Uncomfortable Aesthetics

Three things you probably don't know and wouldn't guess about me:

• I love military aircraft, more particularly fighters.

General Dynamics F-16

Duxford air show is a particular delight and I generally go to a couple each year. I always take one or both of our children and occasionally one or two of their friends. This gives it a sort of educational aspect and earns huge parenting brownie  points. And this isn't even mentioning the envious and knowing smiles I get from the mums of other families, who I guess are sometimes there under sufferance!
The truth is that I'm following my dad's example who took me and my brother to motor cycle races and air shows. To this day I don't know whether my passion for bikes and planes is just because I loved our days out together with our fantastic dad .

• I love racing motor cycles, especially Italian and Japanese multi cylinder machines.

250cc 6 cylinder 1967 Honda

Similar reasons for liking bikes and planes I suppose: both very pared down engineering where speed, weight, ergonomics and aerodynamics determine the form.

In the twenties, a French Swiss architect, Le Corbusier, wrote an influential treatise about architecture illustrated with pictures of cars, ships, civil engineering projects and farm and industrial developments. His premiss was that houses should be "machines for living" and their form should follow their function and not be a series of boxes with bolted on historical references. This approach to design resulted in some fabulous (to my eyes) minimalist architecture that still looks modern after over 80 years. The International Style was a movement that produced the Bauhaus with all its astonishing output, and was fuelled by a philosophy and aesthetic similar to my beloved bikes and planes.

La Ville Savoye 1929

• I failed an Architecture degree course at Aston University (First year).

Perhaps I should have studied engineering!

Anyway, I was particularly looking forward to Sunday's display as the F-16 was flying. This is arguably one of the most ubiquitous planes ever made, flying in over 25 Air Forces from Norway to Thailand. I had followed its development since the early seventies and loved its sinuous, taut rather than voluptuous, shape. So there I stood ( chairs at air shows are for oldies! Besides, you can't use a camera properly from a chair) and at about 1 o'clock a blue grey shape came from the east and quickly defined itself as the Belgian Air Force F-16. 

I took rather a lot of pictures of the F-16!

 I'm used to Spitfires, Hunters, Sabres, and all the usual Duxford fair of easy, low stressed, manoeuvres with lovingly rebuilt and maintained machines and I just wasn't prepared for the sheer power and chutzpah of this plane. It didn't so much float on the air as rip it apart and I loved the power of  the engine which growled and thundered like a demented animal. I was entranced. I wasn't just entranced: I was genuinely awe struck and in tears. What astonishing power and beauty the human race is capable of! Not only to design and build such a thing of beauty but to train to subject yourself to over 6g to fly it.

Then the unease set in: The WW11 planes are a historical statement and a primary source ( eduspeak),
but the modern stuff,  especially hardware in service and fighting, seems a bit near to glorification of conflict. I have problems with guns too. I'm not a bad shot for a pacifist* and the feel of a wooden stock against your cheek and shoulder, the blue of the steel and the craftsmanship is a delight. We don't let our son buy guns with his pocket money but he makes them from lego or carves them from sticks. AAARRGGHHH! Well at least he's engaged in a real craft and not playing "Call of Duty"like many of his eight year old class mates claim to be! And I actively encourage his archery skills as well as improving my own.

So where does that leave me? I'll still take my children to the air shows because thats what good dads do. I'll still enjoy the sound and sight of military aircraft. I'll still shoot rifles when I can and I'll make and shoot longbows at Kentwell. And I'll accept the unease and share it, and I'll carry on teaching pacifism and conflict resolution and try to keep alive that vaguely hippie ideal of peace and love.



* Target shooting of course!

'Tis a Gift to be Simple.

I've just started serious cycling again. I suppose most of you reading this know I've done an event recently involving 100 miles cycle around Norfolk for charity. If not, then you know now! All sorts of bicycles passed me: mountain bikes with knobbly tyres whirred, state-of-the-art carbon fibre frames rumbled, aluminium racers whistled by, oh, and occasionally I passed other bikes. I had a great time, I completed the course with no discomfort, no pains, no blisters but a huge sense of achievement.

This was the first "big" cycling I'd done and I was really fired up all through my training month. I'd read all I could get hold of through the 'net and books, but the best advice was from an American book:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Complete-Book-Long-Distance-Cycling/dp/1579541992/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1316369417&sr=8-2

This more or less said the bike you're comfortable with and have ridden should be fine. It was. It advised against specialised, usually very expensive, in the way of wheels, tyres, gearing, pedals etc.
I liked this philosophy and so did my my wife and my bank manager. My own bike was a ten year old steel frame tourer which fits me perfectly and has seen me commuting in London, Birmingham and finally Norfolk. Its simplicity has always appealed to me.

Me and my Bob Jackson Tourer (camouflage to deter thieves!)

 But I've also recently come across groups of cyclists all over the world who were trying to simplify their cycling even more. Fixies are stripped down bikes with an aesthetic all of their own. Most people adapt their own or buy a cheap secondhand frame, but you can buy quite expensive ones ready made. These cycles effectively have one gear, one brake, a frame and two wheels. Do you remember your first ever bike? It was probably like this but with a free wheel so you could rest on the pedals.

I loved the idea of this but wasn't sure how I'd get on with riding one as it's pretty hilly around Norfolk despite what Noel Coward wrote. 

Don't you just love ebay? I found a cheap bike with a huge frame ( my inside leg is 35"!) which was fairly close and won the auction. It was sold by a lovely retired USAF officer and it was shipped over from the States in the eighties. It was extremely crudely made but very comfortable and almost identical in size and geometry to my beloved Bob Jackson.

I stripped off the gears, got my LBS (Local Bike Shop, a great American abbreviation) to fit a gear and locking ring to the rear wheel, heeded advice to keep both brakes and tried it out. A time of bleeding shins, strained thighs and lots of giggling ensued as I got to grips with pedals my legs had to revolve with. After about a week or so of commuting I got the hang of it. I got the hang of it so much that I could get up the hills I used to drop through all the gears for and manage to keep my legs revolving down really wooshy hills. And the giggling continued and still continues! I'm even considering cycling the 25 miles to Norwich on it next week.

It's now hanging in the garage having the paint job it deserves instead of the rather sober grey scheme it came with. As I paint it, I feel the sort of pleasure I felt with my first bike. The pleasure of a bit of machinery I can maintain myself, that was inexpensive, that was fun to ride and that was essentially an extension of me.

Finished!

Yes I did ride it from Norwich yesterday and had a wonderful time. I cramped up in the evening and feel quite achey today but I love the freedom and simplicity I have when riding it: 

YOU JUST PEDAL!

We live in an increasingly complicated world, how good it is to recapture some of the simplicity of a happy childhood! And also some of the silliness.