Wade’s Beautiful Bicycles

My family’s been going to the North Fork of Long Island for over 20-years and in that time I’ve become friends with a man who shares in both of my cycling worlds: French racing and the raucous New York cycling of the 1970’s. Wade Hinderling, born of an American father and French mother, grew up with a foot in each of those rich cycling communities allowing us to regale one another with stories of past days, often switching between French and English depending on the tale. He has four absolutely beautiful 1970’s machines, two Mercier’s, a Ti Raleigh and, the one I really lust over, a bright red Lejune, all of which he puts to good use, clocking in a reliable 10,000 miles each and every year.

The Mercier featured here was built for Jean-Pierre Genet, the longtime Mercier stalwart and right hand of Raymond Polidour. In 1975 Wade was on the Avenue de la Grande Armée in Paris – which extends northwest from the Arc de Triomphe – racing bicycle central of the day. At the top of the Avenue were two, - beautiful- flanking shops, Cycles Bossis and Cycles Brighton, with the Mercier, Ti Raleigh, Motobecane and Peugeot Service Course stores further down. He was looking around and saw a frame hanging from the ceiling and asked about it. The patron brought in down and explained that it was a super light time trial frame, built for Genet, who’d found it too whippy (not rigid enough) for his heavy body and sent it back. As it was now a used frame, Wade got it for a song, something to the equivalent of $200.00.

The frame is indeed a one-of-a-kind. Built of Red Label, “Extra Leger” Reynolds 531 tubing coupled to titanium lugs and bottom bracket, featuring brazed on brake posts, the bicycle is very light, weighing in at just under 17-lbs.The geometry too is unusual, with a very tight rear end and a long, 62 cm front, a special time trial design. Wade, who as a boy frequented Al Toefield’s famed Kissena bicycle shop and worked for dearly missed Artie Greenberg’s wheel building business, still builds his own wheels using aluminum nipples and mated exclusively to Veloflex tubulars, another passion we share. Hollow-pin Regina chains, aluminum and titanium headsets, bottom brackets and freewheels characterize all of his velos. Given the flatness of the North Fork, although the wind can be something, and his absolutely smooth pedaling style, Wade uses straight blocks in the rear (one tooth increments) and a 44 x 46 in the front allowing the most fine-tuned gear selections possible. He’s made for a light bike as this one.

He told me wonderful story about the astoundingly exciting and historic 1964 Tour de France, where Jacques Anquetil was attempting the Giro-Tour double (only Fausto Coppi had that honor) in addition to conquering his fifth Tour. Raymond Poulidor, on great form, had pushed Anquetil from start to finish and going into the final Versailles to Paris time trial was only 14-seconds behind the Yellow Jersey.

The story goes that Raphaël Géminiani, the famed Director Sportif (who championed Paul Sherwen as a racer) one of the great personalities in the history of the sport, came up with a plan. Rudi Altig, Anquetil’s teammate, a powerful time trial rider in his own right, was down in the General Classification thus starting his race earlier in the day. “Gem” told the German to ride the TT at “120%!!”. At the finish, Gem did the calculations on Altig’s race-leading time and what Anquetil needed to do to beat it. He quickly wrote the needed split times on boards and sent a crew out in five-k sections, all waiting for Maître Jacques.

Wade was watching the live broadcast in Gap with his Great Aunt, a devoted cycling fan. Poulidor was riding the TT of his life and going into the second half of the 17-kilometer race was ahead of Anquetil and the virtual Yellow Jersey. As Wade put it, “ We were watching and when Anquetil dropped it from the 54 x 14 into the 13, you could clearly see his violent acceleration on the television. It was amazing and by the finish he’d put :45 into Poupou, winning the Tour by :55, which was the closest margin in history to that point.” So when you hear the current broadcasters talk about teammates being sent out to set TT marks, remember that this practice was invented 56-years ago – although it’s a Phil Liggett question as to whether Geminani was in fact the inventor of the tactic. But given Gem’s rich history I’m going with the attribution.

Wade is very much an historian, another feature of our rides. He had seven family members fight in WWI, all who survived including his paternal grandfather who, as part of Pershing’s AEF, was gassed at the Second Battle of the Marne. On the French side, his Great Uncle was one of only three of his 150-man company to return home from the Battle of Verdun. As Wade points out, “In any French village you’ll find a monument to the WWI dead, and on those monuments long lists of the same family name. We were incredibly lucky.” France lost somewhere around 1,300,000 soldiers in that war out of a population of 39 million, which would be as if today we Americans lost something along the lines of 11 million in a war….

I’ve shared my own stories about 1970’s New York racing with Wade. You all must understand that the scene was populated with characters straight out of a Martin Scorsese film. “Mad Jew” (Artie), “Black Banana” (I can’t tell you), on and on it went. John Chapman, aka “Irongrip” was NYPD and a fine racer. (We once got a Bronze in the National Team Pursuit together). “Grip” was doing plainclothes duty as a decoy bicycle rider in Central Park at a time when bike thefts were rampant and making world-wide news after a rope was stretched across a downhill clotheslining a field of juniors who were then robbed of their bicycles. Grip had collared a mugger and radioed for a car to take him in. No response. He waited and waited, then, fed up, handcuffed the perp to the handlebars, made the guy sit in the front basket and rode him to the Precinct House. It apparently became quite a famous moment in the annals of the NYPD.

I don’t think many realize that cops and city workers, such as Lou Maltese, were the ones who kept cycling alive in New York – and so much of the USA - for decades. “The Czar”, Al Toefield of Kissena fame, was a 38-year NYPD veteran (on top of being a twice-escaped POW during WWII), the Durdaller’s (probably best known today for UCI Commissaire Joan) were a police family – the father Peter was a famed detective - and the man I admired so much, David Walker who founded the Skyscraper Harlem Cycling Classic, was a detective and then Community Affairs Officer of the 25th Precinct. Cycling was an urban sport in the United States in its beginnings, and, for me, remains a perfect one for cities. A theme I hope to explore in the future. Till then, “Vive le Tour!” See you this weekend.