Gravel bikes are the mutt we needed all along.

My friend Mike Solis shared this link: https://www.tobedetermined.cc/journal/gravel-road-rasputitsa-state-sport-cycling-numbers-analysis.

What's old is new again. Read From San Francisco to Los Angeles in 1902 by Frank Y. Pearne.

He was riding a "bicycle", probably a lot like today's steel gravel bikes, except for brakes and drivetrain, and the roads were all dirt. The reason why the "gravel" bike is successful is that it's the mutt we needed all along. Go back to the time when adults rode and loved bicycles (all over fastestslowguy.blogspot.com), and you'll see, effectively this mutt bicycle. Then we stopped loving the bike, and fell in love with automobiles, suburbs, etc. The bicycle became a toy. Just like a wolf becomes a dog by shrinking, becoming more cute, the bicycle was an ineffective toy. Europe kept on loving the bike, and that element of our society that focused on competition and winning - and which had also kept a barely-there track and road cycling culture alive during the intervening 70 years - brought European bikes and the racing bike culture over the ocean. The utility bike, the bike that would satisfy every American conflicted with the car, and so was ignored. From 1970 to 1980 we rode "ten speeds", a low-rent version of the racing bicycle, not really what we needed. From the 1980s onward the mountain bike, a bastardization of the American children's bicycle started to take over as the bike for everyone, and the racing bicycle became the top-dollar grown-up toy. Still, not what we needed, but what we thought we needed. Finally, a few enlightened people in the bike industry thought to marry the mountain bike and the road bike, with an eye on the mutts that had survived in Europe and Japan (the tourist bikes so popular in France and Japan) and they reintroduced the mutt. Hybrid vigor produced a very viable offspring, with the best of the mountain bike - tubeless tires, clutch rear derailleur, disc brakes, the ditching of the front derailleur, clearance for large volume tires - adorning a frame, geometry, wheel size and body position that goes back to 1890. This gravel bike, the mutt, is what we needed, and just didn't know we needed. The bike industry finally figured that out and is making hay. Does not bode well for the road market, but who cares? The road and gravel bike will merge. I don't like to call them gravel bikes, I like to call them "bicycles".

My Mead Ranger, circa 1905 had what we now call "700c" wheels, with 1-1/4" tires:

My Falconer "gravel" bike:

Bicycle Day, San Francisco and Oakland, 1916

This article, When Presidents Day Was Bicycle Day in The Atlantic inspired me to research "Bicycle Day", locally. I'd heard of it. The first mention is during the boom of the late 1890s. Interest picks back up in 1916, I think prodded by the bicycle industry, but I think you can also catch a glimpse of a country remembering its love for the bike, after a fifteen year affair with the motorized vehicles. Note, there is a very different Bicycle Day. I imagine there was some convergence of the two in the 1960s. This is a lot of text, but there's some really good nuggets below, especially if you are a Bay Area cyclist and interested in where we come from, what bicycle culture existed before. This post is really about the April 9th, 1916 Bicycle Day in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, but it's also a way of seeing a time when we as a region were bicycle people, then forgot about it. One of the reasons I write on this blog is because I think that we are becoming bicycle people again. I see that heyday of the bicycle coming back. I have to. 

A New Park for Oakland!

A New Park for Oakland! Fri, Jun 6, 1884 – Page 2 · Oakland Tribune (Oakland, Alameda, California, United States of America) · Newspapers.com

A New Park for Oakland!

Walter Blair, Proprietor of the Piedmont Branch Railroad, has been for several months preparing new recreation grounds for the patrons of the road, as it is his purpose to devote about 40 acres of his land to public use. About 15 acres has been already improved by removing all obstructions, weeds, grading paths, building foot bridges, etc. A complete system of water works will be established, with fountains, miniature lakes, waterfalls, etc. These grounds have great natural advantages, and from time to time new features will be added. As these grounds are intended to be forever devoted to public use, and become a part of Oakland, an agreeable name is an important matter; therefore the proprietor has determined to leave the matter open for six months, awaiting suggestions from the public. The grounds are free to patrons of the road and to family carriages. As no refreshments will be kept on the grounds the present season, visitors are expected to bring their lunch. The grounds heretofore have been known as "Hays Canyon."

Hays Canyon postcard

As found on Ebay: Real Photo Postcard Ranch House & Farm Hays Canyon, California~105955 "A vintage 1920 real photo postcard of a Ranch House and Farm in Hays Canyon, California."