Tolstoy's Bicycle Riding - 1896

Tolstoy's bicycle, preserved in a Russian museum

A Cycling Notes entry in Scientific American for April 18, 1896, includes this brief item:

Count Leo Tolstoi, the Russian novelist, now rides the wheel, much to the astonishment of the peasants on his estate.

Apparently Tolstoy took up bicycling at the age of 67. Russia comes up again in a later Cycling Notes entry, for May 9, 1896:

Though Moscow has nearly five thousand wheelmen, only about one-half have permission to ride in the city limits. [?!?!?] Russia asks $12.50 duty on each wheel imported into that country, no matter what the price may be.

Presumably Tolstoy had no problem paying a price that included this fairly high duty.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle on Benefits of Cycling, 1896

The usual quote from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in Scientific American 1896 is given as:

When the spirits are low, when the day appears dark, when work becomes monotonous, when hope hardly seems worth having, just mount a bicycle and go out for a spin down the road, without thought on anything but the ride you are taking.

But did he have more to say? Yes he did.

The rest of what he had to say:

I have myself ridden the bicycle most during my practice as a physician and during my work in letters. In the morning or the afternoon, before or after work as the mood o'ertakes me, I mount the wheel and am off for a spin of a few miles up or down the road from my country place. I can only speak words of praise for the bicycle, for I believe that its use is commonly beneficial and not at all detrimental to health, except in the matter of beginners who overdo it.

This quote from the physician Conan Doyle was in the spirit of this period to find medical doctors who would endorse the health benefits of cycling, or at least not condemn it. That he was a famous and clever writer was presumably a bonus.


Cycling Notes column in Scientific American issue of January 18, 1896 with full "Dr. Conan Doyle" quote in middle.

Park Service Says, "Dismount!"

Sign added to bike trail April 7, just before the governement was expected to close

I think this is very odd - Thursday morning two trucks of U.S. Park Service personnel were pulled up along the bike trail to install this sign. Is this really important?

The southbound cyclist, before this sign, would arrive at a stop sign and one that also demands a dismount - I have never seen anyone do so. The trail crossing is zebra striped and looks like a cross walk to the drivers leaving National Airport - the traffic is one way, from left to right in the picture. What generally happens is that cyclists slow, the cars slow, sometimes the car stops and wave the cyclist or cyclists on, sometimes not and then the cyclists stop.

Providing a notice (now two!) that dismount is required just makes cyclists into scofflaws in this instance. There are, I think, some locations where dismounting is sensible, for example the crosswalk across S Shirlington Rd after going under I-395 on the bike trail. The crosswalk has lights to attract attention of drivers that are activated by a button and it seems reasonably for cyclists to dismount here (and a lot safer).


Couldn't they have planted more trees instead?

Moscow City Authorities Back 150 KM of Bike Paths

Article suggests better riding conditions will be offered to folks like him

Article in Russian describes Russian city authorities plan to improve traffic in Moscow (which is apparently awful) that includes new interest in supporting cycling.

The authors of the program are betting on cycling. "They move through the city with an average speed of 17 kilometers an hour and get around all traffic jams, while the average speed of cars reaches only 25 kilometers per hour and in rush hour doesn't exceed 13 km/hr" - they claim as advantages of bicycles. A driver pays an average of five rubles per kilometer [28 rubles to the dollar] and the government pays roughly the same amount in addition as expenses for supporting the infrastructure, so the authors of the program consider that cycling support would have savings for the citizens directly and for the government. They suggest constructing by 2016 no less than 150 km of bike paths and bike lanes and to create 10,000 bike parking places in Moscow.

(The Russian version: Авторы программы делают ставку и на велосипед. «Он движется по городу со средней скоростью 17 км/ч и объезжает любые пробки, а средняя скорость автомобиля составляет 25 км и в часы пик не превышает 13 км/ч», — рекламируют они преимущества велосипеда. Автомобилисту километр проезда обходится в среднем в 5 руб., еще столько же — расходы государства, например, на инфраструктуру, подсчитали авторы программы, так что передвижение на велосипеде экономит деньги граждан и города. Они предлагают до 2016 г. оборудовать не менее 150 км велодорожек и велополос, построить 10 000 велопарковочных мест.)

Well, the Alaska legislature is working on a bill (says this article) to have grants to encourage cycling, so why not Moscow? "Innovations like studded tires, fenders and trailers to carry groceries and work supplies have made bicycle commuting a viable option even during Alaska's icy winters," it states.

Avid BB-7 Disk Brake Adjustments

A shot of a road version of the BB-7 Avid mechanical disk brake - his example is nice and clean, rather than using an image of mine ~

Even this very detailed description and advice does not cover the problem I had with BB-7 brake set up that neither the bike store that sold me the bike with these brakes nor mechanics at my LBS were able to identify.

I bought a Traitor Ruben in the summer of 2009. I generally ride it to commute to work when the weather looks like rain or is otherwise crummy - otherwise I ride a more pleasant (in my view) road bike. One of the main advantages (if not the main advantage) is that in rain the mechanical disk brakes, Avid BB-7s, have no noticable drop-off in performance that you have with rim brakes. The problem can be that adjusting these brakes to perform reasonably whether raining or not can take some effort.

The many-step process described by the blogger above leaves out the problem I was eventually able to correct that seriously lowered the BB-7s' performance for me. The problem I had stemmed from incorrect setup by the store that sold the bike to me. (Or perhaps by the company that produced it, I suppose.)


Two disk brake pads not yet mounted in their spring are at left, two mounted in spring (they look like a tiny waffle iron) are at right.

In order to operate properly, the brake pads, pressed together with their spring into a kind of brake pad-sandwich, need to be inserted fully into the caliper slot. Each pad has two small "ears" that are supposed to fit into a metal clip that is inserted into the caliper from the opposite side from where the brake pads slide in. As it turns out, this clip is quite strong and getting the pad "ears" to fully engage with the clip takes a bit of force - and if you convince yourself that they are fully seated (it isn't readily apparent whether they are or not by visual inspection) then the brake pads don't lay flat against the pistons but instead are sort of balanced on top of two pins that are in the middle of each of the pistons. When the pads click into the clip properly the pin on the piston will seat in a slot in the back of each pad and hold them in the right place. (Yes, hold them in the right place in addition to the clips - the clips that seem to work more to keep them out of the right place.)

What this means is that instead of having the pads solidly pressing against the pistons on each side, they are wobbling around, made parallel to the disk only by the tiny spring that is intended simply to push them apart. It is possible for an otherwise sensible bike mechanic to perform the usual setup process and miss that the pads aren't fully inserted. When the pad aren't sitting fully against the pistons, the pads wear at a highly accelerated rate and the performance is poor, although it isn't so poor as to indicate the serious problem you actually have in this situation.


Here you can see the slot where the clip inserts, just to the left of the red adjustment dial that is visible

My simple solution that Avid would doubtlessly not like was simply to take the clips out and insert the pads fully so they were in the right place and mounted on the pistons properly, and leave it at that. The little posts on the pistons are inserted into slots in the back of the pads and keep them in place just fine, it seems. I did try to insert the clips after the pads were in the right place, but that didn't work, so I just left them off. I had a BB-7 on a bike (just on the front fork) that I gave away that was an older model (before this "mtn" and "rd" distinction appeared) and I don't think it even had this clip, so I decided that I couldn't see any reason why if the pads were properly inserted that the clip was necessary. With the pads fully inserted it has been much easier to adjust the brakes to achieve decent performance (and pad wear). I have been riding like this for 500 miles or so, no problem.

So, how did I discover that I had this problem that mechanics didn't see? I had a separate problem with the rear wheel of this bike and had it rebuilt when several spokes blew (described in this post) so I had my LBS that rebuild the wheel and when they put it back on the bike the guy neglected to tighten the skewer enough and silly me didn't check his work so I was riding in a downpour and the rear wheel popped out, yanking the brake bads and spring out. (Luckily I did not fall, although I was mighty surprised.) When I looked closely at the wear on this set of pads, I realized something other than simple adjustment was wrong. I bought new pads for front and back and realized upon more thoughtful examination that the front pads weren't fully inserted (and presumed this had been the problem with the rear one as well). Geez!

I guess the sense that disk brakes are a little more complicated to adjust masked the more serious problem since I assumed that the bike store had set the things up properly in the first place. At one point, tired of making constant adjustments, I stopped at the other good LBS and a mechanic performed his version of the setup but while it seemed OK for a while, it was back to poor performance in a day or so. Anyway, I guess I learned something - perhaps even several things.

In addition to my disappointment with professional bike mechanics in this (which isn't really that great; this isn't brain surgery) I think the Avid instructions supplied are part of the problem - they are pretty poor. The Avid PDF manual (that is the same as what is delivered with the brakes) states that pads should "click" into place but the critical importance of seating the pads in the clip isn't mentioned specifically as the necessary requirement. The two pages have the same information in nine languages, so the degree of clarity in any particular language is proportionally reduced. The steps to take are described, but not much "why this step is important" sort of info.

Bike Parking in Defiance of Signage

Bike parked, locked to railing where it isn't supposed to be (or perhaps it's OK)

In a previous post I described this not-very-friendly sign's placement in front of the Adams Building of the Library of Congress in Washington DC. The sign is on a post that isn't bolted down, so it sort of wanders around this area. The apparent goal is to keep bikes from being locked to the railing and blocking the ramp for disabled persons, but the sign isn't clearly associated with that ramp and to put the sign on the ramp would block the ramp!

Where this bike is locked, then, isn't a problem. But the sign would suggest it is.

Maxim Gun Equipped Bicycles (1896)

Part of an article about a bicycle show in Washington DC - the article is in the Washington D.C. "Morning Times, March 26, 1896 issue.

Another novelty is the duplex wheel [that is, bicycle - with side-by-side seating], with the Maxim rapid-firing gun mounted upon it. It carries two riders, one to propel the machine and the other to work the gun. It is understood that a proposition has been made to the representatives of the Cuban government to equip a regiment of their soldiers with these machines, it being shown that with proper handling they would prove awful and effective engines of destruction.

Unfortunately no illustration of this bicycle was included and I have had no luck finding one elsewhere. The machine-gun equipped bike didn't seem to prosper as a tool of war.