Continuing the conversation

Picking up where the conversation ended on my last post:

Maynard: As Earle suggests, there's not all that much to say about bicycles. I know that the online and paper bicycle publications fill their pages with content about stuff issue after issue.

But -- it's just stuff. Stuff won't guarantee a great ride. It won't climb the hill for you or set a new PB on your usual loop. 

Actual skill, fitness or genius isn't for sale. REI doesn't offer them. You have to have them or earn them.

What can be sold is stuff. Selling it means convincing you that using that stuff is the equivalent of possessing skill, class or genius, qualities that can't be sold.

Earle: There have been a few publications that were not ‘stuff’ driven. The best of these was Fat Tire Flyer, the first ever mountain bike magazine, edited by the incomparable Charlie Kelly. Here is everything you need to know about ‘stuff’ and complete bicycles, for that matter: http://www.sonic.net/~ckelly/Seekay/bike_review.htm

SeeKay was there when mountain biking took off, and one of the inaugural inductees into the Mountain Biking Hall of fame. But he never got so caught up in himself that he forgot that it was just stuff, and the ride was the most important thing.  He was also a first-class rock ‘n’ roll roadie and a decent guitar player with an eclectic repertoire.  I met SeeKay through bicycles, but we had much more to talk about.

Charlie is just one example of the great people I have met through bicycles.

Finally, some new content

I have been away from this blog for far too long. I'm sure anybody who tried to follow it has given up hope. Well, please come back. I have new content and will update the blog far more regularly.

On my regular Website, I started an electronic conversation with Maynard Hershon, an old friend and talented writer. I am going to continue that conversation here, picking up where we left off:

This is a continuation of an electronic dialog between Maynard Hershon and me.

Earle: In our last installment, we talked a lot about classy riding and riders and how much has been lost from the days of our youth. What we left out was the personalities involved. At one time or another, Maynard and I have both written pieces for Grant Peterson’s Rivenell Reader.

In the late 1980’s, I was finishing a degree in magazine journalism and was looking for writing outlets. I had met Grant, knew he had the Reader, so called him and asked what I could do for him. He suggested that I interview Jobst Brandt.

I jumped at the chance. Jobst was widely known as highly opinionated, and less known for being right far more often than wrong, even when he contradicted conventional wisdom. I had met him a couple of times, and the world of high-end bicycles being as small as it was then, he readily agreed to have me meet him for lunch and then spend the afternoon with him in Palo Alto.

We spent the time in a wide-ranging conversation about his annual ride in the Alps, his friendships with titans of the Italian bicycle business and more. When we talked about mindfulness on the road, he showed me the buckets of tools he had picked up on various rides. We talked about ice riding, his relationship to the Palo Alto Bicycle catalog and the Avocet brand, and much much more.

I really liked the three-page piece I wrote for Grant. It was a glimpse into the world of international cycling at the highest level.

Grant, however, was disappointed. We had not discussed five-speed freewheels versus six or even seven; never mentioned indexed shifting versus non and barely touched on bald tires versus tires with tread.

In short, we had talked about bicycling, not bicycles. To be continued ...

New from Maynard Hershon

I asked Maynard to write some original content for the Earle Wheels Website, and he readily agreed. He wrote a nice piece, much in the vein of columns he has been writing for decades. Any of his regular outlets would have run it without changing a word.

But I am picky, and wanted to coax more out of him. We exchanged a series of emails back and forth, with me suggesting changes and him making some of them. He got closer to what I had in mind, but wasn't there yet. He wrote me saying he had thought of a different approach, and was going to start fresh. I responded with this: How would you feel about a dialog? You write 100 words or so, I respond to it in 100 words or so, and through the exchanges, build the article I want to write, but cannot write alone.

"That's a super idea,"  he responded.

The first installment of that conversation is now spread across five pages of www.earlewheels.com. Please read it and comment.

Self-regulation or County Regulations - We have a choice

http://host.madison.com/news/local/iowa-county-mulls-bicycle-event-ordinance/article_055a5aa7-cc25-52f6-9e3f-eaf3a0377975.html

Iowa County Wisconsin has some of the finest road cycling anywhere, and the cyclists should be smart enough to regulate themselves. But they aren’t. So they face this kind of heat.

Let me explain why: A lot of racer wannabe’s, even some licensed racers, treat large group rides in Wisconsin as closed-road road races, taking over the roads.  I’ve written about it before, as have a lot of other people. The cyclists take up the whole lane, run red lights and stop signs, sometimes even cross the center line into the other lane, even across a double yellow. Certain tough organized rides have become de facto races, with riders looking for a fast time, riding against their friends or their time last year, or some other ideal. And when you get clusters of them together, they forget that they are on open, public roads and need to follow the rules of the road.

Several events every year draw hundreds of bicycles to Iowa County, and the ride organizers don’t always work with local authorities to keep things civil. That leaves the local citizenry angry at the cyclists and angry at the local authorities for not reigning in the cyclists.

The solution should not be a county ordinance restricting rides and making it more expensive to run large events. It should not be incumbent on the local authorities to keep things legal on the road. The organizers of the rides should take care of enforcement themselves.

Here’s my modest proposal: For the big rides, the Horribly Hilly Hundreds, the Dairyland Dare and the Wright Stuff Century, get some more volunteers, or even paid workers. Maybe work with a motorcycle club to exchange support for one of their events. However it is done, get a lot of eyes on the road – at controlled intersections, curvy downhills and other spots where cyclists abuse their right to be on the road. When a cyclist runs a red light, blatantly crosses a center line or rides 3 or more across the road, take their number, call ahead to the next check point, and when the offending rider pulls in, take his/her number, wrist band and/or timing chip.

“Sorry, you violated the rules of the ride that you agreed to, you are off the ride.” Any official record of the ride should list the rider as “Did not finish, violated road rules.”

For smaller rides, agree ahead of time that there is a responsible ride captain. The ride captain and a second keep an eye on the group, and should a rider get out of line, send that rider home.

We as cyclists HAVE to be good citizens on the road. It does not take much for a motorist to have a “tragic accident” and kill a cyclist or two or ten, and probably get away with a slap on the wrist. We owe it to ourselves to obey the rules of the road, especially when there is a huge mob that can get away it, this time. That’s because some county is going to decide this time is the last time and make it really tough to have a ride with even three people in it.