One Ride, One Washout

 I’ve wimped out.

After taking a great ride, yesterday, to Connecticut, I was going to pedal out to Somerville, New Jersey so I could…watch other people pedal.

But when I woke up this morning, I couldn’t see out my windows.  It had nothing to do with anything I imbibed with my post-ride ravioli with Salsa Giustina*. Rather, my window panes were sheets or curtains of cascading comet-tails of rain.

Photo by Dave Sanders for the New York Times.

I wouldn’t have minded riding in gentler rain: Three of my bikes have fenders and I could’ve worn my rain jacket.  Also, it’s pretty warm today, in a late spring-almost summer sort of way, so a shower would feel nice.  But I am not about to start a ride in a near-zero-visibility torrent and the prospect of standing in a downpour to watch races—even if they are part of the once-a-year Somerville event—just doesn’t appeal to me.

Oh well.  Maybe, if the rain lets up a bit later, I’ll go for a ride—or to the Botanical Garden.  I’ve been there twice since I moved next to it (and got a free membership):  to see the lilacs a couple of weeks ago, and for the orchid show and cherry blossoms last month, just after I moved in. It’s funny, really, that I’ve been there twice (and a few times before I moved here) but I am one of those New Yorkers who has never been to the Statue of Liberty!

*—Fresh tomatoes, garlic, onion, mushrooms and red sweet peppers, simmered in olive oil with sliced black olives and seasoned with rosemary, freshly-ground black pepper and squeezed lemon.  Like many such concoctions, it’s best when it’s a couple of days old:  I made it on Thursday night.

Happily Riding In A Moment Fugue

I have just had about as nice a cycling weekend as one can have without going to a country like the Netherlands or France where they actually see bikes as forms of transportation and recreational vehicles for people of all ages.

It rained during much of the past week. The good news is that I had a chance to catch up--or at least make progress--on a couple of bike- and writing-related projects. I'll say more about those later. As skies clared late Friday afternoon, while my religious faith did not return, it was enough to get me thinking that the cycling gods--some of whom I've written about in earlier posts-- were smiling on us.

We are in that "sweet spot" between spring and summer:  The air warm enough to cycle shorts and a light top, the water just warm enough for a swim or at least a dip (depending, of course, on your temperature sensitivity) and skies so clear--yes, even here in New York--that no matter how or where you ride, more roads, more fields, more water, stretch ahead of you--and the flowers that have budded and bloomed for the past few weeks pulse with color.

So I did a back-to-back of two old favorites:  Connecticut (the longer and hillier ride) on Saturday and Point Lookout yesterday.  While I am thinking, perhaps, of even longer rides in the coming weeks, I was content with what some might call the "Zen" way of riding:  I enjoyed the individual moments and what some might call The Moment of the rides writ large.

About the longer rides I'm considering:  I might ride from my apartment to some place from which I can't return on the same day.  I'd also like to go further away, to take one of the trips that were postponed by the pandemic.  While I had been planning to go to places I'd never been before, and I hope to take those trips, whether this year or some other times, I feel even more of an urge to see people I haven't seen in a while and other people I've "met" through this blog and other online means but have never seen in person.

But the past weekend's cycling is as fine as any I've experienced in a while.  More like it would make me happy.

A Ride Into Living Color

In at least two ways, my Saturday ride to Connecticut and back was perfect.

For one, I pedaled into the wind just about all the way there.  By the time I got to the Greenwich Common, I was feeling its effects--and the sun on my face.  I'd worn sunscreen but I think I absorbed more rays than I'd taken in months.  (If nothing else, I got a healthy dose of Vitamin D.)  So, the packet of Kar's Sweet 'n' Salty mix I'd stashed in my seat bag was especially tasty and felt like a "superfood" for the rest of my ride.

I say the wind was part of a "perfect" ride because it was at my back for most of the way back!

But another thing that made my ride, which I've done many times, so nice was that the wind seemed to have blown the clouds away.  So, the bright sun made the air more brisk and the colors more vibrant.

I reminded myself that those flowers were planted in memory of war veterans.  Of course, there is no justice in dying in combat, whether or not in a "just" cause:  The combatants, most of them very young, did not have the opportunity to do most of the things most of us take for granted as normal parts of our lives.  But at least there is beauty, in living color, in their honor.  

Yesterday the Five Boro Bike Tour rolled through this city, passing just a couple of blocks of my apartment.  Two of my neighbors expressed consternation that I wasn't part of it.  I explained that I participated, probably, about twenty editions of it, including two as a marshal but the event has grown too big and commercial. ($100 to register? Yes, the swag and catered gourmet snacks are nice, but that's not why I go on a ride!) Besides, my ride to Connecticut and back is about twice as long as the 5BBT.  But just hearing "I rode to Connecticut" surprised them even more than my absence from one of the world's largest cycling throngs.