darkmoon

I read a report of Cycle Sport mag of GB:
In France, it's harder to hold a road race than years ago, even cycling hottest spot Bretagne.
Because of heavier traffic.

Japan?
Hopeless.
A friend/bike reporter told me, he heard the following from a race organizer:

Police seldom permit sports events on the public road.
Big cities like Tokyo in particular.
"Traditional events, yeah, OK"
"New event? Well we'll think about it"

Sports events accidents on the public road are also counted in the traffic accidents.
Accidents on the public road are traffic accidents.
Police don't like things like it.
They think accidents mean that they don't do their job.

And they don't like complaints from people near the closed public road, like "Hey I can't go into my driveway"

steelbikeguy

To some degree, this is a just the result of increasing population, and I think every generation (in recent history) has watched familiar places get transformed to accommodate more people, housing, stores, and roads. Still, that doesn't make one miss the old landscape any less.

The Peoria Bicycle Club used to host a two day race, with one criterium in the downtown area, and a road race on the rural roads. There was some resistance to shutting down the rural roads, but it wasn't too bad. The race location was moved around a bit to minimize opposition. The lack of people who actually raced was the reason why the race faded away, I think.

Before I came to Peoria, I was living in St. Louis, Missouri. It was growing very fast then, with good cycling roads being lost every year. One of the changes that sticks in my memory was the building of a large country club with golf course and luxury homes near the tiny village of St. Albans. This was one of the pleasant areas for cycling, with a small general store. There was a novel barn on a farm in the area too....

Here's the barn:



and Head's general store. This was a good place to stop and get a sandwich and something to drink.



The barn is gone, except for the stone cylindrical structures at the ends....



Head's store is still there, but I think it is now a restaurant or some such thing. It has been shut down at least once, so I'm not sure that it has been a success in its current form.



Fortunately, the people of this area west of St. Louis saw the huge change coming towards them, and worked together to stop or minimize the change. As a result, the area now known as Wildwood is still a wonderful area for bike riding!

Steve in Peoria

RCMoeur 

Existing events are feeling the squeeze as well. In 35 years, the traffic control costs at events such as the one-day El Tour de Tucson ride have risen from minimal to well into six figures - driven mostly by the requirement for hiring one or more off-duty uniformed police officers (at well over $50/hour/officer) to control traffic at every signalized intersection and along the route. Hundreds of signs and tens of thousands of cones are a rounding error by comparison.

steelbikeguy

The Wright Stuff
Roger takes a look at some clever bike mechanics/manufacturers from 100 years (plus) ago. This would be those boys from Dayton, Ohio, here in the USA. Bikes were a cutting edge technology back in the late 1800's, so maybe it's not a surprise that the Wright brothers would also be interested in the fledgling (pun intended) study of heavier-than-air flying machines.








The U.S. Air Force Museum, located at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, appropriately starts with the story of Orville and Wilbur, and even features a bike that they sold! This is the Van Cleve model sold by the Wright Cycle Co.





The museum also has a replica of an early Wright aircraft, but appropriately, it is the first military aircraft that the Wright brothers built.. the 1909 Wright Military Flyer.



As a person who has a personal interest and involvement with both bikes and aviation, this area of overlap has definitely been of interest to me!


Steve in Peoria

darkmoon

Human-powered aeroplane!
Yomiuri TV, a major TV key station in Osaka, has hosted Japan International Birdman Rally every July since 1977.
They have Youtube channel.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaz...XUfxLB8mqn4hBQ

This guy accomplished 60km or 37mile
A real aero cyclist

obrentharris 

Impressive!
I enjoyed the video.
Brent

steelbikeguy

that is impressive, both for the athlete and the engineers!
Somehow, I was assuming that the pilot would be landing on the ground instead of dropping it into the water. One of the dangers of military aircrew is being in the aircraft when it goes into the water (here's a "Smarter Every Day" video on the topic)

This aircraft is quite impressive! I noticed the length and slimness of the wings, which is similar to that of glider aircraft.
By comparison, the wings of the Gossamer Albatross (which crossed the English Channel in 1979) are shorter and have a longer chord (length from front to rear).
The Gossamer Albatross was still on display at the Smithsonian's Udvar-Hazy museum near Washington D.C. when I visited in 2018.



Honestly, for anyone to build their own aircraft and trust it to not drop them 30 or 40 feet to the ground is a brave act! It's even harder when you are one of the first to create such a craft!

Steve in Peoria

darkmoon

Birdman Rally's early days commentator was Dr. Hidemasa Kimura(1904~1986).

Dr. Kimura, for Japan's airplane fans, is one of aero gods.
His comments were interesting and fun, I remember.

He graduated from Aeronautics dpt. of Tokyo Univ.
His class mates were Jiro Horikoshi, who was the chief designer of Mitsubishi A6M2 Zero, and Takeo Doi, who was the chief designer of Kawasaki ki 61 Hien, Tony.

Dr. Kimura had been teaching aeronautics at Nihon Univ. for a long time after WW2.
1966, he and his students designed and made a human-powered plane.
It flew only 15m or 50ft but the Japan's first human-powered flight!



This pic is from Nihon Univ. sight.
https://www.nihon-u.ac.jp/history/forerunner/kimura/

1977, they set the world record of human-powered airplane, 2,093m or 6976ft, 4min 27sec.


He was a designer of the basic concept of YS-11, Japan's first commercial passenger plane.
YS-11 was a symbol of postwar rehabilitation, like Shinkansen.

You could imagine his appearance on TV must have surprised many people, at least me