Explore the Great Indoors

When toy manufacturer Fisher Price introduced a stationary bike for kids, 3 to 6 years old, my first reaction was, “Does this mean children have abandoned the Great Outdoors completely?” There are those who will argue that some children live in apartments with nowhere to play outside, so it it better to at least get some exercise indoors. I cannot argue with that.

But exercise for a child is not just physical, the mental aspect is tremendously important. A child’s imagination is pure creativity. It is through games, imaginary situations, a child’s mind develops in preparation for a life ahead.

A real bicycle, or tricycle is often a child’s first taste of independence, and freedom. A chance to venture forth alone and unsupervised, if only to the end of the street. With a group of children, a bicycle becomes a horse to play cowboys and Indians Indigenous People, or a car to play cops and robbers.

Before the bicycle was invented, I am sure children used a broom or a stick to represent the horse, but the games were similar. Games that involve chasing each other, friendly competition. However, a stationary bike is already a pretend bicycle, so a pretend bike can hardly become a pretend horse. And how do you chase someone on a stationary bike?

To me the other thing this stationary bike represents is the ‘Fear Factor.’ It has completely taken over our way of life, and that is the real reason children no longer play outside. When I was a kid my mother told me, “Look both ways before crossing the road, and don’t talk to strangers.” Then she sent me out to play, and I was not expected home until it got dark.

I believe there have always been child predators and other dangers, but the problem is television and the media in general constantly dwelling on the negative, people are in perpetuity made aware of the dangers.

The actual danger becomes blown out of all proportion. It has even reached the stage where in some areas, parents who allow their children to walk to school unsupervised, are charged with neglect.

When 9/11 happened, people were fond of saying, “If we allow ourselves to live in fear, the terrorists have won.” However, the ‘Fear’ had crept into our lives long before 9/11. I believe it goes back to the 1960s, about the time of the Manson murders, when everything changed.

Prior to that people left their doors unlocked at night, teenage kids climbed into cars with strangers, as they hitch-hiked across the country. After Manson, doors were locked, and people stopped picking up hitchhikers. The “Bad Guys” had won. Long before there were Terrorists.

Today they have classes in High School to teach Social Skills. Social skills should be learned in pre-school, playing with other kids. It is where a child learns to share, and to fit in with others. Bullying is rife in schools, because kids have spent their early years with mommy, and are suddenly thrown in with a mix of other children, with no clue how to deal with the situation.

Whether a stationary bike for kids is a good or bad thing is a matter of individual opinion. To me it symbolizes the isolation that our children suffer from an early age. Pre-school should be the years to start learning social skills by playing, (Preferably unsupervised) with other kids.

School years are for book learning and strengthening social skills. By High School and into the teen years the individual should be honing social skills and learning how meaningful relationships work. However, if a child is a misfit from an early age, one who finds it difficult to socialize with others it will be a burden he or she will carry the rest of their life.

Social skills cannot be learned from a book, only by experience. Real experiences like riding a real bicycle.

    To Share click "Share Article" below

Goodbye 2020

In the fifteen years I have been writing here on Dave’s Bike Blog, I don’t think I have ever struggled so much to come up with a suitable post, hence the delay. This normally would have been written last Monday.

The problem has been that the subject is pre-determined by the date and traditionally for the last article of the year I must write about my reflections on the outgoing year, and my goals for the New Year. But in a year as disastrous as 2020 how do I do that?

Well, at least we got though it, otherwise I would not be here writing this, and you would not be reading it, so there is a positive thought to begin. What is the big deal about New Year’s Eve anyway? It is just a changing number on a calendar or clock. I believe that time is an illusion, synchronized by mankind to bring some kind of order to this chaotic lifestyle that we have brought upon ourselves.

I find it interesting that the design and engineering methods that clock making brought about, started the Industrial Revolution. I often wonder if something that started as man’s desire to harness time, will end with some form of Artificial Intelligence that can nun this whole shit show in conjunction with Nature. Because it is clear to me that Human Intelligence is diminishing and cannot continue to run things as they are.

2020 was not a particularly good year, but one that will be remembered for sure. Many lessons learned, not only about my fellow man, of traits both good and bad, but lessons about myself too.

At the end of this year a book came my way, mentioned in my last blog post. Published in Belgium, and written in French and English.

I am not saying that this book changed anything in my life, but it did make me realize how my life had changed in the years I have been engaged in writing here.

What has changed is my thinking, my point of view. What a good thing this is, for if one does not change their way of thinking, they become stagnant and do not continue to grow or move forward.

The book titled, “Bike Inspired Creativity. Volume 2.” is a collection of different bicycles, and here is where my thinking has changed. Five or ten years ago I would not have given this book a second look, I would have dismissed it as a “Waste of time.” I have been critical here of recumbent bikes, mountain bikes, anything that did not follow the lines of a pure racing bike was of little or no interest to me.

I was never fond of bikes that were pure art objects, and even now I will go as far as saying I feel if one is building a bicycle that is meant to be ridden then it needs to be built straight and accurate. If something is pure art with no other purpose than to be looked at, it needs to be obvious that it is akin to a piece of sculpture, not a practical bike to ride.

One such bike is one made entirely of wood, not just the frame, but the chain wheel, cranks, pedals and even the chain. The bike was actually ridden on a velodrome and apparently holds the world record for an all-wooden bike. One can appreciate and admire the woodworking skills and the knowledge of different wood properties that went into the building of such a bike.

Here is a practical folding bike with full size wheels. https://www.kruschhausen-cycles.de/

Here is another with full size wheels where not only does the frame fold, but the wheels too. https://www.tuckbike.com/

I highly recommend this book; it will entertain you for hours. Learn more about the book https://velosophe.be/livre Or buy it here, postage is FREE https://velosophe.ecwid.com

    To Share click "Share Article" below

I made it into a new Belgian Bike Book

I recently made it into a new book published in Belgium, called “Bike Inspired Creativity."

The book is a collection of Whimsical, Weird, and many quite Wonderful pedal driven creations from around the World.

The book’s author, Pascal Mageren contacted me earlier this year about an unusual project I had completed back 42 years ago, towards the end of 1978.

This strange looking bike was a photo prop I built for the World’s first living family of sextuplets born in South Africa 1974. The eight-seater bike was built for parents Susan and Colin Rosenkowitz and their six children, to be photographed on the occasion of the sextuplets sixth birthday.

I already knew that in January the following year I would be moving to America, when out of the blue, I was contacted by The National Enquirer, who told me they were the largest circulation newspaper in the United States. This was probably not a lie but misleading never-the-less, as to a naive Englishman like me who had no clue what the Enquirer was, the term “Newspaper” implied it was a publication that printed actual news.

At the time I saw this as a wonderful opportunity to have the “dave moulton” brand become a household name all over the USA, and I hastily agreed to build this thing for free, in exchange for a story in the Enquirer about how English framebuilder Dave Moulton had built this special bike.

The frame was put together quite quickly and cheaply, with a length of 3”x1.5” (76x38mm.) steel box tube forming the main frame. Inexpensive cottered steel double-cranksets were used, and a pair of second-hand wheels and fenders from a moped, conveniently had built in drum brakes.

After all, it was only meant to be used for a one-time photo shoot, and the Enquirer told me it didn’t even have to be ridable. Of course, I was not going to build a bike that couldn’t be ridden. Actually, it turned out to be extremely easy to ride and balance, the heavy steel rectangular tube and the steel chainsets, all below the wheel centers, made it almost impossible for it to tip sideways.

The only strange sensation I remember was when trying to steer around a corner. It felt like I was pedaling forward but going sideways. The bike was finished before the end of 1978 and someone came and picked it up and shipped it to South Africa.

I didn’t even have to build a crate for it, which was just as well because when the picture (Above.) was published in the Enquirer in the Spring of 1979, there was no mention of me, the builder. However, I did have the foresight to paint my name in large letters on both sides of the frame.

This bike just won’t go away, it keeps popping up. It was the subject of the fourth article I wrote when this blog started in 2005. Colin Rozenkowitz, the father of the sextuplets found that article in 2009 and sent me a photo of the six siblings now adults on the same bike.

Then again, a year later in 2010 the bike, still in South Africa, was used on a charity ride with two adults and five children on board. (Above.) Now once again it appears in this new book. Not bad for a bike that was hastily designed and put together for a one-time photo shoot. Then again, I never built anything that was not meant to last.

This new publication is really a neat book, with many amazing projects. I will write more about it next week when I’ve had time to read more. In the mean time you can link to it here.

I would like to take this opportunity to wish everyone a Joyous Christmas, or whatever it is you celebrate at this time of year.

    To Share click "Share Article" below

Exercise and Aging

Exercise is good for you…. Right? Everyone knows that. But is there such a thing as too much exercise, especially as we age?

The more I read on the subject, coupled with actual changes I am experiencing, the more I am convinced that you can “Over” exercise.

Especially when you really start getting up there in years. In less than two months I will be 85. I am both physically and mentally fit. For the last five years I have maintained my weight at 150 lb. (68 kg.) (My racing weight as a teenager.)

The only medication I take is a low dose for my Parkinson's, but I do take a lot of supplements. I still hold on to my mistrust of Doctors, Big Pharma, the Food Industry, and Government of course, only because they allow the aforementioned to operate with impunity.

I like and respect my own doctor, but trust him? Hell no. I go in for an annual physical, when he does blood and urine tests. But if he prescribes any medication, I research it thoroughly, and invariably find the side effects of said medication is far worse that the condition it is treating.

One has to be their own health advocate. It is my body, so only I get to say what goes in it, and what I do to it. The great thing today is all the information I need is right there on-line. Yes, there is a lot of miss-information too, but one must be selective in what one reads. But on reading several articles saying the same thing, one has to accept there is some truth to it.

In recent years, one of the things I have learned about is Free Radicals, and in particular Oxygen Free Radicals. With my limited high school science knowledge, I will try to explain in simple terms. Atoms are made up of a Nucleus of Protons and Neutrons, and electrons orbit around the Nucleus.

An Oxygen atom has two electrons orbiting the nucleus, and six more electrons orbiting outside that. A Free Radical atom has one or more of these electrons missing. It then “Steals” an electron from the atom next to it, which in turn steals one from its neighbor, setting off a chain-reaction of wholesale electron thievery that can actually cause cell damage.  

Free radicals are a natural occurrence, and the body has a defense mechanism in the form of antitoxins that repair the damage done by free radicals. Our bodies produce these antitoxins using nutrients from the food we eat.

The problem is as we age, we stop producing these antitoxins and the free radicals are left to ravage our bodies and our brains. It is the reason we become old, get dementia or become more susceptible to cancer and other diseases.

Glutathione is an antitoxin the body makes naturally and is known as “The mother of all antitoxins.” This is where the supplements come in, and it is here I wish it were it that simple. Glutathione taken orally, rarely makes it past the digestive system. However, the body makes glutathione from amino acids, Cysteine, Glutamine, and Glycine. By taking these supplements, the goal is to help my body produce its own Glutathione.

When we exercise to extremes, especially endurance exercise, which cycling can be if you ride far enough and hard enough, we actually produce free radicals. This is not surprising when you consider intense exercise means we are taking in 10 to 20 times more oxygen than we would while resting.

Our bodies are processing all that extra oxygen as it goes from our lungs to our blood-stream, to our muscles. I ask myself, is it any wonder a few little electrons get lost along the way? A young fit athlete can handle this, even a fit fifty- or sixty-year-old might be okay. But when we get to our seventies and eighties, time starts to catch up fast. I for one have come to respect my limitations.

I ride a moderate pace around 15 mph. pedal a low gear at around 72 rpm, and never ride to the point of exhaustion, or even to the point of being out of breath. Apparently, the worst thing an aging athlete can do is to exercise infrequently, then exercise hard. Weekend Warriors beware. Slow down, if you are like me, you have nothing to prove to yourself, or anyone else.  

If you Google “Exercise and Free Radicals,” or click here there is much info on this subject.

    To Share click "Share Article" below    

Talking Bikes back in 1977

I was reading over an old article I wrote for the British “Cycling” magazine in November 1977, it really made me think. First thought was just how long ago that really was? 43 years and I was 41 years old at the time I wrote it, over half a lifetime ago for me.

I was reading this again in its entirety after several years, and the thing that struck me most was my choice of words, it was almost like I was writing this for children, it is not the way I would write today. However, I do not remember feeling that I was talking down to my readers as I was writing it. I think the reason was I was putting forward some new thinking and had the explain my reasoning behind every statement.

Everything I had read, and therefore everything everyone else had read before was stated as fact with no explanation as to why it was so. For example, there was a cycling handbook put out in the 1960s by the Italian Cycling Federation, it was advertised as being “The Bible of Cycling.”

It contained a section on frame design, which was really the “Gospel according to Cino Cinelli,” it stated that road bikes should always have a seat angle two degrees shallower than the head angle. This explained why Italian frames of the 1970s were 75 head, 73 seat, but gave no explanation what-so-ever why this was so.

I knew the reason because I had learned frame building from “Pop” Hodge in Luton, England, in 1957 when the standard frame angles were 73-degree head angle, 71-degree seat. The reason being, with the seat tube leaning back by 2 degrees, as a frame got bigger the top tube became longer. It made it easier to build a range of different size frames with the same standard lug angles.

A 71-degree seat angle was totally unsuitable for someone of my short stature which started me on this quest to build a better frame for myself. It just never made sense to me that someone with shorter legs, and a shorter body should have the same seat angle as a much taller person.

I remember one indication that I was questioning the Status Quo at the time in that an old gentleman wrote me a hand-written letter sent through the mail. He said that my ideas on head angles and “Trail” were all wrong and he enclosed a photocopy of an article from “Cycling” magazine dated 1946 to prove it. Back in 1946 and before that, it was thought that trail was a bad thing that made the steering sluggish.

One thing I said in this piece I need to draw your attention to is where I say “Frame size equals two-thirds of the inside leg measurement. This is somewhat simplifying the issue and two-thirds will not work for people with a long body and short legs. Overall height is a better indicator of frames size.

Click here to open or download the original article in PDF format. There are four pages standard 8.5 x 11 that can be printed or read on screen where you can enlarge the image for easier reading.

     To Share click "Share Article" below