Now They'll Know I Rode To Work Today!

Many, many years ago, I attended Catholic school.  Like my classmates, I went to confession every Friday and mass on Sunday. 

You weren't supposed to receive Holy Communion unless you'd confessed your sins.  Of course, that meant just about all of us who went to the Catholic school partook of that most important (by the Church's reckoning, anyway) sacrament. I always wanted to ask how God saw whatever sins you might've committed between the time you went to confession and mass.

Not that I was so worried about receiving communion.  After all, how many kids look forward to having  flat, flavorless wafers put in their mouths and having to kneel, with eyes shut, and pray (or pretend to, anyway) silently as long as those wafers are in their mouths?  Most kids probably wonder--as I did--why the wafer couldn't at least taste like chocolate or something?

Then there was something else we received from the church, if once a year:  ashes.  I know that having charcoal or whatever rubbed on your forehead is supposed to symbolize that to which we return, or some such thing.  On Ash Wednesday, we were all supposed to be so marked.  The nuns treated us juuust a little better (they were nuns, after all!) if we were. 

Some people--usually old (or, at least, they seemed that way to us)--used to walk a little prouder--or, perhaps, just a little more smugly--with the smudges on their foreheads in full view.  It was as if they had to show the world--God?--that they were indeed devout Catholics.  Because they were older, I used to wonder whether that mark would help them if they fell down dead.  Would God recognize them that much sooner and whisk them into their eternal reward?

I got to thinking about this, oddly, because today is Ride Your Bike To Work Day. Now, those of us who normally ride to work don't give it a second thought.  About the only thing I did differently was to stop at the Transportation Alternatives table on the Bronx side of the Willis Avenue Bridge for their free coffee (which was pretty good, actually) and Kind bars. (I like the Blueberry Almond and Honey Oat!)  And, oh yeah, to renew my membership.

Since I normally ride to work and my co-workers and friends know it, I don't feel the need to show it.  But I got to thinking about how I might show off my concern for the environment and all of those other things that commuting by bike are supposed to signify, if I were so inclined.

Here's one way:

 

Helene Dutrieu: She Did It Without A Corset!

For better or worse, everyone knows Lance Armstrong's name.  And, for a time, all Americans--whether or not they'd ever even touched a bicycle--knew about Greg LeMond, who won the Tour de France three times in the late 1980s.

And, of course, everyone who has even the slightest familiarity with bicycle racing has heard of a guy named Eddy Mercx.  For that matter, you don't have to be intimately connected to the sport to recognize names like Bernard Hinault, Fausto Coppi and Jacques Anquetil.

The fame of female cyclists, however, tends to be much more fleeting.  Most of what I know about them--including the ones I've written about on this blog--I learned by accident. 

Now I can add Helene Dutrieu to my list. Given her accomplishments, it's almost criminal that she's not better-known. 

She was born on 10 July 1877 in Tournai, Belgium--perhaps not coincidentally, the birthplace of Clovis I.  When she was a young girl, she moved with her family to Lille, in the north of France.  At age 14, she left school to earn a living.

I couldn't find any information about her first job(s).  But, at some point, her older brother Eugene inspired her to follow his career path:  bicycle racing.  In 1893, at age 16, she set the women's world record for distance cycled in one hour.  Three years later, she won the world women's track cycling championship and reprised her title the following year. 

Helene Dutrieu racing for the La Chaine Simpson team.

During that time, she won a twelve-day race in England and raced for the Simpson Lever Chain (La Chaine Simpson) team, immortalized in a Toulouse-Lautrec illustration.   In 1898,  she won the Grand Prix d'Europe.   Belgium's King Leopold II awarded her the le Croix d' St. Andre with diamonds in honor of her exploits as a cyclist.

Toulouse-Lautrec illustration of Constance Huret  in a pursuit race.

Her velocipedic virtuosity was matched by her daring:  She gained, perhaps, as much renown as a stunt cyclist, first on a bicycle and, later, on a motorcycle.  She created a stunt--a jump of about 15 meters on a bicycle--called "La Fleche Humaine" (the Human Arrow), which became her nickname.

In reading about her, I came away with the impression that she was, first and foremost, a performer.  In addition to her feats of athleticism and daring, she also gained renown as an actress, appearing on such stages as the Theatre des Capucines.  During that time--from 1903 to 1909-- she also was a stunt driver, first on motorcycles and, later, in automobiles.

Dutrieu in a Henry Farman-type two-seater, circa 1911.

That the public and press loved her didn't escape the notice of Clement-Bayard de Levallois, the company that sponsored her as a stunt and race car driver.  They were about to introduce their new aeroplane--the Santos-Dumont No. 19 Demoiselle.  Especially with a name like that ("Demoiselle", as you probably know, means "young lady"), who would be a better candidate to be its first pilot than Ms. Dutrieu.

In those days, flying was truly not for the faint of heart--or heavy of body.  Those machines didn't have much power and, thus, couldn't bring much weight aloft.  Naturally petite and trim--and fit from her years of cycling--Helene Dutrieu thus had advantages over nearly every other pilot candidate.  Though her first flight ended in a crash--not unusual in 1908-- she quickly developed a following that grew with the skills she developed as a pilot.  In fact, she was the first woman to fly an aircraft bearing a passenger, and would become the fourth woman (and first Belgian woman) in history to earn a flying license, which she would need to enter competitions.  La Fleche Humaine soon would be known as La Femme Epervier (the Lady Hawk).

One thing to remember was that in those days, in most of the world (including her native Belgium and France), women didn't have the right to vote, or many other rights.  And we were thought biologically incapable of doing many of the things we do today.  So, while the public loved seeing her fly, her sponsor was also capitalizing on a subtext of her exploits:  This plane is so easy to fly that a woman can do it!    

 

Gender norms in those days were more rigid, both literally and figuratively, in other ways.  So, while people were enthusiastic about Dutrieu's exploits, they expected her--as they would expect any other woman--to adhere to the standards of modesty of the time.  The biggest scandal about her, then, was not a result of  any of her daring feats, but in doing them--as the press discovered accidentally--without a corset! 

(Because she was so thin, I have no idea of how that terrifying fact was discovered!)

But that didn't seem to bother Pierre Lafitte.  He published Femina, one of France's most popular women's magazines.  An early aviation enthusiast, in 1910 he announced a prize for the longest flight--in both distance and time aloft--by a woman in an aeroplane.  Dutrieu flew 167 kilometers in 2.6 hours to win the title, which she defended the following year.  She would fly in the air-show circuit for another two years before retiring in 1913, after France awarded her the Legion d'honneur.



When Dutrieu won the Coup Femina in 1910, a woman named Marie Marvingt finished second, flying 42 kilometers in 53 minutes.  Interestingly, their careers turned in the same direction with the outbreak of World War I:  both became ambulance drivers!

So, like so many pioneers in the worlds of automobiles and aviation--and women's achievement--Helene Dutrieu started her revolution with revolutions--of her pedals.  Her journey ended in Paris on 26 June 1961, at the age of 83.

"Like Doping In The Tour De France"

As a writer and someone who teaches English, I find it interesting that people use so many sports metaphors in their everyday communication. In particular, I am struck by the fact that so many people who use those metaphors aren't aware of their origins--or don't care about sports.

How many times have you heard someone refer to being "on the ball"?  As I understand, the expression originated with American GIs returning from World War II, mainly those who fought in Europe.  Many of them attended football (soccer) matches for the first, and only times, in their lives.  To them, the best players always seemed to be "on the ball".

Here in the US, we often say that someone who's succeeded at something has "hit a home run".  Or we might say that someone who equivocates, delays or simply sloughs something off is "punting".

And who hasn't talked about "winning (or losing) the game" in reference to some endeavor that has nothing to do with sports or games?  Or referred to doing something difficult as "pedaling uphill" or "pedaling against the wind", or having an easy time as "coasting" or "pedaling with the wind at your back"?

Well, now it seems that another cycling metaphor--with more negative connotations--is entering the everyday lexicon.

Cartoon by Gary Barker.

Lately, I've heard people--who, to my knowledge, aren't cyclists--say that some negative practice or another is "like doping in the Tour de France".  And, just today, I came across someone who used that phrase in reference to test prep centers in China and other countries who help students in getting high scores on the Scholastic Aptitude Test, which improves their chances of getting into the most competitive American colleges and universities. 

It seems that for years, the College Board, which administers the SAT, has been administering tests abroad after they have been used in the US.  In my day, some kids might talk about some of the questions afterward, but now they discuss them in online fora.  We all know that once something is posted online, anyone with a computer can gain access to it, no matter where in the world he or she happens to be.

That, it seems, is what the test prep centers in China and other places have been doing.  The operators of those centers know that "the only way to survive in the industry is to have a copy of the test" in advance of a sitting. So says Ben Heisler, who offers test-prep and college-consulting services in South Korea.  "It's like doping in the Tour de France," he opines.  "If you don't do it, someone else will."

Hmm... Could "doping in the Tour de France" be the new way of saying "doing what ya gotta do"?