“Kittie” Knox

 February is Black History Month in the U.S. In years past, I’ve recounted the life and accomplishments of Major Taylor (which I may re-visit this month), a Black cycling brigade and other stories related to the experiences of African-descended cyclists in America. Today, however, I want to call attention to someone who has been all but forgotten, save by a few African American history scholars.

Katherine Towle “Kittie” Knox was born on 7 October 1874 in Cambridgeport, Massachusetts. When she was seven, her father died. Shortly afterward, her mother moved with her and her brother to the West End of Boston, a largely impoverished neighborhood that many American Blacks and immigrants called home.

She would work as a seamstress and her brother as a steamfitter. In addition to helping her family, her work allowed her to save money and buy a bicycle, which was a “big ticket” item. Her job also helped her to create a unique, and sometimes controversial, identity.

Ms. Knox came of age just as the first American bicycle boom was building up steam. And the Boston area was one of its epicenters. Kittie’s enthusiasm and talent were quickly noticed, and she was invited to participate in races and other events—and to become a member of the League of American Wheelmen (now known as the League of American Cyclists) in 1893.

In one of cycling’s more shameful episodes, one year after Knox became a member, the L.A.W. amended its constitution to mandate that only White cyclists could join. Disputes about Kittie’s membership ensued. She did not give in to pressure to resign and the amendment was not retroactive. “Kittie” Knox thus remained a member and a popular rider in its—and other—events.

But her popularity didn’t shield her from the “double whammy” of race and gender discrimination. Even as a card-carrying L.A.W. member, she was denied entry to races and other rides. And she was refused service in hotels and restaurants.  A newspaper account from 1895 describes an all-too-typical incident:

Asbury Park, New Jersey was a fashionable beach town and the site of a prestigious race. That newspaper account offers a glimpse into its troubled racial history. It’s a morning’s or afternoon’s bike ride from where I lived during my high-school years. Whenever I rode through that part of the Jersey Shore, I couldn’t help but to notice how I was pedaling from White to Black, or back, when I entered or left the city, which was ravaged by a race riot in 1970. And neighboring Ocean Grove was a “sundown town.” Both municipalities, like my high school town, are part of Monmouth County—which, according to some sources, had the largest Ku Klux Klan membership of any county north of the Mason-Dixon Line.

The newspaper account of that time also highlights, if unintentionally, the other “prong” of discrimination she faced. The “pretty colored girl from Boston” used the skills she acquired as a seamstress to create outfits that, in addition to allowing more freedom of movement than typical women’s cycling attire of the time, had a distinctive look. So, even when she won a race, reporters and much of the public focused on her appearance rather than her aptitude or hard work.

Unfortunately, not enough has changed. I can recall sports journalists and commentators tamping their praise of Serena Williams’ other-worldly tennis playing with criticisms of her inability to conform to their ideas of femininity.  Rebecca Twigg probably made more money from modeling clothes than from winning a rainbow jersey. And, for all of her dominance on the basketball court, much of the media and public seem more infatuated with Caitlin Clark's Midwestern “girl next door” persona.

Given what I’ve just said, it’s interesting and possibly disturbing to think of what her post-racing life could have been like. Would she have kept the flame of American cycling alive after World War I? Could she have become a fashion designer or created a line of clothing for athletic women? Or would she have been part of the “Harlem Renaissance,” whether on-site or in spirit?  We’ll never know because she died on 11 October 1900–four days after turning 26–from liver disease.

Greetings From Asbury Park, New Jersey

By now, everyone has seen what might have been just another postcard from a fading beach resort

had it not graced the cover of a certain singer/songwriter's first album.

By now, everyone has heard of Bruce Springsteen and someone's claim of having seen him for $1 before he was famous. I swear, it's true!  

One of the great things about getting to be, ahem, a certain age is that the statute of limitations runs out.  You see, when I saw the then-obscure Bruce, the legal drinking age was 18.  Still, I was a few years shy of that.  So were a couple of the youngsters who accompanied me, and their siblings who were just on the other side of that age.

In those days, the Stone Pony was a "dive bar" in what was then a dying town.  If you were in Atlantic City before the casinos opened--or have ventured more than a couple of blocks away from its "strip"--you have an idea of what Asbury Park was like in those days.

It had become so unfashionable, in fact, that this was nearly demolished:

I used to ride through it and, as often as not, have no company besides a pigeon or seagull or two.  Now it houses a bar and a few stores--and you can't ride through it.  Cycling isn't allowed through the promenade, but even if you've spent your life riding criteriums and downhill slaloms, you couldn't have ridden through the crowd I encountered there the other day.

I'm not complaining.  I had a great ride down there, from my place in New York, and back up to Long Branch.  I reckon I did about 120 kilometers in total before taking the train back.

Though it was warmer--about 14C--the air felt almost as chilly as it did during my Connecticut ride on Thanksgiving day, when I started in OC conditions and the temperature didn't get much above 5C.  I wasn't complaining, though:  My seashore ride had the sun and clear skies I saw during my ride to the Nutmeg state.

No, I didn't see Bruce, or stop at the Stone Pony. I did go by it, though. Not surprisingly, it's become a tourist attraction:  While some parts of the city are still worn around the edges and suffer from unemployment and poverty, the beachfront and downtown areas draw strollers, shoppers and others from around the area.

By the way:  Contrary to what some have mis-reported, Bruce was not born in Asbury Park.  He did, however, spend his formative years--at least, musically--in the city.  

On the other hand,"Bud" Abbott of the Abbott and Costello comedy team was born in AP.  So were Danny DeVito and Leon Hess.  And, as much as it pains me to mention her name, Wendy Williams.  

Oh--a fellow named Arthur Augustus Zimmerman also first came into this world in Asbury Park.  In 1893, he won the first World Championship of cycling.  

Finally--You might say that Asbury Park is where the "joy buzzer" went to die.  At least, that's where its inventor--Soren Adam Sorensen--drew his last breath!

Without the Need to Escape

I rode to Point Lookout, again.  At approximately 65 miles round-trip, it's tied with the longest trip I've taken this year, and since my surgery.  


On a day like today, when the sea seems to be the shadow of a preternaturally clear sky--or when the sky is light refracted through a cobalt stained-glass reflection of the sea--it seems as if the water is a sort of light, and that light flows and ripples and undulates like the waves of water.  

And the ripples of water and waves of light become each other's reflections:

Just before I crossed the bridge from which I shot the above photo, I saw one of those things that could you forget that you're in Queens:

The dunes are in Arverne, which is just to the east of Rockaway Beach.   The streets leading to the Arverne stretch of the beach and boardwalk were, not too long ago, filled with bungalows and cottages that served as summer homes for some New Yorkers and permanent residences for some cops and firefighters.  Then most of them were abandoned when housing projects were built in Far Rockaway, the next neighborhood to the east and the last before the Nassau County line.  


I was pedalling into a fairly stiff breeze as I rode past those dunes toward Nassau County and Point Lookout.  That meant, of course, that my ride back was actually easier: enough so that I found myself thinking of a poem by Pablo Neruda:


EL viento es un caballo:
óyelo cómo corre
por el mar, por el cielo.

Quiere llevarme: escucha 
cómo recorre el mundo 
para llevarme lejos.

Actually, those are just the first two stanzas of  a poem from "Los Versos del Capitan."  The selection above translates into something like this:

The wind is a horse:

Hear how it runs

through the sea,

through the sky.

He want to take me away:

Hear how he roams 

through the world

To take me far away.

Please forgive my poor translation:  It's really much better in Spanish.  

Here is my "horse" :

And here is how someone is "riding" Neruda's "horse":

Yes, that white object is a board of some kind.  A man is riding it and the wind is pulling his kite.

Somehow these rides that are directed by the wind and follow the sea are even more innocent--almost to the point of being naive and romantic, as Neruda's poem is--than the ones I took as a teenager and in my early adulthood.  Those now-long-ago rides kept me sane, at least to the degree that I was. 

 On summer days, I would ride down to Long Branch, Asbury Park or beyond.  I learned that around 2:00 every afternoon, the wind would shift along the coast, so the wind I fought on the way down would blow me back up to Sandy Hook, the northernmost part of the Jersey shore.

I remember that long, straight flat stretch of Route 36 along the beaches in Long Branch and Sea Bright.  Some days I would just let the wind do my work, while on others I would spin as fast as I could.  It was my release and escape; now that I no longer am trapped by what I was trying to escape, there is just the ride along the sea.