Why Can't They?

Bicycling has been one of the few "constants" in my life.

One of the few "near-constants", if you will, in my adult life has been living with cats.

At times in my life, I've tried to combine them.  You guessed it:  I've tried to teach Caterina, Charlie I, Candice, Charlie II, Max and Marlee to ride.  Nothing I've tried has worked.  I even tried this as a motivational tool:

I mean, if a dog can ride, why can't they?  Right?

Then again, just because two things are wonderful, they should not be combined--like chocolate chips in bagels. (Hey, I'm an old-school New Yorker!)

8 Years Already!

So why am I posting a picture of an 8 year old girl?

From Thanks, Mail Carrier

Well, she looks really cute on that bike. But she is relevant to this blog.  Better yet, she has something in common with it.

What?, you ask.

Midlife Cycling turns 8 years old today.   I wrote my first post on 2 June 2010.  I'm still "at it," 2567 posts later.  And I'll keep it up as long as I enjoy it.  Since I've never stopped loving cycling or writing, I don't think I'll lose the pleasure I've found in this blog and you, my audience.

So what has changed?  Writers are the worst judges of their own work, but I'm guessing that this blog has developed a "voice", whatever it may be.  In the beginning, I was probably making some effort to imitate other bike blogs I'd read, especially ones written by women. (I'm thinking particularly of Lovely Bicycle.) But I am a very different sort of woman, and cyclist, so I realized that I could do no more or less than follow my own instincts and inclinations.  Sometimes I write about my own trips or bikes; other times I write about other people's rides and machines; still other times I veer into topics that don't have much of a relationship to cycling.  Others will judge the results, but I am happy to be writing this blog and that others are reading it.

Aside from the blog itself, some other things in my life have changed since I started.  For one thing, I now have four bikes I didn't have back then:  Dee-Lilah, my new Mercian Vincitore Special; Vera, the twin-tube Miss Mercian mixte I bought about a year after I started this blog; Josephine, the Trek 412 estate-sale find and Martie, the Fuji Allegro that's become my commuter/errand bike.  And I no longer have Helene, the Miss Mercian I bought not long after I started this blog, and the two Schwinn LeTours I acquired and used as commuter/errand bikes.

Oh, and I now have one cat, Marlee, who wasn't even born when I wrote that first post.  Sadly, Charlie and Max, my feline buddies back then, are gone.  

On a happier note:  I have taken, in addition to hundreds of day rides, trips abroad which have included cycling: Prague, Paris (twice), Italy (Rome and Florence) and Montreal.  And I've been to Florida a number of times to visit my parents but also to enjoy some warm-weather riding in the middle of winter.  

I don't know what changes and adventures lie ahead.  All I know is that you'll read about them here!

Another Mixte In The Mix

Today's post won't be about Max, or any other cat.

It'll be about a bike.  Specifically, it'll be news about one of my own bikes--as if I haven't given you enough lately.

This item, though, has nothing to do with any of the bikes on the side-bar of this blog.  It has to do with my commuter "beast" bike that almost never enters my apartment.

For three years, that bike was a '70's Schwinn LeTour.  It was one of those rare bikes made in a woman's version big enough to fit (more or less, anyway) someone my height.  

(Funny that when I lived a man, I was of average height.  Now, as a woman, I am taller than about 90 percent of my sisters!)

Well, that bike was stolen.  That is one of the reasons, of course, to have a "beater" bike:  Losing it doesn't hurt as much as having a nicer bike disappear.  You buy such bikes cheaply and spend as little as necessary to make it do whatever you need it to do.  And, if you lose that bike, you repeat the process.

Anyway, I went to a few sidewalk and yard sales and checked Craigslist, where I found this:

From the information I've gleaned, Fuji made this Allegro during its 1986 model year.  The frame is constructed from "Valite" tubing.  How or whether it differs from the carbon steel Fuji and other manufacturers used on their cheaper models, I don't know--or care.  I must say, though, that the bike does feel livelier than the LeTour.  That may be a function of its geometery, which seems a bit tighter.  If nothing else, the wheelbase is shorter.

And, interestingly, this bike has SunTour dropouts with the "ear" for mounting a derailleur.  They actually look like the SunTour dropouts on my Trek 412, except for an additional set of eyelets:  a handy feature, as I've mounted a rack and fenders on the bike.

Originally, the bike had 12 speeds shifted with steel SunTour derailleurs and stem shifters.  As you can see, I took those off and turned the bike into a single speed.  The derailleurs were still operable, but the chain, freewheel and cables were rusted.  So were the springs and all of the other brake hardware.   In any event, I gave the derailleurs, brakes and some other stuff--including the flat-ish bars and brake levers that came with the bike--to Recycle a Bicycle.  And I replaced the brakes with a pair of Raleigh-branded Dia Compe centerpulls I had lying around.

If you read this blog regularly, you won't be surprised to see that I installed Velo Orange Porteur handlebars and bar-end brake levers.  I don't like the hand position on most flat bars:  The grip area of the Porteurs allows me to keep my hands in a position something like that of the ramp and brake lever hood area on the handlebars of my road bikes.  The Porteurs also allow me to use a stem with a slightly longer extension, which improves handling.

So far, this bike is working well as my daily commuter.  And, yes, it's a twin-tube mixte, so I feel at least like I'm riding with some style.  And isn't that what really counts? ;-)

Can't Stop Thinking About Him

I took the day off from work yesterday.  I'm going in today and I hope to have time afterward for a ride (besides my regular commute), however short.  I think it's the best way to deal with my feelings about Max.

He's not the first cat I've lost.  But he has experienced so much with me.  To be more exact, he was a sweet, loving presence through both the joys and the trials of the past ten and a half years.  

Max was at the door when I came home from a couple thousand days of work, a few hundred bike rides, trips to see my parents in Florida, trips to see my friends in France and other trips to Italy and the Czech Republic--and to Colorado, for my surgery.  He was with me during some difficult times, when people who said they would "always be there" for me changed their minds, and when a beau revealed his true, abusive, colors--and nearly destroyed my life.   

Most important of all--at least to me--he was with me as I was re-defining myself as a person, and a cyclist.  He didn't care whether I raced or if a 150 kilometer ride took half an hour, then an hour, longer than it did when I was in my twenties, thirties or even early 40s.  He didn't even care when I had a "bad hair day": something that was never a concern of mine when I was younger.

I had long heard that orange cats were the friendliest.  Max certainly lived up to that.  He was all love, all the time.  And when he wasn't basking in someone's affection, he was doing the other thing he did best:

A friend of mine, Michiko, called him "The Zen Cat."  Now you know why.  Maybe I should remember his calm affection today, as I ride to work and, hopefully, somewhere--even if it's just a park near work--afterward.

R.I.P. Max

I've just lost a friend.

You've seen him on these pages.  He's one of the most loving and friendly beings I've ever known. 

Sometimes he would climb on me while I was sleeping.  I didn't mind: When I woke to him, I felt the sun rising.  He looked like a sunrise.

I am talking about Max, the orange cat who's lived with me for ten and a half years.

He came into my life on 9 April 2007.  My friend Millie rescued him from a street near us.  She told me that when she saw him, she walked right up to him.  He did the same for me the first time I saw him.

What that meant, of course, was that he is anything but a feral  cat.  "He must have had a home before," Millie observed.  When I saw him, I couldn't not give him one.

The vet said he was between five and seven years old when I brought him home.  So, that means he lived about sixteen or seventeen years--a pretty good lifespan for a cat.

Even if he'd been in my life for only a day, he could have given me a lifetime of happiness:  That is what he carried with him, and couldn't help but to give.  He greeted everyone who came to my apartment--including Marlee, the day I brought her home--like an old friend and playmate.

He died late Sunday night, after I'd come back from a nice ride, had a sumptuous dinner and talked to my mother.  I wrote yesterday's post about the ride I took Sunday, the day before, because it was just too difficult to talk about Max.

He won't be waiting for me at the end of my next ride.  Not physically, anyway.  I believe, though, that I'll see him at the end of many rides for a long time to come.

Note:  In a sad irony, I lost another cat--the first one I had who was named Charlie--on 16 October in 2005.

Two Different Views Of A Good Day

You know it's summer--or close to it--in this part of the world by the fulsome, verdant foliage:

Those trees stand next to the Veterans' Memorial in Greenwich, Connecticut.  Yes, I took a ride there.  Once the rain stopped, around ten o'clock yesterday morning, the sun appeared as if it were in the next frame of a film.  And, while it brightened the day, it also turned the air soupy in short order.

Still, it was a good day for a ride.  Arielle, my Mercian Audax, was ready for anything:

On the other hand, Marlee and Max were ready for only one thing:

I had a great time.  I'm sure they did, too!

What Makes Primates Primary?

I was brought up--or, at least, inculcated with the notion-- that we are the Primary Primates.

So from what, exactly, does our primacy derive?  Well, for one thing, humans are the only beings capable of speech and language.  Esteemed scientists said as much.  For another thing, they also declared that only homo sapiens can think and reason.  And equally esteemed philosophers and theologians insisted that non-humans could not feel empathy or love, or have any sense of the possibility an after- life.  Thus, they concluded, non-human animals did not have souls.

Early on, I realized that all of the arguments for the superiority of humans were premised on some thing or another that humans could do but other living beings couldn't.  

That got me to thinking:  What if we constructed a hierarchy of living things based on whether or not they could ride a bicycle?  

Why would we do such a thing?  I don't know.  One thing I know, however, is that Max and Marlee wouldn't be too happy if I did--especially if they were to see this:

Of course, the fact that my favorite felines can't ride a bike (not yet, anyway! ;-)) doesn't make them less than any other living being, in my eyes!

What Do I Miss? Mes Chats et Mes Velos

In 1992, I did a bike tour from Paris to Chartres, and from there to the Loire Valley and Burgundy to Dijon, before heading back to Paris--and, from there, taking a train, boat and train to England to visit my aunt.  

As I was about to head to Blighty, I was away from home for nearly a month.  I spent time with one of my friends, who lived near Paris at that time.  She asked what I missed most about home.

"Ma chat":  my cat.

Charlie I:  The cat who brought me back home.

Now, it  wasn't as if I didn't have friends in New York or anywhere else in the US.  Ditto for family: An aunt, uncle and cousin were still in Brooklyn, and my parents and one of my brothers were still living on the (New) Jersey Shore.  But the previous year had been a very difficult--though, in many ways, fruitful--time for me.  I wrote a lot.  How could I not?:  I was in graduate school, studying poetry.  My marriage had officially ended that year (though, in reality, it was dead long before that), and from Memorial Day until Christmas of 1991, I lost five friends to AIDS-related illnesses and the brother of someone I dated was murdered in the hallway of the building in which I was living.

Max

I was tempted not to go back, even though I had only to take a couple more courses, complete my dissertation (a book of poems) and take my comprehensive exam (which wasn't as difficult as I expected) to complete my degree.  After experiencing the losses I've mentioned, I had a kind of crisis from that happened much earlier in my life.  In retrospect, I realize that dealing with it--in part, by taking the trip I've mentioned--led me, if as indirectly as the route that took me from and to Paris, to the transition I would start a decade later.  

Marlee

Anyway, aside from the pain of past experience, I wanted to leave the United States behind, or so I believed.  Oh--I should mention that an acquaintance of mine was killed during our first invasion of Iraq.  I really believed that the country in which I'd spent most of my life was not, and could not be, a force for good in this world (I still feel that way, often) and it looked like Daddy Bush would be re-elected.  Him!--after eight years of Reagan!  I simply did not want to be associated with such things.  

(Would that I could have seen the future!)

Anyway, it seemed as if the only answer to my friend's question was, indeed, "ma chat".  (I had one at the time.)  She was convinced there had to be something else waiting for me:  she pointed out the family, friends, studies and writing I've mentioned.  And, of course, there were my bikes, although the one I was riding during that trip was quite nice.

The funny thing is I felt almost exactly the same way a couple of days ago, as I was leaving Paris.  In so many ways, my home country, and even my home town, are less tenable than they were nearly a quarter-century ago.  We have had non-stop war for the past fifteen years, and Donald Trump makes Bush The Elder seem like Nelson Mandela.  The idea of leaving is even more tempting than it was then, though I know it will be more difficult than I realized it could be in those days.

Arielle

I am back, for now.  And what did I miss, aside from some people?  Well, Max and Marlee--yes, I have one more cat than I did in those days.  And, today, I realized, I missed my bikes.  After spending more than a week riding a rental--which, as rentals go, was actually pretty good--taking Arielle, my Mercian Audax, for a ride today, with its perfect weather, seemed heavenly.  

So I missed my cats, my bikes and....

The Ice Man Cometh--On A Bike!

Yesterday I managed to slip out for a ride before meeting a friend for dinner and to watch the fireworks.

So what, exactly, did I have to escape from in order to get on my bike?  Well, none other than Max and Marlee.  Who says humans are the only creatures who don't know how to let go?

Anyway, I had no particular destination in mind.  Perhaps the only real intention I had was to avoid beach areas, because I knew that they were crowded.  That turned out to be a good choice:  I had most of the Queens and Brooklyn streets to myself!

I did find myself just up the street (Rockaway Parkway) from the Canarsie Pier. But I didn't go to the pier because it was packed with families and other groups cooking burgers, 'dogs and chicken wings on little grills.  Everything smelled good, even mixed with the aromas of beer and other kinds of alcohol.  

So, I made a U-turn and pedaled through a soundscape of liliting Caribbean music and accents along Canarsie side streets, and along Rockaway Avenue (almost traffic-free) to Brownsville, Ocean Hill and Bedford-Styvesant--areas of Brooklyn hipsters and gentrification still haven't found (though that could change very, very soon!).  Soon, I found myself in the tatoo capital of the Western world--Wilson Avenue in Bushwick.  There, I stopped at a shaved-ice cart, where I asked the man to make me a cone (paper) of ice con citron y cereza--with lemon and cherry syrups.  

I actually wante that cone.  But buying it was also a pretext for talking to the man about his cart.  

He says he made the cart, and attached the bicycle, himself.  It's easier and faster to move that way than it is to push the cart around while on foot.  Also, he doesn't have to worry about parking, as he would if he were driving the cart.

And, yes, that ice hit the spot.

Nine Years, Nine Lives--With Max

It's hard to believe that I was once nine years old.

It's also hard to believe that, not so long ago, really, nine years seemed like a geologic age.

Now it goes by in the blink of an eye.  Periods of five and ten years start to blend with each other.  I realized as much when I made an offhand remark that something looked "Soo '80's."  

The person to whom I made the remark corrected me:  "More like early '90's".  After thinking for a moment, he said, "The '80's, the '90's--at our age, the decades run together."

That I can think of nine years as, in essence, a decade, says something about my perception of time.  I think I've also reached a point where any amount of time more than fifteen years becomes twenty.

Anyway...today, the 9th marks nine years of a relationship--with someone who, proverbially, has nine lives.

I am talking about none other than Max.  

Whenever I come home from a bike ride, he circles my wheels and my feet.  I feed him and, as soon as he's sated, he climbs onto my lap, whether I'm drinking, eating, reading or just spacing out.  

It still amazes me that such a wonderful cat came my way--and I didn't pay, or really do, anything to get him. In an earlier post, I told the story of how he came into my life. Whatever I've spent on him--which, really, isn't much--has been a pittance.  After all, when he climbs and walks on me, I feel as relaxed as I do after a good massage.  And when I'm tired or feeling blue, I talk to him and feel as if I've had a nice therapy sessions.

In  brief, he's a stress-reliever.  Of course, I don't tell him that:  I don't want to reduce him to mere usefulness.  I simply love having him around, and I hope he's around for some more years.  He's fifteen now, according to the vet who examined him just before I took him in.  In the scheme of things, that might just be the blink of an eye.  But it is a relationship, it is a love--which is to say, it is a life.

Past The Max

Today I rode to test a new electronic device and, well, ride.  It was a perfect day for both.

But I had to test the electronic device before I could out of the house, let alone get on my bike.  To be fair, Max has never given me as hard a time as former partners, roommates and others (including an ex-spouse) have about going out without them.


He didn't say "Vous ne passerez pas!" mainly because he doesn't speak French (though he understands some).  But he insisted that my first photo on my new camera would be a portrait of him.

Anyway... Today was another near-perfect day for a ride. The temperature reached 30C (86F), but it dropped as I neared the water.  The humidity was low and the clouds were high and sparse.

Actually, I didn't take a direct path to the water:  I wandered through various parts of Queens and Nassau County before heading toward the southern bays of Long Island.

For a moment, I wondered whether those folks might be in trouble.  I couldn't see what, if anything, was propelling their watercraft.  (I'm not sure of whether to call it a boat or something else.)  From my admittedly limited perspective, they didn't seem to be in any distress.   

One thing about the ocean: It's pretty easy to tell whether the tide is in or out, and its clock, if you will, is fairly predictable.  On the other hand, the bays and inlets from East Rockaway to Freeport can ebb or swell in an instant, and the tides and currents seem to have even more random effects than those of the ocean.  You can see the results of what I'm talking about in the waterfront residential areas:  One home seems to have been untouched by Superstorm Sandy or any other natural phenomenon, while a house next to it looks, nearly three years after the storm, as if it's being held up by the boards nailed over its windows and doorways.

On this day, however, almost nothing besides those houses even hinted at one of the worst natural disasters this area has experienced in its recorded history.  Looking at the sky and the sunlight, such a catastrophe doesn't even seem possible, let alone probable.

Vera knows all about those things, but she rode like a magic carpet.  She almost always does.

P.S.:  I bought the camera because of something I'm going to talk about a couple of posts from now.

 

Family Portrait Day

Today is Family Day.  So you’re gonna see lots and lotsa pikshas.

In the previous sentence, my roots were showing.  I’m going to my hairdresser on Thursday.

Anyway…Now I’m going to show you some portraits of family members.  It’s a particular but close branch:  The Mercians.

Yes, I’m going to show you my bikes, after their winter makeovers and some riding.

First I’ll start with Arielle, the first Mercian to come into my life:

You’ve seen some photos of her already. But I wanted to show her after 500 miles, post-facelift (and overhaul):

I’m liking it more and more with the honey leather.  I think the bags have something to do with it:  The color of the canvas (“Nantucket Red”, which is really more like salmon pink) works with both the green and purple of the “flip flop” finish and the honey saddle, bar wrap and toe straps. What do you think?

As you know from a few previous posts, Tosca, my fixie (and the second Mercian I acquired) got a similar treatment.

I’m happy with the way the colors play off each other.  However, I wasn’t able to find a double track toe strap to go with the other leather accessories.  Then again, I guess the mismatch isn’t as noticeable as if, say, I wrapped the bar in a darker color.

The third Mercian to come my way is, I realize, one I haven’t written as much about lately.  Helene is a 2010 Miss Mercian with similar geometry (but with slightly more tire and fender clearance) to Arielle, which is a custom Mercian Audax.  

The rear bag is a bit larger than the one I use on Arielle and Tosca.  As you can probably tell, it was also made by Ely Rodriguez of Ruth Works SF. So is the handlebar bag, doubles as a clutch or shoulder bag when removed from the bike.

Finally, here is the last Mercian I bought. Ironically, it’s the oldest:  Vera, my “other” Miss Mercian.  It was made in 1994 and I purchased it in 2011:

Somehow the boxy randonneur front bag and larger saddle bag make the most sense—and look best—on this bike, although I could use them on my other bike.  Perhaps it’s because Vera has a longer wheelbase and is therefore the most stable with a load on it.  I wonder what it would be like on a longer tour.

She seems really happy to have those bags, and the Brooks B17 special.  So am I.  In fact, I’m happy with all of these bikes:  As similar as they might seem to someone who doesn’t know bikes or Mercians, each has its own character and personality.  Still, they all make me happy when I ride

Now, here’s the rest of my family:

 
La-Z-Boy, a.k.a. Max

 and La-Z-Girl, a.k.a. Marlee!