayer is, in this very very minor way, subsiding the US of A.

Lenin and Cycling

Today I read in the NYTimes that the Marxist Internet Archive site (Marxists.org) was forced to pull down their texts from the English version of the complete works of Karl Marx because they are under copyright and defended vigorously from infringement. Hmm. Hard to imagine.

Thinking about Marxism and so on, I was reminded that Vladimir Lenin was a sometimes-cyclist, at least before he returned to Russia to lead a revolution.

In 1910, leaving in exile in France, Vladimir Il'ich had an accident while riding his bike and followed up with a lawsuit against the offending motorist.

I have received your postcard—merci for the news. As far as the bicycle is concerned I thought I should soon receive the money, but matters have dragged on. I have a suit pending and hope to win it. I was riding from Juvisy[?not sure] when a motorcar ran into me and smashed my bicycle (I managed to jump off). People helped me take the number and acted as witnesses. I have found out who the owner of the car is (a viscount, the devil take him!) and now I have taken him to court (through a lawyer). I should not be riding now, anyway, it is too cold (although it’s a good winter, wonderful for walks). Letter to his sister Masha written early in 1910

Pretty good accident avoidance technique jumping off the bike during a crash for the father of the October Revolution. . .

Apparently justice in France at the time was swift, even for the to-be leader of the Russian proletariat - by the end of the month, he writes, "My bicycle case ended in my favour." (Letter to his sister also in January 1910.

It seems Lenin was not crazy about Paris and cycling, writing to his brother that, "I have often thought of the danger of accidents when I have been riding my bicycle through the centre of Paris, where the traffic is simply hellish."



Almost 100 year later in Vladivostok, I encountered this entrepreneurial young post-Soviet Russian who was earning a living selling chances to ride a trick bicycle three or five meters successfully - the steering was rigged up so that left is right and vice-versa. This, it turns out, isn't easy (at all) to do.

Yes. Or rather no, I don't know what the significance of this is.

Distracted Driver, Nun Edition

Nuns using bicycles - but not what I observed yesterday - from Flickr user FixedGear aka Pete

Yesterday my wife and I went to a Nationals day baseball game, a very traditional and pleasing daytime spring activity. (The Nationals also won, and the pitcher had a complete shutout game for the first time in his short major league career, so that was cool.) We drive a car to the games . . .

On the way home, while merging onto the SE Freeway in the District of Columbia, I was surprised that the Jeep SUV that ended up behind me was being driven by two nuns in traditional habits. Because of the sunglasses they were wearing and their choice of vehicle as well as certain aspects of their appearance, at first I thought they some people simply dressed up as nuns, but their Virginia "choose life" license plate and further thinking led me to realize, no, these are real nuns out tooling down the freeway in their Jeep. The nun riding shotgun in the front was apparently too old to be familiar with modern communications technology but since they were apparently late for some important event (or whatever) the driver was texting while driving. Yeah, on the freeway. Oblivious, apparently, to the implications or possibilities for a poor outcome.

As a mostly-cyclist, this sort of thing drives me crazy. If we can't trust the nuns to work out the moral and other problems with texting while driving, then . . . oh well. And the noise level from dedicated motorists whose view is that it is entirely the cyclists who break the law (Google reports about 16,800,000 hits for "cyclists break law") - yeah.

And no, I don't have a photo of this because I was driving my car. Not messing with phones or cameras. Their plate was VA 6090CL.

Striking Workers With Bicycles - 1916 Photograph

Sometimes it takes a little looking, and zooming in, to find photographs from 100 years ago (or so) of bicycles and cyclists.


Bain Collection photograph from Library of Congress of striking workers "on parade"

Catalog record:
Title - Cloak Makers Parade, 1916
Creator(s) - Bain News Service, publisher
Date Created/Published - 1916.
Medium - 1 negative : glass ; 5 x 7 in. or smaller.
Reproduction Number - LC-DIG-ggbain-22182 (digital file from original negative)
Call Number: LC-B2- 3907-14 [P&P]
Repository: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.print

The catalog record does not indicate the inclusion in this photograph of cyclists, who are at left.


Detail from above photograph showing bicycles and cyclists in parade on this July day in 1916

A helpful Flickr user clarifies:
There is another (similar) photo in The evening world., July 08, 1916, Final Edition, Image 1 with the following text: "The picture shows the striking cloak and suit makers lined up before office of the Joint board, Cloak and Suit Makers' Union at No. 34 East Twenty-first Street, to draw their weekly allowance of $2 each. The line, four deep, reached down to Fourth Avenue and around into Twentieth Street. About $80,000 is paid to the strikers each week by the board." (http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030193/1916-07-08/ed-1/seq-1/)

Too Much Fun with Capital Bikeshare Bike?

Students using CaBi bike, observed during my lunch jog on the National Mall

Remote Control Brake for Your Kid's Bike - God Help Mankind

Ugh. That's all I can say about this one.

"MiniBrake: to make cycling safer for kids all over the world!"

This YouTube video was mentioned by the NYC Bikesnob blog - it seems to represent a new low in parenting. Or something. The young Hungarian developers of this idea have setup an IndieGoGo project to fund commercial production of these devices, which are a remote control brake system for kids' bikes. If your child is riding off into danger as you talk on your cell phone (as shown in the video!), you just punch a button on a remote and the brake is applied. Since the remote has a range of 50 meters, the brake automatically applies if it moves out of range of the remote, and also applies if the battery is running low.

I suppose I could launch into my personal list of the reasons why I have problems with this, but I think each of us can do that for ourselves.

Note that they maintain that, "MiniBrake does not replace parental care and prudence!" Umm. And, "The product contains a „black box”, which logs all braking events." Oh great, already heading down the Strava path, if only for "braking events."

They have had this funding opportunity open for five days and raised about $3,300 of their $75,000 target, which they hope to achieve by May 11. Well, who knows.

Addendum: This isn't a new idea - as we know, there are few new ideas with bicycles. Some British folks came up with "Bike Stoppa" (but URL appears dead) in 2008 - it was written up news article but they seem to have ceased production, although someone sold one for several dollars used on eBay as recently as March of last year. It probably doesn't say much for the commercial chances of this endeavor for the Hungarians that the British version failed.

The Bike Deconstructed (Book Review)

The Bike Deconstructed: A Grand Tour of the Modern Bicycle by Richard Hallett

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This is one of those rare books that I get from the public library that I will probably buy a copy of later. Overall it is well done and interesting for someone with a general interest in cycling and bicycle history but who is not an expert already.

As with many books, the "blurb" is disingenuous - it says, "Do you know the difference between a head tube and a headset?" [and several other such questions] If not, this is the perfect guide for you. This sort of over-inclusive enthusiasm from the publisher (one assumes) is amusing, but probably not accurate. At less than 200 pages and with half of most pages allocated to photographs and the occasional diagram, the author assumes a fair degree of interest and acquaintance with bicycles and is a few steps beyond an introduction that clarifies what's what.

The focus is on "road bikes" but as the author explains, more than just for road racing - "the road bike is a fast- and easy-running machine with ergonomics suitable for a wide range of riding conditions. More specifically, it is a lightweight bike equipped with dropped handlebars, narrow(ish) tires, and an efficient connection between feet and pedals."

There are seven chapters: Materials, Frameset, Wheels, Drivetrain, Brakes, Contact Points, and Accessories, along with a glossary, index and limited suggestions for other reading.

Because of the abbreviated length of the text, the author makes quite a few categorical statements about subjects where there are other opinions - that's just a consequence of this kind of approach. In 35 pages he says what he can about road bike drive trains but there is no comparison to the detail in something like The Dancing Chain at 400 pages.

This isn't a book that I have sat down and read from cover to cover - although I suppose you could. I page around, look at the photographs, read the captions, maybe read some of the text, learning a few things and being entertained. A caption for a photograph of a modern handlebar says, "The oversized bulge at the handlebar center point adds strength and stiffness where needed as well as increasing the surface area available for clamping." Oh - I wondered about that. An explanation of the benefits of the modern threadless headset over the more traditional threaded headset convinced me of the advantage of the modern approach (even as I continue to admire the elegance of the appearance of my 1982 road bike with a threaded headset).

The photograph credits are from dozens of sources, mostly manufacturers, which is surprising since they were processed to achieve a standard and pleasing appearance in the book.

A fun and entertaining book to have around.



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Denmark and Cycling in 1898

Evening star. (Washington, D.C.), 16 April 1898. has this short item on its page featuring a variety of stories about cycling for the many in those days who were interested in the topic, towards the end of the cycling craze of the 1890s. This was arguably more for business types interested in selling bicycles in Denmark but has some interesting description, from an American perspective, of cycling in Denmark at the time.

FOREIGN BICYCLE TRADE
Recent reports received at the State Department give some interesting facts in regard to the bicycle in European countries.

Vice Consul Bloom in Copenhagen says: "All classes, from the royal princes and princesses to the poorest workmen, use the bicycle in Denmark. The number now in use is estimated at about 100,000 for a population of 2,300,000). The roads through out the kingdom are excellent. Denmark is a flat country, with hardly any hills, and must be considered ideal from a cycler's point of view. If American exporters ship frames and wheels separately, they are sure to be on the safe side, or they can stipulate that they will not have anything to do with the duty, and leave that question to be settled by the Danish importers. There are no differential duties. The retail prices are from $25 to 100. The demand is mostly for the cheaper grades, and large quantities have been sold recently at $10 free on board New York."

From the National Museum of Denmark - in 1940 King Christian X could have chosen a bike, but certainly everyone else here seems to have done so

This situation is contrasted with that of Germany, also describe:

Consul General Cole at Dresden says: "Bicycles are used in Dresden by the wealthy and the middle or well-to-do classes. The lower and poorer class could hardly hope to accumulate enough money to buy them, although the remarkable reduction In the prices of American wheels may place them within reach. The streets of Dresden lire paved with asphalt and stone blocks, or macadamized, and are kept hard and smooth by constant rolling. They are clean, and furnish delightful avenues for wheeling. In the Grosser Garten are many miles of dirt roads, level and smooth, and, besides these, roads are being made in the park exclusively for cycling. Throughout Saxony the roads are hard smooth, and kept in good repair. Americans supply the largest number of wheels sold In this market, but there is considerable traffic in English bicycles."

The article goes on to describe the situation in similar detail for selected regions of Italy, France, Spain, and (somewhat oddly - since it is not part of Europe) Canada. (The article starts on the bottom of the page, fourth column from the left.)

World War I: German Bicycle Corps

Rotogravure of German Bicycle Corps soldiers WWI

An image from "The War of the Nations" published in 1919, made up of rotogravures taken during World War I from the New York Times. Rotogravures were photographs printed in newspapers using a higher quality process than was typical, producing better results - this comes from a volume published in 1919 after the war was over, a compilation of photographs taken by news photographers.

The photographs in books like this, with minimal (and fairly self-evident) captions, often raise all sorts of questions. Here the soldiers with bicycles are "marching with difficulty over the sand dunes" - one has to wonder, why are they bothering to do this? And why are they heading in one direction while behind them we see a column of soldiers (the same army) heading in the opposite direction? It is noticeable without much examination that the soldiers heading left-to-right seem to all have backpacks, while those heading right-to-left are (mostly) not doing so. And so on. One will likely never know. Not, of course, that it matters.

World War I - Americans Race Bicycles in France

The Stars and Stripes (Paris, France), February 7, 1919, Vol. 2 No. 01, page 6 has the following short story about a bicycle race held by the American Expeditionary Force during World War I.

BICYLE RACE IS LATEST WRINKLE

5th Army Corps to Hold Thirty Kilometer Pedal Speed Contest

On Saturday, February 15, the Fifth Army Corps will stage a bicycle road race from Bourbon les Baines to Nogent en Bassigny, a distance of about 30 kilometers. Three teams of 20 men each will start, representing the 29th and 82nd Divisions and the Fifth Army Corps troops.

There will be a trophy for the team having the greatest number of men to finish, as well as individual prizes. Bicycle road race rules will govern. There will be no pacing other than that done among the contestants themselves, and controls will be established where assistance may be given the contestants.

Colonel Foster, athletic officer of the Fifth Corps., is in charge of the details of the competition, which he claims will forever put a stop to the arguments about the speed of the couriers in the recent big offensive.

All along the course organizations are arranging to give the riders a big reception. The finish will be at the foot of a big hill in Nogent en Bassigny, near Major General Summerall's chateau.

Article as it appeared in the Stars & Stripes

This kind of activity, a recreational race, was possible since the war had ended in November 1918.


Image of scout (not messenger) cyclists in World War I

Arlington County (VA) and Trail Plowing

March 9 I sent the following as an email to the Arlington Bike Coordinator; later I submitted a revised version to the County Board on their website.

It appears that over the winter the County decided to switch from salting trails to plowing. (I leave near Rt 7 and Walter Reed and ride down the trail along Walter Reed, then down the trail along Four Mile Run to the Mt Vernon trail and then in to DC that way.)

I am surprised by the timeliness of some of the plowing that happened - in particular, the that runs parallel to Walter Reed between Rt 7 and Arlington Mill Drive was plowed recently very quickly after the snow - this makes a lot of sense since if you are going to plow trails (and not salt), it should happen fast before the snow turns into ice from people walking on it.

The different this past week was very noticeable between the trails I use in Arlington and the Mt Vernon Trail, which was untreated and unplowed. The main thing was that the trails that were plowed become clear and useable by a regular bike quickly and the Mt Vernon trail was only rideable until Thursday either by riding very carefully or by having a bike with studded tires (which I have).

Plowing isn't a perfect solution - Tuesday in particular some trails had been plowed before my morning ride but the result was that the asphalt (with the 15 degree weather) was coated with a thin sheet of ice instead of a thicker layer of ice and snow so that a regular bike would not have traction - it would have been impossible to ride without studded tires. But by that afternoon the situation was already better, and Wednesday morning the Arlington trails were rideable (with care) while the Mt Vernon trail was not. Still, I think plowing is better than treating with salt etc.

The plowing is good. Thank you.

Plowed trail near my house - makes a big difference!

This kind of systematic effort to clear trails used by cyclists (and others, of course) following snow storms is new this year in Arlington, and there was enough snowy weather for some experimentation. The first round was to use salt/road treatment type applications on the trails, which isn't great if you want to walk a dog using the trail and also is hard on the bicycle and the surrounding environment since the salt/chemicals aren't confined to the trail (asphalt). Plowing is a lot better, and the County shifted to that, which is great.

Better still would be to have a little less snow.

Walking the 14th St Bridge (on the Way to Work)

Doesn't look too bad . . .

I used my "ice & snow" bike and was reminded it is better with ice and less good with some snow conditions. Most of the ride the asphalt trails were much more clear than I expected and with my studded tires I chugged along steadily. But the 14th St Bridge pedestrian/bicycle area was 3-4 inches of mush (not slush, but mush) that was hard to maintain forward motion with given the 2 inch wide tires and a desire not to spin the wheels (which could pull out studs, maybe) and the sort of wild steering required.

Anyway I ended up walking more than half the way since it was a more consistent level of effort and probably about the same speed as the stop-and-go approach with riding in my lowest gear.

The Elite Bicycle: A Portrait of the World's Greatest Bicycles (Book Review)

The Elite Bicycle: A Portrait of the World's Greatest Bicycles by Gerard Brown

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


This is a coffee table book with lots of color photographs of bicycles and a fair amount of accompanying text to provide context, but I overall I was disappointed. (However since I checked this out of my public library, not terribly. I certainly wouldn't want to have spent money on this one.)

Published in the U.S. by VeloPress, this was originally published in the U.K. by another publisher. While there is some discussion of U.S. bike companies, the original audience was more European than American (or so it seems to me). And the change in the sub-title for the American edition somewhat confuses what the book is about, I think - originally it was "The Elite Bicycle: Portraits of great marques, makers and designers" and in the U.S. it is "The Elite Bicycle: A Portrait of the World's Greatest Bicycles." (Isn't the American version a tautology?)

I'm not sure the original British title is entirely consistent with the content of the book, but it is certainly more suggestive of the information in it the American one. As another person wrote, this isn't a book about bicycles so much as about bicycle parts, and there is something to that - but of course, a modern "elite bicycle" is in fact a collection of parts since there is no one company that creates both the frame+fork and then the group of parts that are bolted to that frame+fork. Also not clear from the (American) title and somewhat unexpected is the heavy emphasis on the manufacturing process rather than finished products.

I found it a little puzzling that the book doesn't present a particular kind of bicycle as this desirable "elite bicycle" clearly. This was not, as I was expecting from a book from VeloPress (not realizing that this was not their creation), oriented towards pure road racing bicycles but rather high end road bicycles for individuals who like really nice bikes but aren't going to be using them as professional cyclists. Most of the companies (those covered I have listed below) are frame builders that specialize in bespoke bicycles (i.e., built to the customer's specific requirements) but not all. And some high end bicycle parts-making companies are covered, such as Chris King and Sapim. A French family business that produces what are the world's best tubular racing tires is covered presumably because they are "the greatest" but very few of the bikes otherwise discussed would use such tires - and then, out of some sense of fairness perhaps, there is a description of Continental's tubular tire manufacturing process, too (which is in Europe, unlike most European company bicycle tires that are now made in Thailand or Taiwan, such as Michelin).

Probably the greatest shortcoming of the American title is that it suggests that the authors consider these particular bikes (and parts) to be the world's greatest. The British title is more clear that this is just about some examples of elite bicycles and not "the list." The book is very clearly (upon reading) intended as a sampling of the various ways such elite bikes are produced and not a collection of the very best.

The foreward by Sir Paul Smith sets a new standard in brevity. But they did get to put his name on cover. So there.

The Library of Congress catalog record for this book includes a list of the companies covered: Brooks -- Selle Italia -- Reynolds -- Columbus -- Cinelli -- Guru -- Chas Roberts -- Rourke -- Cyfac -- Alex Singer -- Fagg in -- Pegoretti -- Independent fabrication -- Richard Sachs -- Ben Serotta -- Condor/Paris -- Seven -- Dinucci -- Ira Ryan -- Tony Pereira -- Winter -- Spécialités TA -- Sapim -- Chris King -- Royce -- Mavic -- FMB -- Continental -- Time -- Contacts.



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U.S. Diplomats & Bicycles

The Library of Congress just moved a set of materials that are the transcripts of oral histories of U.S. diplomats. The collection is describes as follows:

Frontline Diplomacy: The Foreign Affairs Oral History Collection of the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training at the Library of Congress makes available interview transcripts from the oral history archives of the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training (ADST). These transcripts present a window into the lives of U.S. diplomats and the major diplomatic crisis and issues that the United States faced during the second half of the 20th century and the early part of the 21st.

Full text search of these items is part of using the simple "one box" search for the entire website. This leads to what seems to me to be an amusing result - a suggestion the there is a significant linkage between diplomacy and bicycling. If you search "bicycle" across the entire LOC.gov site, the search results indicate that of the "sites and collections" within LOC.gov, Frontline Diplomacy is in sixth place as a "site or collection" for this search term. What this actually indicates is that if you ask 1,700+ people to talk about their life story, it isn't uncommon that they will mention "bicycle in passing, often for these 20th century diplomats in the context of "I rode a bicycle to school" type statements. (The most that "bicycle" appeared in any interview was three times - much more typical was one mention.)

Even my father, someone who I don't recall ever seeing ride a bike, mentioned "bicycle" twice in his interview! His interview is not about policy so much as anecdotes of life in the foreign service. One "bicycle" event was in Tunis:

For example, in the early summer of 1951, I bought a lovely 20 x 14 foot Kairouan carpet — all white. That fall, the U.S. Sixth Fleet paid a visit to Tunis — that is to say that Admiral Gardener and his carrier, the Coral Sea, anchored some miles off shore (Tunis is a shallow road stand). Anyway, at one point the Admiral and many of his colleagues ended up at my house — until about four A.M. — when the last was fished out of the pool and sent on his way. As you can imagine, many an hors d'oeuvre was ground into my Kairouan carpet. When I finally staggered out of bed the next morning, Ali, my cook, said that someone had stolen the carpet. He had not wished to disturb me, but he had washed the carpet and hung it out to dry, and someone had rolled it up and fled with it on a bicycle. So — that was the last I ever saw of the Kairouan carpet.

Another mention was of his work in Moscow in the 1950s as a General Services Officer:

As General Services Officer (or housekeeper), I had some sixty Russians working for me, only one of whom spoke any English. The rest were carpenters, mechanics, painters, plumbers, laborers, what have you. Two things happened immediately — I changed the sign on my door to read “Genial Services” and, secondly, I set out to work with my “team.” I won't say we were totally successful. We tried to keep people (including Mrs. Bohlen) happy by doing what we could. And, I think, by and large, we succeeded. There were, of course, some people who could not be kept happy. Like the Air Force Attache (departing) who called up in a rage one day because we had dismantled his daughter's bicycle to be shipped home. Did we realize it would cost him money to have it reassembled in the U.S.? We put it back together for him — forget the U.S. taxpayer.

So while there are some mentions of bicycles in these materials, arguably diplomatic history is not, as perhaps suggested by the search system, a rich source of information generally about bicycles.

I am reminded that while I don't recall my father riding a bicycle, I do remember his putting a bicycle together. While living in Bucharest in the 1960s, the U.S. Embassy community included (all things considered) a relatively large number of children roughly my age - I don't know how this was done, but a number of Raleigh Grand Prix bicycles were purchased and imported by the parents of many of these children one Christmas season. My father, being pragmatic in such things, had assembled the bicycle well in advance (he was also pretty good as a mechanic). But the night before Christmas I overheard him talking to someone in our house (my bedroom was at the top of the stairs above the diplomatic-reception-sized living room) and clearly assembling a bike. I learned years later that he was helping some American military attache by assembling the same sort of bike for the attache's child, the attache not having properly understood "some assembly required." This is somewhat ironic, I suppose.

As a tangential connection with cycling history, I have blogged before about the most famous U.S. diplomat-cyclist, Alvey Adee.


Alvey Adee of the U.S. Department of State riding his bicycle to work in 1914