Cruisin’

 Now here’s a beach cruiser:

They Didn't Take Only Bike Lights

 A year or so into the COVID-19 pandemic, some bicycle shops—including Harris Cyclery, Sheldon Brown’s “home” shop—closed for business. They were, ironically, casualties of the COVID-19 Bike Boom:  When their inventories sold out, no new merchandise was available because lockdowns disrupted supply chains.

Now a long-established bicycle shop may close due to a lack of inventory. Its situation, however, has nothing to do with the pandemic.

About two weeks ago, Najari Smith opened the doors of his shop, Rich City Rides, as he had every day for the past ten years.  However, that day’s shop opening would be unlike any other. 

He saw, “all the display cases emptied out.” Looking around, he noticed “all the inventory we had on the wall,” which included lights, locks and other accessories, “was gone.”

Now, his shop is far from the first to experience a burglary.  But losing about $10,000 worth of merchandise “hurts on a different level,” he explained, “because we’re not a big box store.” The impact is so great that Rich City Cycles will have to shut down “for the foreseeable future,” he declared.

Such a theft not only affects the livelihood of Smith. It also has a negative impact on a community. Smith has organized and led numerous rides.  Also, he has been in business long enough that “kids you meet at 15, they have their own kids now.”  In other words, he is a mentor and probably a friend to many in his community.

Moreover, the shop, like others, “represents a culture,” according to Contra Costa County Supervisor John Gioia, who represents the district. That culture is one of health, environment, working with young people and young adults,” he elaborated.

Such values are badly needed in Richmond, California the shop’s locale. The city, on the northeastern shore of San Francisco Bay, seems to have been untouched by the tech fortunes that have transformed San Francisco, Sm Jose and other community in the area. While Richmond includes suburban-style middle-class neighborhoods, it also has the notorious “Iron Triangle” and other areas afflicted by crime and poverty—and few options for healthy food and recreation.

Smith and his business partner hope to re-open their shop—and provide its tangible and intangible benefits it has provided the community.

Here is their GoFundMe page.

Pump Responsibly

 We all know that hydration is important.

Jank Components, however, is quick to point out that their new bracket is a “pump holder.”  They explain, “Instead of a tire pump, it holds a mood pump.

They advise, “Please enjoy responsibly.”

Down And Back

Today's post will answer a question that, most likely, you've never asked.

We've all seen someone ride a bicycle backwards.  At least, a bicycle as we know it, with two wheels of equal (or nearly-equal) size.

And we've all seen someone ride a bicycle down stairs. In fact, some of us (yes, I include myself) have done it.

But has anyone ever ridden a "penny farthing" (high-wheeler) backwards down a flight of stairs?

And, if they did, did they live to tell about it? 

What Color Is Your Lane?

What do Amsterdam and Austin have in common?

Well, they both begin with the same letter.  And they're capitals:  one of a nation, the other of a US State that was once, albeit briefly, a nation and sometimes acts as if it still is one.

Otherwise, I'd guess that they don't share much.  Then again, I haven't been to the Dutch city in a while, and I've never been to the center of the Lone Star State.

I have just learned, however, that they do share a trait that most people wouldn't notice, unless they were cyclists.  It has to do with bike lanes.

In New York, San Francisco and other American cities, they're painted green. That color was chosen because it stands out against the rest of the pavement and isn't easily confused with, say, a parking or bus lane. While it's great for visibility, it makes a bike lane more expensive to build and maintain because it's a coat of paint over asphalt, which wears away even when it's covered with a clear sealant.  Also, the particular shade of green used on bike lanes is more expensive to make than other colors.  

And there is another problem: Depending on the paint used, the surface can become slippery in wet weather. That might be one reason why Amsterdam doesn't paint its lanes green--or any other color.  Instead, a red  pigment is mixed with asphalt to yield a rather lovely terra cota hue.

Photo from the City of Austin

I don't know whether Austin's planners were looking to their Dutch counterparts when they designed their city's bike lanes.  They did, however, adopt the same system--and color--for the bicycle byways.  One reason is the aforementioned cost.  But just as rain wears paint away, so does heat--which, from what I understand, Austin experiences for months on end. 

While the terra cota shade is not the kind of red used to denote Texas politics, it's still rather ironic that the color is used on bike lanes in one of the state's "blue" islands. 

A Big Dipper Under Wrap

The Tumbleweed Bicycle Company has just introduced its Big Dipper drop handlebars.

They may well be the most comfortable long-distance bars ever created, and I just may try them.

Of course, with any new drop bar, there's the question of what kind of tape--and which color--you'll use to wrap it.  Most of the time, I use cotton cloth tape, which is available in a variety of hues.  "Basic black" is usually the safe choice, as it doesn't show dirt or clash with most bikes.  Some people like to match their saddles, if that's possible.  

Or, you could be adventurous

Photo by Ron Frazelle

and make your handlebars look like a piece of '60's Op Art. 

Where Were You When You Broke The Law?

 I broke a law.

Well, it may not have been a law where I committed the evil deed.  But a man did the same thing in another locale and was arrested.

To be fair, there was a warrant for his capture.  And the violation was just one charged to him when he was apprehended.

The cops who effected the bust were based in barracks in a town with one of the most quirkily beautiful toponyms I’ve heard:  Shickshinny, Pennsylvania. Imagine answering the query, “Where are you from?” with that.

Anyway, the benighted soul they ensnared, 51-year-old David Thomas Totten of Wilkes-Barre, was riding a bicycle eastbound in the westbound traffic lane of West End Road in Hanover Township.  It was just after midnight on 4 September 2023 and Totten didn’t have any lights on his bike.

Now, some officers might ignore such breaches of bicycle safety protocols. And unless the officers on duty had been involved with whatever led to Totten’s warrant—or there’s some tagging technology we don’t know about—they couldn’t have known about that warrant . So the question remains of what prompted the ones on duty to stop Totten and conduct a search that yielded a cigarette pack hiding suspected methamphetamine and a syringe.

Now, I’ve never smoked, owned or used a syringe or anything that could be construed as methamphetamine  or had warrant for my arrest (that I know of!). I’ll concede that I’ve ridden in the dark without lights or reflectors, though not within the past few decades. So what, exactly have both Mr. Totten and I done that resulted in an arrest for him, but not me.

He was carrying a table when he was stopped. I’ve done it, too, on more than one occasion. I’ve also carried chairs and bookcases—and a framed art pieces, including one that measured at least 2 feet by 3 feet (61 by 91 cm.).

The latter was a delivery I made, as a Manhattan bike messenger, from a Soho gallery to Judy Collins (yes, that one) on the Upper Wear Side. I made similar runs with oversized objets d’art and home furnishings in the steel and concrete canyons. I also hauled them as part of a move from one neighborhoods to another.

Of course, the prints, tables and such didn’t fit into my messenger bag, backpack, panniers or whatever I was using to haul stuff on my bike.  So, of course, I had to carry the item in one hand and navigate the bike with the other.

Such practices, it turns out, are transgressions against Chapter 35, Subchapter A, Section 3506 of the Pennsylvania vehicle code:

“ No person operating a pedal cycle shall carry any package, bundle, or article which prevents the driver from keeping at least one hand upon the handlebars.”

I guess it’s a good thing I was in New York and New Jersey when I committed my foul deeds—unless, of course, the Empire and Garden States have statutes like the one in the Keystone State.  Then again, if said laws exist, I would guess that the statute of limitations has run out. (Is that one of the benefits of getting older?)

Reflection

 One way this blog has changed in its 13+ years is that I post fewer photos of myself.  At least, that’s my impression.

So, I am sharing an image I captured during a recent ride in Brooklyn:

On Ice

 Last week, we in New York City got our first measurable snow in nearly two years. A couple of lighter snowfalls followed and the temperature didn’t reach the freezing point for almost a week.

During that time, snow fell, it seems, over every part of the United States not named Florida or Hawai’i. Cyclists, wheelchair users and pedestrians thus had the complaint I am about to mention.

While the Department of Sanitation quickly cleared streets and most property owners promptly shoveled and salted their sidewalks and other common areas, bike lanes and even the rightmost part of traffic lane were patchy or sheets of ice. I didn’t take any long rides—just commutes and errand runs. But at times, those rides seemed like expeditions. I actually got off my bike and walked one stretch of the Williamsburg Bridge when it’s lane was impassable. And I resorted to riding on sidewalks—something I all but never do—for stretches of half a block or so.

I didn’t take any photos. But the folks at Bike Portland documented a similar situation in their city.

Late Day Ride In January

 I sometimes take an early morning or late afternoon ride down through Sunnyside and Maspeth and cross the Kosciusko Bridge into Greenpoint and Williamsburg.

The entrance to the bridge flanks a cemetery and offers one of the more foreboding views of the skyline, especially in winter.

You Talkin’ About Me?!

 Remember..this blog is about Midlife Cycling…whatever my age!

What Won’t Get Them To Ride

 In my childhood and adolescence, I imagined England as a quintessential cycling country.  After all, those Raleigh, Dunelt, Philips and Dawes three-speed bikes—“English Racers”—took people between homes, farms, factories and schools. At least, that was the image of the country we got from movies and magazines.  And those “English Racers” seemed, on the eve of the ‘70’s Bike Boom, as exotic as the latest Tour de France or World Championship track bike looks today—never mind that three-speeds bore as much relation to those bikes as a hay wagon to a Formula 1 car.

In other words, to neophyte cyclists like me who had never been more than a state or two—let alone an ocean—away from home, Albion seemed like today’s Amsterdam or Copenhagen.

Of course, my first trip there—the first part of my first European bike tour, in 1980–would change that image for me.  To be sure, I saw more people riding for transportation and recreation than I encountered in New Jersey, where I had just graduated from Rutgers College.  But people, while helpful, wondered why an American would come to their country—to ride a bicycle.

Perhaps that experience, and subsequent visits, make something I read more plausible: According to a newly-released government survey, 7 out of 10 Britons never ride a bicycle.

Perhaps even less surprising are the reasons why people don’t ride and what might persuade them to get on the saddle.  They’re less surprising, at least to me, because they’re the same reasons I hear in my home city and nation of New York and the United States.

The chief reason why people on both sides of the pond won’t ride, they say, is that they wouldn’t feel safe. Where perceptions might diverge a bit is in what might make them safer.  While a majority New Yorkers and Americans say bike lanes might entice them, only 29 percent of English respondents cited them. On the other hand, the two most common improvements—safer roads and better road surfaces—were cited by 61 and 51 percent, respectively, of English people.

What accounts for their perceptions? I think it might be that even if the vast majority of English people don’t ride bicycles, many still have memories of parents, grandparents or other adults pedaling to the shop or classroom on the same roads used by motorists. In other words, they didn’t see cyclists segregated from traffic. 

Few Americans have such memories. Moreover, they grew up inculcated with the idea that bicycles were for kids who weren’t old enough to drive. 

So, the British survey is interesting in that it shows a common perception—cycling isn’t safe—but a difference in the perception of what could make it safer and therefore more appealing.

He Didn’t Know He’d Made History

 Today I am invoking, once again, my Howard Cosell Rule:  This post won’t be about bicycles or bicycling.

Almost any someone breaks a barrier—whether it’s based on race, gender, social class or some other trait—that person is referred to as the “Jackie Robinson” of their field. In fact, I had that title bestowed on me when I was the first person to “change” gender in my workplace.

I took that both as a compliment and a warning: I think some were trying to alert me to what I might (and indeed did) face.  On the other hand, I felt honored to be compared to someone I so respect as a human being as well as an athlete.

That respect and admiration is not abstract or idolatory:  I actually met the man when I was very young and—as I could not have known—he was a few years away from the end of his too-brief life.  Years later, I met his widow Rachel, a beautiful and formidable woman.

The man I am about to mention also, when he was very young, met Jackie. At that time, Robinson was in the prime of his baseball career.  And the subject of the rest of this post would embark on his own athletic career, in a league where no one like him played before.

Sixty-six years ago yesterday—18 January 1958–Willie O’Ree’s skate blades glided across the ice in the Montréal Forum.  The hometown fans cheered him and the following day, the city’s sportswriters—lauded his fast, smooth skating.

That Montréal scribes could pay homage to the abilities of á forward who didn’t skate for the hometown Canadiens (Les Habitants) wasn’t unusual, Their praise, however, was particularly interesting given that O’Ree wore the sweater (they’re not called jerseys in hockey) of the Boston Bruins, whose rivalry with the Canadiens is as intense as the enmity between the Red Sox and Yankees.

Oh, and he just happened to be the first Black player in the history of the National Hockey League. That night, Willie was trying to prove himself and win a permanent roster spot in the sport’s top league.  “I did not realize I had made history,” he recalled.

Somehow it seems fitting that he is a descendent of slaves who escaped from the United States into Canada via the Underground Railroad. His family was one of two in Fredericton, the capital of the Canadian province of New Brunswick. Like many of his peers, he grew up as a fan of the Canadiens.

His NHL career was brief, but he played professional hockey—and won scoring titles—well into his 40s. I can’t help but to think that as supportive as his teammates and the league’s fans—in Boston, Montréal and Toronto, anyway—were, racism, conscious or not, on the part of management hindered his development. After all, he had enough natural ability for Montréal sportswriters and fans to notice. But he needed to stay in the NHL longer than he did—parts of two seasons—to refine his skills in the way only nightly competition with and against the best players in the world could have. That is what Jackie Robinson was able to do during his decade with the Dodgers.

Who Would Take A Bike Away From A Kid?

What kind of person would steal a kid’s lunch money?

Probably the same kind of person who would take a bike from a kid who just got it—on the day before Christmas Eve, no less.

That is what happened to not just one child inside Fowler High School in Syracuse, New York.  There, the Central New York Bike Giveaway—one of the largest of its kind—put 1500 bikes into the hands of kids who wouldn’t have otherwise had them. But some people, apparently frustrated by waiting on a long line outside the school, snatched bikes away from the youngsters as they left.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=_OyxKvugOyE&si=-_sNo7V6EVQrUTBX

“This is really a sad situation,” said Jan Maloff, who said “this has never happened before” during the 30 years he’s held the event. 

Still, he declared the event a success and sent his volunteers back to where he had “another 200 to 300 bikes prepped” when the bikes ran out.

He plans to continue the event for next Christmas but “will probably bring in á private security force” in addition to Syracuse police so that “something like this does not happen again.”

After all, who can be happier than a kid getting a bike for Christmas—or sadder than a kid who’s had it snatched away from them?

This Munster Was Not A Monster

My childhood included TV shows with premises that, even to my jejune sensibilities, seemed wildly improbable or just plain stupid.  I mean, who gets shipwrecked on a deserted island during a three-hour tour?*

You have to admit, though, that some of the characters and the actors who played them were fun,even lovable.  They included Grandpa Munster, portrayed by future Green Party gubernatorial candidate (in New York) Al Lewis.

I mean, how can you not love a guy who wears his normal work clothes while riding a bike?

No Lycra for him!

*—There was a show about a recently-departed woman who’s reincarnated as an antique car her son buys. She talks to him, and only him, through the car’s radio. One of my uncles told me, years later, that I squealed, “A grown-up thought of this?” during the one episode we watched.

701 Days!

 701 days!

That’s how long had passed since our last “measurable” snowfall.

I used quotation marks because “measurable” is the term used by weather forecasters. I’m not denying its appropriateness. Rather, I am wondering how else they could have described whatever snow we’ve had:  I think many people didn’t even know that any had fallen.  For that matter, I can’t remember the last real (I know that’s even more vague than “measurable!”) snow we’ve had.

Would He Have Been One Of Us?

If Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. were with us, he would be 95 years old today.

Although I believe he would be on the right side of just about any cause you can think of, I try not to speculate too much because, well, we can’t know for sure.  For example, many in the LGBTQ community, and our allies, have made him into one of our would-be advocates. I think he would have spoken up for us, but he would have joined with us slowly and carefully, as he did when he voiced his opposition to the Vietnam War.  He was, after all, a pastor in a church that included many socially conservative congregants and clerics. Even many of his more secular political allies saw homosexuality, let alone any sort of gender variance as a pathology or even a form of criminality.

I have little doubt, however, that he would have endorsed, or at least approved of, bicycling for transportation as well as recreation. After all, he was known to ride—and he looked happy on his bike. But more important, I believe, was his growing awareness that he was working for economic justice. (This is a reason why some believe that he might have joined forces with Malcolm X had they not been assassinated.) 

He probably would have seen the bicycle as a vehicle, if you will, for achieving those goals. Not only are bicycles relatively inexpensive and accessible, they help to reduce the environmental ills that disproportionately affect people of color and with low incomes. Also, cycling, like other forms of exercise, helps to combat diseases that—wait for it—also afflict the poor and people of color.

Hmm…Perhaps Transportation Alternatives and other cycling-related organizations should have a portrait of Martin hanging in their headquarters.

What Are You Looking At?

 I written about bicycles in the military.  Turns out, they’ve been very useful in, among other things, reconnaissance missions.

That got me to wondering whether spies have used bikes in their work.

Turns out (I know, I used that phrase already!), the great minds think alike.  Or, at least, I think like my people: Apparently, someone in Italy had the same idea!

It was in Tyrol, which some other Italians argue isn’t really Italy: sono tedeschi.  So I’ll go with “great minds!”

Before, After Or Between Storms?

 Have you ever quipped, “I’ll pedal between the raindrops?”

Some of us gave that response when asked whether we’ll ride in the rain.  I will, to a point:  I won’t set out if it’s cold and raining or if I can’t see more than a couple of bicycle lengths ahead of me because the rain is falling so hard or it’s getting blown sideways.

This week, I haven’t been pedaling between raindrops.  Since taking a ride to Point Lookout on Monday I have, however been riding between storms.  In four days, we’ve had three incidents of flooding rains. The first, on Tuesday, began with a combination of rain, sleet and snow that didn’t accumulate.

So when I rode Negrosa, my vintage Mercian Olympic, to Coney Island

I wasn’t sure of whether this was the end of a storm—or the calm before a storm or between storms.

Turns out, it was the latter:  We had two more inches (5cm) of rain last night.

It’s Ours, Too

 Once, a driver’s tirade against me included the rant, “I pay road taxes!”

As calmly as I could, I responded, “Well, I do too.” I then pointed out that the only tax he pays, and I don’t, is on gasoline.

Had I been a different sort of person, this might’ve been my response:

Leaving The Opposition In A Cloud Of Dust, Not Smoke

 Today’s post won’t relate directly to bicycles or cycling. I am, however, confident that many of you will find it relevant and interesting.

I can recall when a yellow fog filled coffee shops, department stores, subway station corridors and other public venues. Of course, almost none of us noticed it until it was gone.  

The first step in clearing shared air came exactly sixty years ago today.  Dr. Luther Terry made an announcement to a roomful of reporters: A longtime, wide-ranging study led him to conclude that smoking cigarettes causes cancer.

It may well have been the single most important announcement ever made by a U.S. Surgeon General. Smoking cigarettes was considered normal, even healthy, for adults. (Although I have never smoked, I gave cartons of Kools, Camels, Marlboros, Pall Malls and Viceroys as gifts for Christmas, birthdays and other occasions.) The tobacco industry was therefore much bigger than it is now, which is why Dr. Terry—himself a longtime smoker—made the announcement on a Saturday :  officials wanted to minimize the report’s effects on the stock market.

(On a related note, tobacco played a significant role in colonialism.)

Of course, Americans didn’t collectively drop their cigarettes once the report became public. But over a period of years, puffing, whether in a public or private, was pushed to the margins.  A year after the report came out, warnings were printed on cigarette packs; five years after that, television and radio ads for cigarettes were banned. During that time and afterward, entities from government agencies to real estate offices prohibited smoking on their premises.  Countless private citizens did so in their living spaces; cities forbade it in and around apartment buildings.

I’ve already mentioned one result—the disappearance of the yellow haze in public spaces—of the report and ensuing bans.  Another occurs to me now:  I rarely see an ashtray in anyone’s home, and never see them in public spaces. Also, it’s been a while since anyone asked me,”Mind if I smoke?”

For those of you who prefer empirical data to anecdotes, there’s this:  In 1965,  the year the Surgeon General’s warning began to appear on cigarette packs, nearly 42 percent of Americans aged 18 and older smoked; by 2018, that proportion had fallen by two-thirds, to just under 14 percent. (It climbed slightly during the pandemic.)

It’s estimated that the report and its effects have saved 8 million lives: nearly the population of my hometown of New York City.  Perhaps equally significant, that report precipitated a cultural change in which smoking is not as sociallly acceptable, let alone fashionable, as it once was.  And the anti-smoking campaign has spread throughout the industrialized world:  Even in France, where the image of a soigné sophisticate included a Gauloise or Gitane clasped with thumb and forefinger, cigarette packets bear the same stark warnings seen in other countries. And, during my most recent visit a year ago, I saw considerably less smoking—and clearer air in cafes and bistros—than I saw during earlier sojourns.

Oh, and I can’t recall the last time I saw a cyclist like an old riding buddy of mine who stopped at the bottom of any hill or ramp and lit up before starting his climb. And I don’t think a scene like this will ever be repeated during a race:

Riding The Buffalo

 Bicycle enthusiasts—whether we sprint to finish lines, cross cities or continents or simply appreciate technology and fine workmanship—are ripples in the ocean of the bicycle world.

That fact is easy to miss or ignore if you live in a Western/Global North city with bike lanes and well-stocked shops, or if you do all of your bike-related shopping online. It didn’t become real to me until I went for a ride in the Cambodian countryside with a native and both of us rode bikes like the ones people in the area ride.

People who haul their stuff and themselves—I’m not talking about someone in Williamsburg or Portland picking up artisanal bread at the local farmers’ market—don’t ride the latest high-tech carbon fiber wheels and frames with 12- (13?)-speed electronic shifting systems. For one thing, they can’t afford such things.  For another, in the Global South—especially in rural areas—there isn’t a shop stocked with the necessary parts, equipped with the required tools and staffed by mechanics trained to use them—or any bike shop at all. And two- or three-day shipping isn’t available in those areas, even if the shop or an individual has internet access and can order.

Moreover, roads tend to be less developed and maintained, if they exist at all. A laden bike might be ridden on a trail or even on parched or sodden earth.

Bikes lead hard lives under such conditions.  Therefore, reliability and simplicity are the paramount qualities.

World Bicycle Relief—an organization I’ve mentioned in previous posts—understands as much.  In response, they’ve developed the Buffalo Bike, consisting of a rugged steel frame and a coaster brake.

In addition, WBR has trained over 3000 mechanics to keep those bikes rolling, mainly in Africa and South America.  Trek has partnered with WBR to ensure distribution and repair of those bikes.

According to WBR, it takes $165 to provide one of those bikes and keep it rolling.  That is less than what most department store bikes sell for in North America or Europe, and Buffalo Bikes are sturdier and require less maintenance.

How Do They Ride?

 The ride of some bikes has been described as “squirrels.” What riders mean is that the bike seems to wiggle, squirm or furtively jump, usually at high speeds (especially downhill) or when the rider pulls on the handlebars or stands up on the bike.

That got me to wondering:  Do squirrels ever describe anything as bike-y?

Crossing The Line Into A Collision

Once again, Florida leads the nation in bicycle deaths and injuries, overall and per capita.  And it's not even close:  the next-worst state--Louisiana--has about half of Florida's numbers and rates.

Having cycled in the Sunshine State, I could see why there the body count is so high.  Many thoroughfares are "stroads:"  multi-lane streets, avenues or boulevards that cut a straight line from Point A to Point B.  Such an arrangement seems to bring out the inner Dale Earnhardt in drivers. Also, those "stroads" are not only the most direct routes from one place to another:  They're often the only routes.  Worse yet, they often don't have "service" or emergency lanes or even sidewalks, let alone bike lanes.

The arrangements I've described can be especially difficult to acclimate to if you come from a place that isn't as auto- and driver-centric as Florida.   Just as my teachers and professors didn't teach me about female, queer or Black writers because they weren't taught them themselves, I think many drivers have the idea that the road belongs to them and nothing should be in their way because, well, they were inculcated with such a notion at a young age--and it was reinforced by road an highway engineering that prioritized moving motor vehicles as quickly and efficiently as possible from one point to another.

The conditions I've described had at least something to do with one of the more horrific car-bike crashes I've heard  of. Fortunately, it didn't add to Florida's death toll, though at least one of the cyclists involved has "incapacitating" injuries.

Notice that I said "at least."  The driver involved in this confrontation was piloting her Kia SUV south in the southbound lane of North Ocean Boulevard Gulf Stream, a Palm Beach County community.  A group of eight cyclists was riding northbound, in the northbound lane.

For some as-yet-unexplained reason, the 77-year-old driver crossed the center line dividing the two lanes.  The front of her vehicle met--with great force--the front of a 43-year-old cyclist and struck the others who were riding with him.

Perhaps not surprisingly, he's the one with the "incapacitating" injury.  Three other cyclsts had "serious" injuries; they, the others and the driver were brought to the hospital's trauma unit. 

I hope everyone--yes, including the driver--recovers and she explains, or someone figures out, why she veered across that road.  And I hope--though, I realize, this is a very long hope, especially with Ron De Santis in the governor's mansion--that Florida makes itself safer for cyclists, many of whom are tourists or, like me, were visiting family members.

On The Wire

The bicycle has been called the "grandparent of the airplane."

OK, the original phrase is "grandfather of the airplane."  But in this day and age, no one--especially I--can be sexist.

Anyway, the saying most likely came about because some of the bicycle's technological innovations--including pneumatic tires--made aircraft possible.  Also, many of aviation's early pioneers--including the Wright Brothers themselves--started out as bicycle mechanics, designers, racers or manufacturers.

Perhaps that was the reason why, I believe, the subconscious of the cycling world, as it were, has always harbored the dream of a flying bicycle--which has been done--and of riding a bicycle through the air.

About the latter:  If you go to Arizona Science Center, you can do just that.  But you won't be suspended in the ether.  Rather, if you dare, you can ride a bicycle on a wire suspended across a 15-foot span.

Since it's in the Science Center, you don't run any risk of landing on cactus if you fall.  Still, even if you are a novice, falling could be a blow to your psyche, if not your body.  I imagine, however, that even an experienced cyclist (like yours truly) would feel a sense of pride over completing such a ride, however brief it may be.

After that, the only thing better might be cycling in a pink cloud.

 

Can You Beat These Guys?

How fast can you change a flat?

What I Woke For

 People in Miami are as unaccustomed to snow as Harpo Marx was to public speaking.

Likewise, most New Yorkers aren’t used to earthquakes.  In a way, ground-shakes are even stranger for us: When white flakes fluttered down to the sands and palm trees of the Sunshine State, folks knew what they were looking at.  On the other hand, most people here in the Big Apple thought the rumbles came from a truck or subway train. Or, like me, they slept through it—even though the epicenter was just a few blocks from my apartment.

I am sure that countless Californians have slept through much stronger shocks. Still, it’s hard not to wonder whether an earthquake—in a city that experiences them about as often as the Jets or the Knicks win championships—on the second morning of the new year is a harbinger of what awaits us.

What finally woke me up? The helicopters that circled over the neighborhood.  Marlee ducked behind the couch. I knew I wouldn’t get back to sleep. So I got dressed, hopped on Tosca—my Mercian fixie—and pedaled into this:

I hope that’s more of a foretelling of the year to come.

After pedaling out to Flushing Meadow-Corona Park, I stopped at Lots ‘O’ Bagels for two whole wheat bagels. In my apartment, I enjoyed them with some English Blue Stilton cheese. Some might say that no true New Yorker would eat a bagel that way but I like the way EBC’s creamy texture complements both the cheese’s pungency and the bagel’s chewiness. I can, however, still claim to be a true New Yorker because I’m not accustomed to earthquakes but got through one, however minor it was. And I started my day with a bike ride. 

A New Year’s Eve Voyage

 The other day—New Year’s Eve—I took yet another ride to Point Lookout. I don’t know whether I was burning residual calories from Christmas week or waging a pre-emotive strike against the evening’s indulgences.

Whatever it was, I got what might have been the best treat of all, at least to my eyes. 

That softly glowing band between the sea and sky made the ship—and the few people I saw on the boardwalks of the Rockaways and Long Beach—seem solitary but not isolated, alone but not lonely. That, of course, is how I felt while riding Dee-Lilah, my Mercian Vincitore Special, under a sky that was muted gray but not gloomy .

Some of us need that light, and to move in or occupy it like that ship, because this season encourages, and sometimes forces, extroversion, camaraderie and bright lights. Some of  need times of solitude, and solo bike rides, to navigate, let alone enjoy, holiday gatherings of any size.

For The New Year

 Happy New Year!

I couldn’t resist posting this image from Cicloposse because, well, I like it.  

The image was used to herald 2021 which, nearly everyone hoped, would be much better than 2020. Or at least people hoped—or even assumed—that it couldn’t be worse.

I hold onto similar hope for 2024. Some have said that it might include this nation’s last democratic (with a small “d”) election, especially if you-know-who is elected. But many people who took up cycling during the pandemic have kept with it and there does seem to be some awareness, at least among some officials, that urban and transportation planning can’t begin and end with moving as many motor vehicles as possible from point A to point B, as it has since at least the building of the Interstate highway system. 

I hope that the increased consciousness and good work I’ve described isn’t undone by energy and economic policies that include only fossil fuel-powered vehicles and deems nuclear power and natural gas to be the only “green” alternatives. I mean, if President Ronald Reagan could declare, with a straight face, that “trees cause pollution,” what could a Trump administration say about any kind of alternative transportation?

Even as I think about such possibilities, I still hold on to hope. A new year has begun, after all, and it looks like a good day for a ride.

What wishes do you have, dear readers, for the New Year?