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.

If Only They Could Be Heroes

 Today is Presidents’ Day here in the US.

Last week, on Abraham Lincoln’s birthday, I ranted about how I believe it’s so unfair that, on this day, he has to share the spotlight with the likes of Warren G. Harding, Richard Nixon and the Fake Tan Fūhrer.

Speaking of whom: After a year of his second term, almost everything that came before it seems like lifetimes, even eons, ago. If you’ll indulge me a cliché, it seems like we were living in a different world just over a year ago.

Now, if you really want to see a different world, check this out:

Now, Bill Clinton isn’t my favorite President even if I voted for him twice.  But he was so many things FTF isn’t: intelligent, articulate and someone who, at least sometimes, tried to build a legacy that wasn’t only about himself. It’s hard to believe that he, his successor (George W. Bush) and FTF were born within the span of a few weeks in 1946.

What makes the photo seem even more like a glimpse into a vanished reality is the other person in it. Remember when Lance Armstrong was hailed as a hero? There were whispers about his use of performance-enhancing substances and how he bullied his teammates into covering for him. 

I am long past looking at athletes as heroes, or even role models, save for a few, like Simone Biles, I fully respect as people for their courage and integrity.  Would that we had such a President!

He Carries Roses. I See…

 Today is, of course, Valentine’s Day. 

Like many holidays that have been co-opted by capitalism, current celebrations seem to have little or no apparent relation to whom the day was originally dedicated. At least, almost no one is thinking of that person while sharing a romantic dinner or buying or giving cuddle toys, chocolates and roses.

(Call me sick or whatever you like, but when I see a dude walking down the street with a bouquet of roses, I can’t help but to think that within an hour and a half, a woman will be flat on her back.)

Anyway, St. Valentine was, according to at least one story, a priest or bishop who secretly married soldiers, in defiance of Emperor Claudius II, and aided persecuted Christians.  While imprisoned, he was said to have restored the sight of his jailer’s daughter and wrote her a letter signed, “From Your Valentine.”

That deed and others were deemed miracles, and were among the reasons why he was beatified. But his continued defiance of the emperor led to his execution in 270 CE, which the church saw as martyrdom and another factor in his canonization.

Now, I can understand making him the patron saint of lovers because he married those soldiers and showed his love (which some have speculated as, umm, not entirely Platonic) for the jailer’s daughter. But what any of that has to do with candy and flowers or candlelight dinners is beyond me.

In case you were wondering, I took a ride today—solo.  It was great.

Riding With Abe

 On this date in 1809, Abraham Lincoln, the 16th US President, was born. Even if biographies portray him as a better President or person than he actually was, I can imagine him spinning in his grave if he could see the current occupant* of the office and residence he graced.

When I was in elementary school, Lincoln’s birthday was a national holiday, as George Washington’s (22 February) was.  Now we have “Presidents’ Day,**” which will be observed on Monday.  

Given that he was assassinated in 1865, it’s unlikely that he mounted anything we would today recognize as a bicycle.  But it’s fun to speculate on what it might’ve looked like if he had:

* —I refuse to put the name of the White House squatter current occupant in the same sentence with Lincoln.  Abe doesn’t deserve that.

**—I hate the term because it implies that we are honoring all of them, including Andrew Jackson, James Buchanan,  James Polk, Millard Fillmore, Andrew Johnson, William McKinley, Warren G. Harding, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush and you-know-who.

Call Tnem What You Will, They Were First

 As I’ve lived deeper into midlife, I care less about genres of cycling. Turns out, I’ve practiced most of them, consciously or not, sometimes even before they were named as such. For example, I rode on trails and other non-paved surfaces years before I heard about “mountain biking” or “gravel riding,” let alone saw bikes made specifically for them.

I say that not to boast, but to say that I’ve simply loved mounting my saddle and spinning my pedals. In a similar vein, I feel fulfilled when I write and have stopped thinking about whether the words I set to a paper or screen are blogging, journalism, poetry or something else. Those labels, like, those for bicycle  journeys (which is what they all are, whether they bring you to the office or someplace “exotic”) are as arbitrary as the distinctions between races and nations.

I mention all of that because of something that reminds how I came to the attitudes I’ve just expressed from looking down on people with bicycles (I didn’t even call them “cyclists!”) who didn’t ride as long, hard or often as I did, on bikes that weren’t as nice as mine. Calling me a “recreational cyclist” (which no one did in those days, at least when I was in earshot 😉)was, to my mind, akin to branding me a dilettante.

These days, I’m simply glad to see people on bikes. I don’t even look down on e-bikes anymore, at least the pedal-assist models, because they keep many older riders (of which, ahem, I am not one ☺️) and people with disabilities on two wheels.

For that reason, I believe there’s an anniversary worth celebrating today.  On this date in 1878, the Boston Bicycle Club—believed to be the first organization in the US, if not the world, devoted to recreational cycling, was founded in the city for which it was named.  

BBC promoted cycling, organized community rides and established some of the first safety standards.  The latter was no small consideration, as cyclists were still on high-wheelers and “ safety” bicycles with two wheels of equal or nearly equal size were several years in the future.

Call them whatever kind of cyclists you will, but they sound like my kind.c

Watch Out For This Bill In The Hawkeye State

 Call me a paranoid conspiracy theorist.  But whenever I hear about any proposed bicycle-related legislation, especially in a “red” state, I translate “public safety” as “anti-bike.” 

At least, that was my reaction when I learned about HB 637, introduced two weeks ago in the Iowa State Legislature. If passed, it would effectively ban cycling on the country roads—one of the most appealing features of The Buckeyes State.

The bill includes this:  “a person shall not use a device on a roadway with a speed limit above 25 miles per hour.”  The bill’s definition of devices includes electric personal mobility devices, along with pedestrian conveyances such as wheelchairs, scooters and skateboards. And bicycles.

Given that most rural roads have speed limits greater than 25 MPH, the bill, if passed, would effectively make a ride in the countryside illegal. 

But it seems that whoever wrote the bill also wants to put a stranglehold on urban couriers and delivery workers:  “While using a device, a person shall not carry a package, bundle or article that prevents the person from keeping the person’s handlebars at all times.”

If what I have mentioned so far doesn’t sound ominous enough, consider that the bill also would require that all devices brake in a way that allows skidding.  Whoever wrote that part of the bill has never been on one of the mentioned “devices,” for anyone who has knows that safe stops don’t include skidding.  All modern bicycle braking systems—caliper or disc—are therefore designed for controlled stopping power.

The worst thing about the bill is that it mandates a criminal record for anyone who violates the ban on “devices” on roads with 25MPH+ speed limits. An infraction would result in a “simple misdemeanor” charge that carries a sentence of up to 30 days in jail and fines of nearly $900.

Fortunately, the bill’s passage has stalled, at least for now. The Legislature Public Safety Chair said it “needs more work” but offered no other insight into its possible future.

No More Ice Puns, Just Cold,

 Early this morning the temperature dropped to -2F (-18.9C) in my corner of the world. And the wind gusted to 30 MPH (50 KPH).

What Does He Call It?

 Why do some of us name our bicycles? Well, for some of us—for me, anyway—bicycles are companions in our journeys.  Thus, our bicycles have stories, and it only seems fitting that anything with a narrative, or narratives, should also have a name.

Our bicycles’ sagas include epic rides and errands, life-changing events and daily routines. Also, our bikes have, if you will, their origin stories, whether with robots in a Southeast Asian factory or a craft shop in Portland.  Or, in the case of one machine, specifically a “skyscraper” bike, its conception, if you will, took place in a Midwestern university’s engineering class.

Wynn Grame “saw an image” of a double-decker bike like the one he built “and it just stuck in my head.” Once friends donated bikes, he recalled, he “just had to do it.” And so his class project, and current mode of transportation, began.

From cutting up the frames to taking his first ride, Grame’s build took six weeks during which he squeezed in shop time while working on his summer internship and on weekends.

Sometimes, our bike stories include learning something new, whether about a custom in some place where we take a ride or a skill which may or not be related to the bike.  In Grame’s case, it was something essential to the origin of his bike:  Before he started building it, he had never welded.  Not even once.

I have seen “crane” or “giraffe” bikes like his, but have never ridden one.  So it was very interesting to learn that, aside from the “cool” factor, there are benefits to riding his creation. It “offers excellent visibility on the road,” he explained, “because cars can see you immediately” and are “very cautious around you.”  Hmm…Does that make “blinkies” and reflective clothing unnecessary?

I’ll take his word for it and give him “props” for building a bike.  But with so many interesting stories already part of its identity, I wonder whether Wynn Grame has given his bike a name.

Are All E-Bikes Created Equal?

 This year, New Jersey passed a law requiring all e-bike users to have a driver’s license, register their bikes and haven insurance by 1 July.  It may well be the most restrictive legislation regarding e-bikes in the United States:  Unlike tiered systems in other jurisdictions, in which e-bikes are regulated according to their speed, power or whether or not they have a throttle or pedal assist, the Garden State’s regulation says, in essence, that all e-bikes are created equal.

Now some folks are saying that it violates one of the Declaration of Independence’s most basic tenets:  that all men are created equal.

No, the state hasn’t declared that e-bikes are people. Rather, immigrants’-rights groups are saying that the law will unfairly burden some of the people who most depend on e-bikes: delivery workers, nearly all of whom are immigrants, and people who live in areas without mass transit but who can’t afford a car or registration—some of whom are immigrants. And most of those couriers and people who commute are riding pedal-assisted machines that have lower top speeds than the ones that are basically just electric motorcycles.

Photo by Seth Wenig

Admittedly, some of those workers and residents are undocumented.  But given the current political and social climate, even those who are here legally and people who were born here to parents who are citizens (including yours truly) would rather minimize their interactions with government authorities.  I can understand their fears; I see ICE agents during rides or while running errands and worry that even someone like me is at risk of becoming the next Alex Pretti or Renee Good if one of those agents is hung over or otherwise having a bad day.  

The Other Ice

 Yesterday I wrote about my participation in a memorial ride for Alex Pretti, the intensive care unit nurse—and cyclist—murdered by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Minneapolis.

Say what you will about my mental state, but I have a difficult time using the word “ice,” even in reference to a frozen liquid: the way it’s been used for its entire history in the English language.

But today I will break the ice (pun intended) and talk about what I’ve seeing during the (admittedly little) cycling I’ve done during the past two weeks: the longest spell of below-freezing temperatures we’ve had in a long time. I don’t mind the cold so much, but the freeze also included a snowstorm last week and plowing of streets has been, shall we say, episodic. And snow has turned to ice, especially in the bike lanes.

Anyway, on Monday I noticed something I hadn’t seen in years:

Technically, the Hudson River isn’t a river where it separates Manhattan from New Jersey:  the water is brackish, in contrast to the fresh flow further upstream. So the Hudson’s New York City stretch, like the misnamed East River, which is really an inlet of the ocean, rarely glazes over (unlike many of my students’ eyes).

On the other hand, I suspect this body of water freezes more frequently:

Paine Lake stands next to the Paine House, where the author of “Common Sense,” an inspirational for American Revolutionaries, lived.  How we need him now, when the political climate is even more inhospitable than this winter’s weather!

Riding Against a Tide of ICE

 “The sharks are circling.”

On Saturday, a fellow cyclist made that comment in reference to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a.k.a. ICE, during the Alex Pretti memorial ride. She has family in the Minneapolis-St.Paul area, where residents, many of whom had not previously participated in a demonstration, are resisting vigorously and visibly. But the now-most-hated government agents in the USA are also accosting and arresting “suspicious” people all over the nation. My friendly acquaintance believes “it’s just a matter of time” before a “surge” comes to my hometown,  New York City.

Quite understandably, she and other riders didn’t want to be photographed.  While we want to show our solidarity, some fear—rightly—negative consequences given the current political climate and the industries in which some work. 

And some might become targets for looking “suspicious.” Given this Administration’s hostility to cyclists, spinning two pedals to propel two wheels instead of pressing one pedal to propel four wheels could be seen as a subversive act.

Perhaps it is. But if I am resisting anything, I am riding against the tyranny of automobiles and fossil fuels—which contributes to climate change and economic disparities that fuel (pun not intended) the desperate traffic that ICE is tasked with stopping.

Beyond The Shadow

 Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow.  So did Staten Island Chuck. That supposedly means we’re getting six more weeks of winter.

I wouldn’t mind the more cold weather, even if we’ve had more of it, for longer, than any time I can remember in the past few decades.  I just wish we didn’t have to deal with icy patches, sand and salt.

Now I remember why I have a “beater” bike!

The Apple Doesn’t Fall Far…

 Evel Knievel’s daughter?

Riding For Them

 Here in NYC, it’s the coldest it’s been in years (2F, -16.7C this morning) but those of you in places like Minnesota probably think this is April weather.

Speaking of Minnesota:  Alex Pretti, a fellow cyclist was executed (let’s call it what it is) by ICE agents.  One of the many memorial rides in his honor is, as best as I can tell, still scheduled to roll in Manhattan.  I plan to be there.

As I am pedaling, I will also be thinking of another cyclist I’ve never met who was also senselessly killed.  Last Thursday, a truck struck Patrick Franklin Sr, a longtime member of Florida’s Village Idiots cycling club and beloved member of the cycling, and Bradenton, community.  He was 67 years old and riding alone on a non-club ride.

Sadly, Franklin’s fate is less shocking, but not for the difference (28 years) in age between them.  Rather, as one club member said, “Florida is a death trap.”  The so-callled Sunshine State has been, by far, the deadliest for cyclists for years.

He was 67.  Alex was 39.  But they both were cut down in the middle of their lives; so much of their journeys could have been ahead of them.  I will ride for both of them.

I Will Ride For Him

Nearly two weeks ago, a sports columnist lamented,  “I dunno how to write about the Knicks when the government is killing people.” I substituted “cycling or midlife” for “the Knicks.”

Now, barely two weeks after Renee Good’s murder, ICE thugs killed another person who was protesting peacefully: Alex Pretti.

Ms. Good was a mother of three.  Mr. Pretti cared for other vulnerable people: He was an ICU nurse in a Veterans’ Administration hospital. No doubt many of his patients were suffering from PTSD and related conditions. Moreover, he was protecting a woman from harm when he was murdered.  

Of course, the Fake Tan Fūhrer’s paid liars have found isolated facts—Renee’s sexual orientation and pronouns, Alex’s gun—and used them to portray the victims as existential threats to the nation who “had it coming to them.” (Ironic, isn’t it, that MAGA folk and Trump himself—supposed guardians of the Second Amendment—point to Pretti’s legally-acquired firearm, which he didn’t touch, as evidence that he meant harm?) 

The smear campaigns against Good and Pretti disturb and anger me almost as much as their actual deaths.  It’s as if the Administration is determined to destroy them completely by assassinating their characters.  But even the National Rifle Association and prominent conservatives have denounced Pretti’s murder.  Perhaps people won’t become inured to their government—funded by their taxes—committing wanton violence the way too many seemed to go numb to school shootings a few years ago.

Oh, I should mention an aspect of Alex Pretti’s life that Trump and his minions would hate—and makes him a kindred spirit:  He was an avid cyclist.  Angry Catfish, the shop he regularly patronized, is organizing a memorial ride for him.  I understand other memorial rides will be held this Saturday.  I intend to ride, snow and ice be damned.  If there isn’t an organized ride near me, I intend to memorialize him in some way on a ride of my own—perhaps to a VA hospital.

He was 37 years old:  cut down in midlife, like too many heroes.