In the past week I’ve encountered
a couple of historical oddities.
It really doesn’t matter what they were, the significant thing is that,
at one time, a lot of bicycle folks thought they were the complete and total,
can’t do without it, gotta have it, killer, HOT STUFF. Of course, at this point in time,
almost no one remembers these things.
They both have two things in common. 1) They seemed like a good idea at the
time. 2) Some Pro used them and seemed to go faster. BLOING! Instant
marketing!
Something there is about the
bicycle that makes a certain kind of individual want to tinker with it. Improve
it. That’s kind of interesting, in
that, since John Henry Lawson designed
the first safety bicycle,* the basic
design and shape of the thing hasn’t changed much. Yes, there have been some successful variants, and materials
have improved amazingly. The look
and shape of the thing has undergone
some alterations. But nothing
truly major has changed. It is for
this reason that it is sometimes said that, “The bicycle is the machine where they got it right the
first time.”
In point of fact, if one were to
somehow place an authentic reproduction of one of those very early “safety
bicycles” in a bike rack alongside a collection of modern bikes, it would
hardly be noticed. For comparison,
imagine parking a “curved dash Oldsmobile" in the middle of your local
shopping center parking lot.
It
would certainly draw a crowd.
The automobile has changed dramatically in the last 100 years. By comparison, most of the changes in
bicycles have been more of refinement.
However, the fact remains, some
folks just can’t resist the urge to tinker around with the thing. These tinkers seem to fall into two
categories. 1) The really serious and passionate. 2) The Man With An Idea!
(MWAI)
That first category is populated
by folks who are passionate about cycling, who have educated themselves in
various serious disciplines, such as engineering, materials science, human
factors, exercise physiology, etc.
They tend to work for companies that produce innovative bicycles or
bicycle accessories.**
The second category consists of well
meaning, under-informed, folk who are convinced
that if everyone would just listen to
them, and completely re-tool the way the bike is designed, built, and ridden we
would, at last, achieve Nirvana.
It should be noted that almost every example of this category is a
relative newcomer to cycling. They
either don’t ride, or don’t ride much, or haven’t been riding for long. And yet they stand ready to revolutionize our sport. In other words, idiots. Sometimes these folks are just socially
functional eccentrics, afflicted with a relatively harmless mania.
Now we have come to a new era in
history. We refer to the era of
the internet. The era fo
I.C.E. (Internet Changes
Everyting) More specifically, with
the new phenomena of crowd sourcing, a lot of these folks actually manage to
get some product out there. Add to
that, there are always countless articles, available on the internet, that prove that the MWAI’s fantasy is founded on reality, and simply must be put into widespread use.
Then too, some of these apparent MWAIs are just plain charlatans, or
some kind of con artist.***
Over the past 25 years or so, some
MWAIs have actually managed, for a
short time, to implement some of their manias. At one time it was decreed that we would all be riding 650C
wheels. Does anyone
else remember the Softride™ Beam? Fortunately these things have now gone
the way of the Nehru Jacket and the Leisure Suit.
*There is some argument on
precedence here.
**Sometimes they start such companies, and sometimes they
are quite successful at it.
***I am reminded of the big Saddle Scare of the 90s. Riding a bicycle was supposed to make a
man sterile, or impotent, or something. This fire was fueled by several major
market magazines. It was based, in
part, on articles written by a “noted urologist.” And then, about two months later, PRESTO! this same urologist had designed a magical bicycle saddle
that was going to save us all!
Just imagine that.
