DISRAELI GEARS

I’m sitting in Cakes right now, a coffee and baked goods shop located a block or so from my house. My trusty steed is tethered to a signpost outside the window—the same signpost I tied it to a week or so ago when the chain slipped off its teeth and got jammed in the rear sprockets. I was on my way to the gym and didn’t feel like taking time to fix the bike’s problem, so I simply dismounted, locked it up, and walked the rest of the way. When I got to the gym I texted my wife to let her know what happened: I worried that she might drive by the coffee shop and notice my bike there and think that I was “cheating”—stopping in for a cupcake instead of burning off last night’s cupcakes (metaphorical) on the treadmill.

A couple of days ago, the Tour de France bicycle race was scandalized by a similar situation. No, not a rider being falsely accused of stopping for a cupcake (ou peut-être une crêpe?) . . . but the leader, the guy in the yellow jersey, having his chain slip off its sprocket, which allowed another rider to pass him and ultimately win that stage of the race and thus get to wear the yellow jersey the next day. Apparently this was a violation of bike-racing etiquette. Sacre bleu! That’s a very nuanced notion of fair play . . .

Anyway . . . all of this reminds me of that fine album released by the supergroup/power trio known as Cream—Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce, Ginger Baker—back in 1967. Just for the sake of Clapton’s utterly sculpted guitar solo on “Sunshine of Your Love,” Disraeli Gears could be a desert island essential. Cream trivialogists will know that the album’s title derives not from the name of 19th-century British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli but from a roadie’s mispronunciation of the word “derailleur” when he chipped in to Clapton’s chatting about buying a racing bicycle with that so-named gear mechanism. Those same trivialogists will also know that “Badge,” another song recorded by Cream (on the album Goodbye), derives its title from Clapton’s misreading of the word “bridge” (as inscribed by song co-writer, Beatle George Harrison) on a sheet of paper with lyrics and chords. How random. Speaking of random . . . I wonder what the odds are that either of those songs would pop up on my iPod Shuffle when I’m on the treadmill at the gym thinking about eating cupcakes and watching Tour de France highlights on ESPN?