A Ride To The Truth?

The other day, on a pleasant summer afternoon, I was riding back from a trek to Westchester County.  I couldn't help but to notice more work crews than I normally see on the streets.  Some came from ConEd or Verizon, others from the city's transportation department.  They confirm one of my from-the-saddle observations:  streets and roads are in worse shape than I've seen in some time.  Whether it's a result of the weather (climate change?) or simply deferred maintenance, I don't know.

One detour led me down Prospect Avenue in the South Bronx.  I actually didn't mind:  The stretch south of the number 2 and 5 elevated train lines has some rather nice old row houses, and the people seemed to be in a rather relaxed mood.  

Occasionally, I'll stop if a building or detail looks interesting. But I never expected to see, anywhere, something that sums up so many of the truths I hold to be self-evident, to paraphrase the Declaration of Independence.  

Within the past two weeks, the Supreme Court has voted to curtail a woman's right to her own body and, possibly, a bunch of other rights-- but not the one to carry a gun with you.  Why can't they support the simple truths expressed in that sign?  

  

In Place

Yesterday I was torn between taking a familiar or a new ride.  So I did a bit of both:  I pedaled through areas of Westchester County I hadn’t seen in a while, on roads I’d never ridden.

While riding, I couldn’t help but to think about how two affluent towns, so close, could feel so different. Scarsdale, New York, like Greenwich, Connecticut, is one of the most affluent towns in the United States.  Both have quaint downtowns full of shops that offer goods and services you don’t find in big-box stores.  But while some Greenwich establishments have the intimacy of places where generations of people have congregated, others are like the ones in Scarsdale and other wealthy parts of Westchester County:  more self-conscious—you can see it in the names, some of which show merely that whoever came up with the name took French or Italian—and more trendy while trying not to seem trendy.  

Also, the mansions of Greenwich are set further from the roadway than those in Scarsdale.  I suspect that has to do with the differences between the towns’ zoning codes—which has to do with the philosophies of the people who made them.  Also, part of Greenwich includes farms where horses are bred and herbs are grown.

In other words, they reflect the difference between New England and suburban New York wealth (though Greenwich is certainly part of the New York Metro area). 

While both towns have public art and sculpture, I don’t think I’ve seen anything like this in Greenwich:

Simone Kestelman, the creator of “Pearls of Wisdom,” says she was inspired by what pearls mean: something to wear for special occasions, purity, spiritual transformation, dignity, charity honesty, integrity—and, of course, wisdom acquired over time.

One might expect to see something like this in Greenwich:

Indeed, the town has public horlogues like that one,  But I encountered it in the Bronx, across the street from Montefiore Hospital!

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.

The Future of Bike Parking in Your Neighborhood?

 

In October, I wrote about a bicycle parking locker the Brooklyn startup Oonee installed by Grand Central Station.

Now, the company’s founder, Shabazz Stuart (cool name, isn’t it?) is taking his idea “on tour,” if you will.  Yesterday, the parking pod was brought to Manhattan’s Meatpacking District, where it will remain for a month.  Following that, it will go across town to the Lower East Side and Union Square before crossing the bridge in June to Stuart’s home borough of Brooklyn, where it will spend a 29-day “residency” on Vanderbilt Avenue—near Barclays Centre, Atlantic Terminal and the Brooklyn Academy of Music.  Finally, it will trek up to my home borough—Queens—and my neighborhood, Astoria. At each location, the city’s Department of Transportation will grant access to a spot on the curb for 29 days.

The mini pod is free to use but requires an Oonee membership, which allows access by a key fob or mobile app.  

Although its scale, at the moment, is small, Stuart calls it “ powerful step forward.” He notes that this pilot marks “the first time any big city in the United States has had a secure bicycle parking facility on the curb.” He plans to expand his idea to other parts of the city and to cross the Hudson to Jersey City and other parts of the Garden State.

First Ride Of The Year

The threat of rain loomed all day.  It fell, lightly, exactly in the middle of my ride, when I stopped to eat.  And it very kindly stopped just as I resumed my ride.

So went my first ride of the new year:  140 kilometers round trip to Greenwich, Connecticut and back.  The day was warm for this time of year:  temperatures hovered between 10 and 15 C (50 to 60 F), which I like at any time of year.  The air felt fresher than usual:  Perhaps the New Year's Day rain washed away some of the pollution.  It may also have had to do with the near-absence of traffic through most of my ride.  

On my way back, I stopped for the traffic light at Fenimore Steet in Mamaroneck, just across from the harbor.  When the light turned green, I proceeded and, on the other side of the intersection, noticed this:

I've noticed the De Lancey name (sometimes spelled as one word, as in the name of a Manhattan street) in the area.  Apparently, the French Huguenot family emigrated to the then-British colony of New York after the Edict of Fontainebleau, an order that revoked the Edict of Nantes, which gave the Protestant Huguenots most of the same rights French Catholic citizens enjoyed.

Given that, it's not surprising that the De Lanceys amassed such wealth and married other prominent families (whose names are sprinkled all over New York) after arriving.  One of the reasons, I believe, Louis XIV and much of the French establishment wanted to suppress Huguenots--who were Calvinists, like the Puritans--is that, because they emphasized education and didn't celebrate most of the Catholic feast days (meaning they worked more), they became, essentially, the merchant and technocrat classes of France in a similar way to  Jews in some European communities before the Inquisition.

The De Lanceys might well have remained one of the prominent families of New York, and America, had their allegiances been different.  In the Revolution, they were Loyalists.  In fact, James De Lancey--to whom the house belonged--formed, along with his uncle, a brigade that was known for its brutality against American revolutionaries. Once the latter won, the family had to give up their properties and fled to Nova Scotia and England.

Unless you are a member of an historical society in New York state or a graduate student in early American history, you probably hadn't heard of the De Lanceys before today.  But you have almost surely heard of the other name on the plaque:  James Fenimore Cooper, one of this country's first popular authors.  (During Edgar Allan Poe's lifetime, his poetry and fiction were more popular in Europe, especially France, than they were in the United States.)

I wonder how  De Lancey or Cooper would feel about the restaurant that's in the house.  I think Poe would have appreciated the view some of its patrons would have had yesterday:

 

 

Late Afternoon, Early Winter, End Of Year

Late afternoon.  Early winter. End of the year.

That was today’s ride, down the Brooklyn and Queens waterfront and back.

I lingered a bit at the Long Island City promenades op and piers. I started riding there long before it sprouted glass towers, trendy cafes and young people who might be a little too self-consciously hip for their own good.  

Back then, it was an industrial area where each block, it seemed, showed a different stage of post-industrial decay.  But it felt comfortable, to me anyway, like a sweater that might look a bit tattered but feels right.  One thing that hasn’t changed is that it offers some nice harbor vistas and the best views of my two favorite Manhattan skyscrapers—the Empire State and Chrysler Buildings. I wonder, though, whether we’ll be able to enjoy those  views for much longer:  It seems that developers are building more and more, as tall and as close as possible to those edifices, as possible.

I mean, if they continue to hem it in, nobody will be able to see this, from Long Island City or anywhere else.

 

Still, the ride was a nice ending to a day and a year, at the beginning of winter.

A Ride From Art To Marlee

 I've ridden to museums, galleries, plays, poetry readings, concerts and other cultural events.  It's one of my favorite ways to spend a day: I get to combine some of the things I love most.  

The problem, though is parking. I know, I sound like a motorist when I say that.  But only in a few venues can one bring in a bicycle. The Metropolitan Museum has bike racks in its parking garage and valet bicycle parking during certain hours.  But at most other events and venues, you take your chances with parking on the street.

A couple of days ago, during a late-day ride, I came across a solution to the problem:

The 5-50 Gallery is located, as the name indicates, at 5-50 51st Avenue in Long Island City.  More specifically, it occupies a garage--from what I can tell, a commercial one.  Converting industrial and retail spaces to use for art and performance is not new, but this gallery's space is uniquely accessible. 

No, that isn't a portait of Marlee on mushrooms.  It's one work by Kyle Gallagher, the artist featured when I stopped by. 

The paintings have a grab-you-by-the-collar quality, full of  colors that flash with, at once, the energy of street festivals and the urgency of flashing ambulance lights.  And the way cats and other living beings are rendered makes comics seem like a kind of mythology of the subconscious,  spun from threads of graffiti, street portraiture and abstraction.

All right, I know, you didn't come to this blog for two-bit art commentary. But there was something oddly appropriate, almost synchronistic, about encountering those paintings on a bike ride through an industrial-turned-trendy neighborhood.

When I got home, Marlee didn't care. She just wanted to know, "what's for dinner?"  

Where Are The Bikes—And Docks?

 I’ve ridden Citibikes a few times, always for the same reasons:  I could ride there, but not back (like the time I pedaled to a procedure that involved anaesthesia) or I went to pick up one of my own bikes.

Photo by Christopher Lee for the New York Times

On the whole, it’s a good system, given its inherent limitations.  The main non-inherent limitation is that it still isn’t available to about half of this city’s residents:  Nearly all of the bikes and docks are in Manhattan or nearby neighborhoods (like mine) in western Queens and northern Brooklyn. 

Of the inherent limitations, perhaps the most significant is the mismatch between the availability of bikes and ports at any given moment.  As an example, on one of my trips, I had to go to three different docking station before I found an empty port where I could leave the bike.  That left me about half a kilometer from my destination.  The nearest docking station was only a block from where I needed to go.

Sometimes people encounter the opposite problem:  no bikes at the docking station. This typically happens at times and in areas where many people are leaving, or leaving for, their jobs or schools.

As much as I liked Curtis Sliwa’s position on animal rights, I voted for Eric Adams to become our next mayor because of just about everything else—including his mention of expanding Citibike to areas not yet served by it—and, too often, un- and under-served in so many other ways.

I Rode Under This "Canopy"

 On Saturday, I did my 140 km ride to the Greenwich Commons, in Connecticut, and bike.  It was the first time I'd done the ride in nearly a month.  I decided on that ride because, well, it's become a favorite and clear skies, brisk breeze and high temperature of 24 C (about 75F) belied the hideous conditions that prevailed a couple of days earlier, when Ida breached my apartment.  

As lovely as the day was, I wondered what I'd find in Ida's wake.  There wasn't as much water as I'd expected but, not surprisingly, I encountered a few downed trees, including this one on the path through Pelham Bay Park in the Bronx:

Where others would see an obstacle that would detour or turn them back, I saw a canopy.  The "arc" was just barely high enough for me to ride through, bent down with my hands gripping the bottom of my Nitto 177 bars. But I made it through, slowing down only slightly.

I encountered a few large fallen branches along the back streets of Rye and Port Chester, and Glenville Street, which winds through woodlands and along the edge of the gentry's estates in Connecticut.  But at least I could easily ride around those, even if it wasn't as (ego-) gratifying as riding under the "canopy" in Pelham Bay Park.  

Pacing Or Trailing Henri

On Thursday I took my “ride ahead of Fred.”  While he wreaked havoc in other places, he behaved more like, well, a Fred by the time he wheezed by us.

But news of a bigger storm—Henri— followed.  We just missed a direct hit, but points east on Long Island and New England weren’t so lucky.  Still, it’s been raining almost nonstop since late Saturday.  At least I managed to take a ride into the heady of Brooklyn that morning, and to Point Lookout on Friday.

If the rain lightens, I might take a short ride on one of my fendered bikes. If I do, will I be pacing or trailing Henri? 

Pacing or trailing Henri—does that sound like something a domestique  might’ve done in a Tour de France?

Accessible, But Not Affordable

 Yesterday I followed the shorelines of Queens as closely as I could.  Close to home, I chanced upon a vista that encapsulates some of the waterfront’s visual variety.

I remember when the southern part of Hunters Point, in Long Island City, consisted of industrial waiting rooms and necropolis—and when the Twin Towers stood where the Liberty Tower now looms. Back then, much of the waterfront, and its views, were inaccessible.

Now there are pedestrian and bike lanes, food trucks, cafes and some rather nice gardens—alongside “affordable” apartments for people making $125,000 a year.

No More Passes For Bikes On Trains

 When you get to a certain age, you realize that you have things you’ll never use again.

The one I’m about to mention is small and its obsolescence, about which I have mixed feelings, but won’t pose any inconvenience for me.  As of 7 September, the Long Island Rail Road (The LIRR still spells it as two words!) and Metro- North Railroad will no longer require a pass to bring a bicycle on one of their trains.  The lines, part of the Metropolitan Transit Authority’s suburban New York system, will offer a one-day “grace period” on 22 August (a week from Sunday) before the new policy takes effect.

Metro-North President Christine Rinaldi described the new policy as an “effort to welcome back as many bicyclists as possible.”  I am willing to believe her, as train ridership plummeted early in the pandemic and is now approaching pre-pandemic levels.  Also, suburban enclaves are, like New York City, trying to get people out of their cars.  Making it easier and more convenient for people to combine bicycling with commuting by train would help to achieve this goal.

For a few cyclists, the abolition of the pass, and its $5 cost, might entice them to ride to the train. That fee, however, is a one-time fee:  I still have the same passes I  bought about a dozen years ago—to replace my old passes, which I had for about fifteen years, after I changed my name.

I think the real reason the pass and its fee will be eliminated is that administering it and enforcing its use was too difficult and costly.  More precisely, it wasn’t enforced: I can recall only one instance in which a conductor asked to see my pass. 

Also, all of the other policies regarding bicycles, which are more consistently enforced, will remain in place.  They include a limit of four bicycles per train on weekdays and eight on weekends, except on specially-marked weekend “bicycle trains,” which will allow more.  Also, the LIRR and Metro-North will continue to prohibit bicycles on trains during rush hours, on major holidays and on certain holiday weekends.

Resigned To Haze?

Last week’s weather resembled that of May or June, which I didn’t mind.  Today, it seems, August has returned.  So has the haze from distant wildfires.

Some time during today’s ride, Governor Cuomo resigned.  It’s not related to my ride or the weather. At least, I don’t think it is.

Whatever I can or can’t affect, I don’t feel resigned to anything when I ride.

No Rain, Wind Or Tides

 I’m not cycling to Connecticut today.  Instead, I’m on another familiar ride: to Point Lookout.

Another thing is familiar: the weather.  While it’s a couple of degrees warmer than it was yesterday, today feels more like early June than early August.  I don’t mind that, or even the veil of blue-gray clouds that conceal the sun but pose no threat of rain. Those clouds even rein in the wind and tides, or so it seems.

I will not complain:  It’s been a while since riding has felt as good as it has during the past few days!

More From The Fires

 

This morning I rode under more of the haze that blanketed yesterday’s ride.  That’s one reason I limited my saddle time to the morning:  Even before I heard the weather advisory, I knew the air quality wasn’t good.  Also, the forecast included heavy thunderstorms for this afternoon.

That’s the sky I saw at the end of my ride, as I made the turn onto Crescent Street.  Just as I reached my door, I heard the first rumbles of thunder!

From Work To Pleasure On The Island

 On Tuesday, I rode to Connecticut.  Otherwise, it's been a week of local rides, mainly because I've tried to get home before early afternoon, when the heat and humidity is usually worst.

Yesterday fit that pattern.  It also fit another: I rode with a neighbor with whom I hadn't ridden before.  The difference between Kevin, with whom I rode yesterday and Lillian, whom I mentioned in an earlier post, is that she is re-discovering cycling after 40 or so year, whereas Kevin is a lifelong cyclist who raced.

I didn't get a photo of him, and I'll say more about him (and Lillian) in later posts.  I did, however, take some images of a ride that combined the old and the new for me.

The old:  We pedaled along the East River waterfronts of Queens and Brooklyn to the Williamsburg Bridge, which we crossed onto Manhattan.  We continued to the "bottom" of the island, where ferries dock.

 

We took one of the boats I'd never before ridden:  the one to Governors Island.  Being in a place where you're never more than a few hundred meters from the water is, of course, perfect on a hot day.  If and when I go back, I'll pack a picnic lunch and circle the island a couple of times, as Kevin and I did.

I enjoyed riding with him, but I had the same sense of irony, tinged with a bit of guilt, I feel when I ride along Red Hook, Bush Terminal or other parts of the Brooklyn waterfront.  Riding there is, of course, all about pleasure, and if I exert myself, it's an attempt to augment whatever training I might be doing.  During my childhood, and before, some relatives of mine and kids I grew up with worked that waterfront--long, hard hours, most likely without much thought for the beauty of the water or waterfront--or the Manhattan skyline, so close but in another world.

Well, I had the privilege of other folks on the ferry:  We were entering Governor's Island as civilians.    My father didn't have that privilege:  Whenever he went to the island, it was part of his duty as a Coast Guard reservist.  He didn't enjoy it, in part because he was going there to perform repetitive tasks. But, more than anything, it was an inconvenience:  When the island was a military installation, access was limited, as it is on other bases.  What that meant was that only a couple of boats made the trip to and from the island every day, and if you missed the last one, you were stuck.  On the other hand, today the boats make the crossing every 40 minutes starting at 10 am.  

To be fair, my father might've appreciated some landmarks like the Castle or the officers' houses for the history behind them.  But neither he nor anyone else went there to cycle, walk, picnic, camp or do anything for fun or recreation back in the day.

 

I plan to return, as I ride along the Brooklyn waterfront for fun. But the irony of my presence there, or on Governors Island, is not lost on me.

Purple Reign On Herkimer Street

Today I took another morning ride to beat the heat.  I had no particular destination:  I crossed the Kosciuszko Bridge into Brooklyn, where I followed the Graffiti Mural Trail (OK, there is no thoroughfare so designated, at least to my knowledge!) through Greenpoint, Williamsburg, Bushwick, and Bedford-Stuyvesant into Ocean Hill, Brownsville, East New York and back into Queens.

I did see some great murals. One, though, stopped me in my Continental tire tracks.

Oh, Prince, Mr. Elegant One, we would welcome any rain, purple or otherwise, on an afternoon as hot as this one has become!

Another Way Across?

O Sleepless as the river under thee,
Vaulting the sea, the prairies' dreaming sod,
Unto us lowliest sometime sweep, descend
And of the curveship lend a myth to God.--

                            From  --"To Brooklyn Bridge" by Hart Crane

In this town (New York City), there are some things in-the-know cyclists never, ever do. One of them is to pedal across the Brooklyn Bridge.  Even if it's the Sistene Chapel or Notre Dame of bridges, it's best seen while riding across the Manhatan or Williamsburg Bridges.   

On its upper deck, the Brooklyn Bridge has a wide lane that's off-limits to cars and trucks.  Although that lane is wider than the ones on some of the other bridges, cyclists have to share it with pedestrians, scooters, skaters and all other manner of tourists who might stop dead four feet in front of you to take a "selfie."

I'm not complaining about the tourists:  Many are on once-in-a-lifetime trips to the Big Apple.  I'd just prefer not to dodge them if I'm riding to get to someplace, or even for fun. (Forget training:  You can't keep any kind of a steady pace on the bridge!)

All of that will soon change.  Construction has begun on a protected bike lane in the center of the bridge.  Manhattan-bound drivers will lose one of their lanes for the two-way bike lane.

When completed, it will mark the first reconfiguration of the Bridge, opened in 1883, since the trolley tracks were removed in 1950.

I hope that the lane includes a safe and easy transition to the street.  Too often, I've seen bridge bike lanes that "dump" cyclists into chaotic traffic intersections.

Otherwise, the best option for cycling across the East River, in my opinion, will remain the Williamsburg Bridge, which I take whenever possible. 

Daring Elsa

Yesterday wasn't quite as hot as Wednesday was, but the humidity was even more oppressive.  That's one reason why I took another morning ride which, I hoped, would bring me home before the early afternoon heat.

That part of my "mission," if you will was accomplished, even though I continued in one direction when another would have taken me home for, oh, a couple of hours.  

The weather forecast was dire:  Tropical Storm Elsa was bearing up the East Coast of the United States.  Sometimes I "play chicken" with the rain:  I ride as if I'm daring the rain to start falling on me before I finish my trip.  Yesterday, the stakes were higher:  The rain would cascade from those heavy gray clouds moving across Staten Island and New Jersey on their way to Brooklyn and Queens.  

Those clouds might have moved even faster than the traffic across the Verrazano Narrows:  They don't have to pay the toll on the bridge!

Seriously, though, I reverted to a youthful delusion:  That I could actually hold bad weather at bay becasue, well, I was pedaling.  Even when the sky and the waters of New York Bay all but matched the steel and glass hues of the Manhattan skyline, I was not ready to turn around.  After all, the brownstones and blue-collar brick row houses of Sunset Park hadn't been consumed by the the gray colussus.

On 31st Drive, one block from my Astoria apartment, rain began to fall.  It cascaded into a torrent just as I wheeled Tosca, my Mercian fixed gear, into the door. 

Here Comes The Heat

 Apologies to George Harrison for the title of this post!

This morning I took an early ride. It was pleasant, if not challenging:  a bit more than an hour in a loop that took me down to Sunnyside and Woodside, then up past LaGuardia Airport and Citifield, along the World’s Fair Marina promenade—on Tosca, my Mercian fixed-gear bike.

As I pedaled the promenade, I was really glad that I took an early ride.

The haze in the distance was a harbinger of the heat that would blast us later.

I have to admit that I’m following the news about the heatwave in the western part of the US and wondering whether it will reach us.  As hot (and humid) as it is here in New York, our weather is spring-like compared to theirs.

If that heat makes it here, I guess I’ll have to start my rides earlier.