[This is the first contribution from my friend Perry Bessas of The Velvet Foghorn. Perry is a long-time utilitarian cyclist, iBOB regular, Easy Racers fanatic, and bike blogger. I'm absolutely thrilled to have him on-board as a guest writer, and I'm hoping that if I grovel and beg sufficiently, we'll be graced with more of his writing in the future. —Alan]
By Perry Bessas
My cycling days almost never got started. The Greek village where I spent the first eight years of my life had no bicycles or cars, only donkeys and mules. When my family migrated to the U.S., bicycles were the last thing on our minds. To make matters worse, we settled in a congested area of New Jersey where cars and buses were the preferred mode of transportation. From all indications, it seemed that a bicycle was a luxury I’d never experience.
But in my thirteenth year, my uncle gave me an “English Racer” bicycle for Christmas. It was a cheap 3-speed (Ross, I think) whose top tube eventually separated from the head tube (I tied it together with bailing wire and kept riding it). My father, not knowing how to ride, taught me to balance by running along side and holding on to the back of the saddle. The method worked remarkably well and I was off and riding before long.
That bike eventually found the scrap heap and I proceeded to go through a string of hardware store 10-speed bikes that were heavy and poorly assembled, but they had shiny paint jobs. The first one was bought with money I’d earned sweeping out a clothes factory. The bike was stolen right from under my nose two weeks later as I was playing basketball. I learned the first lesson of cycling right then and there: bicycles are thief magnets.
And so it went for a time. Sometimes I had a bike and rode, and at other times I didn’t. Then, in 1978, I spent the summer in Greece. I saw a different side of cycling there. Two of my cousins were into racing and I was fascinated by their bikes, training methods, and fancy riding duds.
And so it went for a time. Sometimes I had a bike and rode, and at other times I didn’t. Then, in 1978, I spent the summer in Greece. I saw a different side of cycling there. Two of my cousins were into racing and I was fascinated by their bikes, training methods, and fancy riding duds. Right away, I noticed that their bikes were different from any bike I’d owned, or even seen. They let me borrow a Motobecane, and riding that bike changed my understanding of what bikes where. When I returned to the U.S., I started reading up on bikes and bike racing. I found the mechanical aspects of bikes fascinating. I would not however, have much opportunity to delve into “fine bikes” until some years later.
By 1983, I was out of college, in a secure job, and bored with the working life. I had some money in my pocket and I thought I’d look into those fancy racing bikes I’d read about. They were all pretty much Campy equipped back then and not cheap, but cheaper than a used Ferrari. New York City, where I worked, had many fine bicycle shops and a good bike culture. The messengers rode their fixed gear bikes and the weekend warriors came out to Central Park and points beyond the city on Saturdays and Sundays.
I decided that I wanted to get into the bike scene and meet some “real bike riders.” I found a really nice Italian road bike that a co-worker was selling. It was a perfect fit and ready to ride, so I picked it up in Brooklyn, got it back to New Jersey via the NYC subway and Path train, then rode it back to my apartment in Jersey City. I then converted half my kitchen into a bike workshop and began my biking education. I had a fever and the only cure was bikes.
The 1980s were years of bike refinement and nothing on my bike ever being quite good enough. My chain had to be spotless and my bike parts had to be the latest. I could take the bike apart and put it back together with no problem and I often did, if for no other reason than to practice my mechanical skills. I built up some tubular wheels because…well…I just had to. I had to have the first clipless pedals on the market. I wholeheartedly embraced every Bicycling Magazine marketing campaign. I rode with roadies on 9W, along the west side of the Hudson River, and I looked and talked the part.
We rode pretty fast and we rode pretty far. We blew through stop signs and red lights because that’s how the NYC messengers did it. We never used fenders and it got sloppy when it rained…really sloppy. After one especially wet ride, the grease had totally washed out of the headset and I repacked it and placed an old section of inner tube around the bottom cup to prevent it from happening again. But I would not consider fenders, which would have kept me and my bike much dryer. The best part: I could eat whatever I wanted and often did. Through it all, my patient soul mate put up with the insanity. She didn’t even complain about the bike workshop in the kitchen. If our relationship survived that, I reckoned it would survive anything, and so far it has.
By the very late 1980s, I was tired and burned out with that scene and having no fun. I took some time off from cycling and went on long walks with my honey instead. I began to discover that life is not something to rush through. I had a mountain bike by then, and I thought of using it around town and for shopping, but dragging it up and down stairs, fear of theft, and a car-centric culture dissuaded me. I also worried about my inner roadie. Could he survive on a bike with bags and fenders?
I thought of my high school French teacher. She rode a nice mixte with a basket on the handlebars and she looked cool and classy. Was there a masculine version of this sort of bike and bike rider? There was, but my inner roadie would have to die before I could find him. And as fate would have it, another roadie had to help me kill him.
Go to Part 2 →
