What's with that name?

i've been accused of keeping everything...

The other day i was rummaging through a box of miscellaneous papers- the usual accumulation of pictures, old greeting cards, unsent postcards, and then this:

 A simple 3 X 5 index card, a practice piece from my high school days' art class. i was trying to master chisel-tipped steel pens and india ink.

My calligraphy never progressed much beyond this example.

Whence the name? Back in those days there was a local sound system/band by the name of Euphoria Blimp Works (aka Yama & the Karma Dusters.) Somewhere about that time, i decided that "Euphoria Bicycle Works, ltd." sounded like kind of a good name for a business i might run one day.

i think the name stuck in my mind after a concert-gone-bad on a hot July day in 1970; one rumour that seeped out was that Euphoria Blimp Work's equipment was looted and wrecked in the mayhem. Various accounts of the event were covered in local underground papers such as the Chicago Seed.

i wasn't downtown that day, although i was supposed to be there with some friends. Kinda glad i missed it.

Anyway, sometime during my senior year, Euphoria Bicycle Works, ltd., my notional bike shop, was born. That index card once graced the door of my college dorm room and made appearances over my workbench from time to time. How that card has survived all these years i'll never know.

 i never did open that bike shop - probably a good career non-choice- but it did lend its name to this occasional blog.


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War

(Apologies to Lynn Johnson for appropriating her work)

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i grew up watching "Victory at Sea," The World at War," and many other WWII documentaries. 40's & 50's era war movies were regular fare on  afternoon, after school TV programming. War was all around us in a nation that had been almost untouched compared to the carnage that was experienced in Europe and the Pacific, and images of the dead and dying were edited to the minimum in the films.  We had toy rifles and grenades and some of us had uniforms and military gear from the surplus stores or our fathers' attics. We built models of warplanes and warships. We staged battles. War was cool to us, and our war veteran fathers and survivor parents and grand parents said almost nothing to us about it -unlike Mike's mom. Soon, many of my contemporaries and our elder siblings were sent off to a real shooting war in Asia, and the survivors returned profoundly changed and shaken by the experience, having learnt the hard lesson that General Sherman was understating things when he said, "War is Hell."

May Day

Some music and images for International Labour Day...                                                                                      
                                    

https://iww.org/

                                                          Sung by Utah Phillips (R.I.P.)

More from Utah:

And an anthem:

                               (Okay, if i weren't on a blacklist yet, i'm sure to be on one now...)

REMEMBER TODAY TO THANK A WORKER.

"A full belly to the labourer is, in my opinion, the foundation of public morals and the only source of real public peace."
 -William Cobbett, journalist, pamphleteer, and farmer (1763-1835) 

Easter Knee

(Cyclist's achy knee joints...)

Easter Knee is a term i first heard many years ago, and occasionally saw in print, but don't encounter very often any more. Older riders who've been at it for years know it, but it's a term that often draws a blank look from the younger crowd. i tried to google it tonight, but pretty much came up empty, so i guess it's a phrase soon to be lost to the ages.

The way i got the story was it had to do with British cyclists who, no matter the temperatures, stopped wearing their cold-weather kit on Easter Sunday, and the resultant rheumatism that set in in later years. i heard it from my friend Kendra who'd ridden for a team that had an Englishman for a coach- that may explain why it's not so widely known a term on this side of the Pond.

i was coached fairy early on that one should keep one's knees covered in any temperature below about 68F. It's advice i've followed religiously- often to the amusement of cycling partner ( it was not unknown for me to be seen racing at the velodrome in my legwarmers on a cool evening.)

Despite my careful efforts, my knees tend to be achy. Some folks don't seem to be bothered by riding bare-kneed on days when i'd be swaddled in my warmest kit. Seeing them on days like that seems to make my knees ache just a wee bit more out of empathy.

Today it was around 65F when i set out. My knees were covered- only just- by a light pair of knickers. That turned out to be plenty as this Easter Sunday quickly became summery.

My old knees ache just a little bit tonight, but i'm not blaming Easter... it's actually a good kind of ache that reminds me i did something today.

God Save the Queen!

(Plate commemorating the Coronation of Elizabeth II on 2 June, 1953.)

                                    Sixty five years on the throne. Congratulations, Your Majesty.

20 December, 1976

40 years ago today...

i was riding home from work downtown. As our bus neared Michigan Boulevard, we watched a sizable motorcade speeding south along Michigan. There were several police cruisers, a black lino, and a CFD ambulance, lights ablaze and sirens howling.

We soon learnt that Hizzoner, Mayor Richard J. Daley had died.

The Boss

JFK rubbing elbows with the King Maker...

Expressing his displeasure at the '68  Democratic Convention.

Love him or hate him, there was no denying that he was a force of nature. i doubt that there will ever be another mayor of Chicago quite his equal.

                                                           
                                               (Soundtrack by the Late, Great Steve Goodman.) 

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Signor Tonelli

That's what we called him, although we never really knew his real name.

Mr. Tonelli was the father of the owner of the pizzaria next door to our bike shop. We figured he was in his late 60's, maybe a bit older. Tonelli's was the name of the pizza place, although to the best of our knowledge no one there went by that name. He would help in the kitchen and in slower moments would come in and visit the shop.

His command of english was rudimentary, but we managed to learn from him -and his son- that he had been a racer for Bianchi's team before the war. i don't know what races he competed it- i wish now i had asked him. He told us a couple of amusing tales about Filiero Masi's womanizing and Cino Cinelli's tight-fistedness, among others.

We knew he followed the Giro d'Italia and the Tour de France and was a fan of Felice Gimondi. In the summer of '73, when we asked him who'd won the Tour, he just shook his head and said, "the Spaniard."

A post tonight on Mid-Life Cycling reminded me of our Mr. Tonelli.

One afternoon, he dropped in and watched our lead mechanic toss a taco'ed wheel into the trash. He pulled it out, eyeballed it, stuck the rim under the lip of the display case and did a dance step on it, put it in the jig and tweaked some spokes, pulled it back out and repeated the process twice more, and proudly presented a reasonably rideable wheel to an admiring audience.

It was a skill he'd undoubtedly learnt back in the days when racers had to do their own roadside repairs or take the long walk home.

We didn't have the heart to tell him that we'd already sold the customer a brand new wheel, but we did keep that wheel hanging up in the back shop for the rest of the summer.

Machine...

The machine has got to be accepted, but it is probably better to accept it rather as one accepts a drug -- that is, grudgingly and suspiciously. Like a drug, the machine is useful, dangerous, and habit-forming. The oftener one surrenders to it the tighter its grip becomes.

 -George Orwell, novelist (1903-1950)

So, who is this guy?

This grim fellow in my avatar is Giusto Cerutti, walking out the 7th stage of the 1928 Tour de France. Back in the early days of the Tour, a rider was basically on his own for support, meaning he bought and maintained his own gear.  Giusto has fallen off and roached his front wheel and banged up his knee. i haven't been able to learn where along the stage he was at the time, or how he finally got back in, but it is clear that he abandoned after the stage.

Giusto was born 9 March, 1903 in San Giusto Canavese (Piemonte), Italy. He raced professionally from 1927 to 1932. i could find little else about his life, but i seem to recall he rode the Tour more than once. Giusto went on to live a long -and presumably happy- life after his cycling career; he died at the age of 90 on 17 December, 1993, in Torino (Piemonte.)

Giusto Cerutti is one of my heroes from what i consider to be the Golden Age of Cycling. Future posts here may feature some of my other heroes (and villains) of the sport.

If anyone happens to read this and can pass along any further info about Signor Cerutti, please let me know? Graze!