Learning from History

Parents aren’t cool.  That seems to be a generally accepted fact among offspring of any generation.  Grandparents however are different, they are cool.  How many of us remember funny or poignant stories with the central character being a grandparent?  Oftentimes these stories were born in the homes of your parents’ parents.  If we close our eyes we can transport our minds back in time to a celebration at Grandma’s house.  We remember the food, we can almost smell the aromas, we can picture the furniture.  Yes, the furniture.  That old stuff from Grandma’s living room, the dining room set, and the old beds and dressers are cool again.  So cool that it has a name and a style: “Mid-Century Modern.”    

The old furniture of the 1950s and the early 60s is white hot right now and people are buying it as fast as they can.  If it is true that all trends are cyclical, that all things come back around again, then this is the time for the return of Mid-Century Modern (see picture for six fine examples).  Some people have stated that the style is popular because the folks doing the purchasing are reliving their childhood and reviving the memories of their grandparents.  Sociologists have studied this phenomenon and they have discovered that trends often skip a generation.  This may explain why today’s buyers who grew up in the 1980s are skipping the styles of their parents and the 1970s and going all way back to the 1950s.  It could also be that the designers of the Mid-Century Modern era used simple lines with understated yet elegant touches.  Chairs were angle-shaped, tables were slight yet strong.   It could be a case that people just appreciate things that are well designed and well crafted.

It also helps that these furniture pieces are readily available now.  The baby boom that followed World War II and the rush to the newly built suburbs meant that houses were filling up with new furniture and new kids.  Now, sixty years later that furniture is being liquidated as the boomers move to senior living facilities or downsized homes.   This means that not only is this popular style available, it is also affordable.  In the 1950s, everyone had the stuff and they held onto it.  

Is the Mid-Century Modern style reflected in the bicycles of the era?  Yes.  In the 1930s and 40s bikes had fat tubes and balloon tires, white-walls too.  There would be a large tank under the top tube that served no purpose, just a design feature.  In the 1950s the tires started to get smaller and thinner and the idea of cutting weight was first starting to be discussed among manufacturers. The lines of bikes were taking a more pointed and angular shape.  They were known as middleweight bikes (pictured). Two things at the time helped to bring this change: the “Space Race” and the jet airplane.  Things were built for speed, even if speed was only a hint.   

And where were these bikes?  The local bike shop had yet to arrive so the best place to find a new ride was Sears.  Next was the local hardware store.  The hardware store was how Schwinn began to gain market share.  The small shops would become exclusive Schwinn dealers and soon Schwinn was nationwide.  Are these old bikes selling well?  Not really, they weren’t very popular at the time and today the brand new cruisers are a better value.  What the era did do was convince designers that weight was a factor and frame design important.  There is a collectors market for the old machines.  .

If you are interested in old bikes and want some appraisal tips please visit our website for a short how-to video.  Please click on videos at www.stickybottleteam.net.

Sharrows and CitiBikes

Bike lanes have been around for a generation.  They are the simple, off-to-the-shoulder, narrow lanes for bike riders only.  And now we have—drum roll please—sharrows.  Yes, sharrows or sharrowing.  Sharrows are starting to appear on roads that have no room or availability for independent bike lanes.  Sharrows are roads that are open to both vehicle and bicycle traffic.  These lanes are “shared roads.”  There is nothing more to it than that, bike riders have no special dispensation to the road and automobiles do not have to adhere to some new set of rules.  Sharrows use a new design with prominent placement in the center of the lane alerting bikers and drivers that bikes will be riding in traffic.  

Look for sharrows coming to a town or big city near you.  Speaking of big cities, the biggest of them all New York City unveiled just this month the Big Apple’s new bike share program, known as CitiBike (thanks to a cash infusion from Citi).  And just as the bikes are being deployed to bike share stations throughout the boroughs they are being stolen.  In fact the first bike stolen was nabbed by a crook as it was being lowered from the truck delivering the machine.  The SBT has already written about the notoriety of Paris bike thieves.  The North American equivalent is New York City.  Similar to cars being stolen so they can be cut up in “chop shops” the same thing happens with bikes.  They are stolen for parts and sold illegally.  Soon, by the end of this week, 6,000 bikes will be deployed through New York City’s CitiBike stations.  The New York Times has been all over the story and they did a comprehensive study of the new bike share system that debuted in Paris not long ago.  What they discovered is that roughly 80% of all bikes in the Paris system have been stolen.  Many are also damaged.  The Times also chatted with an NYPD flatfoot who stated that in his years walking a beat he never, not once, caught a bike thief.  

New York officials claim they have learned from Paris, and Montreal, and Toronto and have ordered bikes with unique components making them worthless in the resale market.  New York has also invested in titanium locks at the docking stations.  New York is confident that the CitiBikes will be safe and secure.  What that means is that private bikes are in greater danger of being stolen.  If the crooks can’t steel the CitiBikes, then they will steal yours or mine.  What you might need to invest in is a good lock.  Kryptonite makes one.  They call it the New York Lock.  Comforting.   

Some good news…  The CitiBikes have been so popular riders are coming to the docking station who never learned to ride a bike.  New York has created a half hour workshop at selected stations where people can learn to ride.  CitiBikes are $10 per day or $100 for a one year membership.

Please visit our website at www.stickybottleteam.net for a video about Sharrows in Southern California.  A kind old man enters the conversation at the :38 second mark with thoughtful gratitude in praise of the program.  Well, maybe not.     

Will Moyes Make the Move by Bicycle?

Image a trophy case with 40 awards.  Visualize a collection of championship cups so vast they take up every inch of the fireplace mantle, the nightstand by the bed and on that old shelf in the garage.   They spill out of the kitchen cabinet when you reach in for midnight snack.   And so it might be at the home of Sir Alex Ferguson who announced his retirement from football after a four decade career.  Sir Alex has won them all and more than once: League Cups, Champions League, Europa League, Cup Winners Cups, Community Shields and more.  Cups are at least useful, we aren’t sure what we would do with a shield.   In 26 years at Old Trafford, Sir Alex went without winning a piece of hardware on just seven occasions.  

And so as Sir Alex packs up his office, David Moyes assembles the necessities he will need for the move from Goodison Park to Old Trafford.  Will Moyes be the next Phil Bengtson?  Time will tell.  Never heard of Bengtson?  He is one of the all time great trivia answers—“who replaced Vince Lombardi as head coach of the Green Bay Packers?”  We think Moyes will be successful.  He has been a coach since 1980 and has been with Everton for a decade.  While he hasn’t the trophy collection of Sir Alex he does have three wins as the League Managers Association manager of the year.  The only other manager with three LMA victories is Sir Alex.      

As we speak of Moyes and his move to Old Trafford we wonder if he will do it bicycle.  It would be a bike trip of just under 40 miles one way.  The ride is scenic almost immediately, rolling out of Goodison and down Priory Road the ride splits Stanley Park on one side with the sprawling Anfield Cemetery to the other.   A large and sprawling place, Anfield Cemetery is the final resting place for a number of English war heroes.  Opened in August 1863, the cemetery covers 110 acres and includes axial and circular paths, a Gothic catacomb and two chapels.  A rather infamous interment is that of James Maybrick who died of arsenic poisoning in 1889.  Maybrick was, and is still to this day, a suspect in the Jack the Ripper murders.    

Leaving Liverpool the route dips south towards the River Mersey.  A mostly traffic-friendly ride to the Manchester Ship Canal is next on the route.  The canal is 36 miles in length beginning in the Mersey Estuary near Liverpool and offers bike paths along the way.  It is a locked canal with ships moving up 60 feet to reach the higher ground of inland Manchester.  The city of Manchester was suffering from an extended economic depression in the mid to late 1800s so the idea was conceived to make Manchester a port city in an effort to revive the local economy.  This didn’t sit well with Liverpool.  That city had a fairly substantial port economy.  Nonetheless the ship canal was approved in 1885 much to the protest of Liverpool.   The canal was opened to traffic in 1894 after seven years of construction immediately becoming the largest navigation canal on the globe.   

  

So, back to Mr. Moyes…  A bike ride from Goodison Park to Old Trafford is possible, in fact it happens all the time.  British Cycling.org sponsors a ride each May.  It is a non-competitive ride done in reverse (Manchester to Liverpool).  A number of bike riders have uploaded similar rides to the internet through a variety of GPS cycling services.   Have a nice ride.  

Please visit our website at www.stickybottleteam.net.

A Bike Ride with the Spirit of Joshua Tree

Each day the world over hearses roll into airports and pull up to the terminal mortuary.  Every airline and every airport has such a place.  Usually it is a quiet and unassuming practice.  Funeral homes are simply picking up the dead.  

In September of 1973 this practice of picking up the dead got really weird. On a routine evening in late summer a hearse drove into the Los Angeles International Airport and parked just out front of LAX’s mortuary services department.  This hearse was not like most.  This one had a bad yellow paint job, broken windows, and no license plate.   The usual funeral home men arrived not wearing the requisite suit and tie.  The two guys operating the hearse were disheveled long-hairs.  And they were drunk.

The men arrived just as the casket they had come for was delivered to the LAX mortuary.  Inside the coffin was the body of the late Gram Parsons.  Parsons made his mark in the music world in the late 1960s and into the 70s.  He was a pioneer in the country-rock genre and had a legion of devoted followers including Elvis and Keith Richards.  Like most geniuses Parsons was a troubled soul, never comfortable with his brilliance or the fame it brought.  Days before the strange scene began to play out at LAX, Parsons died of an overdose of alcohol and morphine at the age of 26.  The body was taken to the airport so it could be flown to Louisiana.  Parson’s step-father wanted to bury to the musician in New Orleans.  

Parsons, in a conversation with his manager Phil Kaufmann stated that if something ever happened to him he would prefer to be cremated with his ashes left in Joshua Tree National Park.  It was a place Parson’s frequented often to look at the stars and the landscape.  The area was his muse and his inspiration.  It was Phil Kaufmann behind the wheel of the hearse at LAX.  He had come to the claim the body of his late friend.  

Kaufmann was greeted by LAX mortuary personnel and exchanged idle chit-chat.  He was presented with a simple form to sign.  In a matter a few scant minutes Kaufmann and his friend were driving out of LAX with the body of Gram Parsons.  The two men drove for hours, finally reaching a remote section of Joshua Tree National Park.  There, the men toasted their late friend, doused the casket with five gallons of gasoline and set it ablaze.  Kaufmann was keeping his promise to Parsons.  

Days later Kaufmann strode into a police station and told the authorities what he had done.  In November, Kaufmann and his accomplice appeared in a Los Angeles courtroom to hear their fate.  They were charged with a misdemeanor (stealing a body is not a crime) and had to pay $700--the value of the casket.   They each paid an additional fine of $300 for duping LAX.  Parsons’ remains were claimed by the authorities from Joshua Tree and the body was interred in the Garden of Memories, Metarie, Louisiana.  

If you find yourself near Joshua Tree take a ride with the spirit of Gram Parsons.  A number of ride and route options exist thanks to MapMyRide.com.  Do a search and pick one you like, the scenery is unique as are the elevation changes.  If you would like make a toast to Parsons visit his simple memorial "Safe at Home" at Cap Rock inside Joshua Tree.

Visit our website www.stickybottleteam.net.     

The Park lies mostly in the Mojave Desert of Southern California

Joshua Trees are a type of Yucca plant