From An Island To A Memory Of A Street

 

My friend Sam—one of the first people I met when I moved into my current apartment—took an early ride: me, on Tosca, my Mercian fixed gear and he, on the aluminum Trek road bike I fixed up for him.  The breeze we felt as we crossed the bridge into City Island and at the end of the island itself would be the last relief we would feel before the sun would turn brick-lined streets— which we followed from Pelham Bay  to Bronx Park—into ovens.

The bricks—faded, cracked and pockmarked like faces who have survived winter, poverty, betrayal and the births of those who have died along those streets—smoldered with their remains and the last buds blown away from cherry blossoms, magnolias, crabapples and early spring flowers like tulips and hyacinths planted around those trees.

The too-early-for-the season heat, which reached 95F (35C), turned their shadows, all of them, into the pores, wrinkles and cracks in bricks and concrete slabs that will endure, perhaps, longer than the street—at least, as I have know it—will.

I walked down a street like it, a couple of blocks from where I lived in Brooklyn, on a day like this, which had followed and preceded another like it, near the end of my fifth grade year.  1969: The world was about to change because of events I would know about as they happened—Woodstock, the Apollo 11 moon landing and protests against the Vietnam War and racial prejudice—and ones I wouldn’t know about until later, like Stonewall.

But, even though summer had not officially begun, it seemed to have always been. The faded, flaked bricks and pinks, purples and yellows turning green felt suspended in the haze of that heat. Just as the world beyond it was changing, I somehow knew that what I was seeing and feeling that day wouldn’t be there forever. Nor would I. The heat was no longer only a meteorological phenomenon: I felt, in a way I couldn’t describe, that it was flaring within me.  And within a year it would change me, as it would change my neighborhood.

On my way home that day, I saw a man who, at the time, seemed ancient to me, sitting on his stoop, as he did nearly every day. I would never see him again.

Sam and promised each other we’ll ride again, perhaps tomorrow morning. The afternoon is forecast to be as hot as today.

(More to come.)

From The City To The Island

 Yesterday I pedaled out to City Island. It’s not a long ride (about 25 kilometers round-trip) and it’s mostly flat.  So I thought about taking Tosca, my Mercian fixie, but instead went with La-Vande, my King of Mercia.

I was glad I made that choice: I pedaled into the wind most of the way back. Also, La-Vande has fenders, which shielded the bike—and me—from salt and sand the Department of Sanitation spread over the streets during recent snowfalls. And parts of the Bronx River and Pelham Parkway Greenways were mud puddles. 

While most of the bike—and I—were protected, the chain and cassette are a little worse for the experience. I don’t mind; I’m going to replace them in a few weeks.

I regret not photographing is some streets and both Greenways.  Road conditions are usually at their worst around this time of year: The salt and sand, along with temperature changes, result in fissures that make some of those concrete and asphalt ribbons look—and ride—more like broken stairway. Interestingly, it was worst along the stretch of Pelham Greenway from Williamsbridge Road to the I-95 underpass: Its surface was more uneven, and muddier, than along the path through the wooded area just before the bridge to City Island.

Only City Island Avenue traverses the island; the other streets, only a block or two long, are bookended by the Avenue and the water. And the Avenue has only one traffic lane in each direction. So it doesn’t take much to create a jam, which I encountered. The good news, for me anyway, was that I could move along easily.  Perhaps surprisingly, given that it was a mild day (about 12C or 54F) for this time of year, I didn’t see any other cyclists—or pedestrians or scooters.

So, when I reached the end of the island, I felt it was all mine—or, perhaps, that everyone else had forgotten it.

I must say, though, that there’s something I very much like about the light and water at this time of year: The austere, steely clouds and tides of winter are showing the first hints of turning into a more vivid, if still stark, shades of blue that will, eventually, brighten in the sun.

By then, the days, and my rides, will be longer, I hope.

Morning Ride To The Island

 Since my move, I’ve been creating some new rides—and finding new routes for old ones.

Yesterday’s ride fell into the latter category. I took an early morning ride to City Island—officially part of the Bronx and New York City but so different—via Bronx Park and the lanes that parallel Pelham Parkway, the Hutchinson River Parkway and City Island Road.

It’s good to know that it can be an early morning or end-of-day ride:  Going to the end of the island and back is about an hour’s worth of cycling.

Because none of the restaurants (yes, they’re all about seafood) were open, it really felt like a sleepy New England fishing village—especially since it seemed that everyone who was out was fishing or walking a dog.