January 28, 2012
Bicycles are enduring as well as efficient, at least steel bikes are; and the other popular materials can be too. Titanium, certainly; aluminum, if done well; sometimes carbon fiber, as in Calfee’s handmade carbon bikes with their 25-year guarantee. But any of them would be hard-pressed to keep up with steel–not on the racetrack, but on the cycle of time.
The bike in this photo, for example:
That’s the bottom half of a fellow named Dennis, whom I met at the bicycle bridge in Playa del Rey, one of my favorite hangouts. He’s astride the bike he rides fifteen or twenty miles every day, as he has done for years. The bike’s seen a lot of miles, and Dennis isn’t its first owner by any means. Because that bike was made in 1927.
At eighty-five years old, it makes my daily rider, a 45-year-old Bottecchia, look brand-new by comparison.
It’s a “President,” out of Tacoma, Washington, with the classic old-school double top tube design, and a little gas-tank-like fitting in between the top tubes–I think it may have originally housed a tool kit.
Dennis took off the stock wheels, which have wooden rims, and has them stashed away. Aside from that and tires and chains, the bike is pretty much original. It’s entirely coated in rust, and the bearings are pretty much open to the sea air and windblown sand of the bike path.
Yet it keeps going, day in and day out, and it keeps Dennis going as well. He wears through a set of tires every year, and they are thick, old-fashioned roadster tires too. It also brings him together with other bike path users, folks like me who hang out at the bridge and always have a few minutes to talk about bikes and whatever a bit of casual chat will lead to. I’ve made good friends there. That’s part of the beauty of bikes, they give you a talking point and let you get to know people. I met one of my best buddies at the bridge, a fellow whose political views are almost exactly the opposite of mine and who worked in a completely different industry. We would not likely have met otherwise.
A bike is much more than just metal, then…but of course without the metal (or the epoxy), you wouldn’t have a bike.
So when you come in to Orange 20 looking for a new ride, steel or otherwise, choose carefully–because you’ll be making a lifelong friend. And one that will take you to meet friends you never knew you had.
[...] company based on a made up bike team based on a real beer-drinking Belgium racer. Rick Risemberg meets a man on an 85-year old bike; he also finds a bike/ped bridge in Whittier, but no signage that says how to get there. Some [...]
Pingback by Main Street road diet brings joy to Venice cyclists; I missed it by that much last week « BikingInLA — January 31, 2012 @ 1:30 am
[...] company based on a made up bike team based on a real beer-drinking Belgium racer. Rick Risemberg meets a man on an 85-year old bike; he also finds a bike/ped bridge in Whittier, but no signage that says how to get there. Some [...]
Pingback by Main Street road diet brings joy to Venice cyclists; a road rage finger and a shipload of links « BikingInLA — January 31, 2012 @ 1:44 am