Desert Raleigh

When borrowing a bicycle from my hotel in Tucson earlier this month, I walked outside to see what was on offer. I had been told to expect a raggedy collection of weather-worn cruisers, but to choose whichever I liked.

Imagine my surprise when this was locked up alongside the cruisers:

It was a 1968 Raleigh Sports in black.  The paint was in new condition and it was clearly the apple of someone's eye.  It had been lovingly, if bizarrely, customized.

For example, there was a new Sturmey Archer 3-speed hub in place of the original and a shifting mechanism that looked unnecessarily huge.  New alloy wheels had replaced the Nottingham steel versions.  But these were nothing compared to the additions made to the saddle and handlebars.  First, the bars:


These are big eye bolts, basically.  They're screwed into sawed-off sections of a broom stick and then the whole thing was glued into place in the bar ends.  I studied this bike for ages, trying to understand if the loops had some function for the rider.  Did he put his thumbs through these?  A prosthesis of some kind? 

On to the saddle.  Under the Safeway bag lay a loose swath of leather, which was stitched together over some fleecy padding.  I couldn't tell what was under the fleece, although I was soon to learn.

Just a day after I encountered this bike, I was lucky enough to look out of my hotel window and spy its owner cycling back from an outing.  I rushed downstairs in time to meet him as he locked up his masterpiece.

This is Tony, I think.  I should have posted this sooner... I can't be 100 percent sure he isn't Ed.  But really, what's the difference to you? Let's go with Tony.

Tony is the original owner of the bicycle.  He bought it in the Phoenix area brand new 40+ years ago and rides it every day. 

He even demonstrated his riding technique, which disappointingly does not involve any use of the loop ends to the bar extensions.  He merely wanted a more upright position and found these bolts an easy way to get a bit more reach.  As for the saddle?  Under the homemade mattress of leather and fleece is the original Brooks. 

Clearly, Tony made different choices than I would with a 40-year-old Raleigh.  But I have nothing on him when it comes to authenticity and standing as a Raleigh owner.  He rides it every day, straps it on the back of the RV when traveling, bickers with the front desk staff over the security of storage areas, and truly loves his ride. 

Here's wishing Tony many more years of happy cycling on his one-of-a-kind Sports.

Cycling in Tucson

This is one trip  I did not expect would include a bike ride.

I got a call from a client 20 minutes after the shooting Saturday asking how quickly I could be at the crime scene.  As it happened, I wasn't able to get there before mid-day Sunday, some 24 hours later.

Since then, I've been working in Tucson and experiencing a community that is in a genuine state of shock and grief. I've been around a few hundred homicides in my career, but I've never seen anything like I'm witnessing this week.  It seems that everyone was touched by this tragic act of violence. 

I've lost count of the conversations in which it has dawned on me that the person to whom I'm talking was intimately acquainted with one of the deceased victims or was actively involved in rendering aid to the wounded.  While the rest of us talk about shooting in an almost academic sense, the people of Tucson are talking about it as though they were members of the same family. This tragedy happened to all of them and they're feeling the shock and grief and confusion in a visceral way.

To be honest, I still can't get my head around the scope of this crime.  Tonight, I met with 30 or so people who were at the scene of the crime.  Watching them hug each other and cry left me stunned with the realization that each of them would lead lives forever changed by 30 seconds of gunfire on a random Saturday morning.  Moreover, each of their families will forever mark time based on what happened before and what happened after Saturday.  Hundreds, no, thousands of lives were changed in that tiny burst of time Saturday and this town will be different forever as a result.

But back to bikes.

It was a very pleasant surprise to see that my hotel offers free loaner bicycles to guests.  When I found a quiet hour or so around mid-day, I decided to take one for a spin to the nearest store to buy a few things I needed.  In particular, the Arizona desert air made lip balm a vital necessity.

My ride was a rickety Huffy cruiser.  Calling it a bike-shaped object would be flattery.  But nevertheless, I truly enjoyed the half-hour of freedom and breeze that came with riding it along an arroyo and into the parking lot of Trader Joe's. 

Here (if it works) is a moment of my ride.  Prepare to be bored for 25 seconds... but the dead-dry arroyo is kinda cool in its own way.

They say that it's good to go back to familiar things when confronted with new and confusing circumstances.  For me, today, that meant getting to ride a bike for a little while and remembering how much goodness there is in the world.

Happy New Year!

Here's wishing each and every one who reads this a happy, healthy and blessed New Year!  Your visits and comments are greatly appreciated and valued!

More than a year after starting this blog -- with only the vaguest notions of why or what might be accomplished -- you and I are still here.  That in itself is something.

In some ways, mikespokes settled in to a kind of niche: thoughts of reviewing products and being a voice in the cycling world were shed like the unrealistic nonsense they were.  In others, the search for a viewpoint continues. There are definitely times when I question why anyone would want to read about my bikes and biking non-adventures.  Heaven knows there are times when I tire of reading about other people's. 

But every once in a while, there is a small story that seems worth telling, or a new trinket that seems worthy of sharing.  On those occasions, I like to think somebody, somewhere is reading and maybe finds it interesting enough to come back now and then.

If not, no hard feelings!  I'll continue to try to find items, photos and questions of interest to me and, hopefully, you.  I will continue to have no opinion whatsoever on access issues, helmet use, cycling attire, frame geometry or trends.  I will still avoid the irritating blog practice of asking you questions in transparent hope of boosting comment counts.

I will, however, continue to fume at bike trail rudeness, convinced that seething is somehow going to lead to people to reinvent themselves as polite.  It may be a new year, but I'm not going to get smart all at once.

One day, maybe in the New Year, I'll stumble upon a viewpoint! 

Here's a quick look back at key (or maybe random) moments from 2010.  Some new additions, one departure, fun rides with family and another year of God-given health and happiness.

Debut ride on new bike is a tear-jerker

Fiona finally got to take her new cruiser for a proper ride today.  She and I rode downtown to meet Jan and her cousins for lunch.  We were spirited adventurers, blithely ignoring the forecasted rain, the flooded bike trail and other incentives to take the car.

The closed bike trail forced us on to city streets, where Fiona navigated confidently and calmly.  The cruiser has only a coaster brake, and it took a bit of practice to get the hang of braking effectively when it was called for.

Being the cautious and smart dad, I steered us away from the busier streets to K Street, a pedestrian mall of sorts that was opened to bicycles just this year.  As we rolled onto K, I told Fiona the route would keep us free of sharing space with cars, but would also feature light-rail tracks and the dangers associated with them.

Not three minutes later, we found ourselves on a stretch of road where train tracks crossed each other in a pattern of confusion that resembled an angry kindergartner's scribbles.  Navigating this maze would require steely nerves and focus, and I worried that Fiona would panic. As it turns out, I was worrying about the wrong cyclist.

In the time it took to utter a reassuring phrase to Fiona, my front wheel found one of the ruts.  As anyone who has experienced this already knows, I was instantly on my way to the pavement.  Seeing me fall, Fiona veered slightly to avoid being hit and put her own tire into a track.  She and I fell together, with my weight hitting the back of Fiona's bike and helping drive it to the ground.

First, the good news.  We're both sore and bruised, but otherwise OK.  Nothing broken, but we each sport a pair of scrapes and sore spots.

Now the less good news.  The right crank arm on Fiona's bike bent inward, eliminating the clearance between the crank and the line of the chain.  I do not know whether this is something that can simply be bent back into position, or if the crank will have to be replaced.

We walked our bikes the rest of the way to lunch and managed to get on with our lives.  Fiona's bike is waiting at my office; I'll retrieve it tomorrow and get going on the repair job.  No kid should be without her new bike three days after Christmas.

While I'm not one to look for others to blame for these things, I have to say I'm somewhat amazed that this criss-cross of train tracks occupies the entirety of the section cyclists are required to use on this street.  The ordinance requires that cyclists ride between the broad yellow lines that mark the section of street used by light rail cars.  This makes sense as a way to keep bikes from endangering pedestrians, but some exception (or warning?) has to be made when a section of that area is as dangerous as this one is.

Shhhh!

Nobody say a word, but I have it on good authority that Santa is bringing something special to our littlest cyclist.

A full report from Santa's designated helper in this project will follow soon.  But for now, here's just enough to let you share in the anticipation and fun of hiding a new bike for one more day!!

Riverside trail now features lake view

For the past 10 days or so, the weather and holiday errands have kept me to fairly short rides -- to downtown, around the neighborhood, that kind of thing.  So, when the sun came out and stayed out today, I decided I would take an hour or so and ride along the river to Discovery Park.

Well, it turns out a couple of weeks of rain were not without impact on the bike trail. The meadow that becomes Bushy Lake in wet weather isn't big enough to hold the water that's been accumulating and it spilled over onto the trail.

Here's Lucky, his progress thwarted, along a usually dry stretch of trail.  As tempting as it was to cross this and investigate further, I know from experience that if the water is this high at Bushy Lake, then Discovery Park is pretty much an inland sea.

Luckily, this isn't the only route to downtown or points south of the river.  By switching to another spur of the trail, I was able to cross the American River a couple of miles upriver from its confluence with the Sacramento River and meander downtown.

A treasure found

 After seeing hundreds of them on blogs and not one in person, I finally had my first encounter with a full chaincase Raleigh Sports.  This gorgeous bike belongs to Rick, who holds the special distinction of being an accomplished racer and a first-class vintage roadster fan at the same time.

Rick's beautiful 1951 Raleigh was in the rack at my LBS, where Rick is a mechanic.  After showing me its four (!)-speed Sturmey Archer hub and still-working dynamo hubs, Rick then made the very generous offer of a test ride.  I happily accepted.

The Raleigh rides as smoothly as you'd expect from a bike owned by an accomplished mechanic.  It shifts smoothly through its four gears, the top two of which are remarkably steep.  It's hard to imagine when you'd use fourth gear on this bike, unless you live at the top of a steep hill.

The green paint is well-preserved and a darker green than the color I normally associate with Raleighs.  I imagined it as a transitional color from the blackout bikes of the war years, but I could be miles off on that musing.

Among the features I hadn't before seen was the headlamp, which was chromed only at the outer edge; the rest is steel painted the color as the bike.  I actually like this design better than the all-chrome one that would dominate in the years that followed.