I had to do it, I did some helping with the spring this morning. Moved away 4 dm of snow from my flowerbed, and poured out some room temperated water from the aquarium, to melt the snow. If the snow drops (Galanthus) don´t get this hint I don´t know what to do. ... And in the afternoon, snow was coming down again. I haven´t done much complaining this long winter, but after 16 weeks of snow, you start feeling a bit fed-up. The kids don´t even want to go in sleighs downhill anymore, they long for bikes and basketball and such.
Gimme sunshine.!!
And don´t you even mention sunshine and 20 degrees Celcius LS! :-(
On Shorpy Historic Photographs, you always find something interesting. How about a bike shop from 1919 in Washington, DC, USA? Look how the different workers have their place - women on the balcony, away from the oil (accountants? secretaries), the foreman or salesman in a suit in the front, and the repairmen in the back. I love the floor and the wood counter.
Want a bottle of wine with that?
The locomotive and its train surrounds the base of the statue of Nils Ericsson. 
"Meat is Murder. Eat vegetarian."
Boob foundry. Breast pump.
Big-haul bike for sale.
A music store.
Spiky mat for aching backs.
Strange sign on wall at street level: Smoke exhaust.
Cappuccino with milky heart at Johan & Nystrom cafe.
Attack!
Almost...
Ooops!
Bling bling.
I was digging through my boxes with bike parts for the upcoming swap meet this weekend and found this little gem. It's an Italian Campagnolo C-Record rear derailleur (gear changer) from the 80's. Top of the line at that time and has a nice sculptural, pseudo-aerodynamic shape.
Of course this shape doesn't help the aerodynamics for the whole bike and rider in any significant way and only adds weight, but it is very nice to behold.
The cranks from the same C-Record group share the same "visual design over function" design ideal. Sleek, shiny but with a too small cross section which makes them flexy (even for me). One part of the group that I don't have is the delta brakes, much criticized for, among other things, the reduced leverage when the brakepads wear (If I recall it right). But of course they are gorgeous! :)
Delta brakes, makes you fly down the hills! ;)
Campagnolo came to their senses a few years later and produced more sensible bike parts, but I would say this "visual design over function" is very common, even rampant in the area of "designed" stuff today.
Porsche knives, Alessi citrus presses etc. Nice to look at but usually way overpriced compared to their function. Why can't things be beautiful AND work? Or maybe the intended function of them is to sit on a shelf and look nice?
I think I'll keep the C-record stuff I have though, if only as "bike jewelry".
/O.K.
Listening to while posting: Birdies and diesel engines.
I got this book for my brother, O.K., using the free trading website BookMooch, and when it arrived I started reading it. It took about a month maybe, but I love this book. Simply put it is about a Brit, John Stuart Clark, that decides to bike across the USA following the old route of the people that went to California in 1849's gold rush. The name of the book is After the Gold Rush, and it is published by Five Leaves in Britain. As of today there were no reviews of this book at the US Amazon.com website, and only three at the British one.
But this is a book that is wonderful find. The writing is intense, detailed, and insightful and portrays the American landscape and people in an honest and sometimes funny or depressing way. It is a refreshing book, and a book that mixes 1800s history with today's problems of interstate highways, lack of historical knowledge, patriotism, agriculture and lack thereof, unemployment, and the great feeling of biking far. He portrays and quotes people he meets in a very humane and sensitive way, even when others might have just called them white trash or losers. It shows both what is great and not so great with this country. I just really, really like this book. I have decided to keep it (sorry O.K.), but if anyone in my family want to read it, I will lend it to you. The author is also known as Brick, a famous cartoonist.
Here are some excerpts so you get a feeling for the book.
"Sam blamed the interstates for distorting the public's view of the countryside. In batting between cities on smooth blacktops with iron out contours, modern day motorists had lost the interaction they once had with the landscape and the small farming communities they old highways linked." [Clark was not only fighting with large trucks on the roads, but also piss bottles, mud, bridges where bikes were not allowed, non-existing trails, washed out trails, floods, and exloded tires.]
"With an almighty crack, the ground jolted and the heavens opened. A second shaft of lightning struck the earth and shook it, lighting up the tent for a split second in which I saw my glasses case leap in the air like a genetically modified jumping bean. " [Somewhere out on the Midwest, in the worst tornado season.]
"The sun was a bent thumb from the horizon set in a clear blue sky, and the landscape sparkled under heavy frost. Having been destroyed int he storm, millions of spider's webs were being restrung between bushes thick with time. I pissed on my bike to defrost the brakes and I struck out across the moribound plateau of the Green River Basin." [Crossing the Rocky Mountains at South Pass.]
"Beyond the ridge, Promontory Hollow opened out and I found myself back in sagebrush country with a grit railbed running beside me. Another, louder toot echoed around the hollow, though there was nothing man-made in the landscape save barbed wire and tarmac. The road took a left, flowed over gentle undulations, then crossed a couple of rail lines. A magnificent steam locomotive emerged from a shunting shed hidden in the foothills and moved towards the Golden Spike Visitor Center, where a second immaculate engine waited. [...] Finding them stuck in the middle of nowhere on an isolated couple of miles of track emphasised the extraordinary nature of America's great endeavour." [ link to the park, in Utah]
I learned a lot from this book, and not just how hard it is to bike across the salt flats of Utah and Nevada, but about the history of the conquest of the American land, the conservation and formation of National Parks and John Muir's work, and the fate of most of the gold diggers, which never struck it rich. There are also little details that leave a mark, such as San Francisco had no companies that did laundry, so laundry was sent to Hong Kong to be washed in the 1850s. I really recommend this book to anyone that likes biking, travel, history, or politics. It is the perfect mix of a personal and public documentary.
I read this book while I was waiting for my citizenship interview for 3.5 hours at the Department of Homeland Security's office in Newark. I wonder what they would have thought if they knew what I read.
Yesterday 110 years ago this was published in the Cleveland Gazette:
The victim Major "The Worcester whirlwind" Taylor, despite having to struggle against open racism and hostility among his competitors and cycling organizations went on to become world champion on the one-mile sprint three consecutive times. It often happened that competitors teamed up against him, and he was banned from racing in his state of birth Indiana when he was too successful.
Taylor himself had a strict view on the subject:
"It is my thought that clean living and a strict observance of the golden rule of true sportsmanship are foundation stones without which a championship structure cannot be built."
/O.K.
(Listening to while posting: Glen Velez - In Transit)
Quote from the arranger of the proposed cycling race "Tour of America", modeled after Tour de France:
"The idea is to go big. In some sense, it may be overboard. It may be swinging for the fences. But then again, hey, this is America. That's what we do. We want big. We want powerful. We want wonderful. We want grueling."
Well, what do you say? East coast to west coast in 26 stages, 4700 miles / 7520 km in total (more than twice the distance of Tour de France), starting in september just as the "Vuelta a España". I like the spirit but seriously, no big teams will participate in this craziness after participating in any of the big tours earlier in the season. So who will? Cycling isn't that popular in the states as far as I know, so attracting sponsors for a lot of american teams will be hard. And I imagine that american viewers want "stars".
I think this is the ostrich of the cycling sport. It may be the biggest bird, but it won't fly...
But by september 6th 2008 we will know.
Now I'm just waiting for the russians to respond with Tour of Russia, from the Baltic sea to Bering Strait. On unicycles. :)
/O.K.
(Listening to while posting: Frank London - Scientist at work)
The winner for 2007 is built by a Swede, Stellan Egeland, and called "Hulster 8-valve".
Do you like it?
I think this wine label will be popular with O.K., that is my current working hypothesis to be tested. Why?
1) bicycle
2) French
3) retro design
4) muscular (Gladiator)
5) woman with long hair, like a Swedish skogsrå
Let's see the result - I expect an answer in the comments.
(for sale at Bottle King in Hillsborough, NJ)
Bridgestone poster of 189... Eh, 1993!The recent discussions here made me think of the bicycle brand Bridgestone who had an interesting design in both their bikes and catalogs in the early 1990's. To quote their marketing director Grant Petersen:
"I always liked working on our catalogs. From the '80s to '91, Bridgestone had decent catalogs. I thought they were great, but one day a friend sent me a copy of an Eagle Bicycle catalog from 1890, with a note saying "Now this is a catalog!" He was right, and I was ashamed, envious, and challenged."
Their 1992 and 1993 catalogs, which I still have, were standing out with their interesting, informative and at times almost philosophical articles with great illustrations. The competition were more focused on glossy catalogs with color photos of their bikes, often with sponsored athletes, with a small square with specifications in the bottom corner of each page.
"Some people said our ads had too much information, not enough excitement. I sort of liked writing ads, but it was always a struggle because I have a problem with advertising. So much of it barges into your head and makes you feel inferior for not owning something. But we had to advertise, so we tried to do it as respectfully as possible. I decided if I couldn't recite an ad to a friend without embarrassment, then I wouldn't use it on strangers."
So did I buy a Bridgestone mountain bike? I was intrigued but got a Marin instead and modified it with thumbshifters. It was just better value for the money. Have I kept the Marin '93 catalog? Nope.
/O.K.
(Listening to while posting: Anders Johansson - Boxcar to Novosibirsk)
Not everyone can win le tour, so how to make your mark in its history? Of course you can take a stage victory, or earn the sprinters green jersey, the mountain specialists polkadot jersey, or the white one for the best cyclist under 25. But If you aren't good enough to do that? Don't despair, there's always "la lanterne rouge", the red lantern.
It refers to the rider who finishes last but still makes it to the end of the race in Paris. The name comes from the red light on the last wagon of a train. Although it is not an official award, it is part of the culture and has its own history.
This years lanterne rouge, the belgian Wim Vansevenant, "defended" his title from last year. In 2005 he was "beaten" by Iker Flores, who carried on a family tradition. His brother Igor was the lanterne rouge in 2002.
Here's a snippet from wikipedia about the last stage in 2004:
"Shortly after Simeoni's first attack, Jimmy Casper, the lanterne rouge, or last place rider, made an attack, shooting out ahead of Armstrong. Having gotten his lead, he removed a digital camera from the pocket of his jersey and snapped a picture of him leading Armstrong, then dropped back to the peloton. 2004 is the second year that Casper has finished the Tour de France, and the second year he won the lanterne rouge."
Some have gone to great lengths to secure the title, including hiding on the last day, others do anything to avoid it. At times there was also a financial reward, since the lanterne rouge was payed to start in smaller races after the tour. I guess the reasoning behind that is "if you can beat the last guy of le tour, you could have been in it". Not entirely true, of course.
In honor of "la lanterne rouge" I post this several days after the finish of Tour de France. ;)
/O.K.
(Listening to while posting: Karlheinz Stockhausen - Kontakte)
