The Evils of "Bike Porn"

   During these foul weather days when it’s cooler upstairs, I’ve been trying to finish up the third floor renovations so that I have a semi-permanent spot to set up the windtrainer this winter. I'm also hoping to be able to start some new construction in the model railroad half of the room. Dismantling the old layout that used to encircle the room freed up a lot of wall space, and I was able to find some cool vintage/repro posters that will add atmosphere to the room’s “cycling side”. I had a really good idea what I was looking for, and a quick search through Amazon and Ebay yielded fairly quick results (other than awaiting the end of an auction or two), but one can really waste some time searching through anything and everything out there related to riding a bicycle.

  

A couple of my poster choices

   I'm not sure if she was the first to coin the phrase “bike porn”, but my sister-in-law was the first person I heard use it when she caught her husband surfing the internet late one night...for bicycle parts. He had ridden a lot when he was younger, and had a beautiful Ciocc (pronounced chee-ōch) bicycle that had been hanging idly in his garage for too long. Wanting to lose some weight, he hit the roads again and eventually wanted to upgrade his vintage machine with some modern parts.

   Now, any of us spokeheads know this is a symptom of an oncoming disease, with the variety of internet shopping sites that are available to get hooked on. Sure, there are plenty of perfectly good reasons to shop online, particularly when I am repairing someone’s bicycle and need replacement parts. However, Performance, Nashbar, JensonUSA, and Bike Tires Direct (they’re not only tires) are just a few of the spots that I have found myself wasting away the hours, drooling over page after page of catalog items that are way out of my usual price range.
   Luckily, many of my parents’ life lessons have rubbed off on me, and I don’t make unreasonable purchases, but shiny objects and bright colors still have that hypnotic factor! My wife’s affinity for yard sale haggling, which she caught from her fantastic grandmother, has also been an influence on my purchasing, but those hidden treasures are harder to find these days with folks being more aware of vintage value. Swapping and upgrading are habit-forming alternatives - you find someone willing to purchase an older part at a price which makes buying a new one much less painful. Oh, the magic of eBay!
   Cycling apparel, I have to admit, is my real weakness. I have a sizeable collection of jerseys, but I use them regularly. Certainly they go through more wear than any old T-shirt I have in the drawer, so I feel somewhat justified in having a selection to choose from. My favorite offseason bikewear is the old-school trainer jackets, which are warm and comfortable in our old, drafty house during the winter. I may not ride as smoothly as Merckx and Moser, but I can try to look as smooth off the bike!

   I haven't even started on cycling books, videos and collectibles - WARNING: stay away from World Cycling Productions! They have an unbelievable selection of race films and books, as well as clothes and other memorabilia. I’ll occasionally find something irresistible on their site, but I’m wise enough to search carefully for the lowest price elsewhere.
   I’ve become somewhat addicted to the History Channel's American Pickers show, which turned me on to the Motobécane bicycle, and now I am looking for some vintage cycling signs to dress up my shop area downstairs. Luckily, the limited amount of usable wall space in the basement puts a natural cap on my purchases. I like the old stuff, but it is hard to find and pricey – not a good combination, unless, like me, you are very patient and have tight purse strings.

TRAINing Indoors and Outdoors

   In an earlier posting I had mentioned being able to take advantage of my “hobby crossover” with model railroading when applying the waterslide decals onto my repainted Mirage. I have been a fan of railroads, models and the real thing, for quite a while, and have found an amazing number of ways that cycling has allowed me to enjoy railfanning.
   The number of rail trails that have been developed, particularly here in the Northeast, have allowed me to explore lines that had once hosted countless freight and passenger trains but now lie dormant. I can only imagine the huge steam or diesel engines rolling by, but at least now I have the chance to ride the routes they travelled on my bicycle. The rails are long gone, but I’m often excited to find remnants like signal towers or mile markers left by the trailside. 

   This summer Sue and I took a ride across the spectacular Walkway Across the Hudson, which was a former New Haven Railroad bridge high over the river at Poughkeepsie, NY. All along the bridge approaches to the west were reminders of the railroad past, including a couple cabooses on small sections of track. A few weeks ago I rode with some family members through the Lehigh Valley Gorge on what was once the railbed for the Central Railroad of New Jersey. Several of the former railroad bridges have been converted for trail use, and a parallel rail line is still active, providing some excitement with the occasional passing train.

The Poughkeepsie Bridge, when trains still used it to cross the Hudson River

   If we ever get out of this string of hurricanes/tropical storms, my father and I are planning a week-long trip from south-central Pennsylvania to Washington D.C. On our approximately 180 mile trip, we will start on the Great Appalachian Passage Trail, which was once the Western Maryland Railroad. Crossing over several spectacular bridges and through a couple long tunnels, we will eventually connect with the C&O Canal towpath at Cumberland, MD. While only mules used this part of our route, we will always be within site of the former Chesapeake & Ohio rail line (still active) on the other side of the Potomac.

   Because of my interest in architecture (my original college major), a secondary rail-related hobby of mine is “station collecting”, which involves a visit and a photo. It started with the major city structures like Grand Central in NYC, 30th Street Station in Philadelphia, or any of the Union Stations in St. Louis, Chicago or Washington, but evolved to include even the tiniest of rural depots I’ve found in our travels. I now have nearly 500 photos, and I found that a great way to find these smaller structures is by bicycle, including a little pre-planning of the route with online maps and help from the Railroad Station Historical Society website, which often provides exact addresses.

The Great Allegheny Passage Trail ends near the beautiful Cumberland Station, which houses the C&O Canal Museum in its ground floor

   I often have the opportunity to explore during family vacations. One memorable trip was a hilly 50 mile loop around the Letchworth State Park area of New York, finding former Delaware, Lackawanna & Western (one of the railroads I model) stations. Another was a much flatter 35 mile ride around the Finger Lakes area, and included buildings from the Lehigh Valley (my other modeling interest) and New York Central Railroads. During our big cross-country trip in 2006, I found over 90 structures, mostly by accident because the highways follow the railroads so closely out west!
    My hobby crossover will be most evident in my third floor room – I hesitate to call it a “man cave” because, besides that being a really annoying term, everyone in my family can use it, particularly the two cycling addicts. Last year when I tired of lugging my bike out of the basement every time I wanted a winter workout, I was looking for a place to set up the windtrainer on a more permanent basis. I also wanted space to set up a TV or laptop in order to provide distraction from grinding away the monotonous miles indoors.
   On our third floor I had somewhat of a monster train layout that was a bit of a chore to maintain. I also came to the conclusion that since my boys were growing up and showed little enthusiasm in operating the layout anymore, downsizing it to something more focused with better performance for one or two people would give me the space I needed to set up the windtrainer.

In this scene from my old layout, a cyclist sprints across the Ridge Road Bridge that crosses the railroad tracks in Lackawanna, NY, just south of Buffalo.

   An added bonus to the layout makeover was that I also downsized my model railroad collection and had a nice amount of money to cover the improvements I wanted to make to the room itself. I had some track lighting installed to better illuminate the new layout when it is completed. I also found the hardwood floors to be in decent condition, so the nasty wall-to-wall carpet will be replaced with some nice rugs, but right now it serves as a "dropcloth" while I paint.
 
   I also looked into decorating the cycling side of the room with some vintage posters, but that leads me into the subject matter for my next blog post, so stay tuned.