How Much Does It Hold?

Racks, handlebar bags, panniers, saddle bags, baskets:  They come in all shapes and sizes.  About the latter: some come in "small," "medium" and "large."  But catalogues usually list their carrying capacities.  For racks, it's expressed in weight.  But, for bags and baskets, volume is usually more relevant.  So, a catalogue listing is more likely to say that  randonneur bag or delivery basket is more likely to say that it can hold whatever-number of cubic inches or liters.

I simply cannot conceptualize any number of cubic or square inches, feet, centimeters or meters.  When people ask me about the size of my apartment, all I can tell them is how many rooms I have.  Or, when I've gone apartment- (or house-) hunting, I could judge a dwelling's size--and then only in a relative way--by looking at it.  

On the other hand, it's pretty easy to visualize four, or whatever number of, liters:  We all see bottles and cans with that much water, milk, wine or some other liquid. Some catalogue, I forget which, expressed the carrying capacities of its bicycle luggage by the number of bagels or bottles of beer that could be packed into the handlebar, seat and pannier bags--and backpacks--it sold.  I liked that even better.  

What would they have said about their rain gear?  What is the difference between "water resistant" and "waterproof?"  Does a bag or jacket have to repel a certain number of raindrops to earn one designation or another?

What if carrying capacities were expressed in raindrops?

Torment In The Torrent

I recently taught Dante's Inferno.  In it, Hell is divided into nine circles, each reserved for particular kinds of sinners and each with its own punishments.

(As best as I can tell, I'd end up in the third ring of the seventh circle.  But I digress.)

One thing that has always struck me about the punishments meted out in each part of Dante's Hell is that they are not only retributive (at least, according to notions of divine justice prevailing in his time);  they are also meant to torment those who are sentenced.  At least, that is how it seemed to me.

Sometimes it seems that the torment is worse than the punishment itself.  I think it's because the resulting pain, humiliation and embarrassment endure for even longer than any physical torture.  Plus, folks whom you believed to be friends or allies--or, at least, fellow travelers--will pepper you with "witty" comments or taunt you with laughter.

At least, that was the experience related described Dublin-based writer Cal McGhee in his Broken Bicycle Blues.  As if it weren't bad enough to get thrown from his bike into a parked car, all of his attempts to call would-be rescuers failed:  The Vodafone customer you are calling is not accessible at the moment.

Oh, but it gets worse:  He starts to walk his bike in the pouring rain.  He doesn't get very far when the "innards of the back tyre unravel and intertwine with the wheel, rendering it absolutely 'bolloxed'."  So, unable to roll his bicycle alongside him, he has to carry his machine--until he no longer can.  

Then, "not equipped with any weaponry," he saws at the tire with a key in an attempt to cut the tire off.  But that key proved no match for the tire and snapped in half.

That key was--you guessed it--his bike key.

Having endured the ordeal of flat tire, crash, broken key and the jeers of other cyclists who passed him, he finally reaches home, where he is "greeted by the beaming smile of a child."  He reaches out to embrace the tyke when he notices how grungy he is and stops himself.

"That's how I died," he informs us.

He asks that no flowers be brought to the funeral.  Instead, he requests donations that can go to "an experimental business heralding a new regime" in which "cyclists in peril" will be "rescued and fed curry sauce until they are restored to full health."

Will that ease the torment of other cyclist seeing him walking and carrying his bike?

Playing Chicken--In Reverse--With The Rain

In other posts in this and my other blog, I've written about "playing chicken with the rain".   It's one of my guilty pleasures:  I go out for a ride when the sky looks absolutely pregnant with precipitation and keep on riding, all of the while daring the sky open up on me.  The best such rides are the ones in which I pull up to my house (or wherever I'm going) just as the first couple of drops touch my skin:  I feel as if I'd gotten away with something.

I was playing a kind of "reverse chicken" during this morning's commute.  It rained last night, heavily as I slept and a little lighter as I was getting ready to go to work.  As I hopped on my bike, a few drops plipped against my helmet; by the time I got to the RFK Memorial-Triborough Bridge (a little more than a kilometer from my apartment), the rain had stopped and the sun was starting to break through the clouds.

By the time I got to work, what little rain had fallen on me had dried up.  I looked no different than I would have had I ridden under clear skies during my entire commute; none of my co-workers asked, with astonishment, whether I had actually ridden "in this weather".  I was smiling or grinning, I'm not sure of which, and they might have wondered what I was smiling or grinning about.  I'll let them think what they will (I love them. I really do!); I am content to start my day feeling as if I'd gotten away with something, like a kid who made off with the box of cookies! 

 

An Umbrella On The Trail

There are films I see for their artistry or historic or cultural significance.  Then there are movies that, I admit, I watch solely as entertainment, as harmless diversions. 

Then there are cinematic works that I simply must look at again and again because, really, there's nothing else like them and they defy categorization.  Among them are Vittoria de Sica's The Bicycle Thief and The Garden of the Finzi-Continis, Fracois Truffaut's The 400 Blows and Jacques Demy's The Umbrellas of Cherbourg.

That last one is perhaps the most uncategorizable of all.  If someone had told me, beforehand, that all of its dialogue is sung, I probably never would have looked at it, as I am not a fan of musicals.  However, it would never work if someone tried to cast it as a musical, whether on film or stage.  Hey, I think that even translating it into English would be almost criminal.

Also, the film is shot in a way that doesn't remind me of any other.  It's been compared to an Impressionist or Pointillist painting--which, in some ways, is a valid comparison.  It often uses color and form in ways similar to those of Auguste Renoir or Georges Seurat. It's actually worth seeing for that reason alone:  It's purely and simply beautiful to look at.  (So, for that matter, are Catherine Deneuve and Nino Castelnuova.)  It reminds me of why someone described melancholy as "beautiful sadness".

I got to thinking about  Umbrellas and the painters I've mentioned after coming across this image:

 

Riding Through Five-Minute Monsoons

The sky is an iron-gray pall.   Every hour or so, curtains of rain fall from it for about five minutes.  Then it disappears, as if it were merely a hologram and once again the gray sky looms for another hour.

If you happen to be outside when the rain falls, you will get soaked.  Then, when the rain stops, you will ride or walk around sheathed by your wet clothes--if, of course, you didn't have rain gear.

I think now of times I made deliveries on days like this when I was a messenger.  The funny thing was that I could walk into some of the swankest buildings and stuffiest offices, soaked to my skin, and people in suits that cost more than I made in a month didn't blink an eye.  Sometimes they would even offer me a cup of coffee.  

(Once, when I made a delivery at the Pierre Hotel, someone--a manager, I presume--offered me lunch.  I took him up on it and promised that if I ever needed to stay in a hotel in New York, I would not consider any other.  I don't think he held me to it.)

I pedaled and delivered in the most soaking of downpours, against winds magnified in the concrete canyons of Wall Street and Midtown, and with needles of sleet stinging my face. And, yes, in the snow.

But I had nothing on these folks in Mumbai, India:

For that matter, I don't think the US Postal Service does, either. Nor did the US Postal Team:

Those guys were in Indonesia. Isn't it funny that the folks in the background, under an umbrella, don't seem as submerged as the guys on bikes.

When rain comes suddenly and you don't have rain gear, you can do one of three things:  You can wait it out.  You can ride it and get wet.  Or you can improvise:

Today I took a brief ride and packed my foldable rain slicker.  And, yes, I rode through two five-minute monsoons.

Even Max Couldn't Bear To Look At Me!

Yesterday, the weather forecast said today the skies would be "partly cloudy-to-sunny" and whatever chance we'd have for rain would come late tonight or in the early hours of tomorrow morning.  When I woke up this morning, the sky looked heavier and grayer than I expected it to be.  I turned on the radio.  Sure enough, the forecast had changed to "occasional rain and drizzle."

So I figured I could get out before one of the occasions and, if I got caught in one, I could ride or wait it out.  Although a fairly cool day for this time of year, I wouldn't have minded getting caught in a shower, especially a light one.

Including my "beater" (the Schwinn LeTour), I have three bikes with fenders.  Reason and logic would have dictated taking one of them.  But, I have one of those lives in which not much is dictated by reason or logic.  So, of course, I took one of my fenderless bikes--Tosca, my Mercian fixie, to be exact.

Needless to say, I did get caught in one of the meteorological "occasions" that was forecast. I rode through it, and another.  Not surprisingly, I ended up with some dirt and mud spattered on the wheels, frame and seat and handlebar bags (which cleaned up surprisingly easily). 

Unless I've had a particularly long or hard ride, or I simply don't have time, I clean my bike before I clean myself.  It's not that I care more about my bikes' than my own appearance (although I think my bikes are far more capable of looking good than I am!).  Rather, I always thought that it didn't make sense to take a shower, then to get dirty again when cleaning my bike.

After giving Tosca her wipe-down, I turned toward the sofa and saw Max:

Hmm...Maybe I was grungier than I thought I was!

Rainy Saturday

Rain.  It would have to fall on a Saturday.  A driving, heavy rain.  I'm thinking of something Wallace Stevens wrote:  "the sort of man who prefers a drizzle in Venice to a hard rain in Hartford".  I guess it describes most people.

 Even though it’s fairly warm, seeing such heavy rain didn’t get me into the mood to ride.  Plus, more of same has been forecast for the rest of today.  Then the temperature is expected to drop from about 22 to 8C (72 to 45F) by early tomorrow.  If the rain stops, it could be a nice, crisp fall morning:  one of my favorite riding conditions.

For today: bike maintenance, reading, non-blog writing, quality time with Max and Marley and, possibly, cooking.

Scraping The Sky, Or Brushed By Fog

Late yesterday morning and the afternoons were just interludes between rainstorms.  Or so it seemed.  And it rained even harder, from what I can tell, last night.

I crossed the Queens-Randall's Island spur of the Triborough (RFK Memorial) Bridge just before the window closed or the clouds opened, depending on your point of view: