Yoga Velocipede

So now you know of my newfound love for bicycles. When I was a little kid, I had a Huffy BMX bike, blue with day-glow orange pads. This was in 1979. My family had moved to Chalfont PA from Bolingbrook IL, and as a means to take away some of the sting of getting uprooted yet again, my father had the brand-new Huffy waiting for me when I got there. Prior to that, I had hand-me-downs from my older brother, and I didn't ride much. Once I got my Huffy, however, that all changed.

Honestly, I beat the hell out of the thing. Fond of the sensation of flight, I derived great pleasure from jumping curbs, dirt piles, ramps made from sawhorses, etc. This was also before the advent of bike helmet usage, and I somehow survived a multitude of wipeouts. My Huffy was my ticket to everywhere, and I used to take it on epic journeys with my brother. Well, the journeys seemed epic, mostly due in part to its being a single-speed bike and my legs were pumping at a furious pace to keep up with my brother’s ten-speed.

I hit a growth spurt, and I was quickly outgrowing my Huffy. I’m sure it was grateful for this fact because the rims were rather bent up, the rear hub disintegrated, and the crank dissolved. I got another hand-me-down ten-speed, and it got me around. I ran into problems when I continued to ride it like it was a BMX bike, however. When we moved to Plattsburgh NY, I got a Schwinn ten-speed. It was a great bike, but it still wasn’t a BMX bike. At that time, mountain bikes were rare, and I wasn’t even aware if such a thing existed. The closest thing to it that I found was a Huffy Baja, but it just seemed like a ten-speed with knobbies.

We moved again, and I just didn’t ride anymore for a couple years. Mountain bikes suddenly appeared out of nowhere and the scene just exploded. So, I bought a Schwinn something-or-other that was black chrome. I had incredibly lofty aspirations to hit all the state forests and become some type of mountain biking legend, desperately trying to rekindle my BMX love affair. Well, I was a good fifteen years older and woefully out of shape, so the bike got little use. I sold it.

In my usual fashion, I got the bug again. This time was a Mongoose MTB. Again, nice bike, but the inevitable happened—it sat.

Fast-forward a couple years (okay, seven), and I bought the Huffy beach cruiser that I mentioned in the previous post. It was cool for a week, but it lost its zeal quickly. The disinterest was a direct result of frame just being completely wrong for me. I had never actually heard of being “fitted” for a bike at that point, especially in the case of buying an off-the-shelf bike at Target.

Tired of watching it rot in my basement in the winter and my patio in the summer, I decided to convert it into something more suitable, also mentioned in the previous post. That’s my city bike, and it feels like a new bike now. It got me back into biking.

Once bicycles starting piquing my interest about this time last year, I just started noticing more of them and more about them. I was always trying to decide what would be the perfect, all-around city bike. It couldn’t be too flashy, because attention is NOT what you want to draw when the thing is locked up overnight. If not stolen completely, it will often be “liberated” of its components. The ideal solution seemed to be folding bikes. They’re absolutely ingenious; you can take them on the train, and are incredibly easy to fit in your car’s trunk. Our Scion xB can swallow a lot of cargo, but because it’s relatively short, it doesn’t accommodate bikes very well. Two full-size bikes with their front wheels removed *just* make it in there, but there’s room for nothing else.

I did an incredible amount of research on folding bikes, and the name that kept cropping up was Dahon. It’s great working in the city because there are bike shops aplenty. Finding a folding bike in my neck of the woods is no small feat. Demographically, it just doesn’t make any sense to stock these at stores in the suburbs. I took a couple for a test ride, and I couldn’t believe how nicely they rode. They are very intelligently geared, so you don’t need to pedal like crazy to compete with traffic. The riding position is very comfortable, and because the center of gravity is so low, it handles surprisingly well. I decided on a Dahon Vitesse D5. It has a 5-speed hub (internally-geared hubs are my absolute favorite form of multi-gear drivetrains), and it literally takes me ten seconds to fold or unfold it. A thoughtful touch they added is a seat post that is also a pump. Genius.

It fits under my desk at work, but it’s pretty disruptive as I bring it in or take it out at lunch because all eyes are on me when I do---I have to add another ten minutes to my schedule to allow ample time to field questions. My only option is to lock it up on the bike rack outside, but I fear the aforementioned liberation of its components. If someone’s going to molest my bike, let it be the Huffy.

I’ve had it for a month now, and I adore it. Yeah, I look like a Shriner when I ride it. So what. It’s a fantastic solution that just happens to be an equally fantastic conversation piece. Incidentally, the MBTA requires one to have the folded bike in a bag if you're going to take it on the train. Dahon makes such a bag, and I refer to it as an "Over the Shoulder Folder Holder".

Sorry.

I've added some links to bicycle stuff. Check 'em out.

Scoodily do-wow-wow-wowww.

Just a couple things:

1. I’ve actually been riding (gasp!) the Goldwing. Last year was supposed to be the year to get things sorted mechanically, and this was to be the year to get things sorted cosmetically. Well, that got pushed up a year. This is the Mechanical Year. Hopefully for ’08 I will stick to my resolution of starting work on the bike in January, and NOT wait until May. Regardless, I’m giddy. I’ve had it for three summers so far, and I’ve put more miles on it this year alone than I have in the past three. Ahhhh.

2. I’ve become completely obsessed with bicycles. I work in the city and at lunch would go for walks, as far as I could go within an hour. This rarely exceeded three miles. It was great exercise, but I know every square foot of this city within a three mile radius now, and frankly, it gets boring after awhile. Also, I wanted to start bringing my camera into work to shoot some stuff, but the places I wanted to go take too long by foot, especially when burdened with heavy camera equipment, and being at the mercy of the train just isn’t the way to go—it could take two minutes to arrive or twenty. Nuh-uh.

The solution? Bicycle! I have a Huffy beach cruiser-type bike that I bought a couple years ago. I affectionately refer to it as my Hundred-Pound Huffy, because man, it is one solid bike. I bought it because I hadn’t ridden a bike in a long time and figured I’d ease back into it with something mellow. It had chrome fenders, big fat whitewalls, big ol’ granny seat on springs, coaster brake, and crazy longhorn handlebars. Well, the very traits that drew me to it are also the very traits I removed almost immediately. In the city, none of that stuff makes any sense other than the seat. The chrome fenders were so cheap and thin, they’d rub; the handlebars put my wrists at a punishing angle, and the fat tires had so much rolling resistance, it always felt like I was riding in sand.

Another little feature that I just couldn’t get used to was its coaster brake. When I was a kid and had a BMX bike with a coaster brake, that was one thing. But as an adult a good hundred pounds heavier, a coaster brake is terrifying. Time to stop increases exponentially due to increased inertia, and something had to be done. So, I liberated another bike of its front brake. Huge difference. There were many other alterations I’ve made, but in the interest of space, I’ll just say that its current state is bone fide city bike with a three speed hub.

In doing all those improvements, I suddenly became infatuated with bike construction, components, history, and principles. My Lady Fair also caught the bug. We bought a Fuji Crosstown hybrid for her to ride, and when she’s not riding it, she’s talking about riding it. Knowing what a freak I am for anything old, she spied the other day a bike of unknown age and manufacture sitting next to some garbage cans, soon to be destroyed by a garbage truck. Naturally, she rescued it for me.

Wow. This bike is quite something. I don’t know how old it is, but it really is OLD. My guess based on the limited amount of research I’ve done so far is that it’s from the mid-forties to early fifties. The sprockets are unlike anything I’ve ever seen. To look at them, you’d think they were missing every other tooth. Nope, that’s just how they were designed. The only name I can find on it is on the hubs, a company called “New Departure”. This particular hub was made from 1937 until the mid-fifties, so that’s what leads me to believe that it’s the age I said. I gave it a once-over last night, and clearly everything on this bike is original. Unbelievably, the tires even hold air! The pedals are wood, and it has a surprisingly comfy seat. I took it for a spin, and I can’t get over how smooooth it is. My intention at first was to completely restore it because I assumed everything would be rusted out and unusable. On the contrary, it’s in perfect working order. All I’ll do to it is lube what needs to be lubed, and I’ll just let that awesome patina just keep right on going.

We call her Nora. As I get more information on what this bike actually is, I’ll post about it.

Timetripping: Chapter 384

While working on my Goldwing over the weekend, like arms-deep into it, I got to thinking about what was going on when it was made. It was born in 1977, and considering that it's pretty close to my age, I decided to do a little investigation. As for me, I was living in McAfee, New Jersey, and then Bolingbrook, Illinois. I was all about Star Wars action figures and Micronauts.

Overall, it looked like a pretty good bummer of a year. Too lazy to do the work myself, this is taken straight from Wikipedia:

January

January 1 - Queensland abolishes Death Duties.
January 3 - The Yigüirro is officially proclaimed the Costa Rican national bird. [1]
January 10 - Mount Nyiragongo erupts in eastern Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo).
January 10 - Ocean Park opens in Hong Kong.
January 15 - Kälvesta air disaster: A Swedish airliner crashes into a residential area of Stockholm, killing all 22 on board.
January 17 - Gary Gilmore is executed by firing squad in Utah (the first execution after the reintroduction of the death penalty in the USA).
January 18 - Scientists identify a previously unknown bacterium as the cause of the mysterious Legionnaires' disease.
January 18 - Australia's worst railway disaster at Granville, near Sydney, leaves 83 people dead.
January 18 - SFR Yugoslavia Prime minister, Džemal Bijedić, his wife and six others were killed in a plane crash in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
January 19 - U.S. President Gerald Ford pardons Iva Toguri D'Aquino (aka "Tokyo Rose").
January 19 - Snow falls in Miami, Florida (despite its ordinarily tropical climate) for the only time in its history. Snowfall has occurred farther south in the United States only on the high mountains of the state of Hawaii.
January 20 - Jimmy Carter succeeds Gerald Ford as the 39th President of the United States.
January 21 - U.S. President Jimmy Carter pardons Vietnam War draft evaders.
January 23 - Roots begins its phenomenally successful run on ABC.
January 24 - Massacre of Atocha during the Spanish transition to democracy.
January 27 - Record company EMI sacks the controversial United Kingdom punk rock group the Sex Pistols
January 29 - Actor Freddie Prinze dies from a self inflicted bullet wound.
January 29 - Dean & Adair Dunsford marry in New Zealand

February

February 4 - Fleetwood Mac's Grammy-winning album Rumours is released.
February 7 - The Soviet Union launches Soyuz 24 (Viktor Gorbatko, Yuri Glazkov) to dock with the Salyut 5 space station.
February 11 - A 20.2-kg (44-lb.-9-oz.) lobster is caught off Nova Scotia (heaviest known crustacean).
February 18 - The space shuttle Enterprise test vehicle goes on its maiden "flight" while sitting on top of a Boeing 747, at Edwards Air Force Base in California.
February 28 - State Opening of the New Zealand Parliament, by Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom.

March

March 4 - The 1977 Bucharest Earthquake kills 1,500.
March 5 - Formula One driver Tom Pryce dies after colliding with a marshall at the South African Grand Prix in Kyalami.
March 8 - State Opening of the Australian Parliament, Canberra by Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom.
March 9 - Approximately a dozen armed Hanafi Muslims take over 3 buildings in Washington, DC, killing 1 person and taking more than 130 hostages. The hostage situation ends 2 days later. March 12 - The Centenary Test between Australia and England begins at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.
March 15 - The television show Three's Company debuts on ABC.
March 15 - Tenor Luciano Pavarotti and the PBS opera series Live from the Met both make their American television debuts. Pavarotti stars in a complete production of Puccini's La Boheme.
March 27 - Tenerife disaster: a collision between KLM and PanAm Boeing 747s at Tenerife, Canary Islands, kills 583 (the worst single aviation incident on record).

April

April 1 - Hay-on-Wye declares independence.
April 7 - German Federal Prosecutor Siegfried Buback and his driver are shot by two Red Army Faction members while waiting at a red light near his home in Karlsruhe. "The Ulrike Meinhof Commando" later claims responsibility.
April 7 - The Toronto Blue Jays play their first-ever game of baseball against the Chicago White Sox.
April 8 - Punk band The Clash's debut album The Clash is released in the UK on CBS Records.
April 11 - London Transport's Silver Jubilee buses are launched.
April 22 - First use of optical fiber to carry live telephone traffic.
April 27 - The Guatemala City air disaster kills 28 people.
April 28 - A Stuttgart court sentences Red Army Faction members Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin and Jan-Carl Raspe to life imprisonment.

May

May 1 - Taksim Square massacre in Istanbul: 34 dead, hundreds injured
May 3 - HMS Invincible is launched at Barrow-in-Furness by Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom.
May 5 - 1977 Silver Jubilee review of the British police at Hendon Police College by Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom.
May 7 - Pierre Elliot Trudeau does a pirouette behind the back of Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom.
May 7 - Marie Myriam wins the Eurovision Song Contest 1977 for France with her song L'oiseau et l'enfant ("The Bird and the Child").
May 13 - The 1977 Silver Jubilee Air Fair is held at RAF Biggin Hill.
May 14 - The 1977 IAS Cargo Boeing 707 airplane crash in Lusaka, Zambia kills all 6 on board.
May 14 - In Milan, Italy, during a far-left demonstration, a hooded person shoots at the police, killing a policeman, Antonino Custrà. The scene is photographed and the picture [2] of the hooded man shooting in the middle of the street will appear in many magazines around the world.
May 17 - The Likud Party, led by Menachem Begin, wins the elections in Israel.
May 17 - Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom commences her 1977 Silver Jubilee tour in Glasgow.
May 23 - Scientists report using bacteria in a lab to make insulin.
May 23 - Moluccan terrorists take over a school in Bovensmilde, northern Netherlands (105 hostages), and a passenger train in Bovensmilde-Assen route nearby (90 hostages) at the same time. On June 11, Dutch Royal Marines storm the train; 6 terrorists and 2 hostages are killed.
May 25 - Star Wars opens in cinemas (later renamed Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope) and becomes the highest grossing film of all time. (It would eventually be succeeded by Titanic).
May 26 - George Willig climbs the South Tower of the World Trade Center.
May 27 - Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom opens the new Air Terminal Building at Edinburgh Airport.
May 27 - The 1977 Aeroflot Ilyushin 62 airplane crash in Cuba kills 69 people.
May 28 - Climax of Windsor, Berkshire celebrations.
May 28 - In Southgate, Kentucky, the Beverly Hills Supper Club is engulfed in fire, killing 165 inside.
May 29 - Indianapolis 500: A.J. Foyt becomes the first driver to win a (to date) record 4 times.
May 30 - A 1977 Silver Jubilee gala performance is held at the Royal Opera House, London.

June

June 5 - A coup takes place in Seychelles.
June 5 - The first Apple II computers go on sale.
June 6-June 9 - Jubilee celebrations are held in the United Kingdom to celebrate twenty-five years of Elizabeth II's reign.
June 7 - After campaigning by Anita Bryant and her anti-gay "Save Our Children" crusade, Miami-Dade County, Florida voters overwhelmingly vote to repeal the county's gay rights ordinance.
June 10 - James Earl Ray escapes from Brushy Mountain State Prison in Petros, Tennessee (he is recaptured on June 13).
June 15 - Spain has its first democratic elections, after 41 years under the Franco regime.
June 20 - The Supreme Court of the United States rules that states are not required to spend Medicaid funds on elective abortions.
June 20 - Anglia Television broadcasts the fake documentary "Alternative 3", which enters into the conspiracy theory canon.
June 22 - Robert Hillsborough, a gay San Franciscan, is brutally stabbed to death just steps from his home by 4 youths.
June 25 - American Roy Sullivan is struck by lightning for the 7th time.
June 26 - Some 200,000 protesters march through the streets of San Francisco, protesting Anita Bryant's anti-gay remarks and Robert Hillsborough's murder.

July

July 4 - Manchester United manager Tommy Docherty is sensationally sacked by the club's directors.
July 5 - General Mohammed Zia ul-Haq overthrows Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, the very first elected Prime Minister of Pakistan.
July 13 - The New York City blackout of 1977 lasts for 25 hours, resulting in looting and other disorder.
July 14 - Victoria, Crown Princess of Sweden is born.
July 15 - Anti-drug campaigner Donald Mackay disappears near Griffith, New South Wales (presumed murdered).
July 19 to July 20 - Flood in Johnstown, PA caused by massive rainfall, kills over 75 people and causes billions in damage.
July 22 - The purged Chinese Communist leader Deng Xiaoping is restored to power as the "Gang of Four" is expelled from the Communist Party of China.
July 24 - Led Zeppelin play their last U.S. concert in Oakland, CA at the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum. A brawl erupts between Led Zeppelin's crew and promoter Bill Graham's staff resulting in criminal assault charges for several of Led Zeppelin's entourage.
July 26 - Robert Plant is contacted by his wife and told their son Karac has died, which causes the cancellation of the remainder of Zeppelin's U.S. tour and the band would not re-emerge until 1979.
July 28 - The first oil through the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System reaches Valdez, Alaska.
July 30 - Left-wing German terrorists Susanne Albrecht[3], Brigitte Mohnhaupt[4] and a third person assassinate Jürgen Ponto[5], chairman of the Dresdner Bank in Oberursel, West Germany.

August

August 3 - United States Senate hearings on MKULTRA are held.
August 3 - The Tandy Corporation TRS-80 Model I computer is announced at a press conference.
August 4 - U.S. President Jimmy Carter signs legislation creating the United States Department of Energy.
August 10 - David Berkowitz is captured in Yonkers, New York, after over a year of murders in New York City as the Son Of Sam.
August 12 - The NASA Space Shuttle makes its first test free-flight from the back of a jetliner.
August 15 - The Big Ear, a radio telescope operated by The Ohio State University as part of the SETI project, receives a radio signal from deep space; the event is named the "WOW!" signal for a notation made by a volunteer on the project.
August 15 - Herbert Kappler evades from the Caelian Hill military hospital in Rome.
August 16 - Music icon Elvis Presley dies in Memphis, Tennessee.
August 20 - Voyager program: The United States launches the Voyager 2 spacecraft.

September

September 3 - The Commodore PET computer is first sold.
September 5 - Voyager program: Voyager 1 is launched after a brief delay.
September 5 - German Autumn: Employers Association President Hanns-Martin Schleyer is kidnapped in Cologne, West Germany. The kidnappers kill 3 escorting police officers and his chauffeur. They demand the release of Red Army Faction (RAF) prisoners.
September 6 - Steve Biko suffers a massive head injury in police custody in South Africa.
September 7 - Treaties between Panama and the United States on the status of the Panama Canal are signed. The U.S. agrees to transfer control of the canal to Panama at the end of the 20th century.
September 8 - INTERPOL issues a resolution against the piracy of video tapes and other material, which is still cited in warnings on opening pre-credits of videocassettes and DVDs today.
September 10 - Hamida Djandoubi's is the last guillotine execution in France.
September 12 - South African activist Steven Biko was murdered by South African secret police September 16 - Talking Heads' debut album Talking Heads: 77 is released.
September 21 - A nuclear non-proliferation pact is signed by 15 countries, including the United States and the Soviet Union.
September 28 - The Porsche 928 debuts at the Geneva Auto Convention.

October

October 1 - Pelé plays his final professional football game as a member of the New York Cosmos.
October 13 - German Autumn: Four Palestinians hijack a Lufthansa Airlines flight to Somalia and demand release of 11 Red Army Faction members (see Lufthansa Flight 181).
October 14-David Bowie releases his album: "Heroes".
October 17-October 18 - German Autumn: GSG 9 troopers storm a hijacked Lufthansa passenger plane in Mogadishu, Somalia; 3 of the 4 hijackers die.; The Lynyrd Skynyrd album Street Survivors is released, three days before the fatal plane crash that killed 3 members.
October 18 - German Autumn: Red Army Faction members Andreas Baader, Jan-Carl Raspe and Gudrun Ensslin commit suicide in Stammheim prison; Irmgard Möller fails (their supporters still claim they were murdered). They are buried October 27.
October 18 - Reggie Jackson blasts 3 home runs to lead the New York Yankees to World Series victory.
October 19 - German Autumn: Kidnapped industrialist Hanns-Martin Schleyer is found killed in Mulhouse, France.
October 20 - Three members of the rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd die in a charter plane crash outside Gillsburg, Mississippi.
October 21 - The European Patent Institute is founded.
October 26 - The last natural smallpox case is discovered in Merca district, Somalia. The WHO and the CDC consider this date the anniversary of the eradication of smallpox, the most spectacular success of vaccination and, by extension, of modern science.
October 28 - Hong Kong police forces attack the ICAC headquarters.
October 28 - Never Mind The Bollocks Here's The Sex Pistols is released in the United Kingdom.

November

November 1 - 2060 Chiron, first of the outer solar system asteroids known as Centaurs, is discovered by Charlie Kowal.
November 2 - The worst storm in Athens' modern history causes havoc across the Greek capital and kills 38 people.
November 6 - The Kelly Barnes Dam, located above Toccoa Falls Bible College near Toccoa, Georgia fails, killing 39.
November 10 - Never Mind The Bollocks Here's The Sex Pistols is released in the United States.
November 19 - Egyptian President Anwar Sadat becomes the first Arab leader to officially visit Israel, when he meets with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and speaks before the Knesset in Jerusalem, seeking a permanent peace settlement (much of the Arab world is outraged by the visit).
November 22 - British Airways inaugurates regular London to New York City supersonic Concorde service.

December

December 1 - First flight of Lockheed's top-secret stealth aircraft project designated Have Blue, precursor to the U.S. F-117A Nighthawk.
December 4 - Jean-Bédel Bokassa, president of the Central African Republic, crowns himself Emperor.
December 4 - Malaysia Airlines Flight 653 is hijacked and crashed in Tanjung Kupang, Johor, Malaysia, killing all the 100 passengers and crew aboard the flight.

Undated
Color TV Game 6 is created by Nintendo.
Portugal's traditional naming conventions change such that children's surnames can come from either the mother or the father, not just from the father.
Chiara Lubich is awarded the Templeton Prize.
Soviet National Anthem's lyrics are returned after a 24 year period, with Stalin's name omitted.
Australian rock group INXS is formed.

Ongoing
Cold War