Bicycle Madness at MAD: Lee Gorny, Guest Blogger

Guest Blogger Lee Gorny

NOTE from CultureGrrl: Last weekend, while my family gathered for CultureNiece's wedding, CultureDaughter vanished for bridesmaid beautification rituals (hair, nails, whatever) and I tried to exploit those hours by demonstrating to her visiting boyfriend the joys of eventually living in the NYC area. (He's a sophisticated but small-town boy.)

He loves museums and is passionate about cycling, so figuring out what to do was a no-brainer. What I hadn't anticipated, though, was how illuminating the experience would be for me, because Lee the Younger gave Lee the Elder such a wealth of interesting, informative tidbits not found on the labels.

I decided that a guest blog was in order.

By Lee Gorny

As an avid amateur cyclist and bicycle enthusiast, I was both fascinated and frustrated by Bespoke: The Handbuilt Bicycle at New York's Museum of Arts and Design (to Aug. 15). On display is an ecletic assortment of road, cyclocross, track, randonneur (long-distance), commuter, child and mountain bikes, assembled by New York cyclist and bicycle collector, Michael Maharam, and Sacha White, one of the six internationally esteemed bicycle designers featured in the show.

I'm a mechanical engineer with a recent Ph.D. and a current post-doc assignment at Penn State's Materials Research Lab. But what I really want in life is to find the perfect bike. I began riding seriously about seven years ago, spending thousands of hard-earned grad student dollars on eight bicycles (four in my arsenal now). I've begged and borrowed (but not stolen) about 20 more in my search for The One.

The perfect bike is hard to find, particularly when you can't afford a custom machine like the ones in this show. But my time there allowed me to "possess" these beauties in my imagination. White's Speedvagen Road Machine, enticingly perched in the window of the museum's lobby, is a hard-to-resist temptation for a bike-aholic like me, who would like nothing better than to hop on and ride off into nearby Central Park.


Sacha White, "Speedvagen Road Machine," 2006

A beautifully crafted machine, designed with an intentionally minimalist approach, the bike-in-the-window achieved elegance with its integrated seatpost, flattened S-bend seatstays, understated paint job and perfectly smooth TIG welded joints. (Tungsten Inert Gas welding creates stronger joints, because inert gas is blown into the welding area to prevent metal from oxidizing.) This bike was modern despite its classic steel material, and, what's more, it was just my size! Proper fit, imperative for comfortable riding, is one of the many attributes that make custom frames like these so desirable.

Having ridden steel frames and considered custom bikes, I was already familiar with White and the show's five other chosen designers. But I knew only a little about each maker's style and history. I left the museum with more information, but still wishing it had provided more details about the design aspects that go into making a frame. I build my own bikes from the frame up, with old and new components, so the missing piece of my own bicycle-related knowledge is frame building.

When I headed upstairs after lingering in the lobby, I found many more objects of desire among examples by White, Dario Pegoretti, Richard Sachs, J. Peter Weigle, Jeff Jones and Mike Flanigan. Flanigan, formerly a part-owner of the Massachusetts custom bike company Independent Fabrication (one of whose bikes I once had the pleasure of riding), decided to go it alone, deviating from that company's relatively modern styles by creating historically-inspired bikes that appear to be built for solid workhorse commuting. His creations include whimsical details like card-suit cutouts in the chainring. (Carved chainrings were common before cranks were redesigned to increase stiffness and reduce weight.) Other retro details include now seldom-used bells and kickstands.
Mike Flanigan, "Basket Bike," 2010

One bicycle that particularly captured my imagination was Sachs' Cyclocross Racing Bike, still caked with mud from its outing at the 2009 USA Cycling National Cyclocross Championship. In the midst of all those pristine, seemingly sterile bicycles, with no wear on the tires or componentry, this seemed to me what a bike is supposed to look like. Although it is more difficult to see the designer's work under a quarter-inch layer of mud, scrapes and tar, a committed cyclist couldn't help being a little put off by bikes that seemed sadly unridden.

Richard Sachs' dirt-encrusted "Signature Cyclocross Bicycle," 2009-2010
The examples by Jeff Jones, a custom builder who really breaks with conventional component-oriented mountain bikes, included one of the bikes that I felt most tempted to test-ride. From an engineer's perspective, Jones' SpaceFrame bike looks awesome, having long, curving unpainted titanium tubes connecting both wheels to the bike's head-tube rather than (as customary) to its seat-tube. This likely results in a great deal of compliance over bumps, without the active suspension used in most current bikes. Simply the fact that it is so different from what now qualifies as a mountainbike would make this an exciting ride.



The exhibition included a short video, showcasing each builder, with memorable helmet-cam footage of Jones riding out the door of his shop into some beautiful singletrack (narrow trail in the woods). That's the life! The video gives viewers some sense of the personal connection meant to be felt through a hand-built bike---a bond between builder and bike and, ultimately, between bike and rider. This is something that no factory in Taiwan can replicate and, unfortunately, something that the exhibit could not quite capture for me.

The bikes were all aesthetically appealing. But the real test of a bike is how well it rides to get someone to work, haul the groceries and carry the camping gear, while going around a high-speed corner or making it, as painlessly as possible, over that next ridgeline or down a steep technical descent. This is impossible to discern by sight alone.

I left "Bespoke" longing to interact with those bikes and craving the opportunity for a quick spin through some of the rocky sections of Central Park on one of Jones' creations or to Queens for a lap around the Kissena Park Velodrome on White's elegant Vanilla Track Bike. Sadly, it is unlikely that a museum could send enthusiasts out on demo models to navigate the challenging thoroughfares of midtown Manhattan.


Sacha White, "Vanilla Track Bicycle," 2006

Upon returning to the lobby I stared one last time at the Speedvagen Road Machine, alone by the window, so close to the doors. I could remove it from its stand, get it through the door onto Columbus Circle and disappear into the park amongst other cyclists on that beautiful summer day. No one could catch me on a bike this nice! Alas, the tires looked a bit flat and my plan was foiled. Next time I visit a show like this, I'll have to remember to bring my CO2 pump!