NelsonVails

February being “Black History Month” I thought I would touch on a piece of history that is just twenty, some odd, years old.

In the 1984 Olympic Games, held in Los Angeles, a young black cyclist who grew up in the projects of Harlem, in New York City, won a Silver Medal on the track in the 1,000 meter sprint.

I get the feeling that there are many cyclists out there who have never heard of Nelson Vails, or if they have heard of him have allowed the memory to slip into the far reaches of their memory banks. As for the rest of the population, who remembers a silver medalist in an obscure sport like sprint cycling?

I remember because I met then 19 year old Nelson Vails in 1979, or early 1980 when I worked for Paris Sport in New Jersey. I worked in the frameshop at the back of Park Cycles, a bike shop owned by Vic and Mike Fraysee. Just seven miles from Manhattan, over the George Washington bridge, cyclists from New York City would ride the bike path over the bridge to visit the bike store.

It was on such a visit that Mike Fraysee brought Nelson down to the frameshop and introduced him as an up and coming young bike racer. Later on many trips I made to Lehigh County Velodrome, near Allentown in Pennsylvania, I got to see Nelson Vails race.

Nelson was the youngest of 10 children and grew up in Harlem; he was a bicycle nut by the time he reached his teen years.

Entering races in Central Park and at the bumpy, aging velodrome in Queens, he raced with an assortment of miss-matched cheap equipment, and worn out clothing with holes. He wore a pair of second hand cycling shoes that were too big for him, but in spite of this would hold his own against well-trained athletes on better equipment.

By aged 19 Vails was married and had children of his own; he had to make a living. His natural choice was that of a bike messenger in Manhattan. Bike messengers carry everything from letters and jewels to wedding gowns and baseball uniforms, all over the town, at terrifying speed.

The more packages a messenger carries in a day the more money they make. They learn to ride at the speed of traffic when it is moving, riding in the slipstream of delivery vans. Squeezing through narrow gaps in traffic whenever it is stopped or moving slow.

One would think an eight or ten hour shift as a bike messenger would be training enough, but Nelson would ride 40 miles in the morning before work, and he would also ride on weekends.

All this training, plus the turn of speed he developed on the streets of Manhattan took him all the way to a place on the US National team in 1982. He won a Gold Medal in the Pan American games, held in Venezuela in 1983.

Then in 1984 came disappointment when Nelson was beaten by Mark Gorski in the Olympic trials. The structure of the 1,000 meter sprint event was that only one rider from each country could compete.

Then world politics took over and changed the fate of Nelson Vails. The Russians dropped out of the Olympics and this opened up a spot for one extra rider. The Olympic finals was a repeat of the trials earlier; Mark Gorski won the Gold, and Nelson Vails the Silver. Tsutomo Sakamoto of Japan took the Bronze.

What I remember about Nelson Vails was his personality; always smiling, always joking. His attitude on the track was the same as when he was a bike messenger in Manhattan. “Stay out of my way; I have a job to do.”

In 1986 Nelson made his acting debut in the movie “Quicksilver” starring Kevin Bacon. Appropriately, a story about bike messengers; he was cast as “Messenger in Maroon Beret.”

Nelson Vails has my utmost admiration. He came from a poor and underprivileged neighborhood in Harlem, and despite this, through hard work and determination made it to the top, in what could be seen as a middle class white man’s sport.

The last I heard Nelson was living in Boulder, Colorado; still riding his bike, cycling in recreational tours across the country. You can read more about Nelson Vails on BlackAthlete.com.


Picture source:
Top picture
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Stayers

[Picture from Cycling News.]

My last article on Fork Rake and Trail brought an email with the question:

“Why does bike designed for Motor Pace Racing have the fork raked backwards. Is it to increase trail?”

The Stayer bike as it is called, has a smaller front wheel, a steeper head angle, and reverse fork; all designed to get the rider closer to the motorcycle that is pacing him. There is a roller mounted behind the pace machine, set at a regulation distance. It is up to the rider to get as close to that roller as he can for maximum drafting effect.



If you look at the drawing on the left, you can visualize that a smaller wheel means less trail, a steeper head angle also means less trail, but the reverse fork increases trail to compensate. A stayer bike may have a little more trail than the average track bike, but not an excessive amount.

Another reason to have the fork reversed is that occasionally the rider will bump the roller on the back of the motorcycle. If he does the roller will spin and the fork will flex easier in the direction it is raked or bent, thus absorbing these slight bumps.

Major Taylor

February being Black History month, I wanted to remind everyone of this remarkable athlete.


Marshall Walter ("Major") Taylor (November 26th 1878 – June 21st 1932) was an African American cyclist who won the World One-mile Track Cycling Championship in 1899, 1900, and 1901.

Major Taylor was the second black world champion in any sport, after boxer George Dixon. The Major Taylor Velodrome in Indianapolis, Indiana and a bicycle trail in Chicago are named in his honor. On July 24, 2006 the city of Worcester, MA changed the name of part of Worcester Center Boulevard to Major Taylor Boulevard.


When I started cycling in England in the early 1950s many riders had only one bike that was their transport to and from work, and at the weekends, the same bike would be used for racing. Alternatively, they would put mudguards and a saddlebag on it and go touring.

Because of this, many used a handlebar stem that was adjustable for length. It was known as a Major Taylor stem. For years I had no idea who Major Taylor was, and when I came to the US in 1979 there was still little information available about him.

This has changed in recent years thanks to the Internet. You can learn more here:

MajorTaylor.com

The Major Taylor Association

Wikipedia

A book is available on Amazon

I Mistook a Silk Purse for a Pig’s Ear

When I posted my blog last Saturday about two rare track frames, one a yellow and black Fuso, the other I described as re-painted Paris Sport frame built around 1979 - 1980. The frame has turned out to be a custom ‘dave moulton’ frame built in 1991, probably one of the last track frames I built as I retired from the business in 1993.

The problem was the picture sent to me did not do the frame justice. I looked at the funky straight fork (Not the original.) and the geto bars with no tape, and immediately assumed the frame was “an old beater.”

The owner had been corresponding with me about this frame via email, but because someone else sent the picture, I didn’t realize this was the same bike. Yesterday, the owner sent more pictures, and it all became clear that not only was this the original paint but the frame is in immaculate condition.


The first clue, the frame is built in Columbus SLX tubing; SLX was not around in 1980. The decals also threw me a curve, these were newly designed around 1991 when this was built.


The road bike market had gone right down the toilet, due to the mountain bike craze, and I thought I might survive by building a few high-end custom frames. With this in mind, I redesigned the decals for the custom frames, but as it turned out only two or three frames were ever finished with these decals, making this particular frame unique.

My apologies to the current owner of this bike for my mistake, incidentally, he tells me he has the original fork, but as it is not drilled for a brake he has temporarily replaced it with the one you see here.

I’m also taking up a collection to send him money for handlebar tape.

Tantrums

Tantrums: That was the nick name I gave to tandems; building them was for me a love/hate thing. The problem building a tandem is in the fact that it is more than twice the work of building two single frames, but they do not command the price of two singles. So I knew I was screwed financially every time someone talked me into building one. I would cuss and swear all through the building of it (Hence tantrums.) and would promise myself I would never build another.

I will say that once the tandem frame was built I did get double the satisfaction in seeing the finished product. Time would pass and someone else would come along and ask me to build them a tandem frame; I would say “No” they would whine and beg and eventually I would give in, and the whole process would start over.

Working on a single frame whether it be brazing it or filing the lug work after; you simply hold the frame in one hand, place a wooden block around a tube and clamp it in the vise with the other hand.

With a tandem frame it is so big, heavy and unwieldy that it takes two hands to hold it; you rest one end of it on something while you let go with one hand to put the wooden block in place. Next you carry it to the vise and try to tighten it using your knee. Invariably the wooden block falls off during the process and the result is more tantrums.



There is one tandem frame that I am particularly proud of and may have actually enjoyed building it. It is the track tandem pictured here and at the top of the page and it was ridden in the 1978 World Championships by Roy Swinnerton and Trevor Gadd representing Great Brittain. Seeing two very powerful young riders get up to speeds of 55 mph. on a banked oval track is both satisfying and at the same time very frightening.

I built a few tandems when I first moved to the US in 1979 and I worked for Paris Sport; here is one of them.


Later I went to work for Masi in Southern California and in 1982 started my own business there. On doing so I promised myself I would never build another tandem.

I was asked several times but I always said “You can’t offer me enough money to get me to build one.” And no one ever offered enough that I was even close to being tempted.