Before, After Or Between Storms?

 Have you ever quipped, “I’ll pedal between the raindrops?”

Some of us gave that response when asked whether we’ll ride in the rain.  I will, to a point:  I won’t set out if it’s cold and raining or if I can’t see more than a couple of bicycle lengths ahead of me because the rain is falling so hard or it’s getting blown sideways.

This week, I haven’t been pedaling between raindrops.  Since taking a ride to Point Lookout on Monday I have, however been riding between storms.  In four days, we’ve had three incidents of flooding rains. The first, on Tuesday, began with a combination of rain, sleet and snow that didn’t accumulate.

So when I rode Negrosa, my vintage Mercian Olympic, to Coney Island

I wasn’t sure of whether this was the end of a storm—or the calm before a storm or between storms.

Turns out, it was the latter:  We had two more inches (5cm) of rain last night.

More Blue Heat And A Big Lunch

 Another “beat the heat” ride.  I must admit that I did something the nutritionists tell you not to do:  I skipped breakfast.  I rationalized it to myself because I wasn’t hungry and wanted to get on my bike early.  I did, however, have a quick cup of coffee before taking off.

My ride took me into Brooklyn, through the quiet side streets of Greenpoint, some brownstone blocks of the Pratt Institute neighborhood and Park Slope—and a neighborhood just south of Prospect where the Victorian houses have wide porches and the streets have names that are even more English than anything the English could ever come up with.

From there, I rode down past Brooklyn College into a neighborhood with bigger, but more modern (1930s-1950s) houses that were once home to the children of Jewish and Italian immigrants who’d “made it” but are now occupied by Orthodox Jewish families who, no doubt, are prosperous even if their wealth has to be spread across large families.

From there, I pedaled to Sheepshead Bay and Coney Island where I saw the same blue heat I saw yesterday from Fort Totten Park.

Yesterday I recalled the long-ago science lesson about blue stars being hotter than red or yellow ones.  Today I though about the oceans—including the Atlantic that churns under the Coney Island Pier getting hotter.  Perhaps I will reveal my ignorance of science when I tell you, dear reader, that I wondered whether the ocean will turn bluer as it heats up.

Then more riding along the water—the Verrazano Narrows, under the eponymous bridge —and up to my apartment.

In spite of not having eaten, I didn’t “bonk.” I did, however, start to feel peckish after I crossed the Pulaski Bridge back into Queens. Even if my hunger was psychologically induced, I felt I’d “earned” the big lunch of asparagus, peppers, radishes and mushrooms in a vinaigrette dressing with baby Swiss (Emmental) cheese and corn (maize) tostadas.

Cycling In The Mist

Was I in London?

Or San Francisco?

Actually, I rode along the south shore of Queens and Brooklyn yesterday.  From Rockaway Beach to Fort Tilden, the fog was so thick that in some places I could see only three or four bicycle lengths ahead of me.

Still, more people strolled, cycled and scootered (Is that a verb?) along the boardwalks than I'd expected.  It was Sunday, after all, and fairly warm, with a brisk breeze from the southeast.

Perhaps even hardened cycnics were taken by the hazy romantic atmosphere.  You could be alone and feel it.  The odd thing is that I felt as if the dreaminess was making me pedal faster.  Perhaps there was less resistance--to feelings internal as well as things external.  Of course, I had to make myself slow down in a few places.  Nothing like running someone down, or being run down, to ruin the mood, right?

 

The fog started to clear, at least on land, after I started pedaling from Breezy Point to the bridge to Brooklyn.  But it lingered in the horizon, out to sea, which made for some oddly serene light.

There are some folks who will do whatever they do, whatever the weather.  I rather admire them.

The day will be lost to the mists of time.  But not what I, or anyone else, felt or remember.

 

Chocolate, Quakers and Chinatown

Over the weekend, I rode on ribbons of shoveled asphalt and sand occasionally punctuated by patches of ice and slush--or mounds of snow that inconveniently appeared in my path.  Since I try to give people the benefit of the doubt, I'll assume that shoveling snow into a bike lane is an honest mistake, not an act of aggression!

Anyway, on Saturday I pedaled out to Coney Island, again, where I saw a surprising number of people strolling (and sometimes slipping) along the boardwalk, and on the Verrazano-Narrows promenade on my way back.  I didn't take any photos, as I didn't see much of anything I didn't see when I rode there a week ago.  I did, however, make a point of stopping at William's Candy Shop.  It's a real old-school seaside sweet shop, lined with ancient glass display cases filled with almost-as-ancient glass bins full of candy apples, marshmallows on sticks and chocolate, fruit gel and other sweet substances in various shapes and sizes, as well as a popcorn maker like the ones you used to see in movie theatres. William's is a remnant of a gritty beachfront strip that's quickly being swallowed up by condo towers, chain restaurants and stores, including It'sugar. (When the old flea-market stalls along Surf Avenue--including one where I bought a Raleigh Superbe--disappeared and were replaced by Applebee's, IHOP and the like, I knew Coney Island as I knew it wasn't long for this world!).  Whenever I go to Coney I stop by, in part, to reassure myself it's still there.  I bought nonpareils (an old favorite), sour cherry balls and a hunk of dark chocolate. The old man who owns the place just happened to be there, giving his gruff-but-warm old-time Brooklyn greetings and thanks, in unison with the more effusive pleasantry of a twentyish young woman (his granddaughter?) who was working there.

I brought some of those nonpareils and cherry balls with me yesterday, as I pedaled up and down the Steinway Manor hill half a dozen times on my way out to the World's Fair Marina, Fort Totten and the coves along the north shore of Queens.  I ventured a bit into one of New York's "other" Chinatowns, in Flushing.  On my way back to the World's Fair Marina, I spun along Bowne Street, named for the man who occupied this house:

It's one of the oldest still-standing habitations in this city.  But it's not just a place where John Bowne sipped his cup of tea at the end of a long day--and sometimes they were long!  There, he and the other Quakers living in Flushing worshipped.  

At that time, most of Queens was still wood- or marsh-land, and reaching the few settlements (like Flushing) could take a day, or longer, from Manhattan.  That, probably, is the reason why Bowne and the Quakers settled there:  They could live self-sufficient lives as farmers, fishers, artisans or tradespeople, "under the radar," so to speak, of the Dutch colonial government.

Here in America, one of the ways we're inculcated with the notion that winners win (i.e., get rich or otherwise "succeed") because they deserve to and losers deserve their fate for being naïve or worse is through  the way we're taught about Peter Stuyvesant.  According to the story we're taught, he bought an island for the equivalent of twenty-four dollars worth of trinkets.   

That island is, of course, Manhattan.  (And real estate developers today think they've gotten a good deal when they score a fifth of an acre in Washington Heights for a million dollars!)  In painting him as, essentially, America's first real estate mogul, the writers of our textbooks--and teachers who presumably don't know any better--leave out his brutality and flat-out bigotry.  He owned slaves which, as terrible as that was, wasn't so unusual for a man of his stature.  But even for his time, he bore an inordinate animus for Jews and Catholics, of whom there were very few in his or any neighboring colony, save for the French settlement of Quebec.  

His most intense hatred, however, was reserved for Quakers.  The best explanation anyone has for it can be found in the name of the denomination, which is really a nickname (officially, they're the Society of Friends) derived from their practice of praying so intensely they sometimes shook ("quaked").  So, no matter how quietly they otherwise lived, their worship practices made them conspicuous.  Other religions, on the other hand, were more able to worship "in the closet," if you will, in places like New Amsterdam that had official religions like the Dutch Reformed Church.

Anyway, Bowne was arrested and extradited back to the Netherlands where he made his case for religious freedom to the Dutch authorities, who reprimanded Stuyvesant and returned Bowne to America.

Somehow, it seems fitting that Bowne's house still stands in a neighborhood where signs are printed in Mandarin and Korean as well as English and Spanish--and where in-the-know New Yorkers (like yours truly) stop for congee and dumplings during cold-day bike rides.

Between Snowstorms

Yesterday afternoon I pedaled along the Queens and Brooklyn waterfronts to Coney Island.  More snow was on the way, so I wanted to get a few miles in.  

Along the way, I encountered a few things I expected, such as snow piled (deliberately?) on the bike lanes and ice patches.  

And on the Coney Island Boardwalk:

Even the sea and sky seemed to reflect the storm's residue:

The funny thing is that the Verrazano Narrows promenade (the one that passes under the bridge), which I rode on my way home, was snow- and ice-free--and teeming with people out for late-day walks.  I think I saw two or three other cyclists.

I admit that I wasn't riding fast.  But it was good, all good.

 

A Ride Through Time Before Christmas Eve

 Yesterday, after finishing everything I needed to--and could--get done before the holidays, I went for a much-needed ride.

Why do I need a ride?  Well, for one thing, I'm a lifelong bike rider.  The only other things besides basic bodily functions that I feel I "need" are reading, writing and occasional travel.

Also, even though I know I've done the things that needed to be done, I felt a tinge of guilt that I probably won't get much, if anything, done betwee now and the fourth day of the new year. (New Year's Day, like Christmas, will fall on a Friday.)  But I reminded myself of Congress*, so I don't feel so slothful.

Anyway, I pedaled down to Rockaway Beach, Riis Park and Coney Island.  I saw the sun preparing for its descent in Rockaway:

and exiting in a blaze of glory at Riis Park:

Just as captivating, to me, as the refulgent spectacle were the shifting cloud formations.  I felt as if time were a scrim drifting across the sky and tracing its face on waves of the sea.

By the time I reached Coney Island, the sky and sea were dark.  I didn't take photos because--silly me--I forgot to charge my phone before I went for a ride and it was all but depleted by the time I got to what might be the world's most famous boardwalk.  More people than I'd anticipated were taking walks and rides, men were fishing off the pier and some Puerto Ricans played some traditional music from the islands on their guitars and drums.

There weren't, however, many people on the Verrazano-Narrows promenade, which passes underneath the bridge.  Most of them were fishing.  I think that most of the fishermen I saw were Latinos and their catch might make up their families' Christmas Eve dinners--which, for Catholics includes fish. 

My family ate whatever fish my uncles caught--or, in later years, what looked good to my mother at the market-- and scungilli: deep-fried rings of squid. That memory, sparked by those fishermen, loped through my mind as I continued through Brooklyn on my way home. 

Those memories, like time, drift through my mind like that scrim of time between the sea and sky.

*--Congress took--how long?--to pass a second coronavirus relief bill.  They didn't accomplish much. The President and his buddies, on the other hand, did a lot--none of it to mitigate the COVID crisis and all of it malignant! (That' not an editorial comment:  It's a fact!)

Out Of Season

Late summer + Late afternoon =  Winter?

Perhaps that equation makes sense if you are the sort of person who grows sadder as the summer draws to a close.  In normal times (whatever that means anymore), the days grow shorter and cooler at this time of year.  So, if winter isn't incipient, fall is certainly on its way--with the barren season not far behind.

Although the air was warm when I mounted my bike, I felt as if I'd taken a ride in the middle of January or February, after the bright lights of Christmas and New Years' festivals are switched off.  Coney Island, like other seaside destinations, seems to retreat into hibernation from that time of year until Easter or Passover.  During those spring holidays, people congregate on the boardwalk, and sometimes even venture on the beach, even if the roller coasters and Ferris wheels and other attractions have not yet opened.

But such gatherings were absent yesterday.  Granted, it was a Thursday afternoon, but in normal (there's that word again!) times, I would have to weave around groups of strollers on any summer afternoon that didn't include a raging thunderstorm.

Most people would say that Coney Island is "dead," or at least closed, when the Cyclone--one of the most iconic amusement park rides in the world--and Wonder Wheel are still, their entry gates locked tight.    But, for me, what really shows that a stake has been driven into Coney Island's heart is this block:

I remember riding the "bumper cars" with my grandfather as a child, and trying to win prizes at the shooting range.  Tourists usually come to "the Island" for the "big" attractions, like the Cyclone and Luna Park.  But, for me, the real spirit of the place--in all of its grit and garishness, in the hustle of its carnival barkers and the pulsing of its shopowners'  hunger alongside the expanse of ocean--is in places like the shooting gallery, the sideshows and the old man--actually, he turned out to be exactly my age, save for a few days!--who sat in front of one of the padlocked doors.

He saw me riding and taking photos.  We talked.  He told me a bit about his life and how he ended up there, like a piece of driftwood on a more remote beach.  I assured him that what happened to him could happen to any one of us, myself included.  "I don't want to keep you," he said.

He wasn't keeping me.  I still have choices:  I would ride back to my neighborhood, where some would complain about restaurants and bars that aren't allowed to serve patrons indoors.  He would look for the bits of work--sweeping sidewalks, unloading trucks--the few still-open hot dog stands (Nathan's, and others) and other shops could offer him, and pay him a few dollars for. 

I rode to winter.  He was living in it. I rode home.

To The Beach--By Bike Or Train? Why Not Combine Them?

After work, I did what a lot of other people are doing this week:  I took a trip to the beach.  It's the last "unofficial" week of summer; after Monday--Labor Day--most people will be back at work.

Of course, you know I rode my bicycle to the beach--Orchard Beach, to be exact, as it's the one nearest my job. Other people did, too, but others drove or took the bus.  Still others took the train to beaches on Long Island--or the subway to the Rockaways and Coney Island.

It's probably no surprise that during cycling's first heyday--roughly the last decade of the 19th Century and the first decade of the 21st--people cycled to the beach, especially to Coney Island.  The Ocean Parkway Bike and Bridle path--the oldest extant bike lane in the US-- was constructed during that time.  Also, during that time, construction of the subway system began.  There were, however, smaller, independent railroads that ran from Manhattan and the nearby areas of Brooklyn to the beaches. Some of those railroads later became part of the city's and region's mass transit system.

At that time, it was even possible to combine bikes and trains on a ride to the beach.  Well, sort of.

The Boynton Bicycle Railroad linked the southwestern Brooklyn neighborhood of Gravesend with Coney Island.  It ran for only two years, and inspired a few other short-lived imitations, it is commemorated with Boynton Place, at the intersection of West 7th Street and Avenue X, in Gravesend.

So, what made it a "bicycle railroad"?  Well, it ran on two wheels on a monorail.  So, you may ask, how did it keep it balance?  Well, there were rubber-faced trolley wheels on top of the trains that guided the train along a rail that ran fifteen feet above the rail on which the "bicycle" train ran.

When it debuted, the trains could achieve speeds of 80 mph.  The following years, technical improvements upped the maximum velocity to 100 mph.

The Boynton Bicycle Railroad, as shown in an 1894 issue of Scientific American

Inventor E. Moody Boynton said his intention was indeed to marry a new technology of the time to a newish one:  the bicycle and the railroad.  He was convinced that his system was more efficient than conventional railroads because there was less friction on a single than a double track.  The speeds of his trains seemed to make his case.  Still, he couldn't find investors--possibly because the automobile was on the horizon-and neither the Boynton nor the other "bicycle" railroads survived past the middle of the first decade of the 20th Century.

It could be said, however, that his idea lives on in modern monorail and light-rail systems.  Perhaps one day tourist hubs will have "pedi-trains", much as some places now have "pedi-cabs".

Out Of Season, All To Myself

Yesterday was unseasonably cool.  I didn't mind: it was good riding weather.  At times, though, it seemed as if the snow was covered with snow rather than clouds.

Under the blanket, but still cool all the way from the Rockaways to Coney Island.   Another way the day belied the season was the nearly complete absence of people on the boardwalks.

Even the bay, where I normally see at least a few boats, was abandoned.  Or, to look at it another way, I had everything else to myself.  I enjoyed it.

A New Day, A New Wrap

Yesterday I managed to get in a nice ride along the coasts, from my place to the Rockways and Coney Island, along the Verrazano Narrows and up to Hipster Hook back to my place.

The morning was overcast but the afternoon turned bright and clear, if windy.  So I wasn't surprised to see strollers, dog-walkers and, yes, cyclists along the boardwalks and on the promenade under the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge.

Vera, my green Miss Mercian mixte, went for the ride, in part because I wanted to ride a bike with fenders:  There is still a lot of crud and "ponds" in the streets, courtesy of last week's snow and the rain we have had during much of the time since that storm.   If you have seen Vera in previous posts, you might see another reason why I wanted to take her out today:

Yes, I swapped the handlebars from Velo Orange Porteurs (which are on another of my bikes) for Nitto "Noodle bar".  The latter is my first choice for drop bars.  I wanted to try Vera with drops because she had them when I first acquired her.  Although I have liked her ride with the Porteurs, I have always had a feeling that she was designed for drop bars.

Also, I wanted to try some new handlebar tape:

I used two rolls of Newbaum's tape:  one in burnt orange, the other in khaki.  I chose Newbaum's tape for the colors and because I am curious as to how it might be different from other brands of cloth tape I've used.

I wrapped the bars in khaki, leaving gaps wide enough to be over-wrapped with the burnt orange.  Then, I finished the ends with regular jute twine I found in a Dollar Tree store.

  


After wrapping the bars, I gave them four light coats of clear shellac.  Although this wrap doesn't have the "sheen" I've seen on some other shellacked bars, I like the look:  The clear shellac darkened the colors slightly.  Also, even though it has a "harder" feel than un-shellacked (Is that a word?) tape, the tape retained much of its texture, which makes for a nice grip.  I think the "feel" may have to do with the fact that the Newbaum's tape is a bit thicker than other brands (Velox, Tressostar, Cateye) I've used. 

It will take a few rides, I think, to decide whether I like this kind of handlebar wrap.  I used to like regular, un-shellacked cloth, but it seemed that I had to replace it every season.  Then again, I could say the same for Cinelli (or any other brand of) cork wrap. 

The burnt orange, while not an exact match, is surprisingly close to the color of the Ruth Works rando bag on the front.  The bag has, of course, developed a bit of patina.  I imagine that if I keep on riding with this new tape, it will develop a similar "character" and perhaps be even more similar to the color of the bag.

Where Was Everybody? I'm Not Complaining!

I swore that I wouldn't ride to any beach areas on weekends this summer.   Well, I broke that promise. It was just so hot and humid I couldn't think of anywhere else I wanted to ride--or go by any other means.

Actually, I didn't ride just to one beach.  First, I heeded the Ramone's advice and rode to--where else?--Rockaway Beach.  I worried when I encountered a lot of traffic on the streets near my apartment--at least some of which seemed headed toward Rockaway.

But, as soon as I passed Forest Park, traffic started to thin out.  By the time I crossed the bridge from Howard Beach to Beach Channel, the streets started to look like county roads in upper New England or routes departmentales in the French countryside--at least traffic-wise, anyway.  And, oddly, there seemed to be less traffic the closer I got to the Rockaways. I thought that, perhaps, whoever had planned to be on the beach today was already there.

What I found when I got to Rockaway Beach invalidated that hypothesis.  Although temperatures reached or neared 100F (38C) in much of Queens, Brooklyn and Manhattan--and humidity hovered around 90 percent--there actually was space to stretch out on the beach!  I've seen days where people were literally at arm's length, or even less from each other.  That's what I expected to, but didn't, see today.

I didn't see this. (Apologies to Francisco Goya.)

What's more, I could ride in more or less straight lines along the boardwalk:  I didn't have to swerve or dodge skateboarders, or families with men and boys in shorts and tank tops, women in bathing suits and cover-ups and little girls in frilly dresses--or dogs on leashes that seem to span the length of the boardwalk.

After soaking up sun, surf and sand (perhaps not in that order), I ate some of the salsa I made and tortilla chips from a local Mexican bakery.   Thus fortified, I decided to ride some more.  

Along Beach Channel Drive, I encountered even less traffic than I did on the way to Rockaway Beach.  There were even empty parking spaces along the street, all the way to Jacob Riis Park.  The beach there was slightly more crowded than Rockaway, but still nothing like what I expected.  The streets from there to the Marine Parkway Bridge were all but deserted, and the bridge itself--which spans an inlet of Jamaica Bay and ends on Flatbush Avenue, one of Brooklyn's major streets (it's really more like a six-lane highway at that point)--looked more like a display of Matchbox cars than a major thoroughfare. 

Stranger still, I saw only two other cyclists on the lane that parallels Flatbush, and none on the path that rims the bay along the South Shore of Brooklyn to the Sheepshead Bay docks.  From there, I encountered one other cyclist on the way to Coney Island--a bicycle patrolman!



Surely, I thought, I'd see throngs of strollers, sunbathers and swimmers at Coney Island.  Throngs, no.  People, yes--but, again, not as many as I expected.  

I didn't complain.  I finished the salsa and chips.  They were really good, if I do say so myself.

Riding To Ride, Again

A month has passed since I came home from visiting my parents in Florida.  Today I did something I hadn't done since returning: I took a bike ride that wasn't a commute or errand, or wasn't in some other way utilitarian.

I got on the bike with no specific plan other than to pedal toward Rockaway Beach and do whatever came next.  Rockaway is about fifteen miles (25 km) from my apartment.  So, I reasoned, even if I pedaled there and back, it was a reasonable ride--especially if I rode it in a fixed gear.

So out Tosca, my Mercian fixie, came.  I had another reason for riding her today:  I had just cleaned up Arielle, my Mercian Audax, and Vera, my green Mercian mixte.   Part of the clean-up included installing new chains and cassettes. I hadn't yet done the same for Tosca, though I plan to do so.  (I probably won't change the chain, though:  1/8" chains don't wear nearly as quickly as 3/32" chains  used with derailleurs.)  I figured that there was still some slop on the streets, so if I got some in Tosca's drivetrain, it will give me incentive to clean her up.  

Oh, I had one other reason to ride Tosca:  the course would be flat.

Riding her felt great.  So great, in fact, that I didn't turn around at Rockaway Beach.  Instead, I decided to ride along the ocean from Rockaway to Riis Park and across the bridge to Brooklyn, where I'd continue pedaling along the ocean to Coney Island.  

It was a lovely ride in the late-afternoon sun (I woke up late today!) even though for most of it, I was pedaling into 25-35 KPH wind, which blew out of the west.  Of course, there was something else in the west:

I would ride alongside that sunset from Coney Island all the way up to the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge.  When I reached the end of the promenade, the sky was darkening and I reached into my seat bag for my lights.  I figured I would ride to Greenwood Cemetery (about 3 km) or Barclays Center (another 3 km) and decide whether to dodge the drunk trust fund kids who, I figured, would be tumbling out of bars and onto the streets and bike lanes of Williamsburg.

At Barclays, I decided to continue, as I was feeling good and traffic had been lighter than I expected.  Best of all, I didn't see any of the drunk trust fund kids tumbling ouot of bars.  Maybe it was too early for that (though, I must say, I've seen them not long after noon on weekends!).  There weren't even many cyclists on the Kent Avenue bike lane, especially given how mild the weather was for this time of year.

So...I did 85 kilometers today.  Yes, they were flat.  But I did them on a fixed.  And I rode into the wind for about 25 of those kilometers.  Oh, why am I counting anything?  I had a really nice ride. I'm happy.