Biz Quatrain

For road riding cyclists, not just grates, manhole covers, and standpipes stuck in it, pavement itself might be a drag. Appian way pave, bumps, cracks, exposed substrate, hard pack, roughness, ruts, tar blotches and washboard woefully impede progress. Edges of patches can be pathetically unnerving, and expanse within wavy. Refilled with too little or much leave unintentional potholes and speed bumps. Why are there so many?

A street isn’t just its visible surface at ground level but a sandwich layer between crust and sky. Underneath, a whole network of sewer and water supply pipes run dangerously close and inaccessibly deep but not without frequent dug interventions. Manholes at least allow access to buried electrical and phone cables, which arise at intervals, cross above, and drape alongside in unsightly tangles. Streets are rights of way for all sorts of purposes, many of which you’d rather know nothing about.

Sticking to smooth isn’t always possible in marginalizing traffic. Cities stink with bone jarring lumps of distorted asphalt at truck pounded intersections. Sometimes it takes every bit of cycling skill just to survive. A steel bike is pliant and strong; its pneumatic tires and spokes absorb some of the many shocks. You’ll have to stand at such times if you can’t stomach a kick in your crotch. The rougher the ride, the slower. None of this has deterred London residents; lately 25% of commuters there are riding bikes. How fast do you want to go? A 32/16 crank/cassette combination at 80 rpm can propel you at 18 to 20 mph on flat. If you spin for cadence you seldom need to shift. It can relieve and rival creeping automotive gridlock that plagues most cities.

Drivers are driven berserk by roads that don’t do what they are supposed to. You can’t earn a living without them. In African nations with few resources, villagers get together and pack earth by hand for the sole purpose of connecting to outside cash flow. Roads used to mean rails, but even trains were too limiting and linear, since farmers and merchants still had to move wares to stations. Did discuss rail trails and train renaissance in Bike&Chain rather prophetically. In a recent tragic rail fail, 80 pilgrims are dead after crash in Northwest Spain. That line had a perfect track record, but anything can be made life threatening by pushing it to the limit. Any attempt to speed things along claims victims. But, with sad refrain and typical lack of concern for fellow man, business rules and shows must go on.

Burst Membrane

Every now and then present new bike stuff neither neatly contained nor overlooked but too insignificant to merit individual elaboration. Saw a handtowel with Babar the Elephant riding a bike, instances of bikes in commercial and films, landscape bikes planted with flowers and vines, some ghost bike memorials, and totes with images of bikes representing "green" of reusable versus disposable bags; am pretty fed up with ubiquitous plastic bag litter. References can be obliquely offhanded. Led Zeppelin's 1973 concert video "The Song Remains the Same" begins with a bike messenger riding a long country road to deliver a list of tour dates to a vacationing band member. PBS serial production of "Call The Midwife" set in 1950's England has title characters routinely delivering babies by utility bicycles replete with Brooks saddles and chain guards.

Bleeding hearts at Canadian Tire ran a wonderful ad in 1989 that defies you to suppress a tear and won several awards.
They followed up in 2013 with a clever suburban dream spot.

Two songs previously mentioned are repeated with links.
Ashley Theberge, "Bicycles", from Ba Doo Day.
Liane Smith, "Bicycle", from Two Sides of a River

Skylar Grey features famous rapper Eminem in newly released fun single "C'mon Let Me Ride".

In realm of incomprehensible, Ukrainian grandmothers sing "My Bicycle, a bicycle". Would beat riding a bus.

Recent concert by NYC band Vampire Weekend included "Obvious Bicycle" from their 3rd album Modern Vampires of the City.

Bring On Cheese

Wiebe E. Bijker (must be the name) provided an academic and constructivist thesis, Inside Technology: "Of Bicycle, Bakelites, and Bulbs, Toward a Theory of Sociotechnical Change" (MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1995), that delves into development of the safety bicycle and how it changed society by empowering females, as well as other sociological effects of bakelite plastic and florescent bulbs.

Way less convoluted and a few years later, Arnie Baker's The Essential Cyclist (Lyons Press, 1998, 148 pp) is a scant, tight compendium, nearly a glossary, of cycling facts and good advice by a board certified doctor and coach to the pelaton. Other titles by Baker include:
Bicycling Medicine (1998)
Psychling Psychology (2004)
Smart Cycling (1997)

Alon Raab takes you on a 20 minute tour of cycling related literature from blogs to classics. Labann thanks Raab for his shoutout in essay "Wheels of Fire: Writers on Bicycles".

Cycle Sport Online compiled their version of the Top 50 Cycling Books historically, but each one chases the pelaton or licks loser's wounds. Yet they ignored landmark works in the public domain. Sense beyond bicycling there's a hidden connotation in cycling, that is propelling self solo like a billion others versus racing obsessively in a miniscule subset who in every group spin instigates another hammerfest.

Goodreads Listopia outdid them with 88 for which they'll accept your votes. Neither mentions Bike&Chain, only books for sale, since almost all lists are motivated by cheesy advertising needs.

Alex Baca has begun collecting essays periodically in The Bicycle Reader (#1: Summer 2012). Any chapter of Bike&Chain would fit nicely and never repeat ground covered by majority.

If you're a Cheesy Bike Nerd, too bad you missed last month's annual Tour de Fromage of San Francisco's best spots for this stinky delicacy.

A Bloodstain

Memorial Day recalls those who sacrificed themselves. More than soldiers who've died mercifully young on front lines, those who deserve as much honor are those who give up their well being daily as domestic technicians or dungeon workers at companies that don't care whether they die or live. Caregivers and parents painfully and slowly lose their sanity and vitality so someone else can survive or thrive, someone who generally doesn't know how fortunate they are, particularly pampered artists and spoiled children. Someone nurses wounded soldiers, too. Warmongers profit from all equally, but revel over foolish cannon fodder upon which empires are founded, you'll forever find.

Funny how Memorial Day is bracketed by Father's and Mother's Days on calendar. Once organized blog entries around these holiday revelations. With a memetic buildup of buzz and commercials goading spending, one ought to organize some balance against agendas, but why bother when message is blurred by conformity and greed?

Viewed feature film, Le Gamin au Vélo (A Kid with a Bike) directed and written by Jean-Pierre Dardenne (2011, French with subtitles). Schoolboy Cyril gets abandoned by single parent father and suffers consequences of neglect. Driven to regain his missing bike and resume relationship with financially strapped dad, he runs from orphanage straight into trouble. Recovered bike enables his futile quest, gets stolen, and results in escalating confrontations. A hairdresser steps in to change his life despite his churlish behaviors. None of the above holidays hold much meaning in this bleak scenario. All credit goes to an unsung stranger who freely sacrifices and forgives unconditionally. The stain is in the name of his own blood. Social justice keeps families together and lets adults act responsibly. Society can never forget that unless unrelated individuals intervene soon enough, crime ensues.

Headcount Train

Should companies back bike programs? Apple does. Apparently they make no fanfare about theirs. You don’t have to be a World Class market leader. Companies who do usually feel it’s worth it for healthy lifestyle, improved concentration, and mood boost. This translates into reductions in HMO premiums and unproductive days. Nationwide, commutes average only 11 miles, so majority are quite bikeable. Every year vehicles collisions and repairs cause appreciable attendance disruptions.


Marathon Terminus as seen from Green Monster, 2004.
Corporate commitments run from free (merely reassessing policies) to major (revising infrastructure and supplying appliances).
1. Encourage participation: Allow riders to carry bikes to and store in their cubicles. Apple has a bike garage, presumably with surveillance cameras. Leaving bikes unguarded for 8 hours would give most cyclists separation anxiety.
2. Permit flextime: Reduces fear of arriving late in bad weather or when issues arise, like flats.
3. Hold learning sessions during work hours: Invite speakers, organize info sharing either in person or over intranet, and post an experienced staff cyclist as part time liaison. Hold lunchtime rides for beginners in parking lot.
4. Arrange for changing rooms, lockers, laundry facilities, showers and vending machines: Probably won’t become a profit center, since you’ll have to hire a someone to oversee, police, repair, and restock machines with sample sized detergent, deodorant, shampoo, and shower gel. Might break even if appropriately scaled. Manufacturing facilities often already have a janitorial staff and showers for treating those upon whom chemicals have spilled.
5. Buy a fleet of bikes to share: You could start your own VeLib that does generate revenue by charging a small fee to the many employees who’d ride a couple times a week. You could have a repairman, sag wagon, and stock of parts and tools. Unless thousands get involved, this is more likely to lose money or require subsidies. However, commonality among bikes would control costs. Like any fleet, bikes can be insured against damage or loss.

As a practical matter, bike sharing only gets capable people reacquainted with pedaling. Real cyclists rather use own equipment tailored to suit them personally without hygiene worries. A fleet would have to be regularly cleaned and maintained. Advise a limited 2-year startup that gets scaled upon response. People who want to cyclo-commute will generally buy own $300 hybrid, then graduate to a $1500 roadie. Diehards invest in $5000 speedsters. Accordingly, buy several hybrids with gel saddles, metal baskets or plastic panniers plus some 1-speeds with rugged helmets for novices to borrow and train. Extra wheelsets, even those no longer serviceable, can be used to explain flat repairs. Tire levers are something that local bike shops might be interested in donating as advertising. Count yourself lucky if management cares enough to offer any of the above, because, apart from Apple and a few forward thinking companies, most don't. Some days, though, you're grateful to survive terrorists nearby because your nose was to the grindstone.