In Living Color

 Every cyclist should have a sense of style. Right?

“Lady DUi. Suspect”;Blocks Bike Lane

 Sometimes it’s safer to cycle in a traffic lane than in a bike lane.  Sometimes motorists pass or double-park, and ride-share drivers pick up and discharge passengers in them. I’ve even seen people, including cops, eating, drinking or simply hanging out in vehicles parked in the middle of a lane.

Then there is Genevieve Winston of Deltona, Florida.

The other day, a Sumter County Sheriff’s Office deputy responded to a call about someone driving recklessly and nearly hitting other vehicles before stopping in, and blocking, a bicycle lane.

When the deputy arrived, the white Nissan Rogue’s engine was running and Ms. Winston slumped over the steering wheel. The deputy knocked  on her window. Startled, she tried to hid the Budweiser can from which she’d been drinking.

At first, she refused to exit the car and participate in standard sobriety tests, as ordered.  When she finally stepped out, she staggered and tried to evade the deputy as he handcuffed her.

At the Sumter County Detention Center, her blood alcohol level tested at more than three times the legal limit.  She refused a second test, claiming she couldn’t see the breathalyzer machine.

She was charged with driving under the influence (her third such offense in ten years), refusing to submit to a breathalyzer test and resisting an officer without violence. After being booked, she was released after posting a $7000 bond.

If I had been cycling along that lane, I probably would have been either simply annoyed with her for blocking it or angry that she’d endangered me by forcing me back into traffic. But was it ultimately better that she’d stopped in that lane than if she’d continued to drive? After all, an impaired driver is a menace and danger to everyone—other drivers, cyclists, pedestrians—on the road or crossing it.

As an aside, I have to point out the Villages-News.com headline: “Lady DUI suspect sipping Budweiser beer found parked in bicycle lane.” I recalled how my supervisor on an early job told me his wife was the “first lady professor” in her department at the U.S. Naval Academy. That was in the mid-1980s and said supervisor was, I believe, still living in the 1950s. I can’t remember the last time I heard a female professional referred to as a “lady professor,” “lady doctor” or “lady congressman.” (Yes, I actually heard the latter!) In fact, I almost never hear a woman referred to as “Lady” unless she’s a member of a noble class. Somehow I don’t think that category includes intoxicated drivers. “Lady DUI suspect,” indeed.

What Will We Call It?

 

Someone left a very interesting comment on yesterday’s post. He could recall when automatic transmissions were still a novelty in cars.  Non-automatic transmissions were called ‘standard”—until automatic transmissions became standard. Now they’re called “manual.”

The commenter sees a possible shift (pun intended) in the nomenclature related to two-wheeled vehicles. In my post, I followed the now-standard (!) practic of referring to non-electric, non-motorized bikes as “traditional.” Others probably call them “standard.”  But as they are outsold by e-bikes in many areas, and far more are used in bike-share and -rental schemes, they could, as the commenter points out, become the new “standard “ bike.

If/when that happens, what will we call our “traditional” or “standard” bikes?  The commenter’s wife has a suggestion : “manual.”

I wonder whether John McWhorter rides a bike, with or without a motor, and what he calls it.

Hold Them Accountable

 

When Bicycle Habitat co-founder and proprietor Charlie McCorkle started to use an e-bike, I was glad for him:  He’s a decade older than I am and health issues, including an increasingly arthritic hip, made it difficult for him to mount and ride a traditional bicycle. At least, I thought, he would have a way of getting around and having fun that didn’t involve driving.

And, although some are “cowboys,” I also don’t mind that delivery workers are also on e-bikes. Every one I’ve seen is an immigrant of color (no White South Africans!) and many don’t speak English well or at all. Thus, employment opportunities are limited and, as I understand, delivery workers are paid per delivery (as I, as a bike messenger, was). Also—again, as I’ve heard—delivery apps and customers themselves demand that pizza, sushi, tacos and whatever else arrive within a short window of time.

However, the majority of e-bike riders I see are decades younger than I, Charlie or even the delivery workers are. And too many of them are riding the way many of us did other things when we were their age: recklessly, without any regard for possible consequences, to themselves or others. And I am sure that some realize that they probably will not be held accountable for their mischief and mayhem, like the electric Citibike riders who struck and killed 69-year-old Priscilla Loke and sped away.

Across the Hudson River from where I sit, New Jersey has passed laws setting age limits and requiring registration (including plates) and insurance for e-bikes. While it won’t eliminate reckless riding, it at least makes accountability for injuries, deaths and property damage possible.  One would think that the mayor of my city, Zohran Mamdani (for whom, yes, I voted) would call for similar legislation. Unfortunately, he has done something that, if anything, will only embolden reckless riders: He has ordered the NYPD not to issue summonses to e-bike riders who break the law (e.g., run red lights).

While I am not convinced that more policing always leads to more public safety (and Blacks, LGBTQ people and other communities are over-policed), there are too many examples, such as stores that have closed due to rampant shoplifting, of communities suffering when “minor” offenses aren’t penalized.

I don’t think anybody believes it would be a good idea to tell the police not to ticket drivers who violate traffic laws. While e-bike (and electric scooter) riders aren’t encased in steel, they are as capable of causing serious injury and death to others.  I thus implore the Mayor for whom I voted not to criminalize them, but to hold them accountable.  So far, he has done exactly the opposite.

I Never Thought I’d Do This

 If you’ve been reading some of my recent posts, you know that I am very critical about the history of the country in which I’ve spent most of my life. At least, I have (some would say more-than-) healthy skepticism about the stories we’ve been told, whether in school or elsewhere.

That doesn’t mean, however, that I don’t appreciate what the United States of America offers, or even love much of what makes it unique. I’ll even admit that in international sports competitions, I root for American teams and athletes, especially the women. And, yes, I was as happy as any fellow countryperson (No sexism here!) when Greg LeMond and Lance Armstrong won the Tour de France. At least, I was a fan of Lance and, yes, even wore a Livestrong bracelet (remember that?) until I learned what a cheater and pure-and-simple bully he was.

Yesterday, however, I put my loyalty on pause.  Perhaps it wasn’t entirely fair, as I also found myself rooting against innocent people who worked very hard to achieve what they did.

So what, exactly, was my breach of sports patriotism—or, more accurately, nationalism? I hoped that Belgium’s national football team would beat their Yankee counterparts in their Round of 16 World Cup game.  And I was happy when they did.

Now, I want to make this clear:  I have no more love for Belgium than I have hatred for the United States. I enjoyed my one brief trip through the county, as part of a bicycle tour that took me into northeastern France, southwestern Germany, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. The people treated me well and, for such a small country, it offers a lot historically and culturally. But I don’t imagine that I will ever develop the kind of bond with it that I have even with France, let alone the US.

I also want to make something else clear: I don’t feel the same joy over a Red Devils victory that, under different circumstances, I might’ve felt if the USMNT had won. Rather, I thought, if anything, the outcome was a kind of vindication. 

Folarin Balogun was issued a red card late in the USMNT’s victory over Bosnia-Herzegovina’s national team. I won’t get into whether or not he actually deserved it; that will be a point of debate for some time to come.  He did, however, accept his penalty, which would have meant that he wouldn’t have been allowed to play in the game against Belgium.

The USMNT appealed, as was their right—though, it must be said, such decisions are rarely reversed.  The last word of the previous sentence is the operative one and the current FIFA president, Gianni Infantino, is, shall we say, not seen as an ethical man, which is really saying something in a sports federation that isn’t exactly viewed as a paragon of high moral principles.

So, perhaps, it’s no surprise that he’s a friend of the Fake Tan Führer, a.k.a., the White House Squatter. In a fashion that’s so typical of him, he “influenced “ his compagno to “suspend” the decision for a one-year probationary period.

Perhaps it didn’t matter, at least in sporting terms, as having Balogun in their starting XI wasn’t enough to hold off a team that’s looking for a monumental triumph before its current “golden generation” of players retires. And I feel bad for the rest of the US team, as they won’t be able to enjoy further triumphs on their home turf. (Sports journalists usually say that teams are “going home” when they lose.  Where is the USMNT—or, for that matter, Canada’s or Mexico’s team, who also lost in the Round of 16–going?)

And, more to the point, where is this world going if FTF can bully, not only sports officials, but the rest of the world? That he is the face (literally) my country made me, at least for a day, ashamed to root for something else that represents it.

What Did Your Bike Look Like Yesterday?

 Here’s a 4th of July bike decorating contest unlike any other:

250 And A Long Way To Go

 

Yesterday I wrote about how I remember the summer when I graduated high school: a haze of long, hot days. Today is like one of those days. I took another early morning ride to City Island, where I saw only a couple taking selfies (couplies?) against a marine backdrop.

The summer after I graduated high school, though it seemed to be a procession of days like this one, also happened to be the US Bicentennial.  People seemed to celebrate it more than they’re celebrating this, the 250th. Part of the reason, I believe, is that the president whom I shall not name is trying to make it all about him, as if the signing of the Declaration of Independence wouldn’t have happened without him. While some people follow him like cult members, many more are ashamed that he is the (scowling, glowering, leering) face of this country.  Not many people were crazy about Gerald Ford, the bicentennial president, but I think it had more to do with the circumstances that brought him into the office than his policies (such as they were) or personality.

But I think there is another reason for this year’s less-festive mood.  Perhaps I am projecting my own journey in saying what I am about to say, but here goes:  While the MAGA crowd wants to “return” to a white heterosexual male-dominated Christian (their version, at least) society —as if that ever existed—more of us are aware of the rape, genocide, plunder and other crimes that helped, along with the principles enumerated in the Declaration of Independence and Constitution, to forge this country.  

At the time of the Bicentennial, I only knew of the history I’d been taught and whatever it would enable me to learn on my own. To be fair, that is probably as much as my teachers knew because that is what was taught to them.

Of the 2767 students in my high school, perhaps two dozen were Black and even fewer were Asian, Hispanic or Native American.  And Rutgers, which I would attend after that summer, wasn’t nearly as diverse as it is now. So I had —I was going to say  “fewer opportunities,” but I now realize “less reason” would be more accurate—to question, not only what I had learned, but the perspective from which it had been taught.

So today is for me, as a transgender woman who has friends of races, nations and cultures different from my own—and a cyclist in an auto-centric society—a reminder that there is still a long, long way to go in achieving anything like a fair and just society-and that we still have the tools to accomplish that.

A Hot Morning Road Trip In The Bronx

 Early this morning I pedaled out to Randall’s Island. Even then, it was hot, brutally hot:  Even the breeze and blue sky felt like waves of heat searing into the pores of my skin.

On my way back, I stopped at Addeo’s to feed one of my addictions:  their pane de casa.  That, a ripe tomato, a slice of red onion and some cheese:  (more Macadam’s Munster) are a great no-cook meal for a day like today. 

Just after I left Addeo’s, a small car with a big loudspeaker rumbled by.  Normally, I expect rap or Hispanic music, being in the Bronx.  To my surprise, I heard, “Take The Money And Run” by The Steve Miller Band.

It made sense, in a way: It always seemed like a summer road-trip tune to me.  As much as it annoys me, whenever I see someone, usually a young man driving a loud car with even louder music, I can’t help but to think the driver wants to be out on the open road somewhere. Especially if his girlfriend or one of his buddies is riding “shotgun:” sort of like Billie Joe and Bobby Sue in the song.

While the lyrics tell a kind of “Bonnie and Clyde” story, the rhymes, some of the lamest I’ve heard, sometimes distract.  But the tune is so catchy, and feels like a hot, hot day like today and yesterday, and what’s forecast for tomorrow.

And it brings me back to 1976, the year it was released—and, of course, the US Bicentennial.  For some reason, I think of that summer as a hot one. Perhaps it had to do with also being the year I graduated high school.  For many of us, the summer that follows is the last time we see people we grew up with and, perhaps, the last time we live with our family. (At least it was then; I know that many young people who today remain with their families for even longer because it’s so expensive to rent even a basic room.) There is something about the “last summer”—whether of a stage in our own lives or of history—that is remembered in a haze like that of long, hot days.   

Of course, we don’t always know that it’s a “last summer” and just how different everything that follows will be. Perhaps that is what beclouds memories:  We reminisce as different people from what we were when we experienced whatever we’re recalling.  In my case, that difference is literal: My body has changed, not only from age, but also because I was living as a young man who was trying to fit into the world of young men, at least as I understood it, and other people’s expectations of me. As silly as that song is, when I first heard it, it echoed my wish: to run away, which I equated with freedom.

This morning, I wasn’t running away from anything: I started my day exactly as I wished, as the person I’ve become—and only faintly envisioned on those long-ago long hot summer days.

Do Their Beliefs Hold Water?

 This morning I pedaled to Fort Schuyler and Maritime College. There, I stopped to enjoy some of the bread I picked up at Addeo’s and a piece of Macadam Munster cheese.  As I sipped some Poland Spring, I thought about the controversy over “hydration breaks” in this year’s World Cup football games.

Some commentators, including several former players, have expressed their displeasure over them.  Some claimed, perhaps rightly, that they were instituted simply to allow time for commercials. In most of the world, the game stops only at halftime, and that break is shorter than the typical halftime of an American football game. (That is one reason why soccer games don’t have halftime shows.) There are no stoppages for “time outs,” “downs,” “innings” or any other reason.  That lack of pause for commercials is said to be one of the reasons why soccer (and bicycle races, which also aren’t divided into quarters, periods or innings and don’t have time-outs) doesn’t have as wide an audience as (American) football or baseball:  If potential sponsors can’t advertise, networks won’t broadcast.

Those who complain that hydration breaks allow commercials say that it “cheapens” or “Americanizes” the tournament and sport. Now, I understand not wanting to see commercials, but talking about  “Americanization” reeks of snobbishness.  If they are going to say football is “the world’s game,” they have to be willing to include all nations, even the ones they don’t like.

(Having said that, I am ashamed of how American officials treated the Iranian team.)

Another objection to hydration breaks is that they “interrupt the flow of the game.”  Some athletes may feel that when they are in a “groove,” any sort of stoppage can disrupt their rhythm. But I suspect that they also realize those pauses, whether for halftime or any other reason, can come at any moment in their cycle. I am sure it frustrates them, but they deal with it.

Then there is another group of objectors who wonder, in coded language, whether the need for hydration breaks means that today’s players aren’t as tough—“less manly”—than those of generations past. It’s essentially why Tour de France founder Henri Desgranges wouldn’t allow riders to use derailleurs, even though the race includes “hors de categorie” climbs.

I guess I had some of that macho streak when I was younger. I took pride in riding higher gears at a higher cadence than my riding buddies—and on finishing a “century” (in miles, not kilometers) without taking even a sip from my water bottle.

What did any of that prove? The same thing as running and kicking for 120 minutes in 40c heat with 90 percent humidity. Or making every pitch a 100 MPH fastball. Or, in James Wright’s words, “galloping terribly against each other’s bodies.”

The only thing they prove is that there are some things human bodies simply aren’t designed to do, yet some people will do them with the hope of gleaming whatever rewards, whether in money, adulation or simple ego gratification, may accrue.

Poland Sprins sure feels good on a hot morning ride, whatever my younger self might’ve thought.

We’re Not Bad For Business. Really!

 

In 1979, I rode in New York City’s Five Boro Bike Tour for the first time.  It was the third edition of what became an annual event and marked the first time the Triboro (now known as RFK Memorial) Bridge was closed to auto traffic.

I took the ride with two fellow students from Rutgers. We were among the few-thousand cyclists who participated; it had not yet become the sort of event that gets listed in TimeOut. It also didn’t have the $125 entry fee—a sum I never could have afforded as a university—of this year’s Tour.

I would participate in 19 more 5BBTs—two as a marshal—before deciding that it had become something people “did” rather than rode. (Plus, I had long since decided I would not pay to ride in my hometown.) But a recent news story reminded me of something I experienced on that 1979 ride.

In preparation for being one the World Cup host cities, Mexico City built a 24 kilometer (15 mile) protected bike lane from the city center to the main World Cup stadium. As expected, there were complaints and protests. Were city officials concerned about snow removal? Did business owners worry about parking? Are drivers irate over losing one of “their” lanes to cyclists?

I am sure that those common objections—save, perhaps, for snow removal—were voiced in regards to the Gran Ciclovía Tenochtittlán. But GCT upset another group of people who, as far as I know, have never before been involved in a bike lane controversy:  sex workers.

GCT’s route includes part of Avenida Tlalpan, where sex work has flourished for decades. (I don’t know this information firsthand: I have my sources!☺️)  Before the bike lane came (no pun intended—really!) in, pleasure providers would stand by the outermost traffic lanes. This allowed potential clients to slow down, stop and negotiate.

GCT has “taken” that outermost lane. So the World Cup—which, one assumes, would have been good for business—has instead all but destroyed not only a potential bonanza, but also their future prospects.

Before I make the connection with my 5BBT experience, I have to mention something else that occurs to me:  I have heard of one instance in which someone solicited from a bicycle.  When I was living in Park Slope, Brooklyn during the 1990s, the area under the nearby Gowanus Expressway was known to be an active prostitution area at least since World War II. One raid—which took place around the time then-Mayor Rudolph Giuliani was “cleaning up” Times Square—resulted from a would-be “John” soliciting an undercover cop from his bicycle.  I heard that when he was arrested, his bike was impounded.

The route of the 1979 5BBT, like that of every edition since, included a long stretch along the Brooklyn waterfront. Not far from where that two-wheeled terror met his end years later, there was a checkpoint. Gentrification and hipsters were years into the future for Williamsburg and Red Hook; those then-largely-industrial areas were all but abandoned on weekends.

Note that I said “all but.” At the checkpoint, while we were getting our cards stamped, some of us were greeted, shall we say, by folks wanting to do business. Being a broke student was just one reason why I didn’t. (In case you were wondering:  I have never paid, at least monetarily or with goods or other services, for sex.) I wonder, though, whether any other 5BBT riders did—and, if so, whether it’s proof cyclists aren’t bad for business.

Bikes And Bombs?

 As bad as I am at math, my freshman year of university showed me that I could actually be worse in another subject: economics.  I took one course and have told people, only half-jokingly, that I passed it (with a “D”) only because I promised the professor I would never again disgrace his discipline by taking another course in it.

Although I understood nothing, I remember a couple of things about the class. One is that the professor would exclaim, “MR=MC Always,” while pounding the podium.  And I recall something about “guns and butter.” I think it was about choosing between the two.

Well, years later I saw a poster that read, Bikes Not Bombs.” I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiment, not only because I love cycling:  I believe that the only htrue advance the human race can make is by ending war, now and forever.  But I am enough of a realist to see that it probably won’t happen, especially in the current political climate.

It seems, however, that more than one politician has flipped the “Bikes Not Bombs” slogan.   

Here in the US, we might expect a right-wing politician to make the argument that money spent on bike lanes and other cycling-related infrastructure and programs would come at the expense of the defense budget. (They have been making the same sort claim about arts and healthcare-for-all vs the military for decades.) But, interestingly, in the UK, Wes Streeting, a Labour politician who sought the party’s leadership made exactly that sort of false equivalence.  What’s even more astonishing is that as a former Health Secretary, he should know about the health benefits of cycling.

What made the parliamentary debate even more bizarre was not that Andrew Murrison, a Member of Parliament and a Navy veteran agreed, more or less.  It’s that another veteran and Member of Parliament, Al Pinkerton, shot down (no pun intended) their argument. “I am perfectly happy to spend money on both cycleways and defence,” he announced. 

Hmm..bikes and bombs? I guess that isn’t so far-fetched when you consider that one of earliest British bicycle manufacturers—and, for a long time, the most respected maker of bicycle components—was Birmingham Small Arms Ltd.

At What Age?

 

After Saturday’s ride to Point Lookout, I was very tired. I thought it might’ve had to do with my age, but I realized that as beautiful as the day was, the direct sunlight was draining me. So was the wind I pedaled into for most of my way back. 

I got to thinking about age again today, after riding to a few errands—and to vote in the primary.  The election workers were great.  One, a sweet-faced Black lady a decade or so younger than me (or so I guessed), was impressed that I pedaled to the polling place: a nearby high school gymnasium.

Only one other person who wasn’t a poll worker was in that room at the same time I was.  I wondered what he was doing there. On our way out, we exchanged greetings. “I apologize if I was looking at you too long.  But you look very young.”

“I’m 22. But people tell me I look 16.”

“That’s exactly how old I thought you were,”

We laughed. Somehow I knew then he was mature beyond his years. “Perhaps we’ll meet again.”

“That would be nice,” I said.

Later, I thought about how looking so young must complicate some things for him.  He’s old enough to vote, drive and drink, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he gets passed over for dates, jobs or other opportunities, or if he’s simply not included in some circles because of assumptions people make about him.

When I was his age—and when I was 16, for that matter—people thought I looked older.  Now I am one of the youngest residents of my senior citizens’ building, and people tell me I look younger.

Actually, I’ve been thinking about age a fair amount lately, ever since I had a dream about a high-school classmate, only to find her name on the “In Memoriam” list of my class’s round-number reunion page. While some, like me, looked older and others seemed younger, nearly all of us were just to one side or the other of 18 years old on the day we graduated. I was one of the ones who hadn’t reached that milestone and was therefore not considered an adult in New Jersey (where I graduated) or most other places.  On the other hand, those who got to the big one-eight could join the military, open a bank account, sign a lease or do a myriad of other things without their parents’ or guardians’ permission.  And, of course, they could vote.

What’s even stranger is that those of us who went to college or university were perceived as adults, more or less, even if we had yet to turn 18.  Even on the day I first set foot on the Rutgers campus, I knew I wasn’t a very, if at all, different person from the one I was a couple of months earlier, when I received my high school diploma. That fact became more obvious as the years went by.

In recalling my encounter with the young man at the polling place, I can’t help but to think that the standards we use, especially ones like age, to confer one kind of status or another on someone, are so arbitrary. I can only imagine what the young man I met today experiences because of his very boyish appearance.

Happy Father’s Day

 

She Will Always Be In The Middle of Her Life

This blog is called “Midlife Cycling.” Today’s post will emphasize the first part of a title.

Opal Lee of Fort Worth, Texas is 98 years old. But she is still in the middle of her life.  Like 99 percent of us, she doesn’t know when her life will end. But, as I will explain later, there is another reason why she still is, and most likely will remain, in midlife.

When she was a girl, her family, like many in Texas and in the African-American diaspora, celebrated “Juneteenth” (a portmanteau of “June” and “nineteenth “) with picnics and other gatherings.  On 19 June 1865–two months after the US Civil War ended and more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation—Major General Gordon Granger of the Union Army read, from several public places in Galveston, the proclamation that the slaves of Texas we’re free.

The following year, newly-freed slaves held commemorations in the places where General Granger made his pronouncement. During the ensuing years, observances and celelebrations spread to African-American communities in other parts of the country.  They petered out, ironically, as the Civil Rights movement began in the 1950s, mainly because the Great Migration slowed down and there were very few surviving former slaves.

The happy memories Ms.Opal, as she calls herself, ended on Juneteenth of 1939:  White vigilantes took the occasion to burn down her family’s home and toss out all of their furniture. That act, barbaric as it was, actually strengthened her connections to the day.  After earning a Master’s degree and retiring from her work as a teacher and counselor, she became active with the Tarrant County Black Historical and Genealogical Society, which was responsible for overseeing local Juneteenth celebrations. 

She soon realized, however, that those celebrations (which included picnics that made my mouth water just from reading about them) weren’t enough, given the importance of the day.  So, at age 89, she began the campaign, which included some very long walks and impromptu visits, to make Juneteenth a national holiday. Her persistence paid off on 17 June 2021, when President Joe Biden signed a bill to recognize this day, 19 June—“Juneteenth”—as a Federal holiday. Banks, post offices and other institutions are closed in observance.  

Now I am going to explain something I said earlier. Ms. Opal knows that, even at her age, her work is not finished. She continues to do what, she says, is the purpose of Juneteenth: informing and educating people about the significance of the event that prompted it.  “Great nations don’t ignore their most painful moments,” she says.  “They embrace them.”  Echoing Frederick Douglass, Martin Luther King Jr. and other freedom fighters, she explains that she wants to bring all people together:”Nobody is free until we’re all free.”

Anyone who thinks that way knows her work, and life, aren’t done.  Ms. Opal will always be in the middle of them.

The First Time, Again

 They say you never forget how to ride a bike. That’s true, more or less.

At least, that’s the case for “Carrie.” She’s the S.O. of “Sam,” the friend and riding partner I met not long after moving into my current place. We have become friends, not only because of her relationship with ‘Sam:” We “got” each other in spite (or because?) of our differing backgrounds.  Turns out, we have more in common than I ever would have imagined.

Among those common experiences is cycling, at least in her youth.  She hadn’t ridden in at least  25 years. At first, I thought she wanted to ride again simply to join “Sam” and me. After finding a suitable bike for her and seeing her on her first rides, I realized that she was looking for something else.

Getting a bike on which she would be comfortable was the first step.  She is about 5’3” 160 cm) and, while a few years younger than me or “Sam,” has trouble lifting her leg over the top bar of a “diamond” frame. (She tried one “Sam” found.) And she wanted something pretty, which I can well understand.

Here in New York City, shopping for a bike on Craigslist is, shall we say, an adventure. Some of the listed bikes are stolen. Others are billed as “vintage.” Translation:  The seller wants $400 for something they fished out of the Gowanus Canal. 

Somehow I lucked out:  A Trek bike with an aluminum frame and 24 inch wheels for a decent price. Although the location was given as “Upper East Side” it was, in fact in East Harlem. But the seller seemed OK:  She described the bike as accurately as she could and explained that she’d bought it for her daughter who no longer lives with her.  The bike was actually in pretty good condition:  The wheels were true and spun smoothly; the tires and tubes weren’t punctured or dry-rotted.  I did, however, replace the cables, as I would on any used bike.

Her first ride nearly stopped my and “Sam’s” hearts:  She wobbled and fell.  Fortunately, she didn’t have even a bruise or a scrape. And she wanted to try again.  And again. Finally, she rode straight as the chainline on my fixie down the block and back. “I did it! I can’t wait to do more!”  

“We will.”

Now I believe I understand why she wanted so much to ride. She probably wanted to share another aspect of my and “Sam’s” lives. But her exultation told me something else:  Getting on the bike and riding, even for such a short distance, is a genuine accomplishment. It’s something we need at any stage in our lives, especially as we age fret that “we aren’t what we used to be.” It doesn’t matter what that achievement is, whether it’s as big as earning a degree or writing a book, or as “small” as learning how to cook a new dish.

Oh, and “Carrie” looked like she was having fun she hadn’t had in a long time, if ever.  She needed it; we all need to experience that kind of joy, for the first time again, at any age.

What To Wear, At My Age?

 You’ve heard of MAMILs:  Middle-Aged Men In Lycra.

Although I am in the middle of my life, I can’t be a MAMIL for one reason, and won’t be one (or, for that matter, a MAWIL—it doesn’t have the same ring) for another.

Acting Our Age

“Sam”’s observation got me to thinking about my experiences as a young cyclist and one in the middle of my life.

When I first became a dedicated cyclist, in the early-to-mid 1970s, I participated in a few organized rides. The ones for charity (e.g., UNICEF or diabetes research) included riders of varying ages. Some adolescents, like me, rode with friends or alone. Younger kids, on the other hand, were accompanied by parents or other adults; I am guessing that was a requirement for children under a certain age.  The adults who weren’t accompanying kids seemed to go alone or as part of a contingent from some workplace or other organization.

The rides that weren’t charity events, like the ones the Monmouth County parks commission organized, had an entirely different demographic makeup.  I was almost invariably the youngest rider, often by decades. I hadn’t thought about that until now. It begs the question of why.

All of those adult riders, unless they grew up in other countries, lived through decades when few adults rode bicycles and nearly everyone traded two wheels for four, and two pedals for one, as soon as they had their driver’s licenses.  Some, I am sure, participated in that American rite of passage before re-discovering the joys of cycling. But, judging from their comments and conversations among themselves and with me, it didn’t seem as if they’d abstained from cycling for very long: They seemed to have a breadth of experience and wealth of knowledge beyond what my peers or the books and magazines could offer me.

I didn’t mind being the new kid, literally and figuratively, on those rides. Those riders treated me well; for what may have been the first time in my life, I was with adults who weren’t condescending, even if they had reason to be. No one told me I needed a better (lighter) bike than my Schwinn Continental, though I must admit that I envied their seemingly-otherworldly Peugeots, Bottechias, Raleigh Competitions and Fujis. 

I now realize that, ironically, I was, in a way, doing the same thing as my peers who stopped cycling as soon as they were allowed to drive. We were, to the degree we could, emulating the adults in our lives. In the US, for the past century or so, learning to drive, getting a license and finally taking one’s place at the steering wheel has been equated with growing up. I am sure that the adult cyclists I met on those rides were, unless they came from elsewhere, inculcated with that belief. So, in order to become what I saw, they had to be confident and un-self-conscious: I am sure that they were told, at some point or another, they were “too old” for a “kid’s” activity like bike-riding.

I wanted to be like them. It didn’t matter whether they were teachers, aviators, store managers, artists or iron workers: They all looked like they belonged on their bikes.  And they were simply having fun:  something I didn’t know adults were allowed.

Looking back, however, I can see one glaring problem:  All of those cyclists were men. Not that their maleness was a bad thing; I knew, even then, that whatever I became when I “grew up,” I didn’t want to be a man. I don’t think I saw an adult female cyclist on an organized ride that wasn’t a charity event until I rode, years later, with the Central Jersey Bicycle Club.

Which brings me back to “Sam’s” observation: The riders we saw on non-electric, non-motorized bikes were indeed “older.” But at least some were women, a few of whom rode alone.  Now those are the adults I would have loved to have as role models!

In The Middle Of Our Journeys

 Yesterday Sam and I rode the Van Cortlandt Park trail to Yonkers, where we picked up the Westchester County trail to Millwood. Both of these routes are part of the Empire State Trail.

As we neared the end of our ride, he made an interesting observation.  “All of the riders we’ve seen on pedal bikes are older.”  He added that the e-bike and motorized scooter riders were young.

Now, I must say that given our ages, it’s a little odd to refer to “older” people, even if we are in the middle of our lives. Sure, some had gray or graying hair on their heads and faces.  But do they see themselves as “older?” Or so they share my belief that we’re in the middle of our lives as long as we don’t know when we’re going to die?

And what of this one, out for a walk on a beautiful day? Does she know whether she’s near the beginning or end, or in the middle of her life?

The Bike Knows

 “Where are you riding today?”

“Wherever the bike wants bike wants to go!”

The bike knows…

Poking (Or Drilling) Holes In Their Defenses

 Why?

The “drillium” craze reached its peak during the late 1970s and early 1980s. The ostensible goal was to save weight. So many folks beleved, then as now, that extra gram on a brake lever would cause them to lose a race, or simply face. So they went against manufacturers’ warnings not to “try this at home and bored into cranks, chainrings, brake calipers and any other part they could reach with a carbide bit.

While some “hokey” parts made sense and were even beautiful, there are some I will never understand. For example, unless you do all of your riding in surgically antiseptic environments, I cannot understand why you would make the inner workings of a hub vulnerable to dirt, dust and moisture.

The funny thing is that this hub has what looks like a partial freewheel attached to it. Did someone remove two cogs (it looks like a five-speed freewheel) to save weight?

Manufacturers always insisted that they drilled—or did anything else to save weight—only as much as they believed was safe. Ironically, some perforated parts—like Campagnolo’s Super Record brake levers and the version of Huret’s Jubilee derailleur with pinpoint holes in its pulley cage—actually weighed a few grams more than their un-drilled counterparts.

I would love to know how (or whether) that hub and freewheel were ridden.