I Love You As Much As I Love My Bike. Really, I Do!

 One of the more felicitious times in my life was when I had a partner who enjoyed cycling.  I didn't have to coax her to ride; sometimes she beckoned me onto my bike.

From cyclelicio

But some of you are not quite as fortunate.  I've "been there, done that," too:  I had a spouse and a couple of paramours who not only didn't ride, but who were convinced that my cycling was "stealing" time from them--or, worse, that I was going on rides to see someone else with whom I was having an affair.

From Bike Nashbar

No matter what I said or did, I couldn't convince them that I was choosing my bike over them.  

I'm single now.  I don't mind, for any number of reasons:

Happy Valentine's Day!

(If that last image best represents this Valentine's Day for you, here's a song for you.  It was released on Valentine's Day.)

Rose, Thou Art Sick

Here's something romantic to tell your spouse, boyfriend, girlfriend, life partner, significant other or whatever you call him/her/them:

Of course, you would say it only if that person is also a cyclist.  If he/she/they are/is not a cyclist, you might witness aviation history in whatever space you share!

One Valentine's Day many, many years ago, I was riding my bike by the Rutgers campus.  I was flat broke, as I often was (and would often be on many occasions later).  What would I give, or do with, my girlfriend?  I could have made something, I suppose, but I wouldn't have felt right, knowing that I slapped it together in even less time than I wrote at least one of my papers.  And, at that point, my cooking skills consisted mainly of boiling and frying.

While pondering all of the things I couldn't give, or do for, her, I pedaled by the botany lab.  A blur of red, deep red, streamed into the corner of my eye.  Rose, thou art sick.  I'd read William Blake's poem at least a few times, but why was I thinking of it then--with a riot of deep crimson in my line of vision.

The dumpster outside the botany lab overflowed with those flowers.  Roses, redder than any in the Queen's garden--or any upper Madison Avenue florist. Rose, thou art sick.  They probably are not well if they're in that dumpster, I realized.  But they were so, so red, like the bloom of one who grows more beautiful while drawing closer to death. (I'd recently read a Japanese story like that.)  

Giving no thought to what might be keeping those petals redder than Mississippi in any election during my lifetime, I yanked my handlebar and made a beeline for that corrugated steel cornucopia of floral bounty.  I propped my bike and scooped as many roses--their stems still attached!--as I could handle.  I found a piece of twine lying nearby and used it to tie whatever I couldn't carry to my handlebars, top tube and seat tube.

On my way back to my apartment, I stopped by an art studio and appropriated some ribbon, and large vase from a conference room.  Then I pedaled to the language houses, where my girlfriend stayed.

One of her housemates answered the door.  Slackjawed, she darted up the stairs and summoned, it seemed, all the other girls in that house--and my girlfriend.  They watched as I handed her more roses than any of them had seen in their lives.  Oh, and those roses were redder--even if they were sicker.

About the only thing that's the same in my life is that I still ride my bikes.  I have a few more than I had then, not to mention the memory of that day, when I might have made someone happier (and a few of her friends more envious) than I've made anyone since.

I still wonder what kept those roses so red--for almost two weeks after I found them!  Rose, thou art sick.  A few years ago, I looked her up, worried that those roses may have made her give birth to sick children.  As far as I can tell, she remained childless.  Because of the roses?  

They don't seem to have affected me.  I still ride, after all.  

Happy Velo-tine's Day!

To my readers:

I love you!  

The Velo-tine's Day bike tour will take place on Saturday the 16th in Albuquerque, New Mexico,  and has been organized by Routes, a local bicycle tour and rental company.  If I were in the neighborhood, I just might join them!

Riding Off Into The Sunset--From A Singles' Ride

I have never been to any sort of event or function with the word "singles" in it.  Honestly, I have never felt any great urgency about meeting a potential date or mate.  Other people in my life, however, have felt such anxiety and have tried to get me to go to bars, parties, dinners, book clubs, lecture series,gallery openings, church "socials" and even bike rides for the unattached.  Or they've invited me to lunch or dinner and, when I arrived, they introduced me to some similarly solo friend or co-worker who would be "right" or "great" for me.

It seems that there aren't as many singles' events as there were in my youth, and singles' bars seem to have disappeared altogether.  The main cause, I suspect, is the all of the ways in which people can find each other online.   
So I wonder what people who met on singles' fora of the past tell their children, or other young people--most of whom, I suspect, have no concept of the sorts of things I'm describing.

I am thinking now, in particular, a woman whose story I came across recently.  Suzanne Travis, a California nurse, went on a singles' bicycle ride on--you guessed it--Valentine's Day.  

As she tells the story, she was, in addition to a nurse, an aspiring stand-up comedienne.   She went to the bike ride the way she went to other singles' events: expecting that not much would come of it besides material for her routines.  After all, how many jokes or monologues have you heard about successful relationships or people who lived "happily ever after."

From Out and About Singles

On the ride, she met a man she describes as "adorable."  And, of course, she invited him to her show.  One thing led to another and now they have been married for 27 years.

She still rides her bike.  And she tells her jokes--to her patients.  They are a "captive audience", she says.  Apparently, that's what she needs: "I found that I became a little less funny the happier I got."

Hmm...More happy=Less funny?  Could that be the reason why we haven't heard many stand-up routines about cycling?

How Does He Love Thee? As Much As He Loves His Bike?

Pity Elizabeth Barrett Browning. While her husband wrote poems that tackled the Big Questions (including those of the very nature of poetry) and are in every anthology in the English language, she's seen as a "chick lit" poet.  Even if she'd written The Inferno or The Waste Land, she'd've never lived this line down:

            How do I love thee?  Let me count the ways.

It certainly wouldn't look out of place in a Hallmark card.  But some of the greatest works of literature contain passages that, frankly, are even more banal. The problem with that line is that it's what comes first in the sonnet. The rest of becomes more serious, even darker:

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I love thee to the level of every day’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right.
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

"I love thee with a love I seemed to lose/ With my lost saints."  Hmm...I wasn't expecting that with my box of Godiva.  "[A]nd if God choose/I shall but love the better after death."  I know that love is patient--but is it that patient?

Say what you will, but I actually like the poem. No, forget that:  I love it.  Somehow I believe Robert did, too, in his heart of hearts.  Had they been cyclists, one might have sent the other something like this:

Being poets, they probably had a sense of humor.  (Believe it or not, verse and mirth are not mutually exclusive!)  So I could also see them exchanging something like this:

Couldn't you?  Happy Valentine's Day.

Bending It, Though Not Like Beckham

Tomorrow I'm going to see the physical therapist about my knee.  It actually feels better now:  At least I can bend it, if not "like Beckham."


I must say, though, that it was weird to see a cycling colleague park her bike as I got off the bus.  And, of course, she asked why I wasn't on my bike, though not in a condescending or sarcastic way.  "I was really worried to see that you didn't ride in," she said.


Tonight her husband came by to accompany her home.  We have ridden together a few times, and I was sad to miss out on that tonight.  Then again, it is Valentine's Day, so maybe they wanted and needed the time to be together,without distractions.  I must say, though, with her in his life, I don't know how much of a distraction I can be!


Anyway...I'll try not to whine too much more before I'm on my bike again!

Cycling Professor Didn't Ride Today

It pains me to admit this:  On a lovely, if rather chilly, fall day, I didn't cycle to work.


I took the train instead.  It bought me time, of which I haven't had nearly enough, to look at some students' papers and to review a lesson.


Yes, the colleges were open, even though it's Veteran's Day. 


Here's a video of a cycling professor:  http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5251769227304946424