Sneaking Off To The Boardwalk In The Fall

The weather warmed up a bit today, but it was still pretty blustery.  Still, this day felt very October-like, in contrast to the last three days,  which felt more like Thanksgiving weekend.  Not that I mind cool or chilly weather; it just seemed to follow me from Canada after the mild weather this part of the world was experiencing as I embarked.

Anyway, this afternoon I had some time to sneak out for a Coney Island ride, and to return home via the path that passes under the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge--about 65 kilometers all told.

One sign that it's really Fall is that the boardwalk was not full of the strollers, sunbathers and such one sees even on weekdays for a few weeks after Labor Day.  But, more important, the light and air take on different hues and feels around the time of the Equinox.

Is it my imagination, but has the Parachute Jump taken on the color of fallen leaves?  A few weeks ago, it seemed more like a reddish-orange.  Hmm...Could I be imposing my ideas of the season on things I see?  Is life imitating the season?

Whatever, Tosca seemed to be enjoying it as much as I did.  Even though I didn't have a lower gear to shift into when I was pedaling into the wind, I didn't feel as if I had been straining.  In fact, riding today seemed like a shorter version of my ride the other day, albeit with different scenery.  Maybe it has something to do with the way I respond to the light and air of this time of year.

On the Coney Island Boardwalk, this sign has a way of popping up where you've never seen it before, after you haven't seen it for a long time.  

I would have expected to see it during the height of the summer season.  As a matter of fact, a couple of times when I rode on the boardwalk during the summer, police officers motioned for me to get off my bike.  But today there were no cops in sight.

Still, I didn't ride along the boarwalk:  I had just a bit more than enough time to ride to Coney and back.  But it was plenty.

More Fruits Of The "Harvest", After Work

Today brought more of what we've had for the past couple of days--and what meteorologists are forecasting for the next couple of days:  summer warmth and early autumn light.

All right, they didn't forecast the light, except to tell us what time the sun will set.  But the sun is taking on an early twilight glow and, as I mentioned yesterday, I am seeing a few trees start their color changes.  It's quite lovely:  the first signs of autumn hues haven't yet brought the melancholy that comes later in the season (which, by the way, I often enjoy). 

Another day in the cusp of two seasons gave me another opportunity to relish my harvest, so to speak: I took an after-work ride to Coney Island.  While I enjoyed the ride, I did notice it more when I pedaled into the wind today than I did yesterday or on Monday, when I rode to Connecticut.  Perhaps it was a result of riding late in the day, after work.  Or it may have just been a matter of riding my  Schwinn LeTour instead of one of my Mercians.

Whatever the case, I had an easy ride back.  And it was interesting, to say the least, to see how much difference a week and a half makes on the number of people who go to the beach:

Some folks, like the ones in the photo, will go to the beach on any day the weather is remotely summer-like--and sometimes not-so-summery.  They are the ones who have decided it's still summer (which, of course, it still is--at least officially).  They are not like the ones who don't ever go to the beach after Labor Day or before Memorial Day, whatever the weather.

I guess we have equivalents to both kinds of people in the cycling world.  Some hang up their bikes as the days grow shorter, while others take any opportunity, at whatever time of year, to ride.

As for me, I will continue to enjoy the "harvest" for as long as I can--and continue to ride as long as the streets aren't covered with ice.

Riding On Rails

Today I took Tosca, my fixed-gear Mercian, for a ride.  

Sometimes people who haven't ridden a track bike or a "fixie" ask me what it's like.  One description I've given is that--if you'll pardon me a cliche--it's like "riding on rails".

Perhaps that's what, subconsciously, led me along the South Shore of Nassau County, Queens and Brooklyn to Coney Island:

Now, if you want to talk about "riding on rails", you have to think about the Thunderbolt.  

If you ask most people to name a roller coaster on Coney Island, they'll say "Cyclone", with good reason:  Few amusement-park rides, anywhere, are better-known.  Even if you've never been to Coney Island, you've probably seen it in movies (such as The Wiz and The Sting II), Beyonce's video XO or in Grand Theft Auto IV (in which it's called The Screamer).  Roller-coaster aficionados still rate it as among the best; it's almost certainly one the most thrilling rides to be had anywhere and one of the best remaining examples of a wooden-car roller coaster.

The current Thunderbolt, by contrast, opened only last year.  It's more like a modern mega-amusement park ride, with its twists and turns.  What most people under a certain age don't realize is that there was another Thunderbolt, which opened in 1925 (two years before the Cyclone) and closed in 1982.  The Cyclone very nearly met the same fate in the late 1960s, when attendance at Coney Island's amusement parks and beaches declined sharply with the opening of newer parks and beaches, accessible by expressways, and the deterioration of the neighborhood around the roller coaster.  (In the 1980s, Coney Island was often referred to as "Crack Island"; since the late 1990s, the area has been rebuilt, bit by bit.) Today I saw crowds like I've never before seen; kids of various ages screamed with terror or squealed with delight as the the Thunderbolt rose and dropped.

Speaking of dropping:  For the past half-century or so, the Parachute Jump (the "umbrella" you see in the background) has been closed.  There have been rumors about reopening it.  Perhaps there could be some way to connect it to the Thunderbolt:  When it reaches the peak of the loop, riders could "bail out".  

Hmm...I wonder what the city Parks Department would think of that.

As for me:  I'll stick to "riding on rails"--on Tosca.

 

A Summer Afternoon After The Storm, Fire And Crash

People fantasize about the sort of summer afternoon we had today.  There was lots of sunshine, very little humidity and practically no clouds as the temperature rose to 30C (86F).

So, of course, I went for a ride.  After crossing the bridge into Rockaway Beach, I turned right and rode along rows of serene-looking homes that masked the tragedies the Queens coastal communities of Rockaway Park and  Belle Harbor have experienced.  Of course, they bore the brunt of Superstorm Sandy, but perhaps survived it a bit better than some other areas.  

Eleven years earlier, Flight 587--which had taken off from JFK Airport only two and a half minutes earlier, bound for the Dominican Republic--crashed into the ocean and sent its debris flying into those homes.  Although it is the second-deadliest air crash in US history, it has been forgotten, probably because it happened only a few weeks after 11 September.

To see the neighborhood today, one would hardly know--save for a monument on 116th Street--that it had experienced something so horrific. I could say the same for Breezy Point, about four miles to the west on the Rockaway Peninsula.  Few areas were more devastated by the storm:  In addition to the destruction wrought by the wind, rain and tides, 100 houses burned to the ground in a fire sparked when a storm surge inundated power lines.

Homes, stores and other buildings have been restored and rebuilt.  Still , it all looked rather forlorn. Perhaps it had to do with the fact that  almost nobody was out and about in spite of the weather.

 
At least it was all there and I could ride it.  And I did--over the bridge to Brooklyn, to Floyd Bennett and Brighton Beach and Coney Island.  At least it looked like a summer day at Coney Island, with people swimming and fishing the water, walking, riding and lounging on the boardwalk and eating all of those unhealthy foods sold in boardwalk stands. 

Then I rode home, along the promenade that passes along the Verrazano Bridge and up Hipster Hook to my place.  I was grateful for another good ride, even if it wasn't long or challenging. 

Do You Ride To Fish Or Fish For Riders?

In the space of a week, the calendar has changed from late May to early June.  On the other hand, the weather seems to have changed from mid-August to early April.  Last week it was hot and humid.  This week,  it’s been chilly, windy and wet:  In fact, we had the sort of flooding rains one normally associates with the beginning of Spring in many parts of this country.

Today, though, was sunny and dry—and windy and cool.  It was all fine with me as I took an afternoon ride down to the Canarsie Pier and along the coast to Coney Island, under the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge and up “Hipster Hook” back to my place.

I saw a pretty fair number of cyclists, especially for a weekday.  I guess they all felt as I did about the weather.  Even more interestingly, I saw a lot of fishermen.  It seemed that everywhere along the shore—in Canarsie and Marine Park, on the Coney Island Pier and the Verrazano Narrows promenade—poles were propped against railings and lines cast into the water. 

I have seen similar days on which no one was fishing, and other more inclement days when, it seemed, every male over the age of ten who didn’t have to be somewhere else (and a few who did, I’m sure) was casting, trolling or reeling. 

Now, I’ve fished only a few times in my life.  Every time, I’ve gone with others—relatives, usually—who were far more dedicated to it than I have ever been.  They decided when and where we fished.  I’m guessing it had to do with their work schedules and other things in their lives.  But now I also wonder whether they knew about some condition or another that made for good fishing.  Were they watching the weather or current patterns?  Or did they know, somehow, that bluefish or whatever kind of fish were out and about?

You may have noticed that I used male pronouns to talk about those who fish.  Fact is, nearly everyone I’ve seen with a rod and reel—and every one of the relatives I mentioned-- has been a man or boy.  I think I’ve seen two or three women fishing during my entire life, and no girl who wasn’t old enough to vote.

And all of my (admittedly limited) angling experience came when I was still living as male.  Now, I don’t think it had anything to do with my maleness or femaleness.  Rather, I think it was a matter of circumstance:  When I was younger, my uncles used to fish—sometimes on-shore, other times on party boats.  They invited me and my brothers, and I went along.

None of my uncles were cyclists.  Two of my brothers ride occasionally—and they fish, usually with male friends and in-laws.

Not The Five Boro Bike Tour

Everyone who knows I’m a cyclist, but isn’t one him- or herself, is going to ask whether I did the Five Boro Bike Tour.  The answer is “no”.

I am happy for those who did.  I simply don’t want to ride in such a mass of people, some of whom have no idea of how to ride in groups.  Also, I don’t want to be stuck on Staten Island for three hours, waiting to get on the Ferry. That happened the last time I rode the 5BBT.

Plus, I’m cheap.  I don’t want to spend $25 on a one-day ride, even if there’s a T-shirt at the end of it. 

Finally, I did fourteen of the first twenty 5BBTs, twelve as a rider and two as a  marshal.  There just isn’t any sense of discovery for me when I do the ride, which takes basically the same route every year.

I did, however, go on a ride.  As I did yesterday, I decided on a bike before I decided on a ride.  In this case, I took Vera—my green Miss Mercian mixte—out on another gorgeous day.  The weather was much like yesterday, but a bit warmer.  So I wore one less layer and used more sunscreen.

Vera, like Arielle, didn’t seem to mind that I didn’t have a planned itinerary.  She took me through on a journey through a place that showed no sign of the changing season, and another that couldn’t help but to remind one of the fact that today was one of the first warm days of the year.

Passing Forest Park and rolling down Woodhaven Boulevard as it turned onto Beach Channel Drive, I could have been on my way to the Rockaways again.  Much as I enjoy riding there, Vera wasn’t about to take me there, and I was happy for that.  

We detoured through the western side of Howard Beach,where tidal marshes stand between Jamaica Bay and 78^th Street.  The reeds look the way they did during the winter, the fall and the previous summer and spring.  They don’t even seem to have been affected by Superstorm Sandy—or a fire that raged a few months later.  

From there, I picked up the bike trail along Shore Parkway to the Canarsie Pier, where it seemed every male from the surrounding neighborhoods was fishing.

Then I continued along the Shore Parkway path.  Traffic along the highway was, by that time, at a near-standstill in both directions.  Some of the vehicles had bikes attached to them, but I suspect some were on the way to the piers, the beaches or any number of outdoor spaces.

Next stop:  Coney Island.  It simply wasn’t possible to ride the boardwalk because it was so crowded.  It was like the Fourth of July, except that nobody was swimming.  Although the ocean is warming, it’s still only about 10 degrees C (50F):  too cold for most people.  Lots of folks were walking, playing volleyball, building sandcastles or simply hanging out in the sand. Even Hasidic Jewish girls were taking off their shoes and treading the sand in their heavily-stockinged feet.

Up to that time, the wind had been blowing at or beside me.  That meant, of course, I’d have the wind at my back for a  good part of the ride home.  Even with all of its cracks and potholes, the ride up the Ocean Parkway bridle path  and past Prospect Park and the Williamsburg waterfront went quickly.  

So…I had two great days and two great rides on two great bikes.  I could hardly ask for more.

Early Spring Ride: Waking Again, For The First Time

So good to be riding just for fun again.  

Yesterday I took one of my seashore rambles that have been so much a part of my cycling life.  You know something's a part of you when you've been away from it for a while and, when you go back, it's like reconnecting with an old friend:  It's familiar and new at the same time.

The beaches and boardwalks are all imprinted in my mind.  And the bracing wind that pushed at me, whipped me sideways and, finally, took me home felt as if it had always traveled with me, in my skin and on it, yet was as bracing and chilly as the air itself feels to someone who's coming out from layers of stilled dreams, of time itself.  

And there is the light I have always seen again for the first time.



I wish all of my fatigue were that of the kind I experienced while riding yesterday:  of waking again for the first time.

As The Sun Sets On 2014

I guess I could say that I ended this year in a way that reflects the kind of year it's been:  rather lovely, but unexceptional.  

Early this afternoon, I boarded Tosca for a ride through familiar places to a familiar destination. Even the detours were familiar:  through backstreets lined with cute little brick houses and restaurants of various nationalities, by the tidal marshes by Jamaica Bay and up and down stretches of reconstructed, but still not reconnected, boardwalks in Rockaway Beach and Jacob Riis Park.  

Those detours, and the headwind into which I pedaled through much of my ride made it longer, timewise, than it would normally be.  Even though I did not consciously choose them, I believe that some internal guide steered me through them.  (If Thoreau were alive today, would he say write that if a person does not keep pace with his or her companions, perhaps it is because he or she is guided by a different GPS?)  And where might that internal navigator been leading me?

Where else?:  Coney Island, just as the sun was beginning to set.  Somehow it seemed just right for my last ride of 2014.

Thank you all for following me on my journeys through this blog. as wild or mundane as they may be.  I hope you will join me for more in 2015!

A New Coney Island Ride?

If you've been following this blog, you know that I frequently ride to Coney Island.


The funny thing is, I can't remember the last time I went on the Cyclone or any of the classic rides. And I've never been on the Thunderbolt.  

Maybe I don't need to ride the Thunderbolt, Cyclone or any other contraption that twists and turns me upside down. Instead, I can ride this:

 

At The End Of The Day In The Middle Of Spring

What could have been better than this:  a late-afternoon ride on a perfect Spring day?

It's the sort of thing that can make you happy to, well, be.  Scrims of cloud swirled around the bright sun.  Breezes puffed petals from flowers that have bloomed for a few days and, at times, gusted and rippled the water around my ride.

My little adventure took me to the Coney Island pier.

From there, I pedaled along the ocean and New York Bay under the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge.

The only thing that wasn't almost perfect was this last photo.  But that was my fault.  I'm including it anyway because even though the saddle and part of the handlebars were cut off, Tosca still looks great, as she always does.

From The Neighborhood

Yesterday, for the first time in a couple of weeks, I felt decent and had a few free hours at the same time.  So I went, naturally, for a ride.

The sky was as blue as the air was crisp:  Fall had arrived, if not officially, and yet another summer, another season, had passed.  On such a day, I can understand how someone can be agoraphobic:  An open space--whether of land or sea or sky--can seem like a huge, yawning emptiness when there are no markers, physical or emotional.

So all anyone can do--or, at least, all I could do-- was to move through it.  That I did by pedaling, by pedaling Tosca, my fixed-gear bike.  I had a feeling I wouldn't ride a lot of miles, and that I'd ride them slowly, so I wanted to get some kind of workout from them.

As it turned out, I rode about 50 or 60 km, or a bit more than 30 or 35 miles, along the steel and glass shorelines and brick byways that have lined so much of the path of my life. 

A meander from the East River and the bay took me into the heart of Brooklyn, specifically to this place:

On the sidewalks in front, and across the street, from this building, careworn and harried, yet content, men and women prodded groups of pale but energetic children as their feet stuttered about the grid of concrete blocks.  Although those children looked different from the way my brothers, my peers and I looked, something was very, very familiar about the rhythm of their steps and their calls to each other.

Perhaps I should not have been surprised.  Although I had not been there in quite some time, I know that building, and that block, as well as any in this world.  In fact, I know it so well that I can tell you that nearly half a century ago, it didn't have the canopy you see in the photo.

Nor did it have the gate that now encloses the courtyard:

By now, you may have guessed that I lived in that building very early in my life.  Some of my oldest memories, for better and worse, are of those days.  

I think it's a co-operative now rather than the building of rental apartments it was in my childhood.  Also, as you probably have guessed, it's populated by families of Hasidic Jews.  In my day, nearly all of the families--of whom my family knew most--consisted of Italian- or Jewish (non-Hasidic)-Americans.  The men worked blue-collar jobs or had stores or other small businesses and the women stayed home and raised us.  In that sense, I guess we weren't so different from the people who live there now.

Then, as now, it was very unlikely that a woman--much less one like me--would have been riding a bicycle down that street--or, for that matter, any of the other streets I pedaled yesterday.  I turned, not quite at random, down a series of avenues and roads and other byways until I reached the southwestern part of Bensonhurst, not far from Coney Island.

I wasn't feeling hungry, but I stopped at a pizzeria--Il Grotto Azzuro--on 21st Avenue, near 85th Street.  From the street, it looks like one of many others of its kind.  But I went in anyway.

"Can I help you?"  The man's accent seemed even more familiar than anything else I'd experienced throughout my ride.

After ordering a classic Neapolitan slice and a white slice, he chimed, "You're gonna have the best pizza there is.   How did you know you were gonna find it here?"

"I followed my nose," I intoned, playing along.  "I always follow my nose when I'm riding my bike."

Somehow I sensed his claim wasn't hype.  Even if it wasn't the best pizza, the guy really believed that it was.  After finishing both slices, I ordered another Neapolitan, even though I was quite full.  "You're right!," I exclaimed.

Those Neapolitan slices were certainly the best I've had in a while.  Even though they were slices and it was five in the afternoon--near the end of the lull between lunch and dinner--they and the white slice tasted fresher than many I've had from whole pies.  

Sometimes, in the course of a bike ride, a slice of pizza or a bottle of beer can seem like the best you've ever had because you're tired or hungry. (I think now of the sugar and lemon crepe I gulped down after pedaling up Le Col du Galibier.  I've had dozens, perhaps hundreds, of other crepes in France.  But that one was the best.) However, I felt surprisingly good in spite of my recent illness and, as I mentioned, I wasn't hungry when I found Il Grotto Azzuro.

It's been there a while.  As I ate, another customer--a lifelong resident of the neighborhood--told me he'd been going there for more than 30 years.  I hope it's there for at least that much longer: The neighborhood is changing. 

So fueled, I continued down to Coney Island where, after thumping and clattering along the boardwalk (All of it is now open), a guard waved me into Sea Gate, which counts Isaac Bashevis Singer and Beverly Sills among its onetime residents.   I'd heard the area, not surprisingly, took an even greater hit than the surrounding neighborhood from Superstorm Sandy.  But, while the beaches were as eroded as those in Coney Island (though less so than those of the Rockaways or parts of New Jersey), most of the houses seemed to weather the wind and tides well.  Most seemed little different from what they were at this time last year; a few were still being repaired.  

At one of those houses, someone who didn't know my name called me:

  
Of course I stopped.

He capped his head with the palm of my hand and tiptoed along the rails, rubbing the side of his body through my fingers.  I think he knew I'm "from the neighborhood."