Two Years Older, Not Much Wiser!

Though I missed it last year, this time around I remembered: April 4th, 2009 was the date of the first Lovely Bicycle post. Since then I've acquired a few bikes, learned a great deal in the process, and improved my cycling skills by about a thousandfold. I have also aged two years and learned to levitate. Honestly, levitation is not that difficult compared to learning to ride a roadbike.

In my quest to penetrate the mysteries of The Bicycle, one thing I understand quite clearly is that I still don't know much about bikes, and won't any time soon. I am not trying to be humble or self-deprecating: I mean it, and I don't think it's a bad thing. I have been fortunate enough to speak with quite a few framebuilders over the past two years, and they all have something different to say about frame design and construction. Some have very concrete theories about which geometry, tubing, etc. work best, and can explain why in great detail. Other builders just shrug and say, "I have no idea why the bikes I make ride well. All that trail and angles stuff is nonsense and there is more than one way to skin a cat." The builders with the best reputations and most coveted bicycles fall into both categories, and if saying "I don't know" is good enough for some of my favourite builders, then surely there is no shame in it.

I am not suggesting that the making of bicycles is some mystical thing that we mere mortals can never hope to grasp. But the more I learn, the more I realise that there are just so many contributing factors to how any given bicycle handles, that it is exceptionally difficult to generalise. In fact, the safest and most reliable way to make a great bike I've heard framebuilders describe, is copying the geometry of their favourite vintage bike, then experimenting with minor modifications. After all, frame geometry is "open source" and anybody who knows how to take measurements correctly can use it: Why not make what you already know works?  If contemporary manufacturers wanted to, they could all be producing vintage Raleigh Sports replicas in Taiwanese factories, which would ride much nicer than most modern commuter bicycles sold in bikeshops today. Why don't they then?.. That's something I haven't yet figured out either.

So there we have it: I don't know much, but that does not stop my continued interest in bicycles and cycling. One of the things I try to do on this blog, is to maintain a space where those who are new to bicycles can learn interesting things without feeling intimidated by industry jargon or by those who appear to be more knowledgable: Curiosity and openness are enough to enjoy cycling. Thank you for all the support I receive from you in its many forms: engaging discussions in the comments and over email, useful advice, shared information, trades for spare bicycle parts, donations for give-aways, and sponsorship. Thank you for reading, as I continue to share my mystified observations in year three of Lovely Bicycle!

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About a Year

Looking through the pictures I took of a recent ride along the cherry-blossoming Charles River, I realised that it has been just about a year since I began Lovely Bicycle. I say "about a year", because I am not entirely sure when exactly I started writing vs. publishing the entries. But apparently it was right around this time, as in my first documented bike-ride the blossoms were in bloom as well.

It is customary to conduct some sort of self-assessment when a project like this reaches its 1-year anniversary. But when I think about why I started this website, I feel suddenly inarticulate and a little confused - because honestly I do not have a good reason. I am not an activist and do not seek to promote "a cycling lifestyle". Life has worked out for me in such a way, that personally I have not driven a car since 2007, and I love to ride my bicycle(s) for both transportation and recreation. However, if you happen to own a dozen SUVs and enjoy driving them, that is fine with me. If you collect bicycles solely for the purpose of photographing them in your garden and never actually ride them, that is fine as well. And if you are a die-hard Foresterite vehicular cyclist who hates bike infrastructure and loves 6-lane roads with 40mph+ speed limits, that's wonderful too. You are all welcome, if you feel that you can relate to some aspect of this website.

Neither is the motive of this weblog a diary-style documentation of my life. Those who know me in person are aware that my posts here create an amusingly incomplete and warped presentation of my actual life and personality. And finally, neither was it ever my intent (not that I am in any danger of this) to gain commercial success or recognition for this website.

When I first started Lovely Bicycle, the intent was to review the options that were out there for bicycles that were both practical and aesthetically pleasing for people with lifestyles and tastes similar to mine. This was driven by my own frantic search for a "lovely bicycle" in Spring of 2009. However, the weblog developed far beyond this premise and I am still no closer to explaining what motivates me to continue it - when frankly my life is quite hectic as it is and does not need extra projects.

I will be honest: This discrepancy of the blog getting larger and more time consuming (I now get over a dozen emails per week and it is becoming impossible to answer most of them) with my not having a good explanation for why I am doing this, has caused me some concern and I have considered discontinuing Lovely Bicycle on several occasions. An alternative option could be to start accepting selected sponsorships, and using any earnings from these to at least cut down on some of the consulting projects I do in order to stay financially afloat - thereby freeing up time to continue working on the blog. But I do not have a clear idea of how this could be done while still maintaining the home-made feel of this wesite.

In short, it remains to be determined in what direction Lovely Bicycle will meander next, if at all. But in the meantime, I can't seem to help continuing to take pictures of beautiful bicycles and writing all of this nonsense about them!

While taking the pictures shown in this post, I was approached by a couple who asked me whether their daughter could pose next to my bicycle for their home-made video of the girl reciting "Make Way for Ducklings" by Robert McCloskey. We moved the bicycle closer to the river, and the mother directed the daughter while the father videotaped. They did several takes of the recital and the child was adorable.

Of course I didn't have the heart to tell them that the "ducklings" in the river were in fact geese. Where better for me to share a story of such an encounter, than on Lovely Bicycle?...

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