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Original Paint
When it comes to old bicycles, the subject of restoration and renovation comes up a lot. People have an old bike they've ridden for a lot of years, or maybe find one at a garage sale or an uncle's...
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Reynolds Tubing Decals - NOT
I had a question recently from a reader that led to some interesting investigation. He had a bike, a 1980s Superia, with a tubing sticker he hadn't seen before and wanted to know more about it. I've...
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Original Paint - Part Due: 1960s Galmozzi
There's an old urban legend about a guy who buys a cheap painting from a garage sale, then after he gets it home, accidentally bumps or knocks some paint off the canvas. Then he notices that there's...
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Bicycles at the Smithsonian
There's a new exhibit at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History called The Object Project which looks at the historical importance of various consumer products as markers of societal...
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Maynard Hershon: The Bicyclists' Writer
People who've been biking for more than a couple of decades are sure to know the name Maynard Hershon, or at least know of his writing. Hershon used to write a regular column that appeared in Winning...
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2015 Tour de France
Racing in the Post-Armstrong EraThe 2015 Tour de France (or "Big Ol' Race Around France" as Grant Petersen calls it) concluded yesterday, and Chris Froome of the U.K. is the winner. It was his second...
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Bike Safety 101: Disney's I'm No Fool With a Bicycle
In the Bike Safety 101 series, I've looked at a lot of old educational films, many of which were cranked out by low-budget, relatively unknown production companies that specialized in films for...
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Throwback Thursday - On a Friday: Vintage Schwinn Ads
I've always had sort of a soft spot for Schwinns. I know a lot of Retrogrouch fans do, too. My first really nice bike was a Super Le Tour, and while I would go on to own nicer bikes over the years,...
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The Great Boffo
"The man is more important than the machine." That is the message young readers and future retrogrouches should take from Frank Dickens's classic children's story The Great Boffo, which has just been...
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What Is The Masi Legacy?
Few bike names evoke more passion than Masi. The Italian master Faliero Masi was one of the preferred builders of many great racers, including Eddy Merckx, Fausto Coppi, and Jacques Anquetil...
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Throwback Thursday: Schwinn Catalogs
After running scans of those old Schwinn ads from the '60s and '70s last week, I had a couple of people write mentioning how much they also loved the Schwinn catalogs from the same period. There are...
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Bicycling and Weight Loss
When I left for college at the age of 18, I was 6 feet tall and weighed no more than 130 lbs. Hard to believe that today, but I was a bean pole. Contrary to what one might expect, I didn't look like...
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Recommended Viewing: The Legs of Amsterdam
"Without a bike, you're nowhere in Amsterdam. Bicycles are like the legs of Amsterdammers."That's a notion you'll hear phrased several times in the short documentary De Benen van Amsterdam, or in...
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Chris Boardman on Helmets and Safety
Former bicycle racer, and several-times holder of bicycling's Hour Record, Chris Boardman, has recently been in the news for his controversial stance on bicycle safety and helmets. You see, Boardman...
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The "Answer" to Drunk Cycling
Equality is a funny thing, isn't it? For example, in the eyes of the law, a bicyclist and the driver of a car have the same right to the road, and have the same responsibilities. They are supposed to...
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Marco Pantani's Accidental Death
Never underestimate the power of denial.I kept thinking that as I watched the documentary Pantani: The Accidental Death of a Cyclist. The film was released last year, but recently became available on...
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Disc Brakes on Pro Bikes - Ho Hum
Disc brakes are here! The trial-period for using disc brakes on professional race bikes has finally arrived! And the response among the teams so far has been . . . underwhelming. Pro racers say...
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Akron, Ohio - Home of the Blimp(s)
I was riding my bike home from work today, and enjoying what turned out to be an absolutely gorgeous day -- clear, bright blue sky, nary a cloud to be seen, low humidity, and temperature in the mid...
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Recon Jet Glasses - Who Needs Vision When You've Got Data?
Back in December I wrote about the Recon Jet"smart glasses" which were billed as a "wearable computer" -- not unlike the much-hyped and really-stupid Google Glasses, only for athletes. At the time, I...
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Two Years
This morning I remembered that I first posted The Retrogrouch two years ago today - Aug. 27, 2013. I don't think too many people noticed when it first went up. Only 267 people visited the site by the...
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