Although this Fall has been warmer and drier than any other I can remember, my rides reveal sure signs that winter, whatever it might bring , isn’t far in the future.
Somehow the preternaturally clear sky and blue water at Fort Totten—where the (misnamed) East River meets the Long Island Sound, and the destination of my midday ride—only highlighted the imminent seasonal change.
Then again, some places and trees are holding onto what’s left of the season.
On Saturday more snow fell than we’ve seen in a long time. Three inches (7.5 cm) stuck to the ground here in Astoria and in Manhattan; not far away, on Staten Island and in North Jersey, some places had three or even four times as much.
Although the temperature hovered near the freezing mark, the snow was pretty fluffy—enough so that, a block from me, I thought I was looking at a cotton tree.
I don’t imagine, though, that the snow did much to protect these bikes:
The streets and, yes, even the bike lanes were plowed rather promptly—enough so that yesterday, on a Presidents’ Day ride to Point Lookout, I had to steer clear of a snow pile only once. On my return trip, I walked up the ramp to the Veterans Memorial Bridge out of precaution: I saw ice on it on the ride out.
The remaining snow made for an interesting view
that seemed like an inversion of what I saw on a previous Point Lookout ride.
Did those white caps spill their foam on the sand and grass?
I have always loved winter rides along the coast. Even on a day that’s mild for the season, few people are strolling the boardwalks, and even fewer are on the beach, if it hasn’t been closed. The people you see, whether they’re walking with dogs, families or friends, or cycling, might be called anything from “hardy” to “crazy” by those who prefer the warmth of their living rooms to brisk winter air or the glare of screens to the subdued light and subtle colors of the littoral horizon.
If nothing else, we are independent spirits who are introverts at heart, even if we return to the company of the sedentary.
Speaking of independent spirits:
This one knows what they (I can’t be cisgenderist, can I?) want. And their ability to eat oysters and other fresh shellfish—and leave a deposit on a shiny new vehicle—has nothing to do with their personal assets.
I sometimes take an early morning or late afternoon ride down through Sunnyside and Maspeth and cross the Kosciusko Bridge into Greenpoint and Williamsburg.
The entrance to the bridge flanks a cemetery and offers one of the more foreboding views of the skyline, especially in winter.
Rain, interrupted by showers, fell pretty constantly from Wednesday until early yesterday morning. I ventured out for “quickies” along the waterfronts of Long Island City and Greenpoint. Late yesterday afternoon, I took a slightly longer, and definitely familiar, to Fort Totten.
I don’t mind riding in the rain as long as it isn’t cold. (I also don’t mind the cold as long as it’s not wet.) Since Christmas, the high temperatures have clustered around 10c (50F), which is mild for this time of year.
But the best meteorological feature of yesterday afternoon, at least to my eyes, was the clouds. I love seeing such a heavy, thick and even dark mounds when I know they’re not going to drop any more rain. I especially like the way they move, but don’t move away, enough for the sun to poke through, and how those rays are refracted through clouds and onto rippling waves.
Two of my favorite songs are the Beatles’ “Here Comes The Sun” and Johnny Nash’s “I Can See Clearly Now.” Who couldn’t feel good about hearing the best Fab Four song (aside, possibly, from “Something”) not written by John or Paul? The point of that song isn’t the sun itself; rather, it’s that hope and clarity are on the way. And the most popular reggae tune that nobody thinks of as a reggae tune is about, I believe, the moment after.
Somehow I felt I could see more clearly in yesterday’s late-afternoon winter light by the water, than I could under a cloudless summer sky. That might be the best reason to ride at this time of year, at that time of year, after two days of rain punctuated by showers.
Golfes d’ombre: E, candeur des vapeurs et des tentes,
Lance des glaciers fiers, rois blancs, frisson d’ombelles
So what did my Christmas Day ride have to do with Arthur Rimbaud’s poem about vowels—specifically, the lines about “E?”
Well, he likened the most-used vowel to the color white and used images of royalty and glaciers to convey the feeling of the sound and its character.
Of course, I was nowhere near the southern continent: I was on the South Shore of Long Island, and it wasn’t cold enough for even a white Christmas, let alone a glacier.
So I did another Point Lookout ride before spending Christmas evening with friends. Then on the holiday we don’t celebrate in the US—Boxing Day—I took a late-afternoon ride to Fort Totten. It’s just past the Throgs* Neck Bridge, which spans the meeting-point of the East River and Long Island Sound.
The convergence of those bodies of water, and the way Queens, Westchester and Nassau counties, curve around it, probably made it a strategic point and the reason the Fort was built. (The Army Reserve still uses a small part of it; the rest was decommissioned and became the park it is today.) The differences between the currents of those two bodies of water and the terrain that surrounds them may account for the interesting light that illuminates —and fogs that shroud—the area.
So, my Christmas rides treated me to different kinds of lights, including the ones people strung along their trees and homes.
*-The Throgs Neck Bridge connects Fort Totten, in the Queens neighborhood of Bayside, with tbe Bronx enclave of Throggs Neck (the locale of the New York Maritime Academy) I don’t know why the name of the bridge is spelled with one “g” while the Bronx neighborhood gets two.
Today is the second full day of winter—and the day before Christmas Eve. The temperature reached about 5C (40F) under clouds holding rain that could drop late tonight but will definitely fall tomorrow, according to the weather forecasts.
It seemed like the perfect day for a ride—to the ocean. The wind blew out of the southeast, so I was pedaling into it down the Beach Channel isthmus to Rockaway Beach and past sand and tides to Point Lookout.
My reward was exactly what I’d hoped for: early winter light, gray yet intimate like one of those old friends with whom you don’t have to pretend—and couldn’t, even if you wanted to. Or, perhaps, it is a reflection the few people I saw walking—themselves, their dogs, their lovers or spouses. Maybe they—and I—are reflections of that light, which doesn’t force extroversion.
Perhaps the strangest and most wonderful thing about that light, and the winter seascape, is that it allows a glimpse of the sunset hundreds of kilometers away, in the middle of the afternoon—and renders that sunset as a brushstroke that accents ripples of gray mirroring each other in the sea and sky.
Oh, and on my way home, the wind blew at my back—after I munched on the slice of Kossar’s babka I’d brought with me. I made good time in every sense of the word!
Last night, I took my Winter Solstice ride. Although I didn’t plan anything about it—except for one thing, which I’ll mention—I more or less knew I wouldn’t ride a lot of miles or climb. So I rode Tosca, my Mercian fixed gear bike.
The one planned part of my ride took me to a house about a kilometer from my apartment:
The residents of that house, on 23rd Street near the RFK Bridge, turn their porch into a kind of miniature Christmas village every year. The electric trains actually run on their tracks; the Ferris wheel turns and some of the figures walk, dance and even sing.
A few minutes later, I came upon another display that, while not as dynamic, filled the street with its lights and colors.
I continued to ride. I’m not sure of which motivated me more: those lights and colors, the crisp cold air or the complete absence of traffic.
About the latter: It was a proverbial “calm before the storm.” Not surprisingly, the holiday rush began this morning: A seemingly endless stream of cars crawled and honked down my street and, it seemed, everywhere: When I took a ride out to the Malcolm X Promenade today, it seemed like everyone in the world was entering or exiting LaGuardia Airport, the Grand Central Parkway or any street leading to them.
As I rode today, I couldn’t help but to think about last night’s ride—and a man who sold fruits and vegetables from a stand in Jackson Heights. I stopped and bought a bunch of red Swiss chard, a string of tomatoes and a small bag of cherries because they looked good—and out of respect to that man who, like me, was outside on the longest night of the year.
Has something ever stopped you in your tire tracks?
While commuting, touring, day-tripping or doing just about every other kind of riding except racing, I have stopped when I’ve seen something unusual or interesting. I more or less expect to make such stops when I’m somewhere I’ve never been before: Whether I was seeing the chateau at Amboise or an elephant in the wild for the first time, I knew that such sights—or a marketplace that only the locals know—is as much a reason for my ride as, well, pedaling on unfamiliar terrain.
Perhaps nothing is quite as surprising, however, as pedaling through a part of my neighborhood I hadn’t seen in months and encountering something that not only differs from its immediate surroundings, but would stand out almost anywhere.
While spinning the pedals on Tosca, my Mercian fixed-gear bike, along 36th Avenue, I couldn’t have missed a house with such a paint job. I know it had to have been built recently because, while the stoop and other fittings seemed to match those of adjacent houses—at least at first glance—they didn’t have the nooks and crannies (like Thomas’s English Muffins) of bricks that have weathered seasons and been painted over.
I saw a name plate by the front door. Looking it up, however, was fruitless because it’s a name common to the Indian-Bengali community in that part of the neighborhood. My guess is that it’s the name of the person or family who built it. Whoever they are, they’re probably rich and eccentric.
At first glance, it reminded me of a Buddhist temple. Perhaps the nearby spice shop and Punjab restaurant and bakery had something to do with that. (I know: Punjabi people are as likely to be Sikhs, Hindus, Muslims or even Christians. My Eurocentricity is showing!) Then, for a moment, I thought of San Francisco about 35 years ago, before tech money remade it: Victorian houses were painted in colors you never would see on similarly-styled houses in Brooklyn, Boston or Montréal.
I believe that if I’d seen that house anywhere, it would have stopped me in my tire tracks.
The past few days have been hectic. It’s “crunch time” at work and I’ve had to attend to a few things that might lead to a change in my life. Whether that will be good or bad, or just change, I don’t know.
I did manage to squeeze in a late-afternoon ride to and from Fort Totten the other day. I rode Tosca, my Mercian fixed gear, as I often do on short rides. On my way home, I stopped to enjoy the end-of-day light from the Malcolm X Promenade, which rims mFlushing Bay from LaGuardia Airport.
As much as I enjoyed the spectacle, upon looking at a photo I took, I can’t help but to wonder whether it portends what will come from the change, should it come to pass.
Great minds think alike.
So I've heard. Now, I am not going to tell you that I am a "great mind." But I know when someone is thinking like a cyclist--in particular, a cyclist in New York City.
Kevin Duggan is such a person. His latest article in Streetsblog NYC tells me as much.
In it, he lauds a new series of bike lanes I've already ridden a few times. But he also said they are part of the "groundwork" for a "much-needed safe transportation network in the neighborhoods of Western Queens.
Astoria, where I live, is part of Western Queens. There is already a lane--which is far from ideal--on my street and a few others. But those extant lanes do not form a coherent network that would allow a cyclist or, for that matter, anyone not driving, a safe, reliable and efficient way to traverse the area between its bridges, schools, workplaces, shopping areas, parks, museums and the residences of people like me.
Nor do the new lanes about which Duggan writes. Oh, one of them, along 11th Street, is protected by concrete barriers along some stretches and a lane of parked cars along others. And it connects, if not seamlessly, with two other lanes along other major thoroughfares--Jackson Avenue and 44th Avenue-- in the neighborhood. But they don't offer something else they could: a safe and easy way to access the Pulaski Bridge, which connects the Queens neighborhood Long Island City (an area about 4 kilometers south of my apartment) to Greenpoint, Brooklyn--and has a protected bike lane.
Moreover, the Jackson Avenue and 44th Avenue lanes, which run east-west, doesn't connect (yet) with the lane along Vernon Boulevard--a north-south lane like 11th Street. And there is no lane to connect Vernon or 11th to Crescent Street or other lanes that take cyclists to the RFK Memorial Bridge and other useful, relevant and interesting places.
Kevin Duggan understands. I can only hope that the planners will, some day soon.
(Photo by Kevin Duggan for Streetsblog. Map from New York City Department of Transportation.)
One valid criticism of bike lanes, and bicycle infrastructure generally, is that they’re constructed mainly in gentrified or gentrifying neighborhoods. Whenever someone suggests that the lanes, bike parking facilities and bike share programs into neighborhoods populated by people who are darker or poorer than those in Williamsburg or Chelsea, the excuse for not “sharing the wealth ,” if you will, is that “people don’t ride bikes” in areas like Jamaica, Queens.
That is a point Samuel Santella makes on Streetsblog. He lives in Saint Albans, a southern Queens community that is a “transportation desert:” it is not served by the New York City subway system and only a couple of bus lines traverse it. So, its residents—nearly 90 percent of whom are Black—either drive or, like Santella, ride their bicycles, whether to their destinations or to the subway in nearby Jamaica.
Sound on for commentary pls 🙏 pic.twitter.com/HHzMHZhQSI
— Samuel Santaella 🚎🤝🚲 (@TransitNinja205) November 11, 2021
Many New York City neighborhoods like Jamaica have a “downtown” that is a commercial district and transportation hub. Santella, as he recounts in his piece, rides to Jamaica to take the subway to Brooklyn. He shows how it’s difficult to cycle safely on any of the thoroughfares that lead to the train stations. Hillside and Jamaica Avenues are essentially “stroads,” while Archer Avenue has a bus lane that are, technically, illegal for cycling. And all of those streets are chaotic messes of delivery vehicles and “dollar vans” that ferry people from neighborhoods like his to the subway and Long Island Rail Road (yes, it’s spelled as two words) stations.
I know what he’s talking about: I sometimes ride those streets. As a matter of fact, I cycled them almost daily for seven years, when I worked at York College, in the middle of Jamaica. I experienced some of the pandemonium he describes, which is undoubtedly worse than it was when I was making the commute in pre-pandemic, pre-Uber days when SUVs, while growing in popularity, didn’t dominate the roads as they do now.
For about three years, a bike lane has lined Crescent Street, about 10 meters from my apartment. In previous posts, I have expressed mixed-to-negative feelings about the lane: It’s not well thought-out or constructed and is now overrun with motor scooters.
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| Crescent Street |
And, lately, there’s been building destruction and construction along Crescent. The lane is therefore blocked or is crossed by workers bearing girders. That means cyclist pedaling north on the lane has to detour onto the sidewalk—unless, of course, that’s also blocked—or squeeze between the contractors’ trucks and the southbound traffic. (Crescent is a one-way street.)
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| 23rd Street |
So, lately, I’ve been doing what I did before the lane was constructed: To reach the RFK Bridge or any other point north of my apartment, I’ve been riding 23rd Street, a one-way northbound thoroughfares that parallels Crescent.
They climbed the fence And the storm’s wake didn’t stop some intrepid beings from lining up on the nearby soccer field:
Might those birds have invented a new formation?
