tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24665512336499922502024-03-14T12:48:56.426-06:00Maynard HershonFocusing on bicycling and motorcyclingMaynardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09830982091384886121noreply@blogger.comBlogger995125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2466551233649992250.post-82405083150479712542015-12-30T16:52:00.004-07:002015-12-30T16:52:45.802-07:00Double-Oh Thirteen: Licensed to Race<div dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-cdb6722d-f545-de5a-bcb5-d066156e89ed" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><i>This story appeared in Winning Magazine, Bicycle Racing Illustrated, and in my book Tales from the Bike Shop. It seems timely while the new James Bond movie is still in first-run theaters. Happy New Year and I hope you enjoy the story!</i></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">He lived there in a cabin in the Vermont woods, riding the fixed-gear into town once a week for groceries. He saw no one. He tried to forget.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Mornings he’d sit in the sunlight that beamed through an opened window, eating whole-grain cereal with very little milk.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">He kept himself fit because he knew no other way. No, not as fit as when everything was at stake, but fit. Fit enough. Weights in the morning, it was, then a plain yogurt and half an apple before the 10-mile run in spiked ‘cross shoes, carrying a rusty Varsity on his shoulder. Enough; that was enough.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">His life was good, he thought, except when he’d climb off the wind trainer at 2:30 in the morning and just have to have sushi. Except for then it was almost too good for too long.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The message surprised him, though it was delivered the usual way. Messages were not coming, not supposed to come. He was past it now. He found this one in his mailbox inside what appeared to be a dandruff shampoo sample.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Inside the sample box he found a Campy Super Record derailleur. Inside the derailleur, wrapped around the lower pivot bolt, inside the spring, he found an oiled paper. Written on that paper was a date, a time and the initials of (so-called) Inspector 22.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">“Here it is,” he said to himself. “Here it is.” And sure enough there it was.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">His deeply hooded, grimly dark but warmly sensitive eyes scanned the leafy Vermont distance. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">“The world,” he thought, “is a small place indeed.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">[Author’s note: The world </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">is</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> small. Small, that is, until you’re hungry and out of food on a lonely country road, your only spare already flat, and you’ve got 18 mountain miles to ride just to get to the first place you can buy a Hostess Fruit Pie. And it looks like rain. Then, the world is big.]</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">He sat at his perfect rolltop desk to set his affairs in order as he always did before these “trips.” He reread his will - everything to Pedali Bodiddley Bicycle Club. He’d never met a member but he liked the name. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">He scanned his insurance policies and checked for mistakes on his USA Cycling license. He found the word “united” misspelled twice but quickly forgave the federation its error. “It’s their second language,” he said to himself.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Satisfied now that his papers were in order, he rose and entered his library. Leaning on a perfect antique chair was an old Frejus racing bicycle with a rod-operated front changer. When he deftly pivoted the changer lever seven millimeters toward the old bike’s seat-tube, a wall of books slid noiselessly aside.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The varnished bookcase revealed a secret, flat-gray hidden wall densely mounted with gleaming cycling gear. The hardware glistened against the dull finished wood, lightly oiled, ready. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">“Ready,” he thought, redundantly.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">He looked at the wall and saw several complete bicycles: road bicycles, track bicycles and some that were said to go both ways. He saw wheels: disk wheels, spoked wheels, jockey wheels and freewheels.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">He saw special tools for every imaginable cycling need and some for which, if you can imagine them, shame on you. He saw tools to fix things that, as of this writing, have never broken.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">He saw conical stacks of freewheel cogs, bundles of butted spokes, six dozen stems and seven spare saddles. He saw a gallon of Phil Grease and two hats-full of headsets. He saw supplies enough to last the clumsiest novice racer through his first season. He surveyed the plethora of cycling paraphernalia and grunted. Good.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">His hand, which could be cruel, gently brushed the top-tube of a Gios. He snapped back the bike’s rear derailleur, listening to the solid </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">thunk</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> as it sprung forward.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">He spun a freewheel, listening to its smooth ratcheting whirr. He squeezed and released a brake lever, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">click, click</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">. He slipped a wheel into the Gios fork and tightened the skewer: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">noise of tightening skewer. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">He selected his favorite wrench, a Campy T-tool. It had been painstakingly smoothed, polished and black-chromed by an aged Austrian bike mechanic whose identity had vanished from the world’s computers. He looked at it, a perfect, realized T-wrench. He smiled.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">He began to pack items from the wall into cases built by another old European craftsman, a Spaniard unknown to the Austrian or to anyone outside a select society, all of whom zealously guarded his identity and whereabouts. Always referred to by number, the Spanish artist’s skills remained enveloped in mystery, even to his wife, who had no idea what he did all day.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The cases were designed with infinite patience and cunning to look like shoddy copies of inauthentic replicas of cheap designer luggage. Inside though, ingeniously fitted high-density foam protected each handcrafted glistening component. Cases full, he snapped each latch closed. He smiled again.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">He imagined the cold curve of the plastic-wrapped handlebar in his inhumanly strong but strangely graceful hands.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">He smiled once again, a thin smile, almost cruel, and carried the cases out to the car.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">END</span></div>
<br />Maynardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09830982091384886121noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2466551233649992250.post-22695246432778170222015-12-24T14:40:00.001-07:002015-12-24T14:40:09.572-07:00Our Favorite Customers<i>This is a motorcycle story, sorta. It twists and turns on itself and does not end up where you'd expect....</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Happy Holidays, everyone!</i><br />
<br />
<i><br id="docs-internal-guid-61af42b0-d5e2-a9a5-5971-883c3e483e3f" /></i>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I told Ross I'd have the chimichangas, coffee and water, thank you, and handed him my menu. I sat on the patio watching some of the world roll by and the rest pull into Zoka's for breakfast as I had. I heard a loud motorcycle approaching, not the only one I'd hear that morning. I looked up and by golly it was a trike, a red, white and chrome Gold Wing- or Valkyrie-based one, with a man and a woman on it. No helmets.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">They rolled in and stopped in a space just below my table. He shut 'er down - to general relief, mine certainly.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I admit it: I don't get trikes. What's the attraction? If I rode one, I'd wear a helmet and wouldn't feel as free as if I were driving a car with the top down. And the trike wouldn't lean - so I wouldn't enjoy controlling it as I do steering a conventional motorcycle. I figure they're for guys who are getting old enough to distrust their strength or balance. Maybe I'm wrong though. Often I am, and not just about trikes.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The guy climbed off the converted Honda, leaving the woman in the saddle. He was a big dude and solid, well over six foot and over 225. Maybe about 55 years old. He had silky blond hair parted in the middle and hanging to his shoulders, like Mary Travers (R.I.P.) from Peter, Paul and. Jeans, a biker belt, t-shirt and a vest. Tattoos down both arms. Maybe I remember a studded leather wristband, black in color.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Standing next to the left back wheel of the trike, he pulled a comb from his pocket and eased the in-the-wind snarls from his hair. I don't think I want that guy to hit me, I thought. I don't even want him to notice me. I don't like who he says he is.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Maybe you don't feel as I do. Maybe you don't feel that the way people present themselves means anything about how they are. Life's a huge costume party, right? I look at a guy or a woman outfitted as one kind of person or another; I believe that's what they are. When people dress in a connotative way, I figure they're aware of the impression they're making. There's nothing accidental about it. They're trying to produce an effect.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Call me old-fashioned. If an urban kid looks like a cheap gangster, I believe he's what he appears to be. If a woman dresses like a boy-toy, I figure she wants me to think she is a boy-toy. If I don't get to know her, I'll never realize that she's not - she's a missionary and neurosurgeon and not a bit promiscuous.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">When I see a guy in biker gear, resplendent in body art and riding with his feet stuck out in front of him and without a helmet on his head or silencing devices in his exhaust pipes, I figure he aims to intimidate. Or would he claim that a black leather vest with a patch on the back is effective protective clothing? Warm on cold days? Keeps the rain off? What good is it except to tell folks how bad you are?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">A guy in biker gear wants folks to think he's anti-social and downwardly mobile. That he holds society's norms in low regard. That the woman on the back seat is "riding' bitch." Isn't that what all that stuff says?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The big blond guy's woman, heavy-set and gray-haired, was still sitting in the saddle of the trike. She's no hot Daytona biker-bar chick, I thought. She's kinda dowdy, like a waitress in a Midwestern small-town cafe. Warm your coffee, honey?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">As the seconds passed, I began to wonder why she didn't climb off and walk up the steps onto Zoka's patio. Then I saw the guy holding a cane with four rubber-tipped prongs at the bottom. He handed it to her and ever-so-gently reached under her arms and lifted her up and off the saddle of that trike. I'll bet it took 30 seconds of lifting before her right leg slid over the seat.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Until and after she got both feet on the ground, he had his arm around her. To call it gentle doesn't half describe it.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">They stood there for a full minute, I'd say, looking at the wooden steps. Then they very slowly walked, his arm still around her, to the stairs and yet more slowly up them to the patio and the cafe door. He opened the door for her and helped her through it.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I thought: This is maybe the sweetest thing I've ever seen.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">So when Ross came back with my water and coffee, I said, I just watched the guy with that trike help his wife off the bike and into the restaurant. Really somethin', I said.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">He said, "They are genuinely nice people. Come in three or four times a week, always on that trike. He takes care of her and fusses over her every time. They're like among our favorite customers.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">"Something happened to her, some illness, I think," Ross said, "maybe 10 years ago. He's been taking care of her since. As I said, we see them really often, and it's always the same thing. He can't do enough for her. Cool, huh?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I said, "Super cool," but I felt foolish. I'd weighed the evidence, the heavily chromed trike, the loud pipes, the bare heads, the tattoos, the biker clothing...and was led to the wrong conclusion.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I want to say to the guy: Hey, until I saw you in a better light, what was I supposed to believe?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">You look like you're under FBI surveillance but you behave like someone I could trust babysitting my pre-teen daughter. Maybe you were a hell-raiser at one time. But you're not raisin' hell now, are you? You're a loving, patient man, looking after your ol' lady.</span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">If you are a loving, patient man who reveres a woman or all women, why the bad-guy outfit? Why do you try to look scary? When people see you and choose to walk on the other side of the street, does that mean you've earned their respect?</span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">A black leather vest isn't just clothing, is it? It's an emblem. It advertises who you are. That's the idea, right? You don't wear it expecting no one to notice. They will notice and they will make assumptions about you, as I did. Until I saw that cane, you had me fooled.</span></div>
<br />Maynardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09830982091384886121noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2466551233649992250.post-68695313395502906782015-12-02T21:17:00.001-07:002015-12-02T21:17:44.741-07:00Frangible Framesets<div dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-26fdc847-6553-9277-c89e-6d90b05cb20a" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<i><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><i>This is one of the stories in my first book, Tales from the Bike Shop, so it was written in the '80s. It's a bit dated: Who remembers WATS phone lines and short- or long-reach brakes? But in many ways it is truer today than ever.... Hope you like it!</i></span></i></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">“Hello, Frangible Framesets. This is Falconer Frangible. How may we help you?”</span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">“Oh, hi. I’m calling from Fallen Ego, Tennessee. I think I may be ready for a custom frameset. Would you mind if I asked you a few questions?”</span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">“Not at all. We feel, at Frangible, that the more our customers know about us and our products - fast frames for fastidious frame buyers - the more readily they will call on us when the buying bug eventually bites.”</span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">“Well, I’m not a bicycle racer but I like to ride around our area with my friends. It’s hilly west of here and mostly flat to the east. We generally ride weekends and a couple of evenings a week after work. Do I need a chain-hanger braze-on? I should tell you I use deep-drop handlebars. I carry one waterbottle and two pumps. And you should know I’m into short-reach brakesets, totally, as was my father before me.”</span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">“I see. Do you have our full-color Frangible Frameset folder? Perhaps if you study it carefully it will help you answer some of your questions.”</span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">“Why, no I don’t. I just saw your ad in Bicycle Fancier magazine. I thought I’d give you a call. We have a WATS line here at work. I’m on a break so there’s no hurry. If you could clear up a problem or two while I have you on the phone....”</span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">“Sure. Just let me turn off this torch. Our customers are more than just frame sizes to us here at Frangible, the Firmly Flexible Frameset for Frankly Fussy Aficionados. Fire away.”</span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">“Gee thanks. Tell me, how do you feel about composites? I mean, I know you have a vested interest in steel but don’t you think steel is, well, yesterday’s technology? If I stand up when I climb, will a Frangible frame flex? Will the gears shift by themselves? Will the chain come off? </span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">“How many frames have you made? How many have broken? Do folks riding Frangible Frames fall frequently? Are Frangibles fast? Have they been evaluated in Bicycle Science Magazine? Do I really need a custom frame or should I just buy my buddy’s baby-blue Bowlachili? It has a bent fork.”</span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">“First, let me assure you that we at Frangible are absolutely, positively, unequivocally certain that steel is the foremost material for frameset fabrication.”</span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">“But isn’t it heavy?”</span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">“More or less. But Frangible Framesets have a feel, a fineness, a flowing oneness with the road. They caress the tarmac with an almost sensual sureness, a supple rigidity. Excuse me, are you over 18? Oh, good. We think that the ineffable Frangible feeling principally depends on the flexible firmness of steel.”</span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">“Sounds terrific. But are your frames straight? I’ve heard some builders hardly check to see if their tips are parallel....”</span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">“Straight? Straight? Why our framesets are so forcefully straight we’ve had to curtail sales in certain neighborhoods in San Francisco and Atlanta for fear of rejection. Our alignments are done on a flat table - so flat that other builders send their tables here to measure just how crooked they are. Fishhooks on our premises will straighten themselves out, untouched, in seconds. Roads in our area never bend.”</span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">“How do I go about getting sized?”</span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">“Excellent question. Generally we work from full-length skeletal X-rays. We have an in-house sports physician on our team here at Frangible. He examines each prospective owner’s bone structure and factors in such aspects as musculature and riding habits, typical gear selection, intended frame use, geographic area and barometric pressure. </span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">“We do all that in an exhaustive effort to extrapolate the perfect, ideal and totally correct frame configuration for you and you alone. Naturally, that process can take some time but finicky Frangible riders appreciate our dedication.</span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">“We usually correspond by registered mail in cases of far-off applicants like yourself. I would allow about $25 for postage during the fitting procedure and $50, more or less, for the frontal and lateral X-rays. It’ll be worth it. We believe a properly sized bicycle has a classic symmetry, a recognizable rightness that none but a Frangible owner can count on.”</span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">“Fascinating. Do you do your own paint work?”</span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">“Frangible finishes are justifiably famous. First the frameset is filed, a process that can take our team of four first-class filers 16 to 18 hours. Then it is dipped for several days in an anti-corrosive to preserve it for the quality minded cyclist post-millennium.</span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">“Only then is it finished in the most painstakingly patient process using ultra-expensive materials. This consumes so much time that work on an individual frame may be handed down from father to son. After the optional and beautiful Frangible transfers are applied, we tenderly spray 12 coats of clear sealer under surgically sterile conditions, virtually guaranteeing several decades of satisfaction with the finish.</span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">“We are proud of our craftsmanship here at Frangible. You yourself can experience that same pride in the form of your own personal one-of-a-kind frameset, signed by myself after a meticulous pre-shipment inspection. Signed for all your admiring friends to see - </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Falconer Frangible.” </span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">“Gosh Mr. Frangible....”</span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">“Call me Falconer, please.”</span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">“Oh, sure, uh, Falconer. You know, I’ve called a framebuilder every day on my break for almost three weeks now. You are by far the most confidence-inspiring. You’ve got me really interested. If I decided to begin the Frangible Frameset selection process, how long would it take before I had my frame in my hands?”</span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">“You’re in Tennessee, you said? Let me see. I could have one there for you UPS in eight or nine days, less if we ship Blue Label. Even sooner if you can get into metallic green. Can you ride a 61? Want a headset? VISA or MasterCard?”</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /></span></div>
Maynardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09830982091384886121noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2466551233649992250.post-27005223750525886742015-11-20T20:57:00.001-07:002015-11-20T21:00:49.778-07:00Greg LeMond Introduction<i>I wrote this and read it from the podium at a pre-El Tour de Tucson dinner, probably in the early 2000's. Greg was the Guest of Honor, as he damned well should have been...</i><br />
<br />
<br />
Twenty years ago in cycling, Americans were outside looking in. We could love cycling, but it could never be OURS. We'd never excel like Belgians, Dutch, French and Italians.<br />
<br />
We were too soft. European racers were tough lads who saved themselves from the mill or mine by pedaling hard. We'd been sissified by indoor plumbing, power steering and too much TV. <br />
<br />
We thought there could never be a Merckx from Illinois or a Gimondi from Arizona. We just didn't have it. We'd never produce a Tour de France star. No way.<br />
<br />
After all, just finishing the Tour was hard enough, even if you were a stoic European pedaling machine. An American finisher? Unthinkable. <br />
<br />
So, as an American bike rider, you learned to pronounce European names and bought European bikes with European parts. You wore European clothes and read European magazines. You resigned yourself to living in a third-class cycling nation.<br />
<br />
Unless, that is, you were Greg LeMond.<br />
<br />
If LeMond ever picked up on that sense of unworthiness, he never bought into it. Never. He showed us what a load of rubbish it all was.<br />
<br />
Even as a fresh-faced kid, LeMond was always competitive with the best seniors. He was never tactical or economical. He'd break away if he could, and often won alone. He'd grin, braces sparkling in the sun, and ride away from guys with famous names.<br />
<br />
He just kept getting stronger. When he left to race on European teams, when he won the world's championship, we watched unprepared, unbelieving. He wasn't JUST American; he was SO American. <br />
<br />
Suddenly, we were staring at photos of cycling superstar Bernard Hinault on a horse, Hinault with a cowboy hat and a Winchester rifle. Hinault, who had crossed the ocean to visit LeMond at his Nevada home, to welcome LeMond to his team. <br />
<br />
Still, we feared LeMond would win a few more races and then fade from the scene, merely a fluke, our fluke. We'd return to cycling obscurity.<br />
<br />
That's not what happened, though, is it? Nearly everything a bike rider could do, Greg LeMond did, and in style, always in style. And drama? Too much drama. <br />
<br />
All that drama kept what he did from looking too easy, as if he were simply born to win and nothing could stop him from doing so. It didn't look easy for LeMond to triumph; it looked hard, on the bike and often off it, too. He did it anyway. <br />
<br />
He made us believe we could do it, too, or a few of us could. He made us believe that he could keep doing it, that he would keep doing it and would never become distant and difficult and too good for us.<br />
<br />
He was the new American contender, the American world champion, the American Tour winner and a brave American shooting victim. Then he was the American comeback hero, the American winner of the closest Tour in history in 1989.<br />
<br />
And what better guy to come from our ranks and go out to meet the world! Who's a better guy than Greg LeMond? Always willing to sign the autograph, always good for a thoughtful quote, always happy to meet fans, always patient with everyone, always Greg LeMond.<br />
<br />
We knew he was a terrific guy, one of us, and we trusted him. We knew he was open-minded, curious and progressive about equipment so we paid close attention to his choices. We based purchases on his choices.<br />
<br />
Do you wear sunglasses when you ride? Are they Oakleys? Do you own aero handlebars? Do you wear a Giro or some other sleek helmet? Do you ride clipless pedals? Got a cyclometer? Is your saddle pushed way back? Do you ride a LeMond?<br />
<br />
Greg LeMond changed bike-racing forever everywhere, changed pay scales, attitudes and ambitions. He played on a world-size stage. At the same time, he was and will always be our guy, one of us: Our first genuine Eurostar, our three-time Tour winner, our trendsetter, our ambassador to sport, our champion. <br />
<br />
Until Lance Armstrong arrived with his own style and his own drama, Greg LeMond was the only bike rider Joe Sixpack had ever heard of, ever cheered for. No other rider changed our lives the way Greg LeMond did.<br />
<br />
Maybe, if you think about it, you're riding bikes or supporting El Tour today because of the glow Greg LeMond put on cycling. It's my feeling that we've never had a more appropriate guest of honor at El Tour...<br />
<br />
Whatta guy! Ladies and gentlemen: <b>Greg LeMond!</b><br />
<br />
<br />Maynardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09830982091384886121noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2466551233649992250.post-11031112495659746192015-11-04T08:38:00.002-07:002015-11-04T08:38:39.801-07:00From 2004, more or less: The Sunnyside Women's Road Cycling Clinic<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>This piece ran in the Bicycle Paper, a free Pacific NW cycling newspaper. The clinic ran in the days before the Cascade Classic Stage Race in Bend, if memory serves.... What fun!</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i> </i> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Every July for the past five or six years, Sunnyside Sports,
a great bike shop in Bend, has promoted a weekend road cycling clinic for
women. I’ve helped out at all but one of them and promoted two of my own in
Tucson. My two followed Sunnyside’s model faithfully. Why fool with a
successful formula?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
You wonder why you’d need to educate cyclists. Can’t they
learn all they need to know from books or magazines or their computers? I’m
afraid they cannot. No diagram ever taught a new rider how a pace line rotates
or how hard to pedal while at the front.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
No series of photos or drawings ever made a safer, faster downhill
bike-handler. No article has conveyed the feeling of drafting at 25mph or
riding confidently elbow-to-elbow, chatting the miles away on some sun-dappled
country road.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And it has become difficult to learn group skills on local
group rides. Few want to teach and few seem happy to be taught. Perhaps our
veterans are reluctant to act like self-appointed experts – and newer riders
act as if they know all they need to know – especially, if you ask me, new guy
riders. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Whatever the reason, many club cyclists ride for years at
the same scarcely adequate skill level. They don’t have the tools to enjoy road
cycling fully.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So Sunnyside Sports initiated the Women’s Road Clinic.
Here’s how it works – and how I organized my own clinics. No reason you
couldn’t do a similar event where you live. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This year, in the weeks before the clinic, Sunnyside did
bike fittings for each participant, making sure each woman was comfortable on
her bike and in a position of control and power. At previous clinics, we’ve
done that during the weekend, but it is time-consuming and depends on careful
scheduling. Fittings are best done before the clinic weekend.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
On Saturday morning, the staff divided the women into groups
by estimated comfortable road speed. This year we had about 15 women total,
divided into two groups. Each group enjoyed the attention of three instructors.
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Our group rode a few miles out of Bend to a quiet road,
where we stopped and got off our bikes. We talked about basic group riding,
technique and etiquette, and about pace. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We talked about fear of following close and how to maintain
a steady pace uphill and down. Staffers talked about delightful, often
unexpected, conversations we’ve had on rides. We said we think of cycling as a
social sport, and we’re thankful that it is.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The women formed into lines ON FOOT and walked through the motions
of two common rotating pace lines, so everyone understood how they worked. I
don’t know who came up with this training method, but gosh it’s effective – and
safe. Try it at home. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Then we rolled out onto the lightly traveled road to
practice our new skills. Raggedy at first, soon the women were riding like the
USPS “blue train.” We’d stop a time or two to discuss what was happening and to
listen to suggestions or questions.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
By the time we’d ridden up and back, we were a pretty
doggoned accomplished group. We rolled back down the highway into Bend looking
red-hot. For many of the women, this was their first “sitting-in” experience,
as it has been every year at the clinic. It’s amazing how fast the transition
happens: cautious solo rider to polished pace-liner.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Makes even cynical, white-socks roadie instructors proud. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
After lunch, each woman “fixed a flat” on her own bike. Each
demonstrated that she could remove and replace her front wheel and her back
one. Each indicated that she knew which brake lever operated which brake and
how to properly apply them. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The students then listened to a presentation about turning a
bicycle. Then they mounted up for cornering practice on a twisty course in a
parking lot that sees only weekday use. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
On the grass nearby, the women learned to ride close
together. They bumped elbows. They jumped their bikes over (or reached down and
picked up) dropped water bottles. They briefly touched the rear wheel of the
rider in front of them with their own front wheel. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
For many of the students, this was scary and adventurous
beyond their expectations. They performed like veterans nevertheless, scarcely
revealing what must have been wide-eyed fear. Bravo, says this old roadie!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Saturday evening after dinner, a grizzled magazine columnist
read a few truly boring stories to an increasingly sleepy-eyed group.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Could I have more coffee, please. Yes, caffeinated will do
just fine.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
After dinner in Tucson, by the way, a woman staffer talked
about woman-specific issues and a male staffer discussed riding safely and
confidently in urban traffic. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Sunday morning, staff and students assembled at a wide spot
in the road east of Alfalfa, Oregon, for a real road ride – with hills and wind
and maybe a drop or two of rain. We talked about climbing, about standing up
and sitting in the saddle, about gear selection and pacing oneself on the hill.
We talked about descending, relaxing on the bike and remembering how to use the
front and rear brakes.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Each staffer rode with only three women on that Sunday. As I
watched my little flock, I could see lessons the women had learned at the
clinic come to fruition. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
On the way back, we split into two tiny, two-rider packs. We
flew back to the cars, forming and splitting, forming and splitting again as
our climbing or descending skills separated us. Again, I was proud of my
students. I couldn’t have selected one of them as “most improved.” They were
all “most improved.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Please do put together a clinic like Sunnyside’s in your
community. For your instructors, select four or five riders who are empathetic and enthusiastic about
cycling, who are, to be frank, nice. Use Sunnyside’s model or design one of
your own to meet your particular needs. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When I did my first one here in Tucson in 2001, I had no
problem recruiting qualified, volunteer instructors. Afterward, several of them
said they’d enjoyed the experience far more than they could have imagined. A
few called the clinic weekend “life-changing.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Sharing your love for cycling with excited riders is
life-changing. It changes all those riders’ lives…and it changes yours. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Maynardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09830982091384886121noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2466551233649992250.post-64488663297637574192015-10-29T13:09:00.001-06:002015-10-29T13:10:26.513-06:00Not Green -- about my old Bianchi Specialissima<div class="MsoPlainText">
</div>
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In 1976, I was riding a new, black Raleigh Competition -
but I longed for a more distinguished mount.</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
The Raleigh was a “neo-pro” as we called entry level
racing bikes in those days. It was a mix of Reynolds tubing varieties as most
bikes were then; deciphering the various Reynolds decals was an art of no
particular usefulness, like reading bar codes at Safeway. </div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Though my Raleigh rode and handled just fine, and
exhibited no vicious habits, I felt I should have a bike befitting the rider I
intended to be: a faster, stronger, tougher, more graceful version of the
adequate club cyclist I was. Ah, vanity.</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
I made that longing known to Tony Tom, then (as now)
proprietor of A Bicycle Odyssey in nearby Sausalito. I told him I could not
afford to buy a new Masi or Ron Cooper, desirable as they may have been. </div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Instead, I wanted to buy a used frame to build up with
parts I’d remove from my Raleigh. Weeks later, Tony showed me a homely old
Bianchi, its paint stripped off in preparation for a new finish that had never
been applied. </div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Oh my, a Bianchi, I thought: A bike for the cobbles of
Paris-Roubaix, for the hairpin turns of Alpe d’Huez, for the bike path from
Sausalito to Mill Valley...</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Ugly and unready for prime time as it was, the old
Bianchi was romantic. And it was cheap. Tony looked at me, knowing I was
imagining the jerseys a guy with an older racing Bianchi might wear – and the
embroidered shorts. He smiled.</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
I bought the frame. I never saw it with a square inch of
original paint on it. Nearly 30 years later I can’t remember if I even knew
what color the factory painted it. Not green, I remember that much.</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
We guessed that it dated from the early ‘60s, so it
probably needed paint by 1976. It was a Specialissima, Bianchi’s top model.
Made from Columbus tubing, far heavier than today’s featherweight tubesets, it
was entirely conventional except for the “integrated” headset, much like those
of today.</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
Unique to Bianchi for years, the old headset design had
long been abandoned by the mid-’70s. The headset in the frame was trashed. I
searched and found a new one at an old shop in Berkeley, last old-style Bianchi
headset in the world, it seemed. Luckily it never wore out in the years I rode
the bike. </div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
I took the frame home to my apartment. On my tiny patio,
I removed the rest of the paint with foul-smelling liquid stripper. I sanded
and sanded the frame, which was entirely chrome plated. The areas of chrome
that had not been painted were polished. Areas that had been covered by paint
were not.</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
I decided I’d have it painted sand-and-sable, light brown
and chocolate brown, a color scheme common on older British automobiles. The
lugs and a panel on the down tube would be tan. The rest would be a
rich-looking chocolate. Sounds lovely, huh?</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
That’s exactly how it turned out. Lovely. </div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
I couldn’t find old-style Bianchi decals so I thought I’d
have the name hand-painted on the down tube and the emblem hand-painted on the
head tube. </div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
I found a painter, and he got it dead right: Having never
seen a Bianchi emblem, he painted an eagle on the head tube that was nearly
perfect, its head facing in the proper direction. He got the script perfect on
the down tube sides, too. </div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
I began building up the bike with the parts from the
Raleigh. I realized that from the time I began dismantling the Raleigh until
the Bianchi was complete, I had nothing to ride. Gave me a sense of urgency I
might not have had.</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
I had to buy a few new things. I bought a larger diameter
seat post to fit, and a new Italian bar and stem; I just couldn’t imagine
anything steering my Italian thoroughbred but Cinelli or TTT.</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
When I got the bike together, it rewarded me for the
effort. Solid and long from axle to axle, it glided down the road, steered
flawlessly and gave me confidence on twisty descents. </div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
It felt deluxe, if you’ll forgive the old-fashioned word:
smooth, expensive, capable, unflappable.</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
At that point, I had only one pair of wheels, built on
the low-quality French hubs from the Raleigh. I had the French TA 3-pin crank;
a Brooks B-17 Narrow saddle; Huret derailleurs and shift levers from France and
spongy Swiss Weinmann centerpull brakes, all from the Raleigh.</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
In a matter of months, all those parts went away. I bought
Japanese sidepull brakes because I couldn’t afford Campys. I could however
afford a used set of high flange Campy hubs. I bought them cheap and replaced
their bearing races. Tony Tom built me my first set of handmade wheels. </div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
I bought a worn-out Campagnolo Nuovo Record rear
derailleur and put a new spring and new pins and bushings in it. I bought a
Cinelli Unicanitor saddle. </div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
I learned a lot as I built up that Bianchi and as my
relationship with it evolved. I learned to trust Campagnolo: the old two-bolt
seatpost, the everlasting hubs and pedals, and eventually all their parts. </div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
I learned how to wrap cotton tape, and how to break and
re-rivet chains. I learned how to ride a pace line and sprint for city limit
signs. I learned to stop for coffee after rides. I learned how much I enjoy the
company of cyclists. </div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
I was preparing for my writing career, but I thought I
was only having the time of my life.</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
I rode the Davis Double Century on that Bianchi, the one
and only time I did it. I began racing on it, met a long-term girlfriend while
riding it and made dozens of friends while I had it who remain my friends
today.</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
I wonder who has that old Bianchi today... Perhaps YOU
have it, and don’t realize your old two-tone-brown Specialissima meant so much
in one cyclist’s life. </div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
If you do own that bike, let me know through the folks at
the Bicycle Paper. I’ll come visit. Be good to say hi after all these years.</div>
<div class="MsoPlainText">
END</div>
Maynardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09830982091384886121noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2466551233649992250.post-65365610331588951662015-10-25T18:31:00.000-06:002015-10-25T18:31:18.349-06:00Tour Williamette, 2001 - from VeloNews<br />No use denying it: I behaved badly at Tour Willamette. I whined, I screamed at God and the race organizers, I was not always graceful with my Shimano co-workers. In my defense, I will say that I was not alone.<br /><br />Strong men abandoned, sat up and softpedaled, chose mid-event to experience the blissful warmth of follow vehicles, climbed off in feed zones, turned around a few miles into road races and rode back to the cars. Quit.<br /><br />I would have quit, but I had a job. As a Shimano volunteer, I had to carry a mechanic on my motorcycle in the road stages, and there were four road stages. After a short hillclimb TT Tuesday evening, there were road races on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. <br /><br />On Saturday, you'd think you might get a break, but Saturday there were TWO stages, a time trial and a crit. Sunday they threw a 120-mile road race at you, 120 miles over two mountain passes, the frosting on the cruel cake.<br /><br />Wouldn't be so cruel, but Tour Willamette happens in April in the Willamette Valley, in Oregon, not far from the coast. Other things happen there too at that time, things like cold, rain, hail -- and snow at relatively low elevations. I speak from experience here.<br /><br />I rolled into Eugene during the prologue and didn't see any of it, but I know it was cold out there. I'd ridden the motorcycle from northern California and been rained on the last couple of hundred miles. <br /><br />The first road race, Wednesday's, was wet and cold, no fun for me or the riders. You'd be cold and uncomfortable every mile, every mile wishing you were someplace else. Deprived of sun and warmth, I began to lose my sense of humor on this first road stage, but I was a load-a laughs compared to what was to come.<br /><br />All that first day, I dreaded the next day's race. On Thursday, we knew, we had to drive or ride to the start maybe 45 slow-road miles out of Eugene, then work a 100-mile race on BLM roads in the remote country and get home...in the cold and the rain.<br /><br />By the time I reached the start on my motorcycle, I was frozen through, my hands unresponsive. I sat in a Shimano car, heater running, shivering in my motorcycle gear -- really good, expensive gear, largely ineffective in April in Oregon.<br /><br />That race was hours of bone-chilling cold for my mechanic and me, and surely for the racers, who wore plastic rainjackets from start to finish. Lots of guys' hands wouldn't work the brakes or the gears. Guys' faces looked like zombie faces. It wasn't a race so much as a fight for survival.<br /><br />One section was up and down a steep, mud hill. Some riders had to dismount and walk. We're talking riders who've had their photos on VeloNews covers. My motor slid around under us and coated its underside with Oregon mud. Exhaust heat baked the mud onto the muffler. <br /><br />The front tire dumped large amounts of Oregon mud into the lower part of my motorcycle's fairing, so that after 10 minutes of post-race hosing in the hotel parking lot, big clods of mud were still washing out. I remember every clod.<br /><br />I hated it extremely, every minute of it, from leaving the motel at the break of dawn to returning there late in the afternoon, cold and wet and uncomfortable all day long, my motorcycle never to be pristine again.<br /><br />I was not subtle in my speech to co-race-workers. I told them bluntly what I thought of Oregon, Eugene, springtime and the Tour Willamette. Some reacted with shock at my frankness. I think it was the short, effective Anglo-Saxon verbs.<br /><br />The next morning, the sun shone on the start area at the appointed time, but alas the start was postponed. By the time we did start, large hailstones pelted the pack and the support motor crew alike. I had to ride one-handed, the other gloved hand covering my face. I felt even more dismay and even less love for springtime Oregon.<br /><br />The hail and something like snow covered the road as we left Cottage Grove, south of Eugene. Traction? Who knew. Maybe the motorcycle will slither from under us and we will crash to the icy pavement, I thought. <br /><br />My mechanic panicked a bit. Remember, Maynard, rubber down, he said.<br /><br />I figured: The cyclists aren't falling down, so my mechanic and I probably won't. We didn't. A blessing. <br /><br />As we left town, the hail stopped and the sun came out. Nice. The race had been shortened before the start from nearly 100 miles to 75. Suddenly, mid-race, we happened upon an unmarked, unmanned corner on a fast descent. Some riders went one way, some another.<br /><br />The officials stopped the race, then released the break, then the pack at the latest time-split they had. One race stoppage? Probably a record low for Tour Willamette, and the officials and riders smiled throughout the mess. It's not Le Tour, after all, not brain surgery.<br /><br />Somehow, instead of the 75 miles we expected, race distance turned out to be less than 60 miles. We loved it, a "rest day" in the weak Oregon sunshine.<br /><br />Sadly, though, at the finish I noticed that my motorcycle was puking coolant over the side of the engine. When I got it to the BMW store in Eugene, we discovered that the radiator had a hole in it. A new radiator would have to be ordered and would not be in until Tuesday. <br /><br />The race would be over on Sunday, but I would be stuck in the rain and the cold until Tuesday. Or even Wednesday... The horror.<br /><br />One of the local guys who'd been helping out on his own motorcycle told me he had another that he'd loan me for Sunday's road race. I borrowed that bike and it served valiantly.<br /><br />On that motor on Sunday, I was following a Crown Vic sheriff's car down one of the endless descents. The road was a cleared black ribbon between scenes of winter wonderland, nothing but white snow and bits of green from the trees.<br /><br />Somehow, a snow-bank appeared suddenly behind the cruiser and I hit it. The front end of the motor flicked back and forth three or four times while I said oh sh-t oh sh-t. As luck would have it, we did not crash. Coulda, mighta, didn't. Danger is part of the fun at Tour Willamette. Big fun. <br /><br />If you race or work races all season, including the Tour Willamette, you will have as many stories from that race as the rest of the races combined. Is that good? Does that make it a great race? You make the call.<br /><br />Someone said they're gonna move it to May next year. Will I go back? Nah.<br /><br />END<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Maynardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09830982091384886121noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2466551233649992250.post-27832045704707616792015-10-22T09:01:00.005-06:002015-10-22T09:01:48.364-06:00Distance<br id="docs-internal-guid-bcd5f1f8-900b-0fbe-6a76-e3832916a9b1" />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Cyclists who share roads with cars suffer abuse from the drivers of those cars. Who knows why? It's been that way long as anyone can remember, since WWII certainly. Since before SUVs and in-car gadgets, before cell phones and text messaging.</span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Drivers imagine that the roads belong to them. Trying to understand why they feel that way, how they got that way, won't help us much. Abuse from drivers is like gravity; it sucks whether you understand it or not. </span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Driving makes most people feel rushed even when they have plenty of time. They're in a hurry even when they aren't looking forward to getting where they're going. It's a disease and it's epidemic.</span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Though drivers hurry, traffic seldom does. So drivers sit tense, frustrated behind the wheel, anger barely suppressed, primed, tight-jawed, ready to act out that anger.</span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Cyclists are different. We feel unjustly persecuted on the road, abused by callous motorists. So we ride tense, anger barely suppressed, tight-jawed, primed, ready for someone, anyone, to offend, so we can act out that anger. </span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Clearly, cycling in such a wound-tight state does nothing for our health, happiness or fitness. Why are we so tense? On some level we choose to be. </span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">We choose to react to each motorist offense as if it were personal, as if it were directed at us as individuals by someone who knows us. As if the offense were committed on purpose, and we, you or I, were chosen to be its victim. </span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">If we didn't take each offense personally, would we fly off the handle, screaming and gesturing the way many of us do? We'd never get that upset over motorist stupidity and carelessness directed at somebody else. Would we? When it happens to the other guy, it's no big thing. Right?</span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">In moments of clarity, we know better than to take motorist abuse personally; we know it's not personal, but we forget ourselves. We lose that precious distance, that gap between the thing that happens in the instant - the driver cutting us off, maybe - and our reaction to it. </span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I do better, I know, when I can keep that dash in there, that instant of detachment. </span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">During that instant, I remind myself that, sure enough, still another driver has acted stupidly. No doubt drivers will, after all, occasionally act stupidly. I try to remember that no screaming, gesturing cyclist has cured any driver of acting stupidly. Not yet.</span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">If we each could detach for just an instant, we could defuse those personal explosions in traffic. We could watch the action from a distance, as if we were in a car two freeway lanes away, watching one driver cut off another. </span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">We could shake our heads at driver stupidity; gosh, they really do stupid stuff. </span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">We could remember that we drive too, and we've done stupid, careless stuff. That once or twice we've scared ourselves, not seeing a cyclist until almost too late. We could remember being surprised by a daring urban cyclist with limited imagination and thinking: that guy's crazy.</span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">If we could keep a little distance, we could remember that people in cars don't know us or hate us as individuals. They lump us together: all the same, always in the way, clogging their roads.</span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">If we could keep a little distance, we might remember that we too sometimes lump individuals into categories, pigeonholes, so we can dislike them more conveniently. We can dislike them without the bother of getting to know them.</span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">If we learned to keep a little distance, we could relax on our bikes. Cycling friends would see that we're no longer so ready to yell at drivers. When they'd ask us what happened to calm us, we'd explain about the distance. Many things might change - if we could keep just a little emotional distance.</span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Can we change drivers in any way? Not likely. We can change ourselves. We can relax our jaws. We can drain our pools of standing resentment. We can ride looser, physically and emotionally. </span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">We can stop wasting energy resenting people who don't think or care about us, individuals who share nothing but an unreasoning, angry need to get someplace 15 minutes away in 10 minutes - without focusing on what they're doing.</span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Remember, we cyclists came from the same places drivers did, went to the same churches and schools, had many of the same life experiences. At times, you couldn't have told us apart. Honest.</span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Our paths split when they chose to continue traveling in dirty, shockingly expensive, lethal steel and glass cages, listening to shock-jocks and traffic reports, breathing the AC, picking their noses, talking to themselves or merely staring out tight-jawed at the world.</span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">While we evolved.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /></span></div>
Maynardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09830982091384886121noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2466551233649992250.post-18852202450813203312015-10-21T09:32:00.002-06:002015-10-21T09:32:14.648-06:00Waving Back at MartyRecently, Marty Jemison, great guy and fine ex-pro, posted on Facebook that he is surprised by how many cyclists do not wave -- even when waved at.<br />
<br />
First I was outraged that any dork on a bike would fail to wave at what amounts to cycling royalty. But as I thought about it I decided that many people are simply unaware that cyclists have traditionally exchanged greetings...or salutes -- that we acknowledge one another. <br />
<br />
We bike riders like cyclists. We respect a cyclist who's out there on his/her bike for whatever reason, but we especially like and respect sporting cyclists, racers, ex-racers or never-racers, out there for fitness and training and the simple love of rolling on two wheels. We've always ridden. We intend always to ride.<br />
<br />
We figure that if we see a rider wearing Lycra on a pro-style bike, that person is a bikie like us. We wave and feel a moment of dismay when he or she doesn't wave back.<br />
<br />
We forget that thousands of folks who couldn't tell you what GC means or have never heard of an echelon ride bikes like ours and wear outfits like ours. They've never watched a Tour stage. The only racing cyclist they can name is Lance. They ride bikes but they are not bike riders.<br />
<br />
They don't know how things have always been among bike riders. Probably they don't want to know. They ride for weight loss or cheap victories on the bike path or because cycling is somehow cool and all their friends have Strava too.<br />
<br />
They feel no comradeship for cyclists beyond their circle of friends. They and we have nothing in common, despite the similarity of our appearances. Is it any wonder that they do not wave? Many will not make the slightest gesture, say the merest triviality, spend the first dollar....without knowing that what they are saying or doing or buying is cool -- accepted among their peers as cool. <br />
<br />
Evidently: Scowling is cool. Acting too cool for school is cool. Authenticity that can be purchased is cool.<br />
<br />
Waving at us? Uh-uh. Even if we're Marty Jemison....<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Maynardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09830982091384886121noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2466551233649992250.post-31007859799512655702015-10-21T09:21:00.002-06:002015-10-21T09:21:42.888-06:00I Ride Motorcycles Too!<div dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-19850d81-8af4-26e6-50f2-a2163f1babe4" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">This was written before Lance Armstrong's Fall from Grace. It ran in CityBike in the SF Bay Area and in Motorcycle Sport and Leisure in the UK. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-19850d81-8af4-26e6-50f2-a2163f1babe4" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /></span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Until a few years ago, I did not follow motorcycle road racing, not US racing, not World Superbike, MotoGP or the 500cc class in the two-stroke era. I didn't know what I was missing - a lot of great racing, dammit. Thanks to an old friend who raved about guys named Rossi, Gibernau and Biaggi, I thought I'd watch just one race through to the end - even if I got bored. </span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I did not get bored; I got hooked and I'm still hooked.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I should explain too that I also write about bicycling and ride my motorcycle as support in top-level bicycle races. So I've come to know lots of people in bicycle sport, including star cyclists. In the '90s I came to know and like Lance Armstrong, both before and after he got sick. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Every year in his hometown of Austin, Texas, Lance promotes a 100-mile charity bicycle ride, not a race, called the Ride for the Roses - to raise money to fight cancer. I rode the first one in '97 or '98. Lance had gotten better by then. He was back on his bike but a Tour de France win was not in the cards. No way. Everyone agreed. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">He'd nearly died from the cancer. He'd been weakened by the disease and the treatment. And he wasn't a Tour de France kinda rider. No one would have bet on him to finish on the podium in one Tour, let alone win seven of them. </span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Because I was in Austin and known to Lance, I was invited to a group dinner at his favorite Mexican restaurant. We sat at a long table in the somewhat noisy place, one of those situations where you can't really talk to anyone more than one seat away. It was all cycling people, or so I thought, all friends of Lance's. I couldn't tell who was local and who'd come from out of town, like me.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">A guy sitting next to me asked me how I knew Lance, meaning how I fit into the cycling picture. I'd rather not tell people I'm a writer. So I told him that I ride a support motorcycle at major bicycle races; that's how I connected with Lance. A guy sitting next to that guy overheard our conversation, leaned forward and asked how motorcycles are used to help out at bicycle races. I ride motorcycles too, he said. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Seemed like a good guy to me. Lean and tanned, he looked like a cyclist, a riding buddy of Lance's, probably. </span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I was not, in hindsight, acting like a hotshot motorcyclist at that table. I was explaining what jobs guys on motorcycles might do in bicycle races. Most bicycle race fans aren't aware of it but there must be a dozen job descriptions for motorcyclists at big-time bicycle races.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">As I described what the motorcyclists (or their passengers) do in the races, the guy one seat away seemed especially interested. I thought: He's a local bicyclist who also rides a motorcycle. He'd like to help at races and see the action from the best seat in the house. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">What's your name, I asked the guy. Kevin, he said. I live not far away. I'm a friend of Lance's. </span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">At that point, his face started to look just the least bit familiar. I couldn't place him, couldn't decide if I'd seen him before or if he just looked like someone. We talked a bit about what I do in the races. I think I told him about how surprisingly fast the guys go on their bicycles on technical descents and how hard I had to ride to keep up. I'll bet that's right, he said. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I really liked talking with the guy. I felt I'd made a friend I might have for a long time. He had that knack, the rare knack that probably can't be learned. He's more interested in you than you are in him. As we talked, I became surer that I'd met him or seen his face at races...or somewhere. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">So I said, hey Kevin, what's your last name. Schwantz, he said. </span></div>
<br /><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">My heart went to my mouth. I wondered if I'd bragged about my motorcycling skills or experiences to Kevin Schwantz. I decided I had not. Not that I knew who he was, not really. I knew he'd been an outstanding rider. After years of paying no attention to motorcycle sport, I did not know who he was in context and what he'd done in context - ride the wheels off some of the fastest motorcycles in the world.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I knew he was a racer and saw he was a good guy. I did not know, so help me, how many motorcyclists would lop off a limb to be sitting where I was - and relating to Kevin Schwantz as just another friend of Lance's, eating Mexican food with the guys.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">After dinner, the group of us went to Lance's house, nice place on the lake. I hung out with Kevin. We leaned on the wall and talked about this 'n' that, perhaps noticing as we did that there were numbers of quite attractive young ladies at Lance's that evening. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Anticipating your curiosity, I don't think we talked about motorcycling much. I remember feeling later that I'd met a super guy, a guy who might never let you know where he'd been or what he's done until you knew him quite well. A guy who seemed to have no need whatsoever to impress you. Who never dropped a name.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">What motorcycling story could you and I tell that Kevin Schwantz couldn't top - if he had the slightest desire to do so?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I've thought about that evening a hundred times in the years since. When I see that Kevin Schwantz is going to be a guest here or there or I read something about his racing school, I wish I could be there just to say, Hey Kevin, remember me? We hung out at Lance's. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I didn't know who you were at the time. I figured you were just one of the guys. I was right.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">END</span></div>
<br /><br /><br />Maynardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09830982091384886121noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2466551233649992250.post-54379452564963677662015-10-14T15:17:00.000-06:002015-10-14T15:17:20.462-06:00Facebook "Notes" and this blogAn old friend told me a week or so ago about Facebook "Notes," a function of FB that allows the poster to put up longer blocks of text than would be usual in a normal post. The writer writes or pastes the text into Notes. FB publishes the title and first line or two in the usual box. Friends see it. If the topic or something in those first lines is of interest, he or she clicks on the box and the piece appears, looking good on the screen, proper spacing observed...first class.<br />
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I have found that Notes allows me to share stories and thoughts effectively. When I contributed some of these stories to magazines, regional or national, I got an occasional letter or email from a reader. With FB's Notes, I get immediate feedback. I love it.<br />
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So I am going to place my thoughts and articles in FB...in the Notes area. If you have been following my blog but are not a FB friend, please send me a friend request. You will be offered opportunities to read stories old and new. Thanks for caring enough to read this!<br />
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Maynard HershonMaynardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09830982091384886121noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2466551233649992250.post-23625254130864615472015-10-02T18:20:00.002-06:002015-10-02T18:20:49.955-06:00Here's an old story that ran in Winning Magazine back in the Reconstruction Era, shortly after the War Between the States...<br />
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<div dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-5cade54b-2b11-8e6e-c508-bdaa3c9a5a3a" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The Sweater</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I threw away my old blue cycling sweater yesterday. I’d had the thing so long I can’t remember being without it. It wasn’t the first jersey I owned. The first was a light-blue and white one I thought looked like Felice Gimondi’s Bianchi team jersey. I gave that one away years ago without a second thought. The sweater though, was tougher.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I think that sweater was made as the top half of an old-fashioned Italian warm-up suit, one of the ones with pants that looked like pajama bottoms. No one bought those pants; if I think about them I can feel sorry for all those rejected baggy warm-up bottoms. I wonder what became of them and hope they’re doing all right, wherever they are.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The shop where I bought that sweater closed not much later. I remember it as a kind of unfocused shop, one you’d seldom find a reason to visit. My girlfriend had bought one of the sweaters there for $15, a bargain even in those days. I stepped right up.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The label, printed in Italian, couldn’t be decoded. You couldn’t tell if it was wool or synthetic or a blend. I treated it like wool for 10 years.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The full-length front zipper made that sweater easy to put on and take off. If the day got warm you could unzip it part or all the way. Or you could take it off and twirl it by the sleeves and tie it around your waist. Perfect.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">That girlfriend and I rode together a lot. I see us in my mind in matching blue sweaters, riding side by side (only when safe, of course) down foggy, wooded country roads. We looked alike and I think we thought alike, then.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">She and I rode centuries and group training rides. We took moderate-length tours together. She liked to wear a railroad engineer’s hat. I was learning to wear a cycling cap Saronni-style, down over the eyes in the front, perched impossibly high in back. Saronni, that year, was still being driven to races by his mommy.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Eventually, though I learned to wear the cap perfectly, the girlfriend departed. The sweater stayed on.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I recall once on a late fall ride I got caught in a cold rainstorm. I got soaked but the sweater kept me warm. I remember wringing water out of it in a restaurant bathroom and having to drop it on the john floor for lack of a place to hang it while I dressed. It was still so wet, even after the wringing, that it flopped loudly when I dropped it on the tile. That’s a warm sweater.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I remember it covered in frost down the arms and across the chest on those painfully chilly, clear mornings there are never enough of. I remember how the cuffs frayed after the first couple years but never got worse. I can remember the blue of it bright and the new smell still in it. That sweater was new then and so was cycling. I had yet to discover I had limits.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">In those days I felt it was important to wear clean, newish cycling clothes. I saw that some people who’d been at it long enough to own old bike clothing wore their mended, tattered stuff with no embarrassment. Not me though; no patched tights for me.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I thought that if I wore less-than-perfect jerseys or shorts or whatever, I would be considered casual or uncommitted to the sport.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Years passed and I was still riding. I got less impressed by emblems of dedication one could merely buy. I became more aware of subtle signals, like class on the bike, that earlier I might have missed while looking at some turkey’s jersey.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I won’t say I’ve let myself go completely and ride in rags. I did begin to lose interest in woollen (later Lycra) perfection. I came to find certain articles of clothing (and equipment) pleasantly familiar and effective. I didn’t want a new whatever, thank you. I liked the old one just fine.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I liked that blue sweater especially fine as you may have perceived. My new girlfriend found the hole in the twice-mended left shoulder too shabby. She asked me repeatedly not to wear it.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I explained to her about the old girlfriend and the rainstorm and the frosty mornings. I tried to recreate the sound my sweater made slapping the bathroom floor. She was relentless.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I was too classy a guy, she said, to wear a sweater as ratty as that. It was giving a bad impression. So I threw it away. Hey, it was for my own good.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">END</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="dbk1s-0-0" data-reactid=".y.1.0.1.0.0.$editor0.0.0.$dbk1s.0:$dbk1s-0-0"><span data-reactid=".y.1.0.1.0.0.$editor0.0.0.$dbk1s.0:$dbk1s-0-0.0"><br /></span></span>Maynardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09830982091384886121noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2466551233649992250.post-43994414671017836222015-10-02T07:59:00.004-06:002015-10-02T07:59:26.489-06:00Comparative Drafting, pt 2<div class="_2cuy _3dgx">
Last week, I posted about drafting in cycling, and why some riders are so much easier to follow than others. It’s not subtle. You can follow some people with a tiny gap between your front tire and their rear tire. Others cause you to drop back a foot or more for safety’s sake, and make you nervous even then.</div>
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It seems to me on further reflection that those of us who have spent many, many miles trying to hang on in fast groups or behind one stronger rider, develop a sense of pace...that riders who have done loose group rides or club centuries do not learn. </div>
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We had to learn to draft...or we were riding home alone with a terrible defeated feeling.</div>
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So we slowly developed a feeling...for a pace that keeps the level of effort steady. We learned that legs that are about to scream NO can sustain a consistent effort, but are pushed over their limit by spikes of demand. We learn to moderate our pace, to keep those sudden demands from hitting the legs of those behind us. </div>
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Over the miles and years, we get incrementally better at doing that, at sensing what is best for those behind us. We learn to appreciate people who provide that same consistent pace. </div>
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But I don’t believe that most of us can explain what it is that we do. We just do it. We’re bike riders after all. </div>
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Maynardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09830982091384886121noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2466551233649992250.post-91060463256294471482015-09-24T09:15:00.000-06:002015-09-24T09:15:27.709-06:00Why are some riders so good to draft?<br />
I don't know if I fully understand what makes one rider so easy to follow that it's like drafting a locomotive, steady and safe and luxurious. And another rider, equally strong and equally adept at bike handling, may be far more difficult to follow, so that he or she makes you uneasy and frustrated at the changes of pace.<br />
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We can't talk about speed here, because speed is relative to all sorts of conditions. We mean pace. We mean something like perceived level of effort. The good rider to follow keeps a consistent level of effort, and following that person is almost restful. It's deluxe.<br />
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The rider who appears to be steady and solid but whose pace rises and falls even just slightly will have you riding with your fingers on your brake levers and dropping back so you have a space, a cushion, against his or her slight changes of pace.<br />
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You can ride around the equator on one PowerBar and a half full bottle behind the first rider. You can hardly stand to ride a mile behind the second.<br />
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Maybe it's the gear chosen by the good leader. I think that a slightly higher gear smooths out the pace changes over slight rises and dips in the road, and perhaps pace changes from shifts in wind direction or velocity. Like riding on rough surfaces, a higher gear will lend itself to a steadier pace. Not a giant gear, a slightly higher gear. A tooth or two.<br />
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Maybe the good leader senses the effort that the drafting rider is exerting, and tries to make it steady, not spiky, not pedal-coast, pedal-coast. Maybe that leader understands the drafting dynamic on some level that he or she can't explain. <br />
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I have thought about it and can't come up with a solid oh-THAT's-why kinda answer. If you have ideas about this, about why one person is a delight to follow and another is a nightmare, please comment here on my blog page. Maynardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09830982091384886121noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2466551233649992250.post-53564546572412695372015-09-23T19:47:00.001-06:002015-09-23T19:47:10.900-06:00The Rest of the RideAs I said a post or two ago, I did not walk any more descents, but I walked a few climbs, some of them long, meaning I may have walked for 10 or 15 minutes. I could have ridden them had I had a clear road in front of me but often I did not. There were thousands of riders doing l'Eroica, and many clustered in front of me.<br />
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I told you that I had (and have) a 39-tooth inner chainring and a 26-tooth largest rear cog. That was enough for l'Erioca's hills, but it was <i>just</i> enough. Because the roads were dirt and traction somewhat limited, I had to sit on the climbs. A few lower gears, meaning a triple crankset, would have been helpful, if not period or appropriate on a mid-'80s Gios "racing" bicycle.<br />
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On the descents, many of which were long, steep and winding, I had a death-grip on the brake levers. My forearms grew tired and began to hurt from the strain. I have old but lovely Dura-Ace sidepull brakes with the appropriate levers. They are good brakes, but not nearly as good as today's double-pivot road brakes.<br />
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I wished for more powerful brakes on those descents, but remember: I had limited traction. If I'd had more powerful brakes, I might have locked a wheel and scared myself or crashed. Remarkably, I saw very few crashed riders during the event. I think most people thought of l'Eroica as a ride, not a race.<br />
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It was up one dirt hill after another with dirt descents in between. All the stuff I thought was so crucial: my shoes and padded bar tape and my choice of shorts and jersey, none of it mattered at all. I just tried to keep the 39-26 turning on the climbs and tried to keep the speed under something like control on the descents.<br />
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I saw Larry and Heather a few times out on the course. I could climb a bit better than either of them, but they just flew by me on the descents. Many times on the descents, there were crosswise ridges in the dirt road. The ridges tried to take the bars out of your hands. My handlebars had been in place in the stem for a year of riding, I believe, but those bumps caused the bars to rotate in the stem.<br />
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At a rest stop, all a blur in my mind, we asked an Italian mechanic to tighten the stem's pinch bolt. The bars have never moved again.<br />
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I remember eating something at a rest stop. I remember drinking something, probably water, but I can't recall if I drank from my bottle while underway or drank at the rest stop. I suppose I was in some state of distorted reality. Too much planning, too much money spent, too much uncomfortable flying, too much worry.<br />
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Perhaps I used to be lighter-hearted about trips like this one. In those days, because I was a cycling media hotshot, someone else made all those decisions and picked up the tab for airfare, lodging, bike rental, even meals. I could afford to be relaxed. I wasn't going to be any more broke when I got home than I was before the trip.<br />
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I could say that if I decided to ride some event like l'Eroica again...or to go to the Isle of Man for the TT motorcycle races, Tamar and I would try not to make the same mistakes in planning. We'd be wiser.<br />
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But who knows? We might make just as many mistakes, but they'd be different mistakes. My presence has been requested by California friends at l'Eroica California next spring. Probably a two-hour flight. Friends in San Luis Obispo who might put me up. Sounds great. See you there?<br />
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<br />Maynardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09830982091384886121noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2466551233649992250.post-61053728122146975232015-09-22T08:38:00.000-06:002015-09-22T08:38:07.119-06:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Last night, Tamar and I visited our friend Jim Mohle, whom I've known since we were Marin Cyclists in the '70s. Jim and I were chatting in his Airstream, parked for 10 days in a facility in nearby Golden, Colorado. Tamar sneaked outside with her camera and got this shot. For you Airstream enthusiasts, his unit is 23'8", very nicely appointed. He tows it behind a V-8 SUV. It was fun having dinner in the Airstream! Cosy!<br /><br />Maynardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09830982091384886121noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2466551233649992250.post-2231012939883773952015-09-21T15:53:00.001-06:002015-09-22T15:30:01.647-06:00l'Eroica, part 3, the ride itselfI'd like to preface this third l'Eroica post by saying that I fear that my frame of mind was not ideal for the ride. We had been preparing for the l'Eroica trip for a year. I'd built up the sweet old Gios the previous year, then realized that I had a suitable mount for vintage events. And in the fall of 2013, there were many magazine articles about l'Eroica, the coolest vintage ride.<br />
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The planning of the trip and the many, many decisions involved were mostly Tamar's work, but the dozens of decisions were scary and we had to make choices about places and timing about which we knew nothing. I had been learning Italian via Duolingo, but that smattering of it helped not at all, not at home nor in Italy.<br />
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I worried and worried about my bike. That's the thing about taking your beloved vintage bike to an overseas event: Getting it there and getting it home without injuring it or losing it in transit. I really do like my somewhat battered old Gios Torino. I hated the thought of entrusting it to some baggage handler -- not once, but many times: Denver-Chicago, Chicago-Munich, Munich-Pisa and back home again.<br />
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When I unpacked the bike in Colle, it was fine. You knew it would be. I had to straighten one brake lever on the handlebar, that's all. The soft case had protected it. I was truly relieved. On Sunday morning, we loaded Larry's and Heather's and my bike into the CycleItalia van, and the three of us and Tamar took off for Gaiole and the start. The plan was for the three of us to ride and Tamar to hang out with Tena during the event.<br />
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At the start, you saw things you'd never imagined. There were guys in WWI uniforms, Italian Army I guess, riding WWI Italian army bikes, single speeders that must've weighed 50 pounds. The uniforms were heavy wool, absolutely unsuited to the lovely sunny day in Gaiole...let alone the endless hills on the route.<br />
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There were men and women on old pro bikes in full team kit from the era of their bikes. There were what looked like casual riders. There were gimmick riders, looking like some character from legend or literature.<br />
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It was not at all like a rolling concours, not a showcase for museum-quality bikes. There were many of them, but there were also ride-to-work bikes and fixed-gear bikes (shudder) and ancient bikes that looked ancient.<br />
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Old bikes in Italy are not merely prestige items. They are celebrated but they are not paraded around, they are ridden. And the atmosphere at l'Eroica is inclusive: Everyone is happy to be there and happy that you are there too. There was no scent of snobbery. <br />
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I rode the 80 kilometer version. So did Larry and Heather of CycleItalia, not their first time there. John, from Contra Costa County, CA, rode the long version, 120K if my memory is correct. I was glad I'd chosen the shorter route. I was toast at the end, overjoyed to see the finish line and Tamar waiting and cheering for me.<br />
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We rolled out of Gaiole on paved road, but I can scarcely remember any paved road after that. I'm sure there was some, but it was a fleeting mile here and another there. Almost all the l'Eroica I remember was "white road," gravel road that in Tuscany is sacred, as I understand it, for l'Eroica and the Strade Bianche pro race early in the season.<br />
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As I mentioned in an earlier post, there is no flat road in Tuscany, or none that Tamar and I saw. So the gravel roads of l'Eroica go up and back down, up and back down. The climbs are long and steep...and the descents are long and steep.<br />
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I should tell you bike riders that I had 53-39 chain rings and a 13-26 cluster. I used the 39-26 a lot. Really a lot. I was pretty fit for an old guy at that point. Tired from the trip, probably, emotionally a little upset, I'll bet, but I felt okay, or thought I did. My friend John had a triple on his old Masi, probably a good idea. <br />
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After the first climb, on which I did fine, thank you very much, I reached the summit and looked down the descent and freaked a little. It was dirt and gravel and bumpy and steep. I thought: I can't ride down that hill. I'll crash and get hurt here far from home. I could smell that hospital smell.<br />
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I got off and walked down the first descent. I'm sorry if I've disappointed you but that is what happened.<br />
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I was wearing my ancient Adidas Eddy Merckx plastic-soled shoes - and using old Dura-Ace clip-'n'-strap pedals, given to me by my old friend Jim F of Berkeley. I'll just say at this point that I walked maybe two, maybe three l'Eroica miles in those shoes. Luckily I had new cleats; I'd have worn an old pair to nothing.<br />
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I hardly ever walk any distance in my cycling shoes, so I walked ten years' worth that day.<br />
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I did not walk any more descents, I'm happy to say, but I did walk uphill. If you got stuck behind another bike or bikes at the start of a climb, you were walking. I will say that - at l'Eroica - you never walk alone.<br />
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More about the ride tomorrow.... I thought I'd tell the whole story today, but.... Sorry. Maynardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09830982091384886121noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2466551233649992250.post-70820845846552764502015-09-20T13:58:00.000-06:002015-09-22T15:30:46.931-06:00l'Eroica Pt 2, the scene and the rideWe reached Colle, the town we'd be staying in for the first week in Italy, on Friday evening. The big day was Sunday, but we'd be driving to Gaiole on Saturday to register, see the swap meet and get together with our Bay Area friends John and Tena.<br />
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Our connection in Italy was our friends Larry and Heather from CycleItalia. I met them years ago when they worked for another tour outfit, and we've stayed friends all along. I edit their CycleItalia newsletter. They're professional tour leaders, and Heather is a university philosophy professor. Larry and Heather took us in the CycleItalia van to Gaiole, an hour or so away on Saturday. <br />
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Registration was easy. You didn't need to speak Italian. By the way, there's a lottery for entry -- unless you are over 65 or you are female. If you fit either of those categories, you're in!<br />
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At registration, you could see and hear that there were riders and their friends there from all over the world. There was a sort of museum of old Italian bikes; Roger deVlaeminck's Gios was there, gorgeous, his name on the top tube and engraved on the sides of the stem. The swap booths were nearly unbelievable. You could buy just ANYthing. Want an old Euro jersey from a team or club you've never heard of? A like-new set of Campagnolo Delta brakes? Any bicycle part, lots of complete old bicycles...<br />
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If the swap had been a few days earlier, I feel sure you could have bought an old bike, spent a few hours and a few Euros renewing it, and ridden your swap meet bike in l'Eroica. The bikes ridden in l'Eroica were by no means all gleaming 30-year-old Colnagos and Bianchis. Lotsa rats for sure. Lotsa everything!<br />
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I had a lovely feeling at that swap meet. Once in a great while, you feel mysteriously that you are where you belong, just exactly where you belong. I got that feeling walking around the old cranks and wheels and bits of this and that. Did we buy anything? I bought a sporty stingy-brim straw hat, a hipster hat maybe. Tamar and I did not buy much at all in Italy, although walking past the shops in Florence was tempting every day. <br />
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Knowing what I know now, I think that if we did l'Eroica again, I'd try to: 1. rent a bike from a rental outfit or from l'Eroica, 2. buy a good old bike and try to sell it after the event or give it away, 3. find a way, any way, not to travel with a bicycle, especially if you plan to move around within Italy with (but not ON) the bicycle. <br />
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We used a soft case, an Italian-made Sci-Con, to transport the Gios. You took off the brake cables (exposed you'll remember), turned the bars to one side. You could leave the seat in place. You removed pedals and stashed the wheels, minus quick-release skewers, in pockets in the sides of the case. You could roll the case on its wheels.Great case, borrowed from CycleItalia Larry.<br />
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If we'd had one of those huge, black plastic cases...or two bicycles.... I don't want to think about it.<br />
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If you rented a car and kept the car for the duration of your stay, you could put the bike in the back and not think about it. We wanted to use public transportation as much as possible. Except for the ancient Fiat we rented in Florence, we did not drive at all, car, scooter or motorcycle. We walked and took buses.<br />
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Tamar rented a bike, thinking that we would go for rides around Colle, but the rides were not pleasant and the logistics of bike rental were complex. Had we stayed in just one place, had we not gone to Florence for the second week, life would have been far easier. Or had we immediately gotten out of touristy Tuscany and headed, say, for somewhere with quieter roads, we could have done lots of rides.<br />
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All this is easy to say, a year later. We did not understand how exhausting the flying would be. We certainly did not imagine that the roads of Tuscany would be so endlessly hilly. If you are not really fit, I'd suggest you ride elsewhere in Italy. And because we looked at maps and saw that Colle was in the "country," we thought that traffic would be minimal. We didn't imagine that Florence would be so dense with tourists and shoppers and who knows who else. A week there, sneezing and wheezing? Too long.<br />
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I thought that today I would describe the l'Eroica ride but there's just too much about our trip to tell you. I'll write a post about the event tomorrow. I'm sorry.... Maynardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09830982091384886121noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2466551233649992250.post-89685463210959977072015-09-19T17:42:00.000-06:002015-09-22T15:31:21.610-06:00l'Eroica and the travel to and fromIn a few weeks, it'll be a year since Tamar and I flew to Italy for l'Eroica, the famous mostly dirt-road bicycle ride in Tuscany. I'll tell you about the trip today and then tomorrow about l'Eroica.<br />
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We flew to Chicago, Munich and finally Pisa. We spent the entire two weeks in Tuscany, a week in a hotel in Colle val d'Elsa, and a week in Florence, in a hotel maybe two blocks from the celebrated "old bridge," the Ponte Vecchio.<br />
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In the days after l'Eroica, we tried to ride out of Colle but found that our years of riding in the States made us afraid on the narrow Tuscan roads. If you haven't visited there, I will say that we never saw any straight or flat roads in Tuscany, except perhaps the motorways. We never saw any road shoulders.<br />
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We were sharing a narrow lane with cars, trucks and those huge European buses. We have learned over the years not to trust drivers. We know that European drivers are better able to deal with cyclists on the road, but I especially could not get over being afraid. We tried to ride twice and both times cut the rides short.<br />
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Tamar, on her rented bike, would be riding behind me. I'd get further ahead of her on the grades than I wanted to be. I could not look back for fear of weaving even a bit and being hit by a gigantic tour bus. I hated it.<br />
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On our first ride, my Gios was still dusty from the "white roads" as they're called, the unpaved country roads of l'Eroica. We passed by a gas station and I saw that they had a water hose outside. We stopped and in our halting Italian, tried to ask the guys if we could rinse the dust off the bike.<br />
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They uncoiled the hose and rinsed my bike for me. When they heard that I'd ridden l'Eroica, they were excited and thrilled to be able to wash actual l'Eroica dirt off my bicycle.<br />
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We found the people to be lovely, but the riding was too scary. After the second abortive attempt, I packed my Gios back into its soft travel case. Enough was enough.<br />
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The rest of our stay in Colle was fun and restful. We went for walks and for two or three trips on local buses. We visited Sienna and Volterra, an old Roman mountain town. We ate great food and even discovered a vegetarian restaurant in Colle that Tamar says is her favorite ever.<br />
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We took a cab to Florence, direct to our hotel. If you are traveling with a bicycle as we were, you have to find a taxi with room to carry the travel-cased bike. Our transportation costs within Italy were daunting...but what could you do?<br />
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Florence was so dense with people, people from all over the world, that it was a bit intimidating, at least for the first few days. You could not open the door of our hotel and just step out onto the sidewalk; you'd step into someone. You had to peek out and time your escape.<br />
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Both of us felt ill with sinus or cold-type problems. Tamar was off every day to museums and galleries, but I felt crummy and ill-at-ease. I was in Florence, where thousands had paid big money to visit, but I really wanted to go home. I would've rather been riding on some bike path in Denver.<br />
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After a few days in Florence, we found areas away from the tourists that we enjoyed. I began to like being there, but I still yearned to be home. I know how that sounds, but it's the truth.<br />
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One afternoon we rented a vintage Fiat 500, a Cinquecento, and I drove it from central Florence to the country near town. Another Cinquecento followed us with our guide driving. Driving a 17-horsepower car with unsynchronized gears and tiny pedals was big fun, if a bit frightening in downtown Florence traffic. If you like old cars even a little bit, please rent an old Fiat when you're in Italy. <br />
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The trip home, when it finally came, was nightmarish. We flew from Pisa to Munich and almost missed our flight to Chicago. In Chicago, tired and feeling as if we'd been beaten in our coach seats, we had to reclaim our luggage, including the bike case, and re-check it all, then stand in line to go through security again.<br />
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It's been a year, as I said, but neither of us has contemplated another overseas flight. I used to be able to tolerate those journeys, but maybe I can no longer do it. I seldom wish we had more money, but if we could have flown business class...it might have been more like a trip and less like a mugging.<br />
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Tomorrow - the event! <br />
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<br />Maynardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09830982091384886121noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2466551233649992250.post-3797190714663080272015-09-17T09:40:00.000-06:002015-09-17T16:19:11.847-06:00I'm excited to tell you that I'm promoting a "retro" bicycle ride next year with Denver's Turin Bikes. As it stands, the ride will be on July 10th, 2016. You will not have to have toeclips and straps or exposed brake cables to ride, although we hope to attract lots of old-school bikes.<br />
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We plan to start and finish the ride on country roads east of Denver. We'll ride 50 miles, give or take, on wide, rolling roads with very little weekend traffic. We envision a conversational, social ride, not a training ride. Perhaps I should have capitalized NOT. Thank you.<br />
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We also plan to invite women riders associated with the three shops on the Front Range that are doing rides somewhat like this one: Creekside Cyclery in Parker, south of Denver; Vecchio's in Boulder, and Turin.<br />
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We encourage riders of "modern" bikes to ride if they have a friend on a retro bike. We ask that riders of current bikes refrain from sitting at the front of our ride. That's not the idea.<br />
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Please, if you think you might want to do a ride like this one, put July 10th on your calendar. The details in this note are no-way finalized. But as of this morning, I believe it'll happen! Maynardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09830982091384886121noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2466551233649992250.post-42359581143165257222015-09-15T09:59:00.002-06:002015-09-15T09:59:25.470-06:00Funny first column by Matthew Allen on bikeradar.com<a href="http://www.bikeradar.com/road/gear/article/the-skinny-embrace-your-bike-industry-overlords-44702/">http://www.bikeradar.com/road/gear/article/the-skinny-embrace-your-bike-industry-overlords-44702/</a>Maynardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09830982091384886121noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2466551233649992250.post-60894585589380604442015-09-15T09:40:00.000-06:002015-09-15T09:42:34.579-06:00A Stelbel!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Stelio Belletti started TIG-welding bicycle frames in 1968, more than two decades before what is considered the start of TIG-welded bicycles. He closed his Stelbel company in 1990, but collectors of his bicycles have brought it back. Belletti himself, now 84 years old, rides three times a week and still advises Stelbel’s new owners. Photo: Lennard Zinn | VeloNews.com</span><br />
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This photo is from a gallery of shots of stylish Italian bikes in VeloNews. Shown is a tig-welded road frame from Italy called a Stelbel.<br />
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In the '80s, an Italian refrigeration engineer visited Berkeley for a few weeks. He rode a bike called a Stelbel, a tig-welded bike in an era when Italian steel bikes were lugged and brazed. He loved his Stelbel.<br />
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When he heard that I was a bigshot cycling journalist, cough, cough, he arranged for Stelbel back home to send me a frame, so that I too could experience the magic. I'm not exaggerating much here. I rode the bike for a year or so, enjoyed it and its fade paint, then probably wanted something else I couldn't afford without selling it. I wonder where it is now.<br />
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I never saw another Stelbel until this morning....Maynardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09830982091384886121noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2466551233649992250.post-23837168004485419332015-09-14T17:43:00.000-06:002015-09-15T09:43:56.901-06:00How they look and how they are....A few years ago I called the VA Hospital here in Denver to ask a health question. The guy answering those calls turned out to be a longtime reader of my motorcycle stories in CityBike, a San Francisco Bay Area monthly newspaper. He is a member of a "patch-club," one of those clubs in which the riders wear vests, usually black leather, with the club insignia sewn or embroidered on.<br />
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He invited us to attend the club's anniversary party, and Tamar and I did. I've gone to several now. My Kawasaki is always the only four-cylinder Japanese motorcycle in the clubhouse parking lot, surrounded primarily by Harley-Davidsons plus a few Gold Wings and smaller Japanese cruisers.<br />
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This past Saturday night was anniversary night. I got in line for food and saw that there was plenty of it, but I could not find the plates. The guy in front of me was wearing an Iron Order vest, black denim. In the middle of the Iron Order emblem was the number 8. What does that number stand for, I asked him.<br />
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That's for the eight original members, he said, in Louisville, Kentucky. He busied himself filling a plate with food, and dammit I still couldn't see the plates.<br />
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Where'd you find that plate?, I asked him. He put his own plate down, reached over and got me one and a cellophane-wrapped pack of picnic plastic-ware and a napkin. Thanks, I said, realizing as I did that I was the only person in a sea of black leather, black denim and black cotton wearing a white t-shirt with a BMW shop's logo on it. Honest to god, no one cared. <br />
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I know the papers and TV news broadcasts are full of stories about gang violence and motorcycle clubs that have turned to drug crime and mob-style enforcement. I've read those stories. I know how these guys look, alien and menacing. <br />
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Nonetheless, I've hardly ever felt safer than I did at that patch-club anniversary party. Must be something soothing about all that black leather....Maynardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09830982091384886121noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2466551233649992250.post-48809602196242995192015-09-14T13:55:00.000-06:002015-09-14T13:55:50.998-06:00As I'm sure you have noticed, the practice of riding no-hands has increased rapidly. More and more people seem unable to resist looking so un-self-consciously cool. We have all seen people riding hands-free while chatting on their phones, and people texting while riding hands-free on busy bike paths.<br />
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Just last week as I was riding south on the South Platte Trail, I saw a young man riding north toward me, no-hands. Not very remarkable, you say? He was riding no-hands because he was playing his guitar.<br />
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I did not see it but I assume he had a strap on that guitar. Otherwise, if he were surprised (pretty far-fetched, I know) and had to reach quickly for his brake levers, he'd drop the guitar. Maybe into his front wheel.<br />
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I told that story to four or five guys on a Sunday morning road-training ride. Their facial expressions did not change, telling me that they wanted me to know that they were not surprised to hear about a guy riding and playing a guitar. One guy did say, quietly, "They're out there."<br />
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The question? Who's cooler? Is it the young man with the guitar? Or the roadies who can't be surprised?Maynardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09830982091384886121noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2466551233649992250.post-83829401919606851872015-09-14T13:07:00.000-06:002015-09-14T13:07:16.627-06:00Ch-ch-ch-changesAs of late last week, I am informed that the Bicycle Paper, a fine free monthly cycling newspaper distributed in the Pacific NW, is for sale and may not continue in its present form. That means I am out of a job in a cycling publication for the first time since the spring of 1983, when I went to work for Winning Magazine.<br />
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For more than 30 years I've been responsible for a cycling-related story or two each month, in California Bicyclist, Winning, Velo-News, the Rivendell Reader and the Bicycle Paper. So I continue to watch what's happening in cycling and thinking: There's an article there!<br />
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This blog has been dormant for some years, I'm afraid. But if ideas continue to occur to me, and I continue not to have a place to sell them, I'll post them here. If you do visit my blog and as time passes you do see posts about this and that related to cycling and motorcycling...or any damn thing, it means that I'm out the income from that Bicycle Paper gig, but I'm still writing about cycling.<br />
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I'm still contributing to CityBike, a motorcycle newspaper in the SF Bay Area, and to Motorcycle Sport and Leisure, a really fine slick monthly magazine from the UK. Thanks for reading!Maynardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09830982091384886121noreply@blogger.com2