From the BSNYC Culture Desk: “Clapton” by Eric Clapton

As a cyclist, I wear many helmets, among them: crappy racer; irascible commuter; reclusive blogger; and cycling culture anthropologist. In the latter guise, I find it interesting when cycling makes cameos in the mainstream media, since it’s usually a pretty good idea of how the rest of the world sees us. It’s kind of like when punks would appear on shows like “Quincy” and “CHiPs” in the 80s, in that it usually ends up looking pretty dorky out of context. (Think “Quicksilver,” “American Flyers,” and even “The Flying Scotsman.”)

The latest place I’ve found cycling (or at least the subject of bicycles) has popped up is in Eric Clapton’s autobiography, “Clapton.” “Clapton” is currently #6 on the New York Times Hardcover Nonfiction Bestseller List, where it is sandwiched between “Quiet Strength” (“A memoir by the first black coach to win a Super Bowl”) and “Rescuing Sprite” (“A family’s love for an older dog they adopted”), proving once again that the only thing people love more than dogs is guitar virtuosity and football.

Some time ago, I mentioned that Eric Clapton owns a Cinelli track bike without bar tape, an alarming fact which I learned from Dave Moulton. Here it is:

If you don’t know who Eric Clapton is, he is a renowned guitarist who brought the blues to the mainstream. He was also an early adopter of tight trousers and the white man’s afro. Of course, while all of this is very important, I really only care about cycling, so I was curious to see if the subject appeared at all in “Clapton.” And it did, relatively early in fact, on page 10:

My first bike was a James, given to me by Jack [Clapton’s uncle] after I'd pestered him to give me a Triumph Palm Beach, like the one he had, which was metallic scarlet and cream and was as far as I was concerned the ultimate bike...

So what did young Eric do with this bike?

...by taking one of the brakes off, removing the mudguards, stripping it down, and giving it different tires--the kind for riding over mud--I turned it into what we call a “track” bike.

Indeed, years before Clapton was a pioneering musician--before there was even a fixedgeargallery.com or an internet for it to pollute--he was pioneering the conversion. Certainly this is some kind of cultural landmark. Moreover, the bicycle itself may just be the common ancestor of every trendy bicycle that has come after it. Surely, it is the Australopithecine of bicycles. One can only speculate as to what it would be worth today.

Intrigued, I read on. A lot of stuff happens in the next 300 pages, much of it interesting, but none of it is about cycling. He plays in the Yardbirds and Cream, he does LSD with the Monkees, he becomes a junkie and an alcoholic, and he steals one of the Beatles’ wives.

Then, on page 310, paydirt!

...Hiroshi came over to the hotel on his new Cinelli track bike... He is still a leading pioneer in street culture, hence the Cinelli. Track bike riding is taking over from skateboarding in Japan, and Hiroshi is in the avant-garde as usual. I have caught the obsession of course.

Hiroshi is Hiroshi Fujiwara, whom Wikipedia describes as “a popular Japanese musician, trendsetter, producer, and designer, born in 1964.” Throughout “Clapton,” Eric describes his enthusiasm for street culture. Certainly in the 60s he was a vital part of it, but once the book gets to the current century you get that same creepy feeling you get as a teenager when your 50 year old uncle wants to listen to your records with you to show you how hip he is. At any rate, here is Hiroshi working on one of his uber-chic fixed-gear freestylers, which should give you a pretty good idea of what he’s about:

I was hoping that part of Clapton’s obsession with bicycles might involve riding them, but alas, this is not the case:

...I have begun buying vintage road bikes, not to ride but because I have always loved the equipment of cycling, especially bikes and accessories from the sixties.

So there it is. So what have I learned? Firstly, bicycles are very popular with the cultural elite, but as for riding them, not so much. Also, Eric Clapton gave up spending vast amounts of money on heroin and now spends vast amounts of money on things like boats. I’m not sure one’s better than the other, though I suppose the important difference is at least you can take your kids on the boat with you. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, Eric Clapton corroborates a suspicion that many of us already had, which is that track bikes are indeed the new skateboard.