The Color of the Season

 Autumn began yesterday morning.

It’s not easy being green, in any season!

Into The Fall And The Sunset

You really know you're on a Fall ride when you see this:

That, along stretch of the East Coast Greenway that winds its way from Pelham Bay, near City Island, to Pelham Manor in Westchester County.  I was maybe half a kilometer from Pelham Manor--astride Arielle, my Mercian Audax.

I didn't get on the road until well after noon.  I didn't regret it, though:  The early morning was the coldest we had since, probably, April.   And I still rode to Connecticut and back, just beating darkness home.

So...I pedaled into blazing shades of orange, red and yellow scattered on the ground on my way up to the Nutmeg State.  And, by the time I reached Randall's Island--with only the RFK Memorial Bridge between me and home--I was riding into those same--or, at least, similar--hues spread against the sky, as the sun set behind me.

Marlee was not impressed. But she was happy to see me.

A Fall Ride?

It's October.  There's nothing like a ride on a beautiful Fall day:

Happy Sunday!

Mother Wouldn't Have Told Me To Do Otherwise

Whatever we can do about climate change, there isn't a whole lot we can do about the weather.

At least, that's what I told myself when I went for a ride today.

I talked to my mother this morning.  She and my father were bracing for Hurricane Matthew.  They'd done what they can, she told me, and they couldn't do much more.

I'm sure she knew I was feeling anxiety--and a bit of guilt. After all, in my part of the world, we had one of those perfectly gorgeous October days you see in Fall Foliage Tour ads.  And I didn't have to go to work.  So, of course, I was just itching to go on a ride.



I offered to help my mother and father.  She reminded me that, really, there was nothing I could do because I have no way of getting to them. Even if I had a drivers' license, I probably couldn't have driven there.  Also, there were no flights into the area.  I think even Amtrak suspended service to the area.

So I went on a bike ride--to Connecticut, again.  I mean, where else would I ride on a day like today--unless, of course, I were going to take a trip to Vermont or Maine or Canada or the Adirondacks:  places where the foliage is already in bloom.  I have no such plans for this weekend.

Naturally, I rode Arielle, my Mercian Audax, and thoroughly enjoyed it.  The temperature was just right (a high of about 21C or 70F) and the wind blew out of the east and northeast, which meant that I was pedaling into it up to Greenwich and sailed my way back.



Although we don't yet have the blaze of colors one would see right about now in the other places I mentioned, there are subtle changes in color--and, more important in the tone, texture and other qualities of light that signal that fall is well under way.

Just as I was about to cross the Randalls Island Connector--about 20 minutes from home--my mother called.  The worst of the storm had passed:  the rain had stopped and the wind wasn't much stronger than it is on a typical day. She and Dad were OK.  They had no electricity, they said, but aside from a few small tree limbs and other debris in their yard, they suffered no damage.  

After I got home, I fed Max and Marlee.  Then I wiped my bike down, and fed myself.  Mother wouldn't have told me to do otherwise.

To A Rainbow: The First Ride Of A New Season

I know that autumn officially began a week and a day ago.  However, the ride I took today felt like the first of the season.

In part, it had to do with the weather:  The temperatures were almost exactly on target, maybe a couple of degrees cooler than normal.  The air had that cool crispness you normally associate with the season (at least in this part of the world).  But most telling was the particular kind of haze one sees in the distance at the seashore when clouds gather at this time of the year:

This is not the "hothouse" haze borne of humidity you can't escape on a summer day.  Nor is it the light, almost linen, haze you see on a mid- or late-spring day.  This is the kind of haze that brings colors into focus yet diffuses light.  If I were a painter or even a photographer, I would want to render the subtle differences in tones between these kinds of haze on my canvas, paper or screen.

As I started my ride home from Point Lookout, the sky quickly grew brighter, almost as if in a flash.  Then, almost as quickly, clouds gathered and grew darker and heavier than the ones in the first photo.  About half a mile from the Atlantic Beach Bridge, what I like to call a "Florida Shower" fell from the sky:  an intense rain that cut visibility to nearly zero--but, strangely, was not accompanied by thunder or lightning. Also, it wasn't steamy, as the ones in the Sunshine State usually are.  I took refuge under the awning of a church that, it seemed, had completed its services and breakfasts or lunches for the day.  

Within fifteen minutes, I was back on the road again.

Verdant Verities And Vera

A few trees in this area--such as the ones I saw on the Canarsie Pier last week--have begun to change color.  A few leaves seem to have fallen, but most of the trees are still green and full.  

However, I noticed another kind of "fall" along the World's Fair Marina promenade as I cycled to work today:

A lot of branches have fallen--or, more precisely, were ripped and broken from their trunks--during the recent storms.  I saw some of the arboreal debris scattered across the path last week; now, it seems, they are being gathered.  In addition to what fell. other limbs have been cut from the trees because they were weak or ready to come off.

Soon these trees will be yellow, orange and red, then brown.  Then they'll be bare.  But one part of my commute will still be green:

Why do you think I call her Vera?  Well, to tell you the truth, the eponymous Pink Floyd song played while I was cleaning her up just after I first got her.  But, still, you have to admit it's an appropriate name--unless, of course, I decide to paint her.  

Coasting Through The First Day Of Fall

Today I took my newly-built old Trek on a joyride.  Well, I also intended my journey as a shakedown ride, to see what needed changing or fixing.  But, as often happens, business mixed with pleasure.

Before setting out, I made a few small adjustments to the saddle and handlebar positions, and topped off the tires.  I also made use of some leftover handlebar tape:

My trip took me through some familiar haunts:  Astoria Park, Randall's and Ward's Islands, the Bronx and upper Manhattan.  The bike, as I've set it up, seems streetworthy:  I can accelerate and maneuver it quickly, but it doesn't seem too delicate for the almost-lunar texture of some streets I rode.

Some of the ride quality may well have to do with the tires. They're Panaracer Ribmos, though not the same ones as I have on Helene. For one, the tires on Helene are all-black, in contrast to the white sidewalls and red tread on the ones I rode today.  More important, the ones I rode today have non-foldable steel beads, in contrast to the foldable Kevlar beads on Helene's tires.  Also, the red treads and white sidewalls seem to be thicker than the black ones, although the width of each tire is the same. What the beads and thicker rubber mean, of course, is that the tires I rode today are significantly heavier than the ones on Helene.  But, I would also expect them to be more durable.

Today is the first day of fall, at least officially.  However, the weather made it feel more like the first day of summer:  Warm and somewhat humid, though not unpleasant.  But, some of the leaves are starting to turn, so it is starting to look like the season.  And, the brick buildings of the Bronx industrial areas (which were entirely free of traffic, as they usually are on weekends) and the Concrete Plant Park always look rather autumnal.  Somehow the bike looked like it belonged.

And I felt almost as if I belonged on the bike. It doesn't fit like my other bikes, but the size might actually work for me.  I have had other similarly-sized bikes, and rode them gingerly.  Also--I've actually ridden both Arielle and Tosca in a skirt.  I think I could do the same on the Trek, as long as the skirt isn't very close-fitting (I have a couple of skirts like that, which I've never worn on a bike.) or long.  I think about that because I have envisioned using this bikes for errands and as a sometime commuter, as well as a winter bike.  (On winter joyrides, I'll probably be wearing wool tights or sweats, depending on the weather.)

And, yes, I'm getting used to the coaster brake.  

If Old Barns Could Be Turned Into Bikes

Given that Summer is turning into Fall, I thought I'd share an image of some bicycles that look positively autumnal:

These classic cruisers were photographed at last year's Fall Bicycle Swap Meet in Tuscon, Arizona.  

I think of them as the old red barns of bicycling.  They're lovely and peaceful in a similar way, if not quite as melancholy.

Autumn Light In The Darkness

Tonight, during my ride home from work, I cut through Flushing Meadows-Corona Park.  It's most famous as the site of two Worlds' Fairs (The Unisphere was built for the second), the US Open stadium and the setting for parts of Men In Black.  Even on a night as chilly and windy as tonight has been, people walk, run, cycle or otherwise transverse the park, and it's heavily patrolled.  


Anyway, Marianela, my LeTour, wanted to stop under this tree:

She knows a photo op when she sees one.  "Do I look autumnal, or what?" she intones.  Yes, she does, even in her battered condition.

Cycling The November Sky

Here's what makes a November sky different from its October counterpart--or, for that matter, what we think of as a "fall" or "autumn" sky, or what stretches above and in front of us at any other time of year. The clouds are exactly that--clouds.  Even as they shift across the sky and reveal patches of blue backlit by the sun, like a skylight in a Romanesque cathedral, they fill the sky in layers, to the point that they seem to become the sky itself, and to define not only the light, but the wind and chill that come from it.


However, there is absolutely no threat of rain, or any other kind of precipitation.  One can feel just as confident of cycling under this sky as among Shakespeare's "darling buds of May" and not having one's skin moistened by anything that wasn't within his or her own body.  (Whether or how much one sweats depends, of course, on one's conditioning and the strenuousness of the ride.  Mine today wasn't very. )  The best thing about cycling under these conditions, at least to me, is that the light is nothing more or less than that:  it's not the glaring sunlight that taxes light eyes and fair skins (like mine) and it's not diffuse or "painterly," as much as I appreciate and even enjoy that sort of illumination.


This is the sort of light that makes the things--like foliage--that were described with "fall" as prefixes attached to them in October become autumnal in the truest sense of that word.

This may seem odd to some of you, but I find none of this depressing.  In fact, I quite enjoy it.   Now I'm going to sound like exactly the Europhile (or, more specifically, Francophile) snob some of the people with whom I grew up suspected me of being, or having become.  I think that autumnality or autumnalness (OK, if Sarah Palin can compare herself to Shakespeare, surely you can indulge me in this!)  is not much respected, much less valued or celebrated, in American culture.  I suppose it has to do with the notion that this country is supposed to be a place where one can start over and re-invent one's self, and its attendant value of youthfulness and novelty.  The mature sexuality of French or Italian women or the ironic sense of the English--or, for that matter, the ability to accept life on its own terms while questioning one's self that seems to be part of a Germanic way of seeing--is not valued in the same way in America as that of youthful effusiveness and ebullience.


The quality of autumnalness I'm describing is what you might see in western New England if you get off Route 7, or if you take the back roads of the Adirondacks or the routes departmentales of the Vosges.  I have done all of those things, on my bicycle; perhaps having done them in my youth shaped, in some way, my attitudes about cycling and much else in my life.


Will it lead me to be like this couple?:

They say that in the spring a young man's fancy turns to love.  As if I would know about such things!  But at this time of year, an older man's and, ahem, woman's fancies turn to...wait, do they have fancies?   And if they do, will they be realized under this sky?:

I suspect that some of mine will be.  However, I am sure that I will continue to encounter them, as I did today, from my trusty steed for all seasons:

Cycling Through The Gates of Autumn

I got up late today.  So my ride took me to a sunset:

The sun has just set behind Jamaica Bay, near the place it meets the Atlantic at Breezy Point.  I stumbled over this view on the Queens side of the Gil Hodges-Marine Park Bridge.  That view led to another bridge:

To get to these views, we crossed another bridge:

The day was chilly and windy, and became more of both after we crossed this bridge from Beach Channel to the Rockaways.  But somehow I didn't feel the cold.  Maybe I was channeling the sky:  Clouds spread like a shawl across a graying sea and houses that still have some of the warmth and light the sun within them.

And the way to these views was a bike ride through the gates of autumn:

Some of us have to carry a lot to get there:

Sometimes the journey is long, or seems that way:

And where does it lead?  Hopefully, to some place like this:

And it continues.  There is no escaping it, though some will try:

b

That's a washed-out stretch of the Greenway, where it parallels Belt Parkway along Brooklyn's South Shore.  I asked someone to take a photo of me, but I didn't like it.  So I took this photo of a couple I saw cycling.  

Where else could they have been riding but through a sunset in the gates of autumn.

First Autumn Ride

Every year, there's a moment when I realize I'm on a fall ride.  It usually has nothing to do with the calendar, for--as we know--the seasons neither begin nor end on the "official" date. The Autumnal Equinox comes on the 21st of September, or some date one or two days on either side of it, but the weather may be no different from that of August--or December.  Similarly, the arrival of the seasons has much to do where you are, geographically.  Autumn, or any other season, is not going to arrive or manifest itself on the eastern plains of Montana on the same day, or in the same way, as along the coast of Florida.


Although we've had some cooler weather during the last couple of days, today felt like autumn for the first time.  It had to do with what I saw while riding today:

Picasso had his "blue period;" today I took my Yellow Shot.  Although our trees are nowhere near peak,  and they're not in Vermont, they are lovely.   


I took the shot in Ozone Park, on a street called Aroine Road.  That road dead-ends into a place called Rocket Park.  Perhaps it has something to do with the how quickly the seasons go by.  (That's what you have to look forward to as you get older!)