Giving Thanks

If you will indulge me during this Thanksgiving Season. I would like to share my thoughts about giving thanks and why I think it is a good idea to simply say thank you for the good things that happen in life.

Does one have to have someone or something to say thank you to? Not necessarily. By saying “Thank you” one is simply acknowledging that good things do happen. Because, no matter how bad a person’s life might appear to be, there are a few good moments, and by saying thank you, one is recognizing those moments.

Let’s say a person has a bad day, where just one thing after another went wrong. On looking back the highlight of their whole day was when someone smiled and gave them a kind word. By giving thanks for that moment, they not only recognize something positive, but they also relive that moment. That can only be a good thing.

If life is good, say thank you. Or even if a person is suffering physically or from depression, they can always find something good that happened sometime, and say thank you. Also, they can always find someone worse off than they are. Recognize and at least give thanks for that.

One person offers up a thank you prayer to their God, another simply says thank you to themself or to no one in particular. One might consider the two to be the same thing For what is a prayer but a positive thought, and a positive thought is but an unspoken prayer?

If you utter but one prayer this Thanksgiving or indeed any day. Whether that prayer be spoken or unspoken, let that prayer, or thought be “Thank you.”

Seventeen Years of Blogging

This last weekend, Saturday 12th November marked 17 years of posting here on “Dave Moulton’s Blog.”

Having posted the first article on November 12th, 2005, which coincidentally was also a Saturday.

With no thoughts of quitting anytime soon, I do wonder how long I can continue.

I was 69 when this started, I am now 86. My health is still good, apart from the fact that I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease at age 80.

Soon after I announced that here, someone commented, “My father lived with Parkinson’s for 35 years.” Which made me think, “Great, that means I could live to be 115 years old.”

Parkinson’s is not fatal; people die with Parkinson’s rather than die from it. I manage it quite well with diet, exercise, supplements and a low dose of one basic medication. I view it as an inconvenience rather than a handicap.

It does affect my speech at times, and I stumble over words occasionally, but due to covid of course, it has been a while since I attempted any public speaking engagements.

But then again, I have always had a problem where my brain works faster than my mouth, and words tend to lag behind my thoughts. Maybe it is just a need to practice more.

My main issue is a tremor in my right hand. I had to switch the computer mouse to my left hand, and even though I am predominantly right-handed, I have adapted quite well.

Typing becomes slow and tiresome at times because I keep misspelling words by typing double, or even triple letters where they shouldn’t be. However, I think how much worse I would become if I did not type on a daily basis. Writing has become an essential exercise for both my Parkinson’s and my brain.

So, no thoughts of quitting anytime soon. However, I have been thinking about changing the format to appeal to a wider audience.

Seventeen years of blogging has often felt like having an unpaid job, but all the regular content posted here has earned me a great position with the search engines, especially Google.

When the time comes, I can no longer do this, I will have something of value to pass on, but I do need to appeal to a wider audience. Vintage bike enthusiasts, especially those interested in one particular brand, by nature is a dwindling audience, rather than an increasing one.

This site does need to be upgraded to a “Secure” platform, and needs to be in a format that can easily be viewed on many different devices, including smart phones.

I will be working towards that goal in the coming months. Priority will be switching over the vast amount of content I have in the archives. Anyone with knowledge how to do this, your help would be greatly appreciated.

Let me hear your thoughts on what I have done right, (And wrong.) and how “Dave Moulton’s Blog” can improve moving forward.

The URL will always be DavesBikeBlog.com but the search engines already respond to variations of that, like “Dave Moulton Bike,” Dave Moulton’s Blog,” etc. Often quite well to simply "Dave Moulton," even though there are many other people with the same name.

Cycling and Smoking

I have never smoked although growing up in the 1940s and 1950s it was an era when it seemed everyone smoked including many cyclists.

It was always strange to me to witness a finishing sprint in a race and then see many of the riders collapse exhausted at the side of the road and immediately light up a cigarette, usually followed by a bout of coughing.

The picture below I sure you have seen many times. It is from the early days of the Tour de France and shows the riders taking a cigarette break.

Below is a modern day re-enactment of the above famous picture. Note the guy in the second row, center crouching down, and the rider further back holding up his water bottle.

In 1978 I was lucky enough to see Eddie Merckx race in London towards the end of his career. I was surprised to see him light up a cigarette at the finish line of the event. In later years I saw Merckx several times at various trade shows throughout the 1980s and again witnessed him smoking.

This is how Eddie looks today.

Just kidding, that is not Eddie Merckx.

I couldn’t find any pictures of Eddie Merckx smoking, but here’s a shot (Below.) of Italian pro cyclist Mario Cipollini taking a drag while riding. Cipollini’s career highlights include World Road Championship and the Milan-San Remo in 2002.

Of course the whole key is, you have to start young.

The rest is just training.

Joe Cirone

I was recently contacted by Joe Cirone, (Left.) who lives in Visalia, CA. Joe is now 92 years old and raced bikes, with success back in the late 1940s early 1950s.

Joe Cirone has been corresponding with me since 2006, when he told me about a frame he had built in the winter of 1948. The builder’s name was Mike Moulton, same name as me, but not related as far as I know.

Mike Moulton, from Tujunga, California, was an engineer for the Lockheed Aircraft Company. He built bike frames as a hobby.in a little workshop at the back of his house.

I can imagine back in the late 1940s, early 1950s, cycle racing was somewhat a “Cinderella” sport in America, and one could not easily find a track frame in the US. So, to find someone locally with the necessary skill to build such a frame must have been rare.

More about Mike Moulton later, but getting back to Joe Cirone, he got into bike racing in 1946 and found that he was a pretty good at it when he won the Junior National Championship in 1947.

Joe Cirone leads in a 1000 m. Match Sprint. 1948 US Nat. Championship.Joe tried out for the Olympic Team in 1948 but fell short by a little over one second in the 1000 meter Time Trial, held in Milwaukee Wisconsin. He did however take 2nd in the Nationals Senior Championship that year held in Kenosha Wisc.

It was when Joe Cirone returned home to California in 1948,  he met Mike Moulton at one of the races held in Pasadena and Mike offered to build him a frame. Joe rode that bike to the end of his career, and still owns it to this day.

1948 US Nat. Championships. Joe Cirone center.In 1951 Joe was part of a "Special American Team" that went to Japan on a "Good Will" Tour for one month. He raced against Japanese Teams up and down Japan. The team averaged two races each week, ending in a Special Event in Tokyo Stadium.

Before he left Japan, a large Japanese Bike Manufacturer offered Joe $1,000 for his bike. A great deal of money back then, but Joe turned the offer down a kept his beloved bike. The same bike he holds in the picture at the top of thes article.

Joe Cirone with his collection of Trophies.Some links to previous articles:

I had written about Mike Moulton, first in 2007, when I thought his frames may have dated buck to the 1930s.

Later that same year, (2007) I wrote a follow up.

In 2013 I learned of another Mike Moulton track frame that had been nicely restored.

More pictures of Joe Cirone's buike built by Mike Moulton.

 

Foot note: Don’t confuse Mike Moulton with Mike Melton, another fine American builder.

From metalsmith to wordsmith

I have always been a creative person; it gives me tremendous satisfaction that I have left a body of work out there that is still being appreciated by a small but growing number of people.

Also, good to know that there is a good supply of bicycles and frames that I built still out there, thanks to previous owners, taking good care of them.

I am still creative but have gone from metalsmith to wordsmith, it suits my current abilities. All creativity begins with an original thought, and where I previously assembled metal and paint to produce a bicycle frame, I now try to assemble words in way that hopefully is entertaining, informative, and thought provoking.

With any skill, repetition is the key to becoming good at it, I became a good framebuilder by building a lot of bike frames. Today I constantly tell myself that my best work is yet to come, and the only way to achieve that goal is to write, write, write, and then write some more.

Of the utmost importance to me is to write in a manner that does not give the reader the feeling that I am trying to foist my opinions on others. I may have done that in the past and if I did, I was wrong.

In today’s world no one persons opinion matters. I cannot change the world; all one can do is change their own world.

I am always looking for ideas for articles so if you have any questions, feel free to ask.