17 June 2016

Before Cycling Caused Sterility, There Was "Bicycle Face"

Every decade or so, someone resurrects the rumor that cycling causes sterility--or other kinds of sexual dysfunction--in men.  And it usually dies down after some prominent cyclist or journalist points out that nearly all top-level racers--and most in the lower echelons--have more than one child.  

Hey, when I was riding with the Central Jersey Bike Club, one of our ride captains fathered a child at age 62!


Still, the rumor that cycling causes sterility might make the rounds again soon--especially since we have the Internet now.  But even with that technological marvel, another cycling-related rumor probably won't start.


It's not just becaue the rumor has been dead for a century or so.  The  reason, I think, the rumor I'll metion won't circulate is that it incubated in a social environment very different from what we have today.


That social environment was the first bike boom in America, during the 1890s and the first decade of the 20th Century.  In it, women started to unlace their corsets and toss them away--to a large degree because the women began riding bicycles.  They were still a decade from having the right to vote, and feminists of that time were working to make it happen.  Few things made some religious fundamentalists and social conservatives more leery than women going to the voting booth and choosing the candidates they thought best.


Those fearful men included some doctors and others in the health professions.  They were not above making up a condition to scare women out of riding--or to get the men in their lives to discourage or forbid them from getting on their bikes.


What was that malady those doctors concocted?  "Bicycle face".  Yes, you read that right.  "Over-exertion, the upright position on the wheel and the unconscious attempt to maintain one's balance tend to produce a weary and exhausted face,"  noted the Literary Digest in 1895.  




The article went on to describe the condition:  "usually flushed, but sometimes pale, often with lips more or less drawn, and the beginings of shadows under the eyes, and always with an expression of weariness".


Hmm...That describes a lot graduate students I've seen.


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16 June 2016

This Ride Includes A Currant Bun

Now here's a reason to go to Dublin this weekend:





Alice Coughlan of The Wonderland Theatre Company is leading a guided tour of the streets, pubs and historic buildings in which the stories of James Joyce's Dubliners are set.

The ride is one of the many events taking place from now through Sunday to commemorate Bloomsday.  If you've read Joyce--or some earlier posts on this blog--or simply paid attention to your English teachers or professors every once in a while (ha, ha), you know that his most iconic work, Ulysses, takes place on 16 June 1904.  

Now even if The Wonderland Theatre Company is absolutely wonderful (Somehow I wouldn't be surprised if they are!), I'm not sure that they could do a guided tour of everything recounted in Ulysses.  Actually, I'm not sure that anybody should try to depict anything in it:  It's somewhere in that space between dreams that are so real and reality that is so vivid, so intense, that it seems like a dream.  Also, although it's been called a novel, I think it's more like an epic which can no more be turned into a movie than Song of Myself can be.  

But doing a bicycle tour based on Dubliners isn't the "next best thing" or a "default choice."  I have long felt that the best tour guides (at least, the best I've experienced) are storytellers:  They provide lively, illuminating narratives of the place you are visiting.  Sometimes I can remember those stories even better than the physical details of the place!

And what better vehicle, if you will, for leading the reader/listener/audience through such a story than a bicycle?

Hey, I could be tempted to go on WTC's Bloomsbury ride just for this:   "Tickets include a currant bun with the boys of An Encounter at Dublin Port."  

Now, even though I've done a fair amount of riding in a skirt--sometimes with heels--I think it would be a challenge to ride in that green dress Ms. Coughlan (at least, I assume it's her) is wearing.  Even more of a challenge would be looking as good as she does in it!  

Fun Fact:  Given the stream-of-consciousness style of Ulysses, it's easy to believe that he picked the date on which it is set--16 June 1904--at random.  Which is a roundabout way of saying that it's what I thought, for a long time.  However, it is, in fact, the date on which he met Nora Barnacle, who would become his wife.

Another Fun Fact:  Darina Laracy Silone, the wife of Italian writer Ignazio Silone, asked Nora for her opinion of Andre Gide.  And she got it, all right. "When you've been married to the greatest writer in the world," Nora intoned, "you don't remember all the little fellows."

15 June 2016

In Front Of Me

I love when those who read weather forecasts (and call themselves "meteorologists" when they parrot meteorological prognostications) talk about "gusty breezes".  They've been using that phrase a lot lately.  To me, it's still in the same category as "military intelligence", "dietetic candy", "nuclear safety" and "true love".

Anyway, I heard it again in today's weather report.  There was indeed something blowing when I went out for a ride today.  Was it a wind or a breeze?  I don't know.  What I can say about it, though, was that I pedaled against it out to Rockaway Beach.  Then it blew to my left side as I pedaled out to Point Lookout, and to my right on my way back to Rockaway Beach.  Then I rode it home.

Even when I pedaled into it, the wind (or breeze) wasn't onerous.  If anything, the bright sun--which has grown strong as we near the summer solistice--had more of an effect on my melanin-deficient (as an old African-American riding partner once jokingly described me) skin.



Strong sun came with a clear sky.  It was the kind of day in which everything seemed to stretch in front of me as I rode.  For one thing, I rode the entire length of the new Rockaway Boardwalk, which opened for the first time a couple of weeks ago.  Actually, disconnected stretches of it have been open for the past couple of years.  Nearly all of it was destroyed in the wake of Superstorm Sandy; there was basically no boardwalk for most of 2013.

Still, I have a hard time calling it a "boardwalk", though I do like its sort-of-Op Art look.  Its surface is better for cycling, except for one thing:  Sand collects in patches of it.  If you're riding a mountain bike or cruiser, it's not a problem.  But if you're on a skinny-tired (even 700X28!) road bike, they might cause you to skid or stop altogehter.

It was nice to see it stretch in front of me, though--and, more important, ride it all the way to Lawrence and the bridge to Atlantic Beach.



All along the South Shore of Nassau County, the sea and sky seemed to extend everywhere, in every direction, from the windows of bars and restaurants in Long Beach, the bungalows of Lido Beach--and, of course, from Point Lookout.



A good ride was had by all.