Why I don't encourage people to race bikes

ttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcC5Kxb5ZSU

Ouch

Sadly, these sort of things are part of helmeted racing. There is no way to prevent this. Helmets so alter our perception and behavior, that we are locked into constant injury. That the UCI allows bikes that explode is one thing, but in order for the sport to grow, we need to return to zero tolerance for crashing. BTW, these are women racers.

Google Maps For Bikes

I watched cyclist ride westbound on the Olympic Fwy from LaCienaga towards SM. This was around 7:30pm on a weekday. There is no parking in the curb lane, and some drivers think it's a carpool lane. A car passed the rider going around 45mph, and the driver didn't seem to slow or move over at all. The bike had a rear blinky and front blinky as well.

Without going into how drivers deal with us and why, let me say that Google Maps For Bikes seems good, if they take into consideration rush hour and how it's sometimes a better idea to take side streets. On a Sunday morning, early, circumstances change and you can see where Google Maps For Bikes may not be dialed in.

Reflections of owning a bike shop

It's been interesting, if nothing else. Kids have no idea what they are doing.

When To Stop

People (mainly non-cyclists) ask me at what age I might stop riding. The only thing I can say is that when my balance, reflexes and coordination get so bad that I can't ride my bike like I currently do, I will think about getting a hybrid to just go to the liquor store to buy some beers.

That being said, one's ability to ride a bike safely has no relationship to your wearing a helmet, neon windbreaker, or flag. That's just the way it is.

Ted Ernst on USA Racing History

From: ternst <ternst1@cox.net>
Subject: [CR] US track racing, no road
To: <classicrendezvous@bikelist.org>


The history of how cycling e or devolved in the USA  is always of
interest as it's very different than most of the world.
Track and road racing was big during cycling's hey-day in the 1890's.
even with bad roads, 100 mile distances were common.
Track racing drew thousands of spectators and was probably larger
because of the professional riders as well as amateur.
It's fairly well documented that as the cars, motorcycles, and airplanes
grew with our wealth as a country, the brains went into these industries
and that talent that made our bike industry the world's best was
transferred to Europe.
Our racing didn't go into the multi gears and big road races but stayed
with fixed gears because the track racing held somewhat better and the
6-Day competition kept track riding alive. Motor industries growth
curtailed that development of the bike industry here.
There was a great outdoor circuit of tracks in the East, and singular
velodromes throughout the rest of the country kept some activity going
through the summers, pro 6-Days holding sway in the winter. Every "6"
had an amateur hour before.
The proximity of the Eastern tracks was a big plus in keeping that area
as the cycling hotbed.
There were still road races all over the country, but maybe one a month
and so riders were forced to travel far or ride the local tracks.
There weren't that many racers so fields were more in the 50/60 men and
occasionaly 100 for a big classic.
Distances were 25-100 miles and ALL were done on fixed gear track bikes.
Remember, the average American in the '30/40's referred to thin tire
bikes as racers, as regular bikes were the fat tire ballooners.
Even the English 3-sp bikes were called racers into the '50's by many
people.
Anybody who raced didn't know anything about road bikes and when people
said a racing bike it meant a track bike, which was a fixed gear no
brake machine.
It was called a machine from the 1880's on because it had a chain and
gears which made it a machine as compared to the high wheel with direct
crank drive commonly referred to as one's wheel.
Track bikes were used on the road into the mid '50's, slowly giving way
to derailleur bikes.
The American Olympic team in '48 got Schwinn Paramounts with Simplex
derailleurs just before the boat left and the guys trained on the
rollers while sailing over.
None of the guys ever rode a roadbike before as far as I know.
The first race with mandatory roadbikes were the Olympic Trials in '52.
But criteriums and the short park and road races were still fixed gear,
giving way slowly as I mentioned before.
The roaring '20's gave life back to the 6-Days, and held thru the '30's
in the depression.
WW2 almost wiped out bike racing, with returning GI's devoting time to
family and futures.
Cycling was a small sport with exception of the 6-Days, but it was all
professional, and the amateur ranks were thin indeed, and slowly grew
with dedicated supporters and then exploded in the '70's with the first
gas crisis.
Road bikes were in and track racing held, but was then the small
brother.
The European emigres brought their kids into the sport in those pre WW2
years, but that died after the war as our immigration numbers fell after
the war.
This seems to have been a direct result of Europe's economies growing
and the need to emmigrate waned.
Hand brake bikes were rare in the US during the '20's/'30's, stock bikes
had coaster brakes usually, some fixed gear oldies were still used but
fixed gears were really the domain of the racers and the guys used their
bikes on the road and track.
With the car such a dominant force, and cycling as a recreation not
really considered, racing was a minor sport as compared to being the
major sport just a few years before.
Now it's a major sport again, so it seems what went around is now coming
around again.
Hope this fills in some gaps, and I look forward to additional comments.
Ted Ernst
Palos Verdes Estates
CA  USA

Blind Faith

This is how the cover came to be. This is one of the LPs to have with you on that island.

Also the young girl of the Blind Faith cover was paid: she asked for a
horse in exchange for this work.

Here is the history:

"Story of the origins of the Blind Faith album cover, from Bob
Seidemann's (photographer of the album cover artwork) perspective:

I was being on the "scene" because it was happening. It was ground
zero of the cultural revolution. How I managed it was by producing a
handful of photographs for a small poster company I was a partner in.
The company was founded by a raving poet with a hundred dollars and a
picture of the face of Christ, supposedly an impression on the veil of
Mary Magdalene. His name is Louis Rapoport, today he is news editor of
the "Jerusalem Post". It was our first poster and it was a hit. My
work consisted at the beginning of pictures of Janis Joplin and the
Grateful Dead. They were impressionistic and successful.

I called Eric Clapton in London to ask if he would put me up for a
while. He did. I stayed at his flat in Chelsea with a wild crowd of
ravers. The party had been going on for some time when I arrived.
Other residents of the never-ending, day-for-night, multi-colored
fling were Martin Sharp, a graphic artist and poet with an uncanny
resemblance to Peter O'Toole, and the wildest of ravers, Philippe
Mora, a young filmmaker who looked like a cherry Peter Lorre, and
their handsome girlfriends. I bunked on a ledge under a skylight in
the living room. All of the London scene came through. It was wild and
wooly all over.

A year passed and I had my own room in a basement flat in the same
part of town with another bunch of hipsters. Not employed, I received
a phone call from Polydor Records London Office. It was an assistant
of Robert Stigwood, Clapton's manager. Cream was over and Eric was
putting a new band together. The fellow on the phone asked if I would
make a cover for the new unnamed group. This was big time. It seems
though the western world had for lack of a more substantial icon,
settled on the rock and roll star as the golden calf of the moment.
The record cover had become the place to be seen as an artist.

I could not get my hands on the image until out of the mist a concept
began to emerge. To symbolize the achievement of human creativity and
its expression through technology a space ship was the material
object. To carry this new spore into the universe innocence would be
the ideal bearer, a young girl, a girl as young as Shakespeare's
Juliet. The space ship would be the fruit of the tree of knowledge and
the girl, the fruit of the tree of life.

The space ship could be made by Mick Milligan, a jeweler at the Royal
College of Art. The girl was another matter. If she were too old it
would be cheesecake, too young and it would be nothing. It was the
beginning of the transition from girl to woman, that is what I was
after. That temporal point, that singular flare of radiant innocence.
Where is that girl?

I was riding the London Tube on the way to Stigwood's office to expose
Clapton's management to this revelation when the subway doors opened
and she stepped into the car. She was wearing a school uniform, plaid
skirt, blue blazer, white socks and ball point pen drawings on her
hands. It was as though the air began to crackle with an electrostatic
charge. She was buoyant and fresh as the morning air.

I must have looked like something out of Dickens. Somewhere between
Fagan, Quasimodo, Albert Einstein and John the Baptist. The car was
full of passengers. I approached her and said that I would like her to
pose for a record cover for Eric Clapton's new band. Everyone in the
car tensed up.

She said, "Do I have to take off my clothes?" My answer was yes. I
gave her my card and begged her to call. I would have to ask her
parent's consent if she agreed. When I got to Stigwood's office I
called the flat and said that if this girl called not to let her off
the phone without getting her phone number. When I returned she had
called and left her number.


Stanley Mouse (Miller), my close friend and one of the five
originators of psychedelic art in San Francisco was holed up at the
flat. He helped me make a layout and we headed out to meet with the
girl's parents. It was a Mayfair address. This was a swank part of
town, class in the English sense of the word.

Mouse and I made our presentation, I told my story, the parents
agreed. The girl on the tube train would not be the one, she was shy,
she had just passed the point of complete innocence and could not
pose. Her younger sister had been saying the whole time, "Oh Mommy,
Mommy, I want to do it, I want to do it." She was glorious sunshine.
Botticelli's angel, the picture of innocence, a face which in a brief
time could launch a thousand space ships.

We asked her what her fee should be for modeling, she said a young
horse. Stigwood bought one for her. I called the image "Blind Faith"
and Clapton made that the name of the band. When the cover was shown
in the trades it hit the market like a runaway train, causing a storm
of controversy. At one point the record company considered not
releasing the cover at all. It was Eric Clapton who fought for it. It
was Eric who elected to not print the name of the band on the cover.
This had never been done before. The name was printed on the wrapper,
when the wrapper came off, so did the type.

This was an image created out of ferment and storm, out of revolution
and chaos. It was an image in the mind of one who strove for that
moment of glory, that blinding flash of singular inspiration. To etch
an image on a stone in our cultural wall with the hope that the wall
will last. To say with his heart and his eyes, at a time when it
mattered, this is what I feel. It was created out of and a wish for a
new beginning. It was created out of hope and a wish for a new
beginning. Innocence propelled by BLIND FAITH."