The Future: Imagined
Mon, April 27, 2020 
Watching old episodes of “The Twilight Zone” on Hulu, it recently struck me that so many of the stories were of the future. Tales of space travel, and encounters with aliens from Mars and even from other galaxies
These old black and white made for TV episodes were first shown around the late 1950s and early 1960s. The story lines are pretty lame by today’s standards, but I found them interesting from a nostalgic viewpoint, remembering seeing them back when they were first aired.
Also interesting is recognizing young actors like William Shatner, Dennis Hopper, and Charles Bronson. at the beginning of their careers. Someone born after the sixties would probably not find The Twilight Zone interesting at all.
Many of the stories were of a world annihilated by nuclear war, reflecting how people felt back in the “Cold War” era. One such story was set in the then future date of 1974, with most of the world’s population dead, and a handful of survivors living a primitive lifestyle. 1974 was not that far in the future, and yet at the time the story line was morbidly believable.
Most of the stories of the future depicted the world’s population under a totalitarian government, all dressed the same, in some kind of uniform. Looking back at the 1950s – 1960s era, when men wore a suit and tie, and women wore dresses and high heels, the dress code was more uniform than it is now, where just about anything goes.
One recently watched episode that set the story in the year 2,000 was hilarious in that it had men and women dressed in tights with their undershorts on the outside, Superman style.
All these old stories depicting the future so inaccurately, reminded me I had an old “Cycling” magazine with story of the future. I searched and found it and re-read it. It was both interesting and amusing in parts.
The magazine is dated January 22nd. 1936. (About 3 weeks before my birth.) The fictional story tells of a cyclist who has a dream where he meets a cyclist many years in the future. The author does not specify what year exactly.
The future bike was made of a material named “Chromolithium.” It weighed 4 lbs. (1.81 kg.) The frame tubes were only ½ inch diameter. (12. 7 mm.)
The gearing is interesting in that the bike has a disc in place of a chainwheel with a series of teeth machined on the inside from the outer circumference to the center. It has a driveshaft rather than a chain. The drive shaft moves to engage with the disc, operated by a handlebar twist grip.
I find this interesting as a similar idea is now in production, (Left.) except the disc is at the rear wheel.
This idea was around in 1936, at least in this author’s mind.
The author calls these gears “Infinite.” The range is 98 inch top gear, with a low of 36 inch. Todays bikes have gears well outside this range.
The bike had drum brakes at the hub. (Not disc brakes.) Operated by a twist grip on the opposite side of the handlebar. All cables were hidden inside the frame.
The roads in this story are black during the day and turn white at night as the sun sets. No cars are allowed on the roads, in this author’s mind, the death toll for cyclists got so bad at some point in the future that underground tunnels were built for cars. The main form of transport are bicycles and airplanes that fly silently across the sky.
The article said that cycling was the future's main sport in England but only mentioned Time-Trialing, as of course that was the only racing option in the UK in 1936. (With the exception of track racing.) An interesting quote from the story, word for word:
“Joe Smith put up the fastest “25” ever, 41 minutes and 6 seconds. All the competitors take some sort of tablet before they race. They’re quite harmless and give them tremendous energy and staying power.”
The article talks of a British Time-Trial 24 hour Record of 590 miles. The current UK record is 541.214 miles.
I find it strange the author had a vision of roads only open to cyclists but could not see the ban lifted on massed-start road racing. In reality, that ban wasn’t lifted until 1956, and had it not been lifted at that time it probably would not have happened at all, because during the 1960s and 1970s motor traffic in the UK increased at an alarming rate.
The author was not named, just his initials. R.H.W.
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Road Cycling is Dead, Long Live Road Cycling
In the words of Yogi Berra, “It is déjà vu all over again,” at least it is for me. In the early 1990s the cry was, “Road Cycling is dead, mountain bikes are the new thing.” There are all these safe trails, away from cars, just waiting to be explored. All you need this special bike to ride them.
Today I am hearing the exact same thing about gravel bikes. Before I go further, let me say this is an observation, and is in no way meant to be a put down, of mountain biking or gravel bikes. I have noticed in recent years, it has been proven that wider tires not only have less rolling resistance, they can be run with less pressure making for a less bumpy ride on rough surfaces.
So, did wider tires lead to the interest in riding a road bike on gravel and dirt roads, or was it just the bike industry looking for another bike boom that the mountain bike had brought? The mountain bike boom was special and may never happen again on the scale it did.
Mountain biking was developed by a small group of enthusiasts, starting out building bikes for downhill racing, based on old balloon-tired cruiser bikes. From this group came mountain bike builders working separately from builders of road bikes like me, and others of that time.
By the time the big companies like Giant got into building MTBs, they had become what I saw as an adult version of the BMX bike. It coincided with a whole generation of twenty- and thirty-year old’s who had grown up riding BMX bikes in the 1960s and 1970s.
Many were new to cycling and it brought them into the sport. The mountain bike became a world-wide phenomenon, and many of today’s professional road cyclists got their start in mountain bike racing.
A few hard-core roadies remained, and road cycling never completely went away. By the new millennium road biking was gaining popularity once more, with new people joining the sport, crossing over from mountain biking.
The bikes I built in the 1980s were road racing bikes and were never really suited for leisure riding, but it was what people wanted at the time. Many people saw these bikes in bike stores and fell in love the sparkling paint, and polished aluminum, they just had to have one. When they rode them however, it was hard work, their back hurt, their ass hurt, and the bikes were over geared for most newbies.
I see bikes I built in the 1980s come up for sale on eBay, some in pristine condition, they have never been used. The sale of all these bikes that were never used, initially helped keep me in business, and today ensure there is a plentiful supply for the current enthusiast, and on into the future.
In 1982 I met John Howard for the first time, I built him a custom ‘dave moulton’ frame, built with Reynolds 753 tubing. He said it was the best bike he had ever owned, and he often rode it on dirt roads in the semi-desert east of San Diego.
This was not what I would have recommended for a lightweight frame, but I figured John Howard knew what he was doing, and it would be a good test for the frame. The bike had the skinny 22 mm. wide tubular tires of that era.
My point is you could ride most road bikes on dirt or gravel roads that are reasonably level surfaced. The bikes being touted as “Gravel” bikes, as I see it are simply bikes more suited for leisure riding. Bikes that I might have built myself back in the 1980s, had there been a call for such a design at the time.
However, one man alone cannot start a trend, it takes many all agreeing and saying the same thing, at the same time, which is what is happening now.
But is road biking dead? No, and it never will be. Riding on a dirt road into the unknown maybe fun and adventurous, but eventually one will tire of the bumpety bump of the rough surface, and long to be back on smooth asphalt.
There is no substitute for the feeling when you stomp on the pedals, and the bike immediately responds, and rockets forward. The speed, the wind in your face, and the sound of the tires ringing in your ears. Even the dull ache in your legs, somehow feels good.