What Next?

 The semester is ending. Although my workload hasn’t been greater than in previous years, this has been a pretty intense time. Some of that has to do with the students themselves, though not entirely in a bad way. But I have also been experiencing things outside the classroom—or, more precisely, within me—that have made my interactions seem more fraught and rewarding at the same time. 

The ride I took to Point Lookout on Saturday and a Sunday visit to the Botanical Garden were what I needed: both invigorating and restorative. I will return to them again, barring some unforeseeable (for me, anyway) tragedy or disaster. Monday, on the other hand, included the last session of one of my classes. Students thanked me as I’ve never heard before. One stayed after to tell me that, for the first time, they felt confident about their future.

You may have noticed that I used gender-neutral pronouns. The student identifies themself in that way. I “outed” myself in that class: something I hadn’t done in any class in some time. “That made me realize the life I want is possible,” they explained. I urged that student, and another who identifies as non-binary, to stay in touch with me, and not only for a reference or letter of recommendation.

I told them a bit about how I began my gender affirmation process. Although I participated in support groups and was working with a therapist who helped other trans people through their affirmation processes and a clinical social worker who was a trans man, I didn’t have role models in my day-to-day life.  Some lesbians and gay men were supportive, but their journeys were, in some ways, very different from mine. For them, not to mention family members, friends, co-workers and other people in my life, I was the first person they knew who was making that “transition.” Now I am giving what I didn’t have.

I confided to them that I’ve been thinking about leaving the US. Sometimes I feel I need it for my mental health. Other times I feel I should stay because of people like them. “Well, whether you stay or go, you’ll offer the same thing you’re giving us,” one student assured me. “If you move to France or Italy or wherever, there are young people like us.”

Where, and how, will my midlife journey continue? Perhaps there is no right or wrong answer—as there is for so many of the questions I, and they, pose.

When Your Cup (Or Bladder) Runneth Over

 What determines what your ride will be like?

Is it the weather? The kind of bike you ride? Its condition? Or, maybe, what you had for breakfast?

Did you drink tea or coffee? If you did, did you have o e cup too many?

Pure Spring

Perhaps I should have taken this day more seriously.

After all, on this date exactly 140 years ago, more than 300,000 workers in the US—50,000 in Chicago alone—went on strike for an eight-hour workday. The walkout in the Windy City led to the Haymarket Riot.

In other countries, this date—May Day—is observed, formally or informally, as Labor Day was in the US before it became an occasion for “last chance” summer parties and sales on stuff nobody needs.

Today, though, it was easy to forget how solemn this day could be. The sky was bright, the air clear (for NYC anyway) and brisk and the colors bold. It wasn’t like days in late March or early April that carry memories of a brutal, seemingly endless Winter that one has somehow survived, nor did it mirror or echo hints of Summer heat. It was Pure Spring.

So what did I do? I took Tosca, my Mercian fixed gear bike, for a spin among blossoming magnolias and beds of red, white, yellow and violet tulips on Randall’s Island.

And when I got home, I turned on music. Tchaikovsky’s “Rites of Spring?” Not quite. The Beatles’ “Here Comes The Sun?” Not even. Rather, I clicked onto a YouTube video of pure bubble gum:  The Monkees’ “I’m A Believer.” 

It may not be deep, but it expresses a moment when someone loses his cynicism—in this case, about finding love. Perhaps I chose it because the first time I can recall hearing it was on a day like this: Shadows of the past (of which, to be fair, I was too young to have very much of) did not cling to it; if a darker future lay ahead, I had no hint of it.

It was the first Pure Spring day I can remember. Others followed; perhaps more will come. I can only follow the journey, I can only ride through and with it.

What Are The Chances?

 People have claimed to see their entire lives flash before their eyes.  I am glad not to have had  (I think) such an experience. But during the past week and a half or so, I feel as if I’ve seen parts of my past unfolding in slow motion.

I believe it began when I had the dream about a high-school classmate I hadn’t seen since graduation and hadn’t thought about for almost as long.  I Googled her name and found it on the “In Memoriam” list of my high school reunion webpage. 

Since then, I have encountered three people I hadn’t seen, collectively, for about 50 years. One of those meetings was planned, with a former colleague and, I realized, friend . The other  two I met during bike rides because I deviated from my originally-planned routes. 

 One gave me a temporary job during Citibike’s first year, when riders and the program’s coordinators and mechanics were discovering the bikes’ “bugs.” I fixed some of them (for good, I hope).  Now she’s running the “bike library” in Shirley Chisholm State Park, where my ride took me when I decided to turn left from 84th Street in Howard Beach onto the Shore Parkway Greenway instead of going straight ahead to the Rockaways. 

The other chance encounter happened when I crossed 167th Street at Bryant Avenue. I was about to turn right so I could access the path that runs through Concrete Plant Park. Instead,I pedaled straight through the intersection toward the Bruckner Bike Lane. “Pro-fessor Jus-time!” A student I had about a dozen years ago but with whom I’d been in touch only on Facebook since then ran up to me. Turns out, she’s running a youth program in the neighborhood.  

Some might say there was a reason for all of those meetings and that dream. Perhaps they will be part of a journey—or ride.

Don’t Stop!

 If you ride, or have ridden, a fixed-gear bike with no brakes, this video might remind you of your first, or only, attempt.

When Cycling (and Pedestrian) Safety Is Social Justice

 Yesterday I crossed the Rubicon.  All right, it was a Boulevard of Death.

Several New York City thoroughfare have earned that moniker over the years. I regularly crossed two of them—Queens and Northern Boulevards—when I lived in Astoria.  The, like the one I traversed yesterday, are what transportation planners call “stroads.” While classified as city streets because of their urban settings, they have four or more long, straight lanes with long stretches between traffic signals. This setup encourages motorists to drive well over the speed limit.

“Stroads” often  include merges with, and on- and-off-ramps for, major highways. They usually pass through commercial areas, which provide constant streams of cars pulling in and out of traffic. The stroad I crossed yesterday, however, cuts through residential areas.

Those residential areas include what have been, for decades, two of New York City’s poorest neighborhoods. In addition to the other difficulties of growing up and loving in poverty, residents have some of the worst health in the city and nation:  Heavy traffic contributes to high rates of asthma and other respiratory illnesses and its un-walkability and lack of green spaces means that people don’t exercise much. (There also isn’t a gym, which most residents couldn’t afford anyway,) And because there aren’t supermarkets or even bodegas along the way, fresh fruits and vegetables, and other healthy foods, are difficult to come by.

And, in contrast with Queens Boulevard, under which a city subway line runs, and Northern, which includes stops for other lines and the Long Island Rail Road (yes, they spell it as two words), the “stroad” I’m talking about is miles from any train station. Local buses run along parts of it and on some streets that cross it, but it’s difficult to piece together a route from where people live to where they work, go to school or shop, let alone visit family and friends in other areas.

Oh, and many people who live along and near Linden share a trait shared by others, rich and poor, in the Big Apple:  they don’t have cars, or even access to them. Thus, they are not the ones contributing to the nightmarish traffic situation.

The “stroad” in question is Linden Boulevard. It begins in Brooklyn, at Flatbush Avenue, and runs south and east for 20 kilometers (with an interruption at Aqueduct Race Track) to the Queens-Nassau County border, passing near JFK International Airport along the way. .In Brooklyn, Linden cuts through Brownsville and East New York, home to the greatest concentrations of public housing and percentages of residents—including children—living in poverty. Many of those kids must cross eight lanes of traffic—on some stretches, with no pedestrian islands or other barriers in the middle—to get to their often-overcrowded and under- funded schools. Some, and some adults going to work or to catch the bus, didn’t make it.

Linden Boulevard, like otner “stroads,” cries out for, in addition to pedestrian islands, dedicated bus and bike lanes and other improvements to mass transit and safety for anyone who is getting around without a car. Our new mayor, Zohran Mamdani, has announced plans for a redesign of the most dangerous stretch of Linden, which includes the intersection I crossed during yesterday’s ride.  While nothing is mentioned about bike lanes, the other improvements I mentioned, including more points where pedestrians can cross, should at least help to cut down on the reckless driving that plagues it.

Redesigning “stroads” like Linden Boulevard, therefore, isn’t just a matter of convenience: It’s imperative for safety—and social justice.

The Baby Christian Jesus President

 Today I am not going to write about cycling or midlife.  But I somehow believe that what I am about to say is a midlife reflection of the sort I might have during a ride.

I was brought up Catholic. Later I became an Evangelical Christian. I explored other religions.  Though I can feel some affinity, and great respect, for Buddhism (mainly because I don’t see it so much as a religion, at least as I understand it, as a way of being centered on learning and teaching), I identify as an agnostic non-theist.  That is to say, I don’t believe in a “higher being” but, because no one has been able to prove, or disprove, the existence of such a being, I cannot dismiss the possibility of its existence.

So why am I mentioning what I do or don’t believe? Well, reading Bruce Gerenscer’s post today got me to thinking about how Evangelical Christians (like the one I was) and conservative Catholics give their full-throated support to Donald Trump.  And the more un-Christian (at least as I understand the faith) his behavior, the louder and sometimes more belligerently they defend him.

What really got me thinking about this phenomenon, however, was a particular point Bruce made. Six decades ago, many people—some not even particularly religious—took umbrage at John Lennon exclaiming “We’re more popular than Jesus.” Actually, the outrage was, and continues to be, over how the tabloids misrepresented, and the public mis-remembers, what he said: that the Beatles were “bigger” than Jesus.

Even if John, normally the most articulate Beatle, could have said it differently, his point was valid:  His group and rock’n’roll music generally had more influence on young people than Christianity or any other religion. I think church leaders, and many everyday believers, were more worried that they were losing their authority than over a band’s or a musical genre’s popularity.

I was a young child at the time, and I recall that many kids weren’t allowed to have Beatles’ records or albums, or even to listen to their music on the radio.  I wasn’t subject to such a ban, mainly because my parent’s didn’t listen to the Beatles or other British Invasion bands: Their tastes ran more toward Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons and Concetta Franconero, a.k.a. Connie Francis. (I think every Italian-American family in my milieu had a similar playlist!) 

Anyway, in contrast to the anger, some from not-particularly-religious people, at Lennon, Evangelical and Fundamentalist Christians, and conservative Catholics, raised barely a peep—some even applauded—when an AI-generated image of the Fake Tan Führer as a Christ-like healer spread across the web and airwaves. And when he excoriated the Pope for denouncing the war (let’s call it what it is) against Iran and being “soft on crime” (last I checked, the Vatican had the lowest crime—at least as it’s defined by law enforcement and investigative agencies—rate of any country). If anything, they justify “Baby Christian” Trump’s belligerent words and deeds by admonishing his critics not to “judge, lest ye be judged.” Perhaps that’s also their rationale for not calling out J.D. Vance—a recent convert to Catholicism—when he told the Pope to “be careful” about speaking of matters of theology.

Perhaps the most ironic aspect of the events I’ve just described is that the most pointed critiques of Trump’s and Vance’s blasphemies have come from people who aren’t religious: secular Christians and Jews, even atheists and non-affiliated believers.  I must admit that I, too, feel even more ire at folks like Trump and Vance hijacking religious beliefs and iconography, and attacking religious leaders, than I might have were I still a believer. Why? Well, as I said earlier, even though I don’t believe, I still have respect for those who actually do and, more importantly, use it as a moral foundation for their lives rather than as a cloak over their calumny. After all, I can no more prove that their God doesn’t exist than they can prove he/she/they/it does. They have a right to believe, just as I have right not to. If the Pope is a guide and Jesus is an avatar for them—or if any other religious leader spreads a message of love—I am willing to denounce anyone who dares to defame or mis-appropriate them.

Red And Gray

It’s been a while since I last posted. The past two weeks have been busy. I finally did a long ride yesterday, to Point Lookout, Coney Island and into Manhattan via the Manhattan Bridge before hopping onto the D train at Grand Street, in Manhattan’s Chinatown. In all, I covered about 150 kilometers, or just over 90 miles.  It actually 130 km ride I did the previous Saturday because I had the wind at my back or side all the way from Point Lookout to Manhattan, whereas I was pedaling into the wind on my way home from the previous ride.

The weather has been strange, even for this time of year. On Wednesday and Thursday, the temperature reached 90F (32.2 C), which would have been the beginning of a heat wave in July or August.  While the weather had cooled down (70F/21C) by yesterday, it felt even cooler along the ocean. And although the sun didn’t feel intense—in fact, skies had grown overcast—I still managed to get sunburned,  (Use sunscreen even if you don’t think you need it!).

How is it that my limbs and face burned tomato red, yet steel gray cables and towers (in this case, the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge) were bathed in the even grayer mist and clouds?  The mysteries!

As I Ride, A Season Unfolds

 This year, January and February were the coldest months I could recall for a number of years.  March was a roller-coaster, weather-wise, as it normally is, though I saw piles of snow and ice, reminders of the previous two months, almost until the Spring equinox.

Some people want the memory of such a winter erased, quickly and thoroughly. They want Spring to literally spring straight into summer.  Me, I enjoy seeing the season unfold. Cycling allows that: One day, I see cherry blossom,magnolia and crabapple petals folded into each other:  Are they hands holding the life they’re trying to protect, one not quite ready to come out to the world? Or are they begging, pleading, praying for a respite from the harshness of the season that might not be finished?

A day later, I see those same trees—or other cherry blossoms, magnolias and crabapples—with petals opened ever so slightly, as if they want to be sure that raindrop isn’t too cold or that ray of sunshine too strong to catch. The day after, they open still a bit more and are starting to flower.

And there is the sunshine of this time of year: clear, without the sharp edges of winter or summer’s haze. As much as I love it, I still can’t decide whether I prefer to see buds throbbing open and pulsating their colors reflected in the sun’s rays, or defiantly displaying their hues against an overcast sky, just ahead of a Spring rainstorm.

I love the seasons I experience on my bicycle.

 I hope your Easter is “out of this world.”

By Sebastian Millon

If You Kill A Cyclist, It’s Their Fault

Photo by Peter Silburn

Two weeks ago, the vilest utterance from a public official, at least that I can recall, spewed from the toxic pit that is the Fake Tan Führer’s mind.  Upon learning that Robert Mueller died, the entity who proved that 78 million Americans can be wrong sent this across the Twitterverse:  “Good, I’m glad he’s dead.” 

Perhaps it was an inevitable reaction from one of the basest beings on this planet to the passing of that increasingly rare office-holder: one who was respected by nearly everyone. But even for FTF, it was a level of moral bankruptcy and soiling of the English language I could not have anticipated.

Then again, I shouldn’t have been surprised. For decades, I have been a transportation, recreational, fitness and touring cyclist.  I also raced, if not with stellar results. During that time, much has changed. But a few things haven’t, including the way the media, law enforcement officials and much of the public react when a cyclist is killed or maimed.

George Hil, on the British website road.cc,  recounts such a firestorm of negativity when a cyclist was killed “in a collision with another vehicle” on a “not particularly dangerous “  road he regularly cycles and drives.  While he did not know the victim personally, he felt a sense of loss for him as a fellow cyclist and human being.

Those last two words were also lost in reactions on Facebook and other social media. “[Y]ou wouldn't think someone had died,” he relates, because commenters “focused on the person being a cyclist so it was probably their fault”  Perhaps the ugliest, and most clueless comment was this: “Don’t pick fights you can’t win, might is always right.”

“Might is always right.”  Could Cecil Rhodes have said it any more plainly? FTF probably had a similar thought when he decided to bomb Iran.

Anyway, as George Hill points out, such reactions encapsulate an all-too-common attitude when cyclists motorists kill or injure cyclists: “They should know better than to get in our way. They had it coming to them.” I’ve even heard people say, “Good!”:when a cyclist is run down.

Oh, and FTF hates cyclists.  As much as Robert Mueller, I don’t know. But it wouldn’t surprise me to hear him saying “Good, I’m glad” to the death of a cyclist on the road.

Should I Take This Offer?

 You may have noticed that I have not been posting as frequently as I had been. There is no illness, lover or other such demand on my time and energy.  Rather, I have been in the process of creating, and helping to create, new content on another venue.

A while back, a bicycle maker e- mailed me with an offer that, well, I could have refused I certainly couldn’t have imagined. One of its executives chanced upon this blog (hmm…I didn’t know executives had so much free time!) and was “impressed” by not only the number of views and followers, but that they are spread across all continents (Antarctica? I didn’t know penguins could ride bikes!).  Said executive explained, “We are trying to expand our reach” and “show people they don’t have to be Tadej Pogačar to ride one of our bikes.”

While I agreed with him, I couldn’t help but to ask why he chose me, and this blog, to be an “influencer.” He didn’t use that word, but that’s what I think he was asking me to do.  Was it the beautiful graphics and photography? My deathless prose? The wit and erudition behind my “Sunday funnies?”

Actually, the reason is far more mundane.  “Your name is a lot easier to spell and pronounce—and it’s Italian.”

That last bit of information made his offer make more sense, if not make sense.  After all, the bike manufacturer in question is Pinarello.

I am not sure of what to make of this offer.  Perhaps one or some of you, dear readers, can help me to understand it.  The details are here.

Who Knows The Changing Season?

 The past week has been both familiar and odd. The season is definitely changing—or, rather, the days and nights aren’t settling into one season or another.  It’s warm enough to go swimming at the beach, if the water were warmer. Then a wall of rain falls in the wee hours of morning. A clear sky is revealed at sunrise, but the air is colder than the sea you couldn’t swim in.  And patches of the most vibrant colors rise among meadows of mud that was the dust of last year’s leaves.

I haven’t ridden a lot of miles even though I’ve managed to get out for a spin, among all I’ve had to do, every day during the past week. For yesterday’s ride, I brought the usual things—spare tube, tire levers, multitool and pump—along with a can of Friskies and an aluminum foil plate from a takeout order.  I didn’t see the cat I sometimes encounter along the Randall’s Island shoreline, near the ramp to the Manhattan spur of the RFK Bridge.  But I left that meal—brunch? Do cats know it’s Sunday—anyway.

That cat, I am sure, understands the changing season better than I ever will: She (I think she’s female) has no choice but to feel it in her bones. I wonder how she sees the colors of the season, whatever it is.

A Blue Ticket In The Land of the Rising Sun

 In soccer (the “real” football) a yellow card is a warning issued for offenses like fouls and a red card,  for more serious offenses or after receiving two yellow cards in the same match , results in expulsion from that game. 

Japan has an oddly similar system for cyclists. Police can hand out .yellow tickets, which are nothing more than warnings, for minor offenses. But for more serious violations, like riding while intoxicated or riding in a way that causes an accident, a red ticket can be issued. It can lead to a fine and criminal record if the cyclist is convicted in court.

In reality, those red tickets did little to curb the number of crashes and injuries because processing them has been a lengthy and inefficient process. So starting on 1 April, the National Police Agency will roll out a new “blue ticket.”

This new level of enforcement is intended to fill the gap between yellow and red tickets by carrying an immediate penalty—a fine.  The blue ticket will explain the infraction and give a deadline—typically a week from issuance—to pay at a bank or post office and prevent the matter from proceeding to court

The blue ticket will be issued to cyclists 16 years or older for violations ranging from using a smartphone or earphones (or carrying an open umbrella!) to riding on the wrong side of the road. The amount of the fine will vary according to the violation.

 It will be interesting to see whether it helps to curb the number of accidents and injuries.  And I can’t help but to wonder what a “blue card” in soccer might be like.

Safety For Whom?

The Fake Tan Führer is preparing for the Washington DC Cherry Blossom festival in his own inimitable ways.

First he said possibly the most ignorant and insensitive thing any US President has ever said to a Japanese Prime Minister. Then the Federal Highway Administration, US Department of Transportation and the National Park Service were about to remove a bike lane along 15th Street, near the National Mall—until a lawsuit stopped the , at least temporarily.

The lane, which serves about 4000 cyclists daily, was installed in 2021. Since then, according to DC officials, crashes have decreased by 46 percent and cyclists’ injuries by 91 percent. But the agencies in question claimed they were preparing to remove it in the name of “safety”—for those who are driving to the Festival.

(Oh, and while ordering bike lane removals, insulting allies and bombing a country without knowing why, he found time to issue the most vile statement I can recall from any public official.) 

Why I Rode

 This, on a Friday afternoon, in one of winter’s last moments:

I mounted Tosca, my Mercian fixed gear bike for a ride I needed to do for no other reason that I needed to do it.  Perhaps it had to do with the changing season: My ride took me to, among other places, a spot I reached in May, on the same bike:

I took that photo from a somewhat different angle,  but from the same street, the aptly named Cliffside Drive in Yonkers.

Then, in the middle of Spring, the lush trees and fog made for a lovely sight. On the other hand, those (mostly) same trees wove a wizened fractal pattern against the kind of blue sky and dark scrim of clouds on the horizon one sees only after a long, cold season.

So, since I am a self-indulgent writer, you, dear reader, may be forgiven for thinking that I “read” something about my life into seeing what I saw the other day, especially in comparison to what I saw last Spring.

Well, there hasn’t been a life-changing event recently—at least since my Japan trip— but I feel that this not-quite-finished winter has highlighted the passing of time, at least for me.  As far as I know, I am still in Midlife because I don’t know when my life will end. 

So what brought on thoughts of future becoming past? The seemingly endless, brutal (at least by the standards of this part of the world) Winter certainly has had something to do with it.  But something else—a dream about someone I hadn’t thought about in decades brought me to Google and an “In Memoriam” page for my high school class’s upcoming round-number-year reunion.

I looked up that classmate, whom I didn’t know well, but whom I could count as a friendly acquaintance. I couldn’t find an obituary or any other information about her death—or life since we graduated—because she had an extremely common name. She might’ve married and taken her spouse’s name, but I couldn’t even find any such account.

Was she recently claimed by one of those diseases that takes increasing numbers of people as they age? Or did she die, like another classmate, not long after we graduated in a motor vehicle crash? I hope someone, whether a jealous ex or some random stranger—whether in gang colors or another country’s uniform—didn’t kill her over so some conflict that would or could not be resolved.

You might think she’s the girlfriend I wish I’d had.  You would be at least partially right. Had I been less socially inhibited than I was, I might’ve known her better. She wasn’t beautiful, but she was what someone I knew would’ve called “presentable “:  in good shape (she was a basketball player) and always (as I remember) well put-together.  Most importantly, at least for me, she was (or seemed to be) the most intelligent kid in my school and had a sense of herself that I completely lacked at the time.

Perhaps I was riding for her.

Where Have This Bike—And Its Rider—Been?

 What is an occupational hazard of browsing sites like eBay and Craigslist? Distraction. That is to say—especially with algorithms and AI making suggestions—it’s so easy to fall into to a “rabbit hole” and find yourself looking at things that may be only peripherally, if at all, related to what brought you to the site in the first place. 

Looking at bicycle-related items, which is the reason for much of my browsing, is especially hazardous:  I can spend hours gazing at bikes, parts and accessories, especially if they are old or unused.

Today this beauty caught my eye:

It might have been a custom build. In any case, it looks like a quality machine:  the frame’s workmanship and construction chrome finish look nice and the parts seem to be high- or medium-high class for their time.

The person (I assume it wasn’t AI) who wrote the description said “a friend” raced the bike in “the early 1960’s.” That seems plausible to me, given what I know about bikes from that period. But it’s not just the bike or some of its rarely-seen-today parts, like the Altenburger derailleurs (the front is a dead-ringer for the Campagnolo Valentino “matchbox” design) that linger in my mind.

Six decades have passed since the early 1960’s.  The world is a different place today. Where has that bike been during those years?  Has anyone besides the “friend” ridden it?  Even more to the point (call me morbid) I wonder whether that “friend” is still alive and what he (I’m guessing he, like most racers of the time, was male) did after racing on that bike.  Did he continue racing, or riding at all, on another bike? Or did he “hang it up” after getting a 9-to-5 job and starting a family? Perhaps he turned his attentions to another sport because, at least in the US, there was even less support for cycling than there is now.

That bike definitely has a story!

If It’s The Cruelest

 “April is the cruelest month” is one of the most famous opening lines in English-language literature. What led T.S. Eliot to believe, or at least write, that? In The Waste Land, he tells us ihe month is a time of “breeding lilacs out of the dead land” and “stirring dull roots with spring rain.”

Rebirths certainly can be painful or, at least, arduous. Perhaps that is why lilacs and cherry blossoms have long been my favorite blooms. Not only does their vibrant colors stir me; they inspire—as strange as this may sound—as much empathy in me as any plant can.  Even before I read Eliot’s poem, I felt, even if I couldn’t articulate, how their beauty was as much a denouement of pain as an expression of joy or, at least, relief.

So, if April is the “cruelest” month, what is March?  

Perhaps it’s the month of uncertainty.

That occurred to me the other day, as I rode to work and saw this:

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What Kind Of Cyclist Woukd They Be?

 I haven’t heard the expression “cool cat” in a while. (Maybe I hang out in the wrong circles.) It meant, as I understood it, someone who was unflappable, self-assured and stylish. Or, at least, such a person had their own un-self conscious sense of style and their ease with it was exactly the reason why others tried to emulate it, but couldn’t.

What sort of image would a “cool cat” cyclist project?

A Brief Ride, A Bit of Hope

 The other day I lamented that this winter has felt brutal and seemed endless, not only because of the weather.  

Well, the last couple of days have given us a respite. Today the temperature reached 75F (24C); yesterday it soared to 81F (27C). I’ve managed to sneak out for rides between my classes and student conferences. A jaunt to Randall’s Island revealed that, even if winter resumes, it will not bury eyes opening from beds where remains of skeletal limbs lay and turned to mud.

The Endless Season—And War

 Spring may not have “officially” arrived. 

I woke up just before sunrise, which arrived an hour later than it did the other day because of daylight savings time. Could that have been a reason why dawn today gave a hint or tease, depending on your point of view, of the season people are anticipating more than any other in recent memory.

More snow has fallen and ice has covered local waterways this year than in the past few; people seemed to get sicker and age more.  Of course, weather and epidemiology aren’t the only reasons why this winter has seemed so brutal and endless. Pundits have chattered about our chances of “entering” “another” war; the truth is that this country hasn’t not been in one, declared or not, at least since World War II. Even if he hadn’t attacked Iran, the Fake Tan Fūhrer has been at war—with the people of this country. 

Some have fought against him and paid dearly.  Others are looking for refuge. Either way, they want this winter of discontent to end.

Solo Near Winter’s End (I Think)

The roads are free of snow and ice, finally, but full of sand and salt. The skies were overcast,  but the temperature reached 50F (10C). I took my longest ride in weeks, to Fort Totten and back:  about 45 miles (70km).  

In spite of the mild Saturday, I saw very few people out: not many people drove, even fewer walked, cycled or scootered (Is that a real verb?) and I had Fort Totten to myself, save for a young man who climbed the fence between the main path and the water.

Although what I saw along the way—all familiar—and the weather were nothing like what I experienced in Japan, I was somehow reminded of my trip there.  Perhaps seeing this on the water’s edge had something to do with it:

Why They Don’t Ride To Work

 

In earlier posts, I have written “lines of paint does not a bike lane make,” or words to that effect.  Ron Johnson’s article in Momentum magazine concurs with that—with caveats.

Johnson reports that, according to a study published in The Journal of Cycling and Micromobility Research, some 61 percent of paint-only bike lanes—that is, those that are not delineated by a physical barrier, or separated altogether, from the roadway—are on “high stress” roads which, Johnson explains, are “fast multi-lane corridors where traffic speed and volume make riding uncomfortable for most people.” That, in itself, is problematic, but what makes the situation particularly vexing is that about 77 percent of all US bike lanes.According to my trusty iPad calculator (You don’t want to rely on my math skills!), 46.97 percent—nearly half—of all American bike lanes are paint-only and on “high stress” roads.”

With all due to respect to John Forrester and his crusading for “vehicular cycling,” people who haven’t ridden since they were kids, or recreational riders who want to commute or otherwise use their bicycles as vehicles, aren’t going to cycle in or near traffic if they don’t feel safe. And those are the very people—in addition to brand- new cyclists—we need if cycling and other forms of “micromobility” are to be seen as viable alternatives to automobiles.

Of course, some of the offending “lanes,” particularly those in large cities with extensive networks of streets, are the result of planners who aren’t cyclists. In such environments, there may be alternatives, such as quieter side-streets, to a poorly-conceived of -constructed bike lanes, But in many rural areas, particularly in the South and non-coastal West, the “high-stress” road is the only one connecting one village or county to another. There is also little or no mass transportation, which all but forces people to rely on that “high-stress” road, whether they’re on two, three, four—or no (i.e., pedestrians) wheels.

People in such environments will eschew cycling or other non-motorized transportation as long as there’s nothing but a line of white paint between them and SUVs and semis doing 70 MPH, whatever Mr. Forrester might’ve said.

Was He A Provocateur?

 This is why you should get your news from more than one source.

No, I am not going to talk about the attack on Iran, although that is definitely an example of why.

Rather, I will mention something that happened in Brooklyn last night. It doesn’t have the same ramifications as the war Fake Tan Fũhrer started, but it does have implications for relationships between drivers and cyclists, based on common assumptions about the latter.

According to a Yahoo News story, a sixteen-year-old boy allegedly held onto a  B6 bus as it moved along Bay Parkway near East Second Street. ABC-7 News says he appeared to be holding on, which is somewhat different (in legal terms as well as semantics) but conveys more or less the same impression to most people. The New York Daily News headline, on the other hand, claimed that the boy “interfered with the driver’s route.”

(All italics are mine.)

Whatever happened, the driver—42-year-old Michael Brown—and the boy got into an altercation.  Now Brown is under arrest for punching him in the face, leaving him with a broken nose.

If we can accuse the boy of anything, it’s recklessness and maybe stupidity.  But neither makes him any worse than any other kid. (Confession: I did similar things at his age, and even later.) And it certainly doesn’t warrant what Brown did.

I hope the boy is OK.  I worry, though, that whatever he did could reinforce stereotypes too many people—including, possibly, Brown—hold about cyclists.

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And I Can’t Even Train One!

 Including Marlee, I have had six, and lived with eight, cats in my life. I have also petted, played with and fed others— more than I can count. But I have never been able to get even one to ride a bicycle.

Who trained them? Or did these fabulous felines teach themselves? Inquiring minds want to know.

Riding To The Rappers

 Sometimes I get on my bike just to ride. Other times, I have a route and destination in mind. But I don’t always know what I’ll see along the way.

As I the Randalls Island Connctor, I heard music on the Bronx side. That’s not unusual; I figured it was coming from somebody’s car. But then I heard…rapping.  And it didn’t sound recorded. So of course I had to check it out:

The words they chanted, shouted, stage-whispered and simply spoke resonated, not only because of their rhythms and rhymes: They were as skilled as any I’ve heard, but they didn’t come cheap:  The pain and frustration—and triumphs—pulse from them.

But even though their raps dealt with events in the artist’s lives and the world today—or, at least, they could have been today’s stories—I had the seemingly-odd sensation of going back 40 or 45 years.  I soon realized why:  Those young men with old souls were doing like the early hip- hop djs:  They set up sound equipment in a public space (the corner of East 132nd Street and Locust Avenue, to be exact) and opened themselves up to whoever chanced by.

The main differences were that the man who was the actual or de facto sound engineer was using a laptop which, of course, nobody had “back in the day.” And he didn’t have a turntable, which almost everyone had.

I will definitely check out their YouTube channel (Punchline Academy). Will I encounter anything like that impromptu concert on a future ride?  Before today, I probably would have said, “no.” But after today:  “I’ll never know!”

This, Again?

 Just what we need:  More snow!

Just two days after our previous snowstorm.

I think we’ve had more of the white stuff this winter than in the past ten combined!

Trying To Slip By

 The sartorial customs of ICE made me realize that, except during cold weather, I rarely see a cyclist’s face covered. The SS wannabes are trying to avoid recognition; while most cyclists I’ve met aren’t actively seeking it, few are hiding.

There are exceptions, though:

Rear cyclist:  Are you working on your aerodynamics?

Front cyclist:  No, I just don’t want to be recognized in the photo,

Those Aren’t The Only Medals They Deserve

 This month—February—is Black History Month. And, at this moment, the Winter Olympics are taking place in Italy.

It’s difficult not to notice that more Black athletes have been competing—and winning— during the past few Winter Olympiads.  While Erin Jackson didn’t make it to the podium this year, she won the gold medal in speed skating’s 500 meter event. Elena Meyers Taylor won a gold medal in bobsledding this year, at age 41, after taking home two bronze and three silver medals over the the previous three Olympiads.  The US hockey team won this year’s gold medal with its first Black player, Laila Edwards, scoring a goal against rival Canada in the opening match.

But, to me, one of the most successful Olympic athletes of any race, nation or time is Lauryn Williams. She earned a silver medal in the 2014 Sochi Games’ two-woman bobsled event— after winning a silver medal in the 2004 Athens Summer Games and gold in the 2012 London Summer Games as a track athlete. Quick, name another athlete who won medals (gold, no less) in both the Winter and Summer Games.

Speaking of Summer Games, one of the most memorable victories was by a silver medalist: Nelson Vails in the 1984 Los Angeles games. Fellow American Mark Gorski won the gold in that year’s sprint. What made Vails’ finish so memorable was that he and Gorski rode such a good race—and that Vails was the first African-American to win an Olympic medal in cycling.

One reason why Vails’ medal, and his other victories, were so important is that they came in a sport, and in venues—like those of the Winter Olympics—in which most competitors and spectators were White. After Major Taylor—one of the greatest cyclists, athletes and human beings who ever lived—cycling went into a long, steady decline in North America. Its main events and competitors for the next seven decades were in Europe and Japan. When the ‘70’s North American Bike Boom helped to revive bike racing in the US, most of the new competitors were White suburban college students for a variety of social and economic reasons.  I think Nelson Vails helped to show young Black would-be athletes and White audiences that Blacks could, and would excel in sports other than those stereotypically associated with them, like basketball, (American) football, track and field (especially the sprint events) and boxing.*

*—Don’t get me wrong:  I think they’re great sports. I am simply happy, or at least hopeful, that they won’t have to be the only ones accessible to Blacks or, for that matter, Whites or anyone else from lower socioeconomic backgrounds.

The Color And Name Of Justice

 Today is Mardi Gras. The traditional colors are purple, green and gold. Why? Gold represents power, green stands for faith and purple, justice.

Now you know why I have four purple bicycles and have long been drawn to the color.  All right, I didn’t know about the symbolism when I was a kid. Or maybe I did, subconsciously…

And perhaps that knowledge, conscious or not, guided my naming myself Justine. My mother told me, long before I began my gender affirmation process, that she would’ve given me that name had I been assigned the female sex at birth.

Knowing that made my gender affirmation (what was previously called the “gender transition “ or “sex change”) seem even more like justice after the decades I lived as male. Thus, my name and favorite color, which I love for their beauty, seem completely just on Mardi Gras, and every day.