On The Road
by: Bill Oetinger 11/1/2003
A Little Housecleaning
It isn’t quite the end of 2003 yet, but where I live, it is beginning to feel like the end: the leaves are turning and dropping, the temperature is dropping too--in spite of some delightful Indian Summer days--and overall, there is an air of going downhill...not in the cycling sense, but in the seasonal way...heading for the dark side of the year. Time to wrap things up. Split and stack the firewood, clean the gutters, and generally batten down the hatches before the big winter weather arrives.
That end-of-season mindset has me in its grip, and the result is an urge to cast a look backward and to tidy up some loose ends from the seasons past. In this case, I am referring to past On the Road columns. If you are a new visitor to this space, you may not yet have noticed that all of my prior columns are available to you in a Past Columns archive. I like this, as most of my little screeds retain some relevance, even after the month of their initial publication is long gone. But occasionally, something I have written has left me--after the fact--not quite satisfied...as if it were not quite the last word on that particular subject. Some of my readers send me e-mails that may question or quibble a certain point, or subsequent events in the real world may alter my slant on the subject.
So, during this autumnal season of closing, I want to revisit a few old columns and modifiy my old points of view, or maybe just follow them up with new thoughts. I will provide links to the old columns, which can be revisited in the archives. This means that, if you want to really appreciate the new elaborations on the old essays, you’ll have to do a certain amount of reading, or rereading, unless you have a prodigious memory for what I wrote previously.
Now then...onward and backward!
In August, 2000, I did a column called A Simple Little Wave. In it, I extolled the virtue of waving cars by us when we are riding along the side of the road. I maintain that it promotes both safe sharing of the road between riders and drivers, and furthermore works to smooth out the relations between the two groups, promoting good will.
I don’t recall that anyone wrote to me to complain about that column, but subsequently, on several occasions, my own cycling buddies have felt compelled to take issue with my practice of waving cars by a paceline. Before taking up the matter, I will quote a couple of lines from my original essay that I thought dealt with this issue...
“If I can see that it’s clear--and that’s a big if--I will wave the car by. The big IF is being certain it really is clear and safe for the pass. You don’t want to get the car half-way past a paceline and then have him meet an oncoming vehicle. That could get ugly, and you’d be responsible.”
This is very true. On a club ride just last weekend, I saw a classic example of when it is inappropriate to wave a car around. A rider ahead of me tried to wave a waiting vehicle by just as a group of a dozen of us was about to enter an extremely technical section of downhill: steep, twisting, and narrow. Putting the car into the middle of the group at that point, with who-knew-what coming up the road at the same time, would have been a recipe for disaster. Fortunately, the driver of the car was smarter, or at least more cautious, than the rider/waver. He held back, and everything worked out. But it could have been a mess.
I still maintain that waving cars by makes sense, but you have to be smart about it. So let me restate my reservations about the practice...
You should never do it unless you are 100% sure that the road is clear far enough ahead for the driver to complete the pass safely, and in this calculation, you have to allow for the driver to be a bit slow on the uptake. It may take him a few seconds to process your wave and to decide to act on it. If your window of opportunity is too small, he may not get the job done.
You should never do it unless everyone in your group shares your attitude about the practice. Everyone should be on the same page with this. If not, don’t go there.
And remember: that motorist behind you does not have some god-given right to pass a cyclist immediately, if not sooner. If he has to sit back there for a few seconds or even a minute or two, before a safe passing zone appears, then so be it. Patience is a virtue. And you do not have to turn yourself inside out or put yourself at risk to get them past you. If the situation is right, and a wave will do the job, then by all means, do it. If not, don’t make a bad situation worse.
In May, 2001, I wrote a column headed So Simple, So Right. It was about the invention of the “safety” bicycle, and what an exquisitely perfect piece of engineering that was. To create some context for that late 19th-century invention, I included a wonderful photo of the Healdsburg Wheelmen, taken on the Healdsburg, 
California town square in 1895. I suggested that the riders--and especially the bikes--from the 19th century would not look out of place on a ride 100 years later. And I also noted that we still start our club rides on the Healdsburg plaza, just as those cyclists from an earlier era did, although our club is the Santa Rosa Cycling Club and not the Healdsburg Wheelman.
(For the record, there is another wonderful photo, which I do not have, but have seen in exhibits, showing the 19th-century precursor of our Santa Rosa club, posing in front of their very own clubhouse in downtown Santa Rosa. It is similar in most essential elements to the Wheelmen photo reproduced with my column.)
Recently, I ran into another cyclist on a ride near Healdsburg who was wearing a jersey with that same Healdsburg Wheelmen logo on the front. Her name was Michelle. (Although the invention of the safety bicycle has often been hailed as one of the primal forces in driving women’s liberation, there were no women in the Healdsburg Wheelman group portrait. Woman may have taken to the new sport of cycling in their legions in the 1890’s, but they had not yet penetrated the HW when this picture was taken.)
I asked Michelle about the Healdsburg Wheelmen of today, and mentioned the photo of yesteryear. She was familiar with it, and informed me that the Wheelmen of today had replicated that photo on the 100th anniversary of the original photo...in 1995. That piqued my interest, and with a little sleuthing, I was able to track down a copy of the new portrait, which you see reproduced here. (Thanks to Tony Pastene, owner of Spoke Folk Cyclery in Healdsburg for lending me a copy of the photo. If you’re ever in Healdsburg, drop by the bike shop. It’s a complete, quality shop, and the old and new bike club portraits are hanging side-by-side on the wall in large format, where you can really get into the details.)
I had hoped that the photos would be posed identically, because the plaza really does look about the same. But I realize now one crucial difference makes that nearly impossible: the automobile. Healdsburg’s plaza does look the same, except it is now choked with cars amost constantly. Clearing enough of them off one stretch of curb to pose the photo as it was in 1895 would have required a large effort. Instead, the latter day lads and lasses posed within the plaza, with the cars out of sight.
I think my original notion that the bikes (and possibly the riders) from one epoch could migrate seamlessly to the other still stands up. The general frame geometry is the same and at least superficially, the mechanical systems are consistent. The big difference, as I noted before, is the lack of derailleurs on the old bikes, but now I also note the suspension on the front forks of a mountain bike in the new portrait. That too would have raised a few eyebrows on the faces of our great-granddads.
Anyway...isn’t it nice to see 100 years--now, almost 110 years--of continuity, not only in the sport of cycling and in the design of bikes in general, but in the portraits of the Healdsburg Wheelmen in particular?
In September, 2001, I wrote a column entitled How’s My Driving? about the behavior and skills of European drivers versus the same for American drivers. You’ll have to read my column to get the full measure of my arguments, pro and con, but the digest version is that European drivers are more skillful, more attentive, and most importantly, less hostile than American drivers. They may drive fast and may do things that at first take your breath away, such as passing over double stripes, splitting lanes, and so forth, but they do them with skill and focus and without a nasty attitude. The concept of road rage is virtually nonexistent. The result is a more cooperative and efficient mix of road users, including the cyclists with whom the drivers share the roads.
However, my Italian friend Emilio Castelli took exception to my observations of Euro-drivers, or at least Italian drivers. He claims there are many, many drivers in Italy who drive like idiots...like maniacs...and that many older, timid drivers and pedestrians are afraid to venture out onto the highways at all. I claimed that, along with soccer, cycling is the national sport in Italy. Emilio notes that motor racing--both motorcycles and cars--is also extremely, passionately popular, and a lot of drivers act out their racetrack fantasies on the public roads.
Okay...I have to acknowledge Emilio’s vastly greater experience of driving (and cycling) in Italy and Europe, and so I accept what he says as having some merit. No doubt there are idiots in every culture, and no doubt a certain number of them reveal their idiocy while behind the wheels of their cars.
But I don’t think this negates the essential truth of my assertions. European drivers are subjected to much more rigorous courses of driver education and testing before acquiring their licenses, so the skills are front-loaded into their driving careers from the start. They may still drive like jerks, but they’re skillful jerks. Furthermore, they are almost always driving smaller, more manouverable cars...better handling, better braking, etc...and these too make for a safer transit mix (compared with the lumbering behemoths that predominate on US roads...the monster trucks and SUVs that virtually define hostile aggression).
Finally, I will reiterate that, although these Euro-idiots may exist, their particular form of idiocy mostly manifests itself in driving fast...in being racer wannabes. This may be somewhat perilous, but at least it’s not homicidal. What I don’t see in European drivers is a chip on the shoulder...a sense of driving as warfare...of one-upsmanship or counting coup, or of going bonkers because one’s space has been violated...all those psycho-killer, road rage impulses we see so often here, or read about in the morning paper after some whacko goes ballistic on the freeway.
And in particular reference to sharing the road with cyclists, I emphatically do not see over there the crazed hostility toward bike riders that one sees on almost every ride over here. And--as an indicator of the contemporary American mindset--how about those troglodyte deejays on the various ClearChannel radio affiliates who have recently been advocating violence against cyclists? Think that would fly in Europe? Those bozos would be out of work and--possibly--into jail faster than you can shift gears. Emilio’s points are valid, but I still maintain it’s a different world over there, and a far friendlier one for cyclists and drivers alike.
In December, 2002, I cranked out a load of psycho-babble under the heading How to be a Happy Climber. I dithered and frittered a long time before attempting this advisory on climbing, because, really, I am a very mediocre climber. But, as I noted in my disclaimer at the top of the column, this was not about being a fast climber...just a happy one.
I expounded at some length on the topic of not getting your tail all tied up in knots about whether you are first, mid-pack or last on climbs, pointing out that few of us are actually racing, and being first matters not at all in the great scheme of things. Then, in a little aside to balance things out, I mentioned how it is possible to snooker your friends on a climb with wicked, underhanded tricks, in a sly program to outsmart them and get up the hill first.
Well, as you might expect, some folks thought this was inconsistent...to make a big deal out of letting go of any competitive energies, and then to come right back and promote a strategy--a sneaky one at that--for winning the hill prime after all.
In my defense, I’ll trot out the old bromide about consistency being the hobgoblin of tiny minds. No, we do not have to be consistent, one ride to the next, nor even one hill to the next on a given day. I did state in that column that if you have the chops for it, you should feel free to duke it out with anyone on the ride for the top of the hill. On my good days, I have actually managed to win a hill or two, and have had great fun doing it. But most of the time, most of us are not going to be first.. Only one person can be first, and everyone else will be second, third, or something even less exalted. On the rare occasions when you do end up King or Queen of the Hill, rejoice in your good form and good fortune. On all the other days, get over it!
The point I was trying to make is to not torment yourself when things are going less than perfectly, and that means not taking yourself or your cycling accomplishments too seriously. Be the best you can be and be content with that. Vince Lombardi’s famous line, “Winning isn’t everything; it’s the only thing” may be germaine when you’re being paid big bucks to win the Super Bowl, but it doesn’t mean jack on your average weekend club ride.
Okay... There you go: a few old, unsettled items crossed off my list. Thanks for sitting in with me here while I swept these dust bunnies and mouse turds out the door before closing up the cabin for the winter.
Bill can be reached at srccride@sonic.net