The Queen

The Queen died this week. I find it interesting that Elizabeth II, Queen of the United Kingdom, and the British Commonwealth is referred to as “The Queen,” and everyone knows who that is. There are other countries in the world that are Monarchies with a King or Queen and a Royal Family, but I cannot name them all off the top of my head.

I find it “Neat,” (For want of a better word.) that countries like Britain have a head of state, whose ancestry can be traced back hundreds of years, and are direct descendants of former heads of state. A symbolic, non-political head of state in name only that is, but never-the-less it gives one a comforting sense of continuity.

That continuity has now been broken, and for me is a loss that took several days to actually sink in. I was 16 years old and just started work early in 1952 when the Queen’s father George VI died. Elizabeth’s Coronation came a year later in 1953. For those born around or since that date, The Queen has always been there. Her face on postage stamps, and on paper money and coins.

Her presence always gave me a sense that the government was somehow less powerful. Whether that was true or not, I am not sure, but I always felt that whoever was in charge, it would not affect my life that much, and they could be booted out of office in the next election.

I carried this feeling over to these United States where I have lived for over 43 years, more than half my life. As a Green Card-carrying Resident, I have no vote, but I fret far less over who is President, or what the Government does. Instead, I care more who my friends are and what I can do for others.

The Queen did not choose who she was, that was thrust upon her, but it was a crown she carried well. Sure, she was a celebrity with all the wealth and luxury that it brings, but it was not a position that she could slip away from and quietly retire.

She lived her life with dignity, as a servant to her people. A reminder that we are all servants in some way or other. We have no choice where we came from, but we do get to decide where we are headed and who we choose to accompany us on that journey.

Marketing

David R. Ball PhotoMarketing is always a tough nut for the artist.

All he wants to do is create, but then there comes a point where he must market what he creates in order to survive and continue creating.

It is tough when you have a product that you know is superior but lose sales because some large corporation has more marketing clout.

This happened many times with me in the early 1980s when customers would be on the brink of buying one of my bikes, then at the last moment opt for a Japanese Nishiki, on Centurion. Both good bicycles of that era but could never compare to a hand-built frame made by an individual craftsman.

The only reason they did this was marketing. These large manufacturers could place full page color ads in Bicycling Magazine. But at $10,000 a pop for a such an ad there was no way I could compete.

Instead I relied on bicycle dealers to sell to a small group of hard-core cyclists who could appreciate the difference between a limited production hand-built frame, and a factory mass produced item. I built a Nationwide network of these dealers by attending the Interbike Trade Show each year.

Each dealer would have bikes in stock that potential customers could test ride. Once a person test rode a Fuso, or other bike I built, and compared it to a production import bike, they could tell by the way it rode, the way it handled, this was a better bike, often for the same amount of money.

These independent bicycle dealers were my sales force, handling all the marketing for me, leaving me to spend my time building frames. For the dealer there was a 15% mark-up on a frame, not a huge amount, but when you add to this the markup on the components. Plus, back in the day, the bike store built the wheels and of course charged labor for the assembly of the bike.

It was a profitable partnership for the dealer and me, one that worked well through the 1980s, until the market changed. By the early 1990s interest switched to Mountain Bikes, which killed the road bike market.

For me to sell direct to the individual customer was a hopeless proposition. It had worked well for me in England though the 1970s, but there was a big difference in the mentality of the customer in the UK.

For a start my UK customers were almost exclusively racing cyclists. Having chosen a framebuilder, they would trust him implicitly. They would spend an hour at the most, getting measured and discussing the order. If they lived more than 75 miles away, the order would probably be sent via mail, or taken over the phone. The customer would order a frame and would most likely buy the components and assemble the bike himself.

The American customer, on the other hand, would drive hundreds of miles across state lines to visit with a framebuilder. Having done that, they would expect to spend the whole day at the shop, hanging out, watching me work, asking all manner of questions, that went way beyond the scope of the actual frame I would build for them. And there was never a gaurentee that an order would be forthcoming.

I think the big difference between the British and American customer is, the UK customer recognizes your skills but treats you as an equal. However, he respects your time and realizes it is valuable.

The American customer also recognizes your skills, but treats you like some kind of celebrity because of it, to the point at times, it is embarrassing. However, he has no respect for your time, and if he is buying your product, he expects your undivided attention that goes way beyond the time it takes to actually create that product.

It is the American way. Money talks, and the customer is King. A philosophy I never quite bought into, and was the reason I ran a strict ‘No Visitor’ policy, and sold my product through bike dealers. If I had it to do over again, I would do the same. One cannot run a profitable framebuilding business if you are spending more time talking about bikes than actually building them.

The Vuelta never disappoints

Of the three Grand Tours, I often feel that the Vuelta a Espana is the most entertaining. Coming off one of the best Tour de France events in recent years, I wondered if this was likely this year, but after just over a week of racing, I have to say, “Possibly.”

What makes any sporting event entertaining and exiting is the unknown, the unexpected outcome. Prior to this year’s TDF I thought Tadej Podacar was unbeatable, but he proved to be human after all. Or it could be argued that the strongest team won, not necessarily the strongest individual.

The Vuelta always has the unknown element because it is such a tough race, with more climbing than the other Grand Tours. This year has the added unknown of so many new riders entering the sport at young ages, (In their early twenties.) previously unheard of.

Looking at the start list before the race, I was struck by the number of new names, most I had not previously heard of. One notable exception to this was Remco Evenepoel. So much has been written about this 22-year-old Belgian rider during the last year, along with the speculation that he is the new Eddy Merckx.

I can’t help but feel what a tremendous and unnecessary burden this is to place on such a young athlete, but sadly this is what the press and media do.  They build people up only to knock them down again when they fail.

Cycle racing has to be one of the toughest sports out there, both physically and mentally. The constant steam of new-comers to the sport keeps it fresh and interesting, but entering the sport, especially Grand Tours, at such a young age I expect to see shorter careers than we have seen in the past.

What are your views?

Six short memories from across the years

1.) As a child during the 1940s I lived in a house in England with no electricity and no water piped into the house. Water was brought in by bucket from a communal well outside. Lighting was by oil lamp and candles. My mother cooked with a coal fired range and baked wonderful pies and cakes. She did so without a thermometer on the oven.

She ironed with a flat iron also heated on the stovetop. She would spit on the iron to test the temperature, the spit would boil and run off immediately if it was hot enough. She had a pair of flat irons, one would be heating while she ironed with the other for a minute or so before it cooled.

2. It was early 1946 in England; WWII had been over less than a year. I was ten years old. King George VI, father of Queen Elizabeth was coming through our town on his way somewhere else. In the days leading up to this event, we made paper flags at school

Whether real flags were not available, or the school was too cheap to buy us flags, I don’t know. But we each drew and colored a British flag on both sides of a piece of paper and then glued it to a stick.

The day finally came, and we all lined up at the roadside. We waited, and we waited, freezing our little asses off, for at least an hour. Finally, here came the motorcade, passing through at about 45 mph. We all started cheering and waiving our little paper flags.

Someone shouted, “There he is” and pointed. I think I saw King George VI that day, I can’t be certain, but I think I did.

3.) As an eighteen-year-old in 1954, walking home in the early hours of a Sunday morning, after a Saturday night out, when an older drunk man, probably in his forties, tried to pick a fight with me. He took a swing at me but missed and fell over. I carried on walking home but heard a tremendous crash as he had fallen backward through the plate glass window of a television shop. The noise was deafening as the sound amplified through the empty streets. The last I saw of the drunk, he was lying on his back amongst the TV sets, with his legs in the air.

I took off running, and was chased by two American Military Police, in a Jeep. They pulled alongside me, and when they saw I was not an American Serviceman, they stopped and gave up the chase. I made it home without further incident. Later the local newspaper told the story of a broken store window mystery, and that nothing was stolen. There was no mention of the drunk guy. I guess he was not seriously hurt and had left the scene.

There was a large American Air Force Base, near where I lived. The Military Police would patrol the streets but had no jurisdiction over civilians. We called them "Snow Drops" because they wore white helmets, reminding us of a British wild flower that has white bell shaped petals and is called a Snow Drop.

4.) In 1968 (Age 32.) I saw Jimi Hendrix play in Nottingham, England, At the time he was still relatively unknown in America. The show was in a small venue and was the loudest concert I have ever been to. He had Marshall speakers stacked floor to ceiling. I stood at the back of the room and the sound was actually pushing my chest in. I don’t believe it was by chance his band was called “The Jimi Hendrix Experience.”

5.) In the mid 1980s the owner of a bike store in Denver asked me if I would make an exception for a very special customer and personally measure him for a custom frame. The customer was the manager of the Denver Broncos football team. (I don’t recall his name.) The team was coming to San Diego to play the Chargers and after the game he would drive up to see me.

The outcome was, the Chargers beat the Broncos, and the team and the manager took an early flight home. (Obviously, sore losers.) I never did get to measure him or build him a frame. Had I done so I would probably remember his name.

6.) In the late 1980s I was approached by Fila, the sports clothing company. They were interested in a line of bicycles with the Fila name on them. Two people from the company came to my shop to look at my operation, and we talked about my building these frames. They must have dropped the idea, I never heard back, and I don't recall anyone else making a Fila bike.

A bike riding robot

The above video is a demonstration of a cycling robot built by Japanese engineer Masahiko Yamaguchi. The tiny mechanical cyclist keeps its balance in the same way a human does by steering in the direction the bike and rider is leaning or falling.

The robot has a sensor in its backpack that detects a lean to the left or right, and this in turn causes the robot’s arms to steer the bike in the required direction.

A human will do this intuitively, as we fall to the left we steer to the left bringing the bike back under the center of mass, or balancing point. Rather like balancing a broom on the palm of our hand, we do this by constantly moving the palm of the hand in the direction the broom is falling.

If we want to turn to the left, we lean to the left. We automatically steer to the left to correct the lean and therefore make a left turn. Even when running we lean in the direction we wish to turn, all animals do it.

By leaning we automatically step in that direction and in doing so make a turn the way we are leaning.

For both the runner and the cyclist, the lean also counteracts the centrifugal force, pushing us outwards, that the turn generates.

You rarely hear of a bicycle or motorcycle tipping over on a corner as a three- or four-wheel vehicle might do, or for that matter a runner falling outward on a bend.  Rather the bike, or the runner’s feet may slide out from under them.

There are two ways to balance on a bicycle. Riding slowly at a walking pace, we physically steering the bike in the direction we are falling. (The way the robot does it.) Riding at speed we steer by leaning in the direction we wish to turn, the same way a runner does.

We can even ride “No hands” and both balance and steer by shifting our body weight. This requires more skill but as most of the body’s mass is in the upper body, the rider mostly has only has to move their hips to achieve balance. This too is somewhat of an intuitive movement.

Have you ever been riding near the edge of the road and find that the asphalt drops off several inches? Your bike is leaning towards the edge and normally you would steer in that direction to correct it, only you can’t because you will steer yourself off the road.

Instinctively, you throw your opposite knee, and your shoulders away from the edge. You have steered away from the edge of the road, and also maintained your balance by moving your body weight rather than by steering with the handlebars. It was an intuitive movement probably accompanied by a moment of sheer panic.

This is why the bicycle is such a remarkable yet simple invention. It is relatively easy to balance and ride, even a child can do it with a little practice. 

It is a similar to the intuitive thing that we do while walking or running, the bicycle could be described as a mechanical extension of the human body.

Footnote: There is more to steering and steering geometry than this simplified explanation. There are several articles in the bike tech section of the archives.