The Wave

A wave of the hand has to be one of the most simple and yet basic of human gestures.

A wave can say, “Hi,” or it can say, Thank you.” 

Most important a wave to a stranger is saying, “I acknowledge your existence, I am not ignoring you.”

The wave immediately says, “I am friendly towards you.” Even the most hostile and aggressive of drivers, will give another driver a thank you wave, if they slow and let them in. 

In fact if you don’t get a thank you wave, you feel slightly offended, somehow deprived, “Hey, I let you in and I didn’t get a thank you wave, where’s my thank you wave?”

Some cyclists will not return a wave to another cyclist, or will not do so unless they are wearing Lycra like them. Total bull-shit. I know it must be terribly hard if you are lying down comfortably on those aero bars, to struggle up to give a proper wave, but at least raise a hand, make the effort.

Unless you are a serious time-trialist, or tri-athlete, it might be a good excuse to dump the aero bars. Set yourself free to sit up and wave to the whole world.

I wave to everybody when I am riding, not just people who look like me, other people on any kind of a bike, those walking, running, or on skate-boards.

Even ladies pushing babies in strollers. They are all people like me, out getting some fresh air, and exercise. Sometimes, I get a wave back but not always, I don’t feel deprived or offended if I don’t. 

If I see a driver waiting to turn in front of me, or pull out from a side road, I give a wave. This time it is more of an attention getter, “See me, I’m over here.” Rather like the wave to a waiter in a busy restaurant.

However, it is still a friendly gesture, and the driver may interpret it as, “Thank you for waiting, and not pulling in front of me. Often they will wave back, which is very nice. It means they have seen me, but more important they acknowledge my existence, and my right to be on the road.

A wave costs me nothing, and yet it gives so much. It gives me a great deal of satisfaction and pleasure, makes my ride a better experience.

If you are not in the habit of waving, I can recommend it. It is good for the soul, yours and your fellow travelers.

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The Mob Mentality

Whenever I am engaged in conversation with people who are not cyclists, on learning of my background in the bike business, and my continued interest in riding, they will invariably ask me,

“Why do large groups of cyclists take up the whole damn road? If you give even a friendly toot on the horn to let them know you are passing, you will more often than not get the finger. Why are they so hostile and so rude?”

This is how I try to explain it:

First of all in any random group of people you have a cross-section of society. Some are nice people, and some are assholes. It is the assholes in the group that will give you the finger. Rarely would you get the whole group giving the one finger salute in unison. Just as there are assholes who drive cars, there are assholes who ride bikes.

The other thing is the mob mentality. This is a common human trait that we see in any group of people not just cyclists. When people get together in a group they are less considerate of others outside the group.

Your neighbor is having a party, and as the guests leave late at night, they laugh and talk loudly, slam car doors, and disrupt the sleep of people living several houses away. Usually these people are good neighbors, why would they have such inconsiderate friends we ask ourselves?

How many people have been in a restaurant where there is a large group of say ten or more people? I guarantee that party will be extremely loud, often obnoxious, and will have little regard for anyone else who is unfortunate enough to be seated nearby.  

However, this is what we have come to expect in certain bars and restaurants. There will always be large groups made up of co-workers, family members, celebrating someone’s birthday or something.

Also an important factor, these are just people you can’t stereotype them.

But get a bunch of cyclists on the road, enjoying each other’s company, and are being no more, or no less considerate of others around them than the party in the restaurant.

The big difference is, now you can stereotype them, they are cyclists. Whenever you see a bunch of cyclist together they seem to be behaving badly, therefore all cyclists are lumped together as being bad.

The larger the group the worse the behavior. Take sports fans assembled in their thousands and the mob mentality really takes over. The mob could be angry over their team’s loss, or celebrating their victory, the outcome is the same. Store windows are broken, parked cars are overturned, and even set on fire. Most people would not behave that way individually, or even in a smaller group.

This is how I try to explain why some cyclists behave badly. I don’t condone it. It is one of the reasons I no longer ride with large groups, even though it can be fun. So I ask that people don’t condemn me for riding a bike, just because a few cyclists behave badly.

What is needed is a little more tolerance and understanding on both sides. Cyclists need to be a little more considerate of other road users. Remember Lycra is the different color skin we put on, so we will be stereotyped and others like us will be judged by our behavior.

And the general public needs to realize that these are just a group of friends enjoying each other’s company, and getting some fresh air and exercise while doing so.  And if it is a Sunday, where are you going in such a big fucking hurry anyway?

What are your views, and how do you handle the conversation with non-cyclists?

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Britain's bike friendly cars of the 1950s

I got my first lightweight bike in 1950; it was only five years after the end of WWII and the economic turnaround in Britain and the rest of Europe was only in its early stages. Petrol was in short supply throughout WWII for obvious reasons. It was needed for the war effort, plus off shore oil had yet to be discovered in the UK. Oil had to be imported, and petrol was strictly rationed.

Rationing did not end at the end of WWII, in fact in 1948, (Three years after the war ended.) The Motor Spirit Regulation Act was passed by the British Government, and red dye was added to some petrol. The red petrol was for agriculture and commercial use only. A private motorist caught with red petrol in his tank, could lose his driver’s license for a year, and a petrol station selling red gas to private motorists could be shut down.

The scarcity of petrol throughout the war and the five years that followed, meant there was very little motorized traffic on the roads, and even when petrol rationing ended in 1950, the average working man did not rush out to buy a car, many had never owned, or even driven a car. Traffic was light even into the mid to late 1950s.

In the late 1940s, my pre-teen years, I would ride my bike after school, in the dark using battery lights, with no fear for my safety from my parents. This era is now referred to as the “Golden Age of Cycling.” On the Continent of Europe, cycle racing was the number one sport.

Looking back, it was a great time to ride a bike. Many of the cars on the road were pre-war from the 1920s and 1930s. New cars produced were like the Morris Minor (Above.) and the Ford Anglia, (Below.) had a tiny engines around one liter. (1,000cc.) About the size of many motorcycles today.

You could forget about zero to sixty in a few seconds; for most vehicles, even the new ones, *60mph was the top speed, and that was probably downhill with the wind behind you. Throughout the 1950s, on city streets, there were still as many bicycles as cars, there were even a few horse drawn carts still in use.

A car driver did not sit fuming at a traffic light because there was a cyclist on a horse and cart ahead of him. The driver was lucky if he could get above 20mph between lights, and a fit cyclist on a lightweight bike could get away from a light faster than he could.

The first Motorway (Freeway.) the M1, did not open until 1959. It was approximately 70 miles long from London to Birmingham. I remember within the first few weeks it was littered with broken down cars, as people took their old clunkers out and took them up to speeds they were never built to maintain. The Golden Age of Cycling ended from that point on, as throughout the 1960s and 1970s, more motorways were built and other main roads were widened and straightened.

During the 1950s, most of the people driving cars had grown up riding bicycles, their parents probably still rode a bicycle as their personal transport. They didn’t get upset with cyclists on the road, and they were content to cruise along at 30mph, occasionally reaching 50 or 60 on a straight road that ran downhill. At least they were in they were protected from the rain and cold.

Gradually all that changed, and now you have a generation who never rode a bike as a kid. Owning and driving a car becomes ever increasingly expensive, and with the spending of all that money comes an attitude of entitlement. 

However, Britain is still the same size as it was in the 1950s, but with a far greater population. Improved highways mean that you can drive from one city to another in a very short time. But what do you do when you get to the big city, where there is nowhere to park, and streets where built for horse drawn vehicles?

The cars of the 1950s and before may have been underpowered by today’s standards, but they still got people from A to B. They were cheap to buy, used less petrol, and they were simple to work on. A person could do their own maintenance. Most of all because of their lack of power and speed they were less of a danger to pedestrians and cyclists.

*Footnote: I am sure someone far more knowledgeable about the Morris Minor will tell me it had a top speed was in excess of 60mph. But just as many of today’s cars have a maximum speed well over 100mph. few are ever driven to that limit. 

                          

Vintage Bikes

I was recently sent a link to this interesting video. (Above) It features a vintage bicycle event held annually in Tuscany, Italy. It is much like other similar events held in various parts of the world, one of the most popular in the US being Le Cirque du Cyclisme held in Leesburg, Virginia, May 17-19, this year.

A vintage bicycle is usually considered to be one from the mid 1980s or before. It occurred to me watching this video that the 1980s will probably be the last era of collectable bicycles.

It is the cutoff date where bicycles stopped being hand brazed lugged steel, with the same 1 1/8 inch diameter seat and down tubes, and level (Horizontal.) 1 inch top tubes. A standard that was set in the late 1800s early 1900s. It is the end of an era when bicycle frames bore the name of an individual craftsman that either built the frame or at least one time built the frame.

Bicycles are now made by corporations like most other products, Trek, Cannondale, and a whole host of others, some that have emerged in the last twenty years or so. I cannot see bicycles built today being collected in the future, not in large numbers anyway; anymore than I can see modern cars being collected.

The event in the video, l’Eroica, attracted over 3,000 participants, a large number; but when you consider that there were millions of bicycles built in Europe alone between say the 1950s and 1980s 3,000 then seems quite small.

I am finding this is holding true with my own Bicycle Registry. From 1984 to 1993 I built somewhere slightly under 3,000 Fuso frames. On my registry I can only account for a hundred or so of them. My registry has 163 members total at the time of writing this. Again small by comparison against the amount I produced over the years.

In order for a bicycle, bicycle frame or any other product for that matter to become collectable, it has to show that it will last a long time. Frames I built over thirty years ago are still being ridden today; it is safe to assume that they can safely be ridden for at least 50 years, or longer depending on how often it is used.

It is not unusual to discover a bicycle that has been sitting in a garage or basement for twenty years and is in mint condition, having had little or no use. In 2007 I bought a Recherché frame that I built in 1985; it was “New Old Stock,” (NOS) having been hanging in a bike store for 21 years. Its age is now 28, but it has had under 6 years of use.

I feel extremely fortunate to have had a career during this 1980s period, and was a part of the ending of an era. There are still new framebuilders out there, spurred on by events like the North American Handbuilt Bicycle Show. (NAHBS)

A few of their frames may be collected in the future, if only for the quality and the rarity, but in general in order for something to be collectable it has to have a number of collectors interested in the same item, if only for the reason of buying and selling the item.

Collecting vintage bicycles can be fun. It is far less costly than collecting vintage cars, and requires a lot less space. Because of the economy, it is a buyer’s market right now, and vintage bikes across the board are at an all time low.

Besides owning something of beauty, collectors are preserving something for future generations. They may also get the added pleasure of meeting other like minded people and attending events like l’Erocia or Le Cirque du Cyclisme.

I suggest you view the video in full screen mode to get the full effect not only of the vintage bikes but the beauty of the region where this event was held.

                       

Blogging, Bikes and Bullshit

Having a blog is in many ways like having a child. Conceiving it is the fun part; it can make you proud and bring a great deal of satisfaction. But as it grows you realize the hungry little bastard needs feeding all the time.

It is not that I have lost my desire to write here (Far from it.) it is that I am finding it increasingly difficult to find suitable subject matter to write about. I started this blog in the fall of 2005; that is seven years which is a long time as blogs go.

I have covered just about every technical aspect of the bicycle I can think of. One of the reasons I want to keep the blog going is because between 1,500 and 2,000 people come here every day to find the answer to some question about cycling or the bicycle.

Those who know me know that I hate bull shit, and there are mountains of bull shit spoken and written about the bicycle. The bicycle is such a simple machine, you push one pedal down and the other one comes up. How can you get over technical about something so simple? The modern bike with its sealed bearings, limited sizes, etc., has further simplified it.

Cycling is a joy; or at least it should be. However, it is not like golf, where you have a set of golf clubs in the garage and on occasions pull them out and go knock a ball around a golf course. Even if you play badly you will still get some measure of satisfaction.

If you own a bicycle, especially a road bike and you pull it out only once in a while; there will be no pleasure, just a whole lot of pain and suffering. Your arse will hurt, your back will hurt, and who knows what else will hurt. Cycling requires a minimum of dedication to reach a level of fitness where it becomes a joy and a pleasure.

In order to take up cycling, you need a bicycle; that is obvious. The problem is many never get past the “Ownership” stage. They fall in love with this beautiful machine and buy it; but then never dedicate the time required to ride it.

It is the reason many of the bikes I built in the 1980s come up for sale on eBay in near new, mint condition. They have never been ridden. The pleasure is derived from “Look at me, on my $10,000 bike.” Which is pretty shallow, when compared to the real joy of actually riding the bike, and it becoming a life long passion and commitment.

This year my ex-apprentice Russ Denny built me a new welded steel frame, with a carbon front fork. It is one of the best bikes I have ever owned. One reason is that it was custom built for me, designed so that I can ride in a comfortable yet efficient riding position.

I recently offered to go to my local bike shop and talk to a group of their customers. What I had in mind was to take the custom ‘dave moulton’ bike that I built in the 1980s, (Just as a showpiece.) along with my new Fuso bike and talk about some of the advantages of such a bike.

When I didn’t hear back from the bike store after a few weeks, I checked again, and was told this particular store’s clientele would not be interested, because “Quote,” “If it ain’t carbon fiber they’re not interested, in fact if it has round tubes they are not interested.”   

What the fuck does the shape of the tubes have to do with cycling? This is what I mean about bull shit. It is all about owning the latest high tech bicycle, regardless of whether that bicycle is the one best suited to that rider’s needs.

These are adults behaving like school kids, afraid not to have the latest fashions lest they be ridiculed and bullied by their peers. God forbid anyone should show up on a club ride on anything but the latest in bicycles.

This is what happens when large corporations take over an industry as they have done with the bicycle business. They build in obsolescence.

For 100 years, bicycle frames had round steel tubes, 1 1/8^" down tube and seat tube, with a 1” top tube. It was good for at least 10 years before it became dated; longer if you updated the components.

Now you will be lucky if your bike will last two years. Not because it needs replacing, but because the style is outdated. Oh well…. That’s progress.