Chilly mornings

It's starting to get nippy in the mornings- I'd guess it was in the high 30's as I headed out the door.  I wore regular heels instead of boots, as I think pretty soon it's going to be all boots all the time.

There are a (pleasantly) surprising number of cyclists still out.  I counted 10 going by in one light cycle on Mass Ave at Sidney last night at 6pm- not bad.  And all except one had a light, and three of them were patiently waiting for the light to change when I arrived...

This morning I saw a a bike with really interesting frame geometry, but couldn't get a photo-  I spoke to the owner briefly as we climbed over the Longfellow-  He said it was a "Semi-Recumbent" .  He had a european (Germanic?) accent, so I asked him if it was an Import, and he said, no, it's from Kansas.   Google led me to RANS bikes (and airplanes!?!)  of Hayes Kansas.  I'm not sure if this is the model he was riding, but it was characteristic of the style-  with a super laid back seat post.  My Dad rides a Vision 'bent, and has flirted with this idea, but he's worried about falling over and breaking a hip or collar bone.  Based on what I could see, it seemed like you were in a much less tippy position than a "regular" recumbent,  and it would be easy to put a foot down.  It also seemed like it would be peppier up hills.  Anyone out there have any experience with them?

I also ran into my co-worker E.  who was biking in a jaunty kilt. (over workout pants) She thinks it may be getting too cold soon for her to keep biking, although she, like I, had shed her outer layer by the time we got close to work.   

It is tough to get out there on chilly mornings,  but you warm up so quickly, even with light layers, that I end up shedding my scarf and usually my coat still. Good gloves are key,  and while the faux shearling ones I'm using are great so far,  I suspect they're reaching the end of their temperature range.

Harvard Sq Dunelt

Unfortunately I did not get my folks on bikes last weekend- my Mom had a really bad toothache, and they had to head home early.  On my way back from seeing them off at the airport, I wandered though Harvard Sq,  picking up toothpaste and other essentials,  and took some photos of this nice Dunalt.
Dunalt is a secondary british brand, kind of like Robin Hood.  I don't think it was part of the Raleigh family, but I'm not completely sure.  They're not very common around here, or at least this is the first one I've seen.

A fairly standard Black British Bike, with a couple of noteworthy features:

the adjustable height basket support. And text heavy headbadge and logo

three speed Coaster Brake:

Maybe a bit anticlimactic after the Swiss Mountain bike, but still a nice vintage bike in really nice shape.

1944 Swiss Military Bike

I ran out of work just to grab a soda, and found this fabulous bike parked outside!  I ran back upstairs and grabbed my phone to take pictures, hoping it would still be there.   The photos aren't great, but it was such a fabulously unique bike, that I just have to share.   One of my coworkers and I were drooling over all the funky details, when the owner arrived and informed us that it was a 1944 Swiss Military bike (pointing out the cross and date on the seattube..  I'm still kicking myself for not taking pictures of him with the bike, or even a good overall shot of the bike.  I got lots of detail shots, because the bike had all kinds of funky details:  Like this rear reflector with keyhole shaped plate below-  I'm guessing it's for hanging the bike or attaching it to a rack

Or this incredibly cool bag, designed to fit between the seat tube and the fender:

The braking system was, um, ideosyncratic,  with a rear hub brake,  and a front brake that relies on pushing a pad down on the tire!  The owner said it didn't work- just made a burning rubber smell.

The lovely chromed bottle generator (which the owner had supplemented with a flashlight lashed to the handlebars)

An oil port in the BB.  You can see that the crank, the BB lockrings, and most of the other chromed parts had been painted out to create a "Blackout" bike, suitable for using during a bombing blackout. 

The rim has a very unusual spoke hole alignment- not linear, but offset.  I couldn't be certain what size the wheels were, but I think they may have been 28"

A closeup of the seat cluster, shows the Swiss Cross, and the date (and the funky seat post!)

It's a single speed (which would be tough with a 50lb bike in the mountains) and I love the bubbly chain ring!

It's amazing to me that this bike is still in service after all these years, casually locked outside a restaurant where the owner was eating lunch.  We are so lucky in Boston to have so many of these cool bikes around!

A future beyond standards

I found this article by  civil engineer to be very poignant.  Over the last 50 years there's been an asphalt arms race to make it safer and safer to drive faster and faster, at the of neighborhood character and safety for road users who aren't sheathed in steel and swaddled in airbags.   The irony is that the application of supposedly scientifically derived "standards" creates a  vicious cycle wherein wider roads increase speeds and make the roads more dangerous for everyone, so they widen the road again.

 One of the discussions of the changes to Western Ave in Cambridge, was about the desire to return the neighborhood character and make the street feel less like an extension of the highway it feeds into.  I'm glad that there's a new wave of engineers and planners who believe in models which include other factors than speed and throughput.  And I hope that this column goes viral among civil engineers, and that it gets posted on cubical walls and taped up on engineering professors' doors, as an inspiration for a future beyond "standards"

whew

Sorry I've been AWOL
Between recovering from the crud last week, I've been trying to finish up the "great sewage flood basement remodel of 2010" in preparation for a family visit.   I'm really hoping to get my folks on bikes this weekend- if nothing else when Memorial Drive is closed on Sunday. Thanks to my collecting fetish, I think I actually have enough bikes that we can all ride at once.  Although I lent a saddle out, so we're one short, I'm sure we'll figure it out.

My Dad taught me how to ride a bike -it took a long time and a lot of running pushes on a gently sloping sidewalk at the school across from our house.  More importantly, he showed me by example how a daily commuter rides to work.  We lived 7 miles away from his office, and almost every day he'd ride in on his 70's Fuji,  dressed in screaming neon- the very image of the Bike Commuter Stereotype.    He's retired to a recumbent,  which in his late 60's he managed to ride all the way over Loveland pass (14,000 ish feet)  as part of the 130 mile "Triple Bypass" ride in Colorado.

My Mom,  who used to lug me around on the back of a classic green Schwinn (note to self- check it out when I'm next at home)  has not been on a bike in years. She's in charge of sag wagon support for a lot of events,  but isn't willing to ride on the roads in traffic.  I'm hoping that she'd feel comfortable enough on a closed street with a step over bicycle that she might give it a try.

So many people have tough times dealing with their families over the Thanksgiving holidays.  I can't wait to see my folks, and am so excited to just have a chance to hang out with them for a couple of days.  It's really something to be thankful for.

virtue of necessity

If you have to use zipties to fasten something to your rack- you might as well make them into a design element:

Like this fringe of multi-colored zipties seen at Trader Joe's

Dutch Perspective

We attended an event last weekend with one of the Scientist's Dutch colleagues, who got a ride back with us, and the conversation turned to biking.  He said that he had heard about the trend for importing Dutch bikes, and he thought it was a bit crazy how expensive the Dutch imports are.  He said, you can come to Amsterdam and get a bike for $300 no problem.  I did point out that a lot of the imports have upgrades like multiple speeds, fancy saddles and fancy lighting systems, and he agreed that the $300 model wouldn't include all those things.   For the record, I remember looking at Italian city bikes and them being in the $2,000 range for "loaded" ones when I lived in Italy, so I know that it's not ALL markup.

His perspective was completely the "bicycle as vacuum cleaner" one- he said it's not unusual to get your bike stolen once a year, so why would you customize and get attached to it.  He thought I was a little silly to have named my bikes, although when I mentioned that I had 4, and that several of them were all the same color it seemed to make a bit more sense.

Vacuum Cleaner Parking

We talked a bit about how the attitude is so much different there- the strict liability to which drivers are held there prevents a lot of the hazards that drivers inflict on bikers here.  Interestingly his pet peeve here wasn't close passing, but people opening their doors carelessly.  He said twice that if someone opened their door in front of a biker in the Netherlands, angry bikers would pull the driver out of the car, and the driver would never do it again (implied some kind of smackdown).  He said that he had had several angry exchanges with drivers here who had almost doored him.  I suspect that if he rode further out in the lane, he'd complain instead about close passes and people honking at him.

He had only a loose concept of US biking laws and said he runs red lights all the time  (so much for the concept that getting more people out on the streets will make them more law abiding).  He doesn't "blow lights"  but he said since he's being environmentally responsible, he feels like the laws shouldn't apply as rigorously.  Unfortunately, we ran out of time before we could talk about separated facilities vs riding on the road.

I'm feeling better, but still a bit weak and slow,  and I was longing for separated infrastructure (or any infrastructure) as I biked home at rush-hour this evening.