Into The Wind; Into Life

Today I managed to get out only briefly.  I got up late and had a few errands and other things to take care of.  I wish I'd ridden more (Don't I always!) because it was a nice day, the cold and wind notwithstanding.


Actually, I wanted to ride more in part because of the wind.  Of course, there are two sides of it:  riding facefirst into it and having it blow at your back.  The former is the stuff that builds character and such, the latter is a reward for, I suppose, having your character built up.


Pedaling into the wind is, even among non-cyclists, a poignant metaphor for facing challenges. Not being pushed back is a kind of progress; moving forward is a victory in the same way as surviving another day of a struggle.  With these victories, with survival, comes the hope that accompanies the anticipation of a reward:  the wind blowing at your back.  


I did my first rides of more than an hour along the ocean in New Jersey. I would ride from Middletown, where I spent my high-school years, to Sandy Hook, which is exactly what the name says it is:  a spit of sand that somehow manages not to be submerged by the bay or the ocean that are on each side of it.  From there, I'd ride along Route 36 through Sea Bright and Monmouth Beach--both of which straddle strips of land even narrower than Sandy Hook--to Long Branch. (Later, as I gained more experience, I'd ride down to Asbury Park or beyond.)  

On the peninsula that forms the West End of Long Branch, the wind shifted direction about two o'clock every afternoon. On most days, I would be riding into the wind down to Long Branch.  That, of course, meant that the wind would blow me back home.  


Learning about that wind shift, and how to use it, taught me much more than almost anything else I learned in high school--or any school, for that matter. It took me a long time to learn how to use those lessons, but they are the sorts of lessons one doesn't forget.


Those lessons were even applicable to those times when I had to continue pedaling into the same wind from which I had no respite on the previous day.  There are times like that on most multi-day rides:  I recall now the second tour I took in Europe, from Italy into France.  Late one Saturday I checked into a small hotel in Brignoles, a place that was actually quite lovely and interesting (It is in Provence, after all.) but where I also hadn't any plans to stay.  I stopped there because, by the end of that afternoon, I simply couldn't pedal any more.  The next day was more of the same--wind and climbing punctuated by climbing and wind--but at least every pore, orifice and cell had been awakened by that previous day's ride.  


And, oddly enough, while I was pedaling through those lavender-tinged hills, I began to chant part of a Navajo creation song to myself:


It was the wind that gave them life.  It is the wind that comes out of our mouths now that gives us life.  When this ceases to blow, we die.  In the skin at the tips of our fingers, we can see the train of wind. It shows us where the wind blew where our ancestors were created.


Actually, now that I think of it, those words weren't so incongruous.  In the villages and countryside in which I had been riding, I'd had the sense that everything there was happening in some sort of circle that seemed to begin in the wind.  Everyone knew where their ancestors were created, if you will.  A few days earlier, I talked to an olive grower.  I told him that his trees were among the most beautiful things I had ever seen. While not prideful, he didn't seem surprised. "C'est aussi une cathedrale," he said.  "Il est leve pour longtemps" :  It has stood for a long time, like a cathedral.  Later, he told me, "Quand cet arbre est plante, n'est pas pour son moi; n'est pas pour son enfants ou petit-enfants; il est pour leurs petit-enfants":  You do not plant such a tree for yourself, for your children or grand-children; you plant it for their grandchildren.


At the tips of its leaves, one can also see a train of wind.  It shows where the others have grown and where their fruits have been picked, by the ancestors of those who planted it: The grower told me that an olive tree has to grow a hundred years before it bears fruit.  But, if cared for, it will continue to provide olives for a thousand years.


And it was given life by that same wind into which I would pedal a few days later.

The Lives The Wind Gave Us

In previous posts, I've mentioned the Navajo creation song that begins, "It was the wind that gave them life."

It was running through my mind, again, as I pedaled into 30-35KPH gusts to the Rockaways and let the same winds blow me home.  And that chant grew even stronger, for me, when I saw the people who'd ventured outside on a chilly, windy but almost hauntingly clear day.

It didn't matter whether those people were families who lived there or were visiting--or whether they were the gnarled old men who seemed to have been deposited there by the tides and abandoned by the currents of time.  They all looked as if the wind had somehow shaped them, had somehow given them life:  the fact that they were alive and the lives they were living, whether in one of the clapboard houses or amongst the remnants of the boardwalk.   

 

The wind brushed the long fine strands and curls of childrens' hair around their faces, which made them seem even younger and dewier than they were.  That same wind turned those children's expressions and words from moments to memories for the parents and grandparents of those children.  And the wind stuttered the echo of old men shuffling through sand, across boards and concrete and asphalt broken by the very tides that returned to that very same wind.

And the wind defined my trip, my journey.  That is the life it gave me, gave them.

In A Valley Or A Tunnel Of Wind?

Today I got out for a brief spin on Marianela.  I didn't go much beyond my neighborhood.  But it's nice to loop through side streets that are mostly free of traffic.  I was surprised at how clear they were:  Just a few days ago, there were patches of ice on even the more heavily-used thoroughfares.  


The temperature reached 40 F (5C), which is about normal for an afternoon at this time of year.  However, the wind made it feel a good bit colder.  According to a weather report I heard, we had wind gusts of 40 mph (about 65 kph). I don't think I was riding into, or with, anything so strong.  But I certainly did feel it.  


Usually, when most people think of wind, they think of open, flat areas.  I think of the creation stories and other lore of the Native American tribes who lived in the plains and the desert:  In them, "it is the wind that gave them life," as it did in the Navajo chant I've quoted. And in the places where they lived, when there was wind, there was no escaping from it.  On the other hand, if there isn't wind where you're pedaling, you're not likely to encounter any for a while.


On the other hand, the wind seems to be a more capricious part of urban cycling. Sometimes buildings can act as wind blocks.  However, long rows of the same buildings seem to create a "wind tunnel" effect.  At other times, they are a kind of "valley" of stillness among the relative turbulence.


Now, it's been at least three decades since I took a Physics course.  So I'm sure I've forgotten a lot.  Did the instructor, or the textbook, ever explain why the wind that's blowing in one part of town is stopped by one block full of buildings but intensifies in another.


Anyway...The ride was pleasant, if unremarkable.  My only complaint was that my camera's batteries were dead and I didn't find out until I tried to take a photo. Oh well.

This Pyschologist Doesn't Think We're Crazy

If you cycle because you want to, non-cyclists probably have referred to you by any number of adjectives and epithets.  One of them might be "crazy."

I'll admit that I actually called one of my fellow cyclists "crazy."  So, however, did other members of our "crew."  Actually, Ray Tirado wasn't crazy so much as he was fearless and seemingly incapable of feeling physical pain. (All right, some might argue that such a combination of traits might add up to a listing or two in the DSM.) Most of our rides together were off-road and he made jumps and descents that, even when I still had most of my insecurity and testosterone, I wouldn't have dared.  Even on a straightaway on a the road, under a clear sky with the wind at our backs, I could see that his attitude toward riding, and life, was different from anything I could imagine.

That said, I admire him to this day.  Even though he seemed to be riding "gonzo," whether on off his bike, he always seemed to understand who he is--which meant that the risks he took weren't just acts of hubris:  He was pushing his boundaries because he understood what they were and didn't want them to be boundaries any more.

I must admit that, to this day, I value few compliments I've ever received  for anything more than the ones he gave me for my riding (!) and "for being you," as he once said.  "You know why you ride, or do anything you do."

He got half of that statement right.  To this day, I sometimes do things without knowing why.  Cycling is not one of them, which is why it's one of the few things I can't imagine my life without.

You see, after half a century of dedicated riding--which has included commuting, touring, racing, messenger work, riding on and off the road in all kinds of conditions in about two dozen different countries--I can say that I understand the risks of sluicing through city traffic, barreling down a rocky hill or pedaling into the teeth of a mistral as well as anyone.

And I know, as "Crazy Ray" surely did, that those risks are outweighed by the benefits, not the least of which are the ones for our mental health.  One of the world's most influential people also understands as much--which is why he got me to thinking about Ray.

He's just published his latest book, Rationality:  What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters.  One way you know he's an academician is that the book title has a colon in it. But he's more than that:  a real intellectual, a thinker.  That means that, as much as he enjoys cycling, it's not an unconscious or reflexive act for him.  "Given the value you put on your life and the fact that there's even a very small probability of getting killed," he asks, "does it outweigh the pleasure and health benefits of continuing to ride?"

Steven Pinker.  

The people who can't understand why we ride are usually focused on the first part of his question:  the risk.  But Steven Pinker, a Harvard psychologist who specializes in psycholinguistics and social relations, has been thinking about why he rides for as long as he's been riding. For example, as a kid, he tried to understand how he could remain upright while riding, which would lead him to learn about the brain's workings and how they relate to Newton's law of gravity.  Also, while growing up, he heard about men--including three uncles and several of his father's friends--dying prematurely of heart attacks.  So, he says, as a young man he resolved to keep himself in good cardiovascular health.  His studies in neuroscience would confirm the wisdom of his choice:  "physical exercise is one of the best ways to extend brain health."

So, the Harvard researcher and my old riding buddy--who, by the way, was a plumber--would agree on this:  Riding a bicycle is as about as rational as anything a human being can do.
 

Cycling To Work In A "Hippie" Skirt

Yesterday the new semester started.  Had it been a movie, it would have been the beginning of best time in mine, or someone else’s life:  The rain of the previous three days had passed and the sky was even clearer and bluer than the bodies of water one sees on postcards.

Naturally, I rode my bike to work.  As I was not looking forward to going to my regular job, I needed something to pump up my Happy Hormones (or endorphins, or whatever you want to call them).  I also knew that wearing a favorite outfit—one in which I feel both confident and comfortable—would help.

But I needed a way to wear it—specifically, the skirt—while riding my bike.  Even though clearing the top bar on the LeTour wasn’t a problem, the skirt—which drapes nearly to my ankles when I stand up—could get caught in the chain or between the brake pad and rim.  I haven’t yet installed the dress guard “Velouria” gave me. 

So what’s a lady prof to do?  

Turns out, there’s a really simple solution.  All you need is an extra-large paper clamp.  All you have to do is to gather the skirt so that you can clip it, but not so tightly that you can’t move your legs freely.

It’s best to gather and clamp your skirt when you’re seated, in a position in which you typically ride, on the bike.  The first time I tried it, I had trouble mounting the seat because I’d effectively made a strait jacket around my thighs.  And of course you don’t want to wrap or clamp the skirt around your knees. 

I wonder whether anyone else has tried my skirt-clamping method. 

Now I’m thinking about how I used heavy rubber bands whenever I rode in trousers.  As with the skirt on the clamp, I found that I liked to pull on the rubber bands when I was seated on the bike, maninly because I didn’t want the trouser leg or the rubber band to rub and chafe the bottom of my calf or other sensitive areas.  Also, I found that if I wore the band too low, it would slide off the pants and onto my ankle.  (That’s what the reflective bands with Velcro, which were popular a while back, seemed to always do.)

After work, I took a ride to one of my favorite spots in Queens:  Fort Totten.  It’s at the western end of Long Island Sound and within sight of the Whitestone Bridge.  Just across the cove, it’s Gatsby country, where white sails skitter in the wind like white crests that cap the ripples on the water.

You may have noticed that I said “my regular job.”  That’s because in addition to it, I am teaching a course in another college:  the one I visited last week.  The chair offered me a class that started yesterday.  And it’s at the perfect time:  After my regular college job, I have enough time to pedal there.

And, because I had to take care of business at my new gig, I stayed a bit later than I anticipated.  But when I rode to Fort Totten, I didn’t mind, because from there, the majority of my ride home would skirt the bay.  The sun began to set as I neared the World’s Fair Marina.

Oh, I should mention this:  I rode 11 miles to my regular job, another six and a half to my part-time gig and about eighteen home in my clamped skirt, all after getting up at five a.m.—after going to bed at two a.m.  Although I felt good when I got home, I didn’t want to cook or otherwise prepare my supper.  So I stopped at the the King of Felafel and Shawarma for one of their wonderful chicken and rice plates.  Not long after bringing it back to my place and eating it, I fell asleep.

He Didn't Have A Phantom Condition. He Was Assaulted.

When I wrote for newspapers, a few things frustrated me.  Among them were politicians and other officials who'd talk around my questions.  Another was the constraints one editor put on me and other writers.  So, as I complained to another writer, "I can write about cops and robbers but I can't write about the real crimes."

But nothing twisted my panties or chamois bike short liners (remember those?) more than headline writers.  They'd come up with phrasings that, sometimes said something different from, or even the exact opposite of, what my article described.  Or sometimes what they wrote things that someone, especially if they came from a different generation, culture or other life experience might hear differently from what was intended.

I saw an example of this today:  "Boy Beaten and Bruised in Bicycle Face Attack at LI School Parking Lot:  Cops."  

Now, perhaps I'm a bit of a geek, at least in this sense:  I can say, without boasting, that I probably know more about the history of bicycles and bicycling than anyone who's not a specialist in that field.  So when I saw "Bicycle Face," I immediately thought of the rationale conservatives during the 1885-1905 Bike Boom gave for keeping women off bicycles.  They believed that the rigors of being out in public, in rain and wind and sun, and of simply being on a bicycle, twisted their pretty little heads into what they called "Bicycle Face."

Now, of course, with all due respect to Long Island law enforcement officials, I doubt that their training includes ways of recognizing Bicycle Face--or that most of them have even heard of the term, even if they are cyclists.  And I think it's even less likely that some random thug (the victim is a 13-year-old boy; the perp is believed to be a good bit older and six feet tall) would attack someone for having "Bicycle Face," though, perhaps I can imagine using the phrase as a schoolyard taunt.

Now, I don't mean to make light of a boy being bashed in the face with a bicycle.  No one should have to endure that, and it upsets me that something that can be such a force for good and a source of so much pleasure can be used to commit violence against another living being.  My heart goes out to that boy and his loved ones.

But, as a writer, I also abhor crimes against journalism and the English language.  A much more accurate--and, if I do say so myself, snappier--headline might've been: LI Man Slams Bike Against Boy's Face.

Another Day In The Good Life

Sometimes the weather forecasters like to scare us.  Or so it seems.  Today, they gave us dire warnings of "possible" or "likely" thunderstorms this afternoon.

Whatever they were trying to accomplish, their admonitions worked for me.  I got out nice and early for a ride today--on Arielle.  She seemed as happy as I was:  Even when I pedaled into the wind--as I did for about half of my 125-kilometer ride--she just kept on going.  And I felt that I could, too.

In fact, when a very light rain sprinkled the streets, sand and stones of Point Lookout, I wanted to ride even more.  Rain on a warm day can sometimes has that effect on me.  The precipitation, though, didn't last as long as the cup of coffee I drank at the Point.

The clouds looked more ominous than they actually are--at least to me, or anyone else who is familiar with the weather patterns.  The tides swelled, but the clouds were moving south and east--in other words, out to the sea whose waves were growing.

In contrast to yesterday's ride to Connecticut, the trek to the Point is flat, which may be a reason why it seemed so easy.  In fact, my round-trip didn't took four hours, and I wasn't even trying to "make time"--and I took a slightly longer-than-normal route from Forest Park back to my apartment.

By the time I got home, though, I did make time for a nice long European-style lunch:  a cod fillet I poached with  mushrooms and onions I sauteed, along with a simple salad of Boston lettuce, sliced carrots and beets pickled with dill in Balsmic vinegar.  I washed it all down with  a small wedge of Mimolette: a reddish-orange French cheese that looks and tastes oddly, though pleasantly, like butterscotch.  If that doesn't make it a dessert cheese, I don't know what does.

Yes, Max and Marlee got small pieces of cod, too.  I'm not cruel enough to make them watch me while I eat food they'd love without sharing some with them.  Of course, I held the onions, mushrooms and everything else!

I didn't have to go to work today.  I got to ride and have a nice meal, if I do say so myself.  I had the company of two cats.  And I'm going to do some more writing after I finish this post.  Am I privileged, or what?

(I apologize for the photos, which I took with my cheapo cell phone!)