john

Triplets of Belleville: This is a cool and cute little animated movie. The Grandma is something else. Mechanics take note of her wheel truing technique.

Major Taylor by Andrew Ritchie. This book is great. Not only do you get a good feel for the cycling culture and society back a hundred years ago, you get to read about how extraordinary this guy was. This guy was fast and tough, smooth, highly skilled. The bike racing back then sounded a lot like Nascar is now. They even had special trains to take the racers to different cities...But even back then it was all about how good the Race Promoter was. Reading about the one 6 day race at madison square gardens that Major raced in is quite incredible too. He did have to put up with a lot of crap, just one example being nearly choked to death after a race (unconscious for 20 minutes...) because one of the other riders thought maybe he had been blocked. And not having the police to anything about it either. His last years are sad, but even then, the guy never quit.
The pictures are very interesting too. It is obvious that in today's world, Major could obviously have been THE top track racer, but also the guy did have awesome endurance when trained and would probably would have had no problem being in yellow and winning the green jersey. Furthermore its obvious he could have been world champion Trials rider too. And guy could ride mud too, back then, singlespeed style of course. Reading about 14 lb racing bikes over 100 years ago makes you wonder if we lost something along the way... Ok probably not as stiff or etc, but still....