At 6:54 PM -0500 9/5/02, The Maaslands wrote:
>All steel bicycles, on the other hand, do not suffer the same deterioration
>and can actually benefit from use. Oxidation occurs much more readily on
>inanimate objects, therefore all elements prone to oxidation can benefit
>from use.
Um. . . . . I don't think so. A well ridden or even not well ridden
bike will deteriorate much faster than a bike displayed well in an
environmentally controlled space or just a dry basement. There is no
item on a bike that breaks down slower when ridden. You are right
about bikes tossed in fields or the trash, but we're not talking
about those bikes here. How many time have you asked yourself, "I
wish I could see a. . . .?" Well you can't because people didn't
think about the bikes a pieces of history, they thought about them as
tools. . . or toys. I know I'm not going to change anyone's mind
about riding or not riding, but that's my goal. My goal is to have
people rethink what to do with the six-day bike that got passed to
them from their grandfather. Or to think about why keeping the
original patina of wear on a bike instead of restoring it. I want
people to think more about their bikes than as tools and to think
about displaying them for others to enjoy.
>Lastly, regarding the display of bikes. In Europe I have seen quite a few
>nice collections on public display. They are however almost always combined
>with cars or motorcycles and are always the lesser of the two collections.
You're right and it's kind of a bummer, but we don't even have that
here in the US. I remember going to a local history museum in
Antwerp and they had a nice small wing with all kinds of bike stuff,
including a well ridden bike of Merckx's. I'd love to see any local
museum have anything about the local cycling history. Cycling is so
important in a historical perspective on so many fronts that any
displays would be welcome. It was seeing these collections in Europe
that made me wonder why we don't have it in the US. What really got
me asking the question why is the Mountain Cycles San Andreas full
suspension bike that is in SFMOMA's permanent exhibit. In 50 years
when people are looking at that bike thinking about bicycle design
they're be thinking about how engineers in the 1990 did it. Not how
Oscar Wastyn did it in the 1930 because nobody thought it was worth
putting on display back then.
>my vision would be to build a single 'great' collection of bicycles
>that could tour the various car
>museums as a moving show.
WONDERFUL. . . . this is the attitude I'm looking for. I think the
Pryor Dodge collection falls into this category, there are a couple
more out there too but they rarely make it to the US.
>We do however have to realize that to your general viewer, a bike is
>a bike and
>only visibly different styles or bikes with noteworthy history attract any
>attention.
I see it as my job to change this impression. I remember the Oakland
show and the tons of folks that were there and many of them most
likely not cyclists. This is where we stop looking at bikes as tools
and start looking at them as historical objects. Yea people are
going to be really bored with the "look" of a bike but the sport and
social history they'll love. Most of the exhibits I've seen weigh
heavy on the history and light on the design.
Ciao,
Brandon"monkeyman"Ives
SB, CA
--
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"Nobody can do everything, but if everybody
did something everything would get done."
--Gil Scott-Heron--
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Elfie and Monkeyboy's Wurld uv Wunder
http://www.uweb.ucsb.edu/
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