One of the wonderful things about cycling is that it connects you with wherever you are riding. Yet, sometimes, you can’t believe you are where you are.
That was how I felt on my first overseas bicycle tour, which took me to England and France. I have also had that sensation any time I have experienced a new (to me) country, countryside, city or village—or, say, the ancient temples and shrines of Japan or Southeast Asia.
But, even as a jaded, crotchety woman in middle age, I don’t have to go far for that sense of wonder. I have experienced it without leaving my hometown of New York City or even the borough in which I live, whether it was Manhattan, Brooklyn or Queens, or is the Bronx.
As for the latter, I took my neighbor Sam, who has lived all of his life in the Bronx, onto paths past sights he never knew existed in his home turf. Today I pedaled to one of those areas, a peninsula between the (misnamed) East River and Long Island Sound.
There I met Helen, who wasn’t on a bike but was photographing houses that look like no others in this city: They are more like fin de siecle beachside cottages. And they stood behind a tall fence. The street leading to and around them stretched behind a gate—which, seemingly ignorant of the “No Trespassing—Private Property” sign beside it, yawned wide open.
“Wanna go through?”
“What can they do? Chase us away?” I wondered.
So I wheeled La-Vande, my King of Mercia and she walked beside me. She is about half a foot shorter and more than a few pounds lighter than me—hardly an imposing figure—but somehow her presence emboldened me to do something—enter that gate—I wouldn’t have done alone.
About a hundred meters inside the gate, a man whom I guessed to be a bit older than me greeted us. Helen—who, as it turns out, is a freelance reporter—asked the man what he knew about the history of the place. Quite a bit, as it turned out. So did the postal carrier who told us he lucked into that route as his “retirement gig.” “Have a good afternoon, ladies,” the older man bade us.
That last detail stuck with me because later, Helen asked why I thought those men, and a few other people we encountered, were so friendly. After all, we were in a gated community—yes, in the Bronx—and had no business being there. “Well, we’re not causing any trouble,” I mused. Then, something else occurred to me. I am well into midlife and Helen, though seemingly younger, certainly is a grown woman. And, I added, “I am White and you are Asian.” While I don’t want to impute racism to people I don’t know, I couldn’t help but to notice that everyone we saw was White and middle-aged or older. So, Helen and I simply never stood out as we might have had we been two young Black men.
Don’t get me wrong: Both of us enjoyed our moment there. “You don’t need to go on vacation with these views!” she marveled. And the architecture and history of that place are fascinating, all the more so because neither of us expected to see it in the Bronx.
