Nothing But Happiness Through Your Door

 Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Well, I wonder how happy it will be--for you, for me, for anybody. In a sad irony, my city--New York--and many others shut down on this day last year.  The day before last St. Pat's was the last time I set foot on campus, and some shops have yet to open.

Once again, the parade will not be held in person.  But, I hope to go for a ride later today.  This old Irish blessing captures the spirit of cycling for me:

May your troubles be less

and your blessings be more

and nothing but happiness 

come through your door.

(Illustration from Lula Bell)

P.S. I got my first dose the other night.

Victims Of The New "Bike Boom"

If I ever get a regular writing gig, it's unlikely to be with The Wall Street Journal or The Economist.  I have, as far as I can tell, no business acumen and I passed the one and only economics class I ever took by promising the professor I wouldn't take another:  He could see that I simply had no mind for the subject.

All right, the story about the econ class was an exaggeration--but only a slight one.  One thing I'm pretty good at, though, if I do say so myself, is observing.  So now I'm going to present an observation I've made that pertains to cycling--and might be of interest to the folks at WSJ and The Economist.

One of the terrible outcomes from the COVID-19 pandemic is that, in the resulting economic free-fall, many businesses have gone under.  While some reporting, mainly of the local variety, has focused on the human costs of people losing their life's work (which, of course, is the real tragedy), the major media outlets have tended to focus on the types of businesses and industries that have been hardest-hit.  They include restaurants which, in many places, were forced to close or operate at greatly reduced capacity for weeks or months.  Also decimated have been clothing retailers and anything related to travel and tourism (think hotels, airlines and such).  During my rides, I have also seen a number of dry cleaners that have closed their doors for good:  People working at home tend not to wear suits, and there's not much reason to wear a fancy dress or gown when there aren't any weddings or graduations to attend.

But the observation I want to make is this:  The economic devastation has not only claimed businesses in certain industries; it has also discriminated by the size of the business.  While some large companies have gone to the dustbin of history, the economic downturn has claimed even more small mom-and-pop businesses.

One such enterprise is Larsen's Bicycles of Powell, Wyoming. For months, media outlets big and small (including this blog!) have been telling the world how the pandemic has been great--almost too good--for the bike business. While sales of bikes and all things related to them have sailed along at levels not seen in a long time, a basic law of economics has come into play:  scarcity.  So, neighborhood shops--and, in some cases, national and international web-based retailers--are running out of everything from handlebars to helmets, brake levers to bike locks--and complete bikes.  

One result has been an increase in theft, from individual bikes on the street to warehouse break-ins.  It's also meant that, because supply chains have been interrupted, those who are willing to acquire their goods honestly have long wait times.

Or they can't get anything at all.  That is what happened to Larsen's.  The only shop in Powell, a small city in cattle-ranching and mining country of northwestern Wyoming, completely ran out of inventory in May.  After they ran out of bikes, Nick and Vicky Coy tried to keep things going with repair work.  When they ran out of new parts, they harvested the good parts from used bikes until those ran out.  Without a solid plan for delivery of new stock, the Coys made the hard decision to close the shop Nick bought from founder "Buzz" Larsen 29 years ago, after four years of working for him.  He and his wife have operated the shop by themselves during that time.   Their last day of business will be New Year's Eve, two weeks from yesterday.

Vicky and Nick Coy, in their soon-to-be closed shop. Photo by Mark Davis of the Powell Tribune.

"It doesn't seem to be getting any better," Nick said. "Nobody can really say whether they're gonna have bikes this coming spring and summer."  Most tellingly, he added, "The whole business model has changed for small shops."

That change, Vicky explained, came about because companies like Specialized like to fill the big stores first. "If you don't have big preseason orders and say you'll take X number of bikes, then you're on the bottom of their list."  Also, she said, "They're selling a lot more parts and accessories online."  For shops like theirs, "The lack of repair parts is huge."

She summed up the result: "It kind of forces out the little guy."  In other words, shops like hers and Nick's are squeezed out.

The current pandemic has magnified the gaps between the rich and the poor, those who can work from home and those who must risk their lives for a paycheck, and between races and genders.  It's also exposed another chasm:  between conglomerates and small businesses--or, in this case, companies like Specialized, with their bicycle showrooms in urban and suburban areas, and rural shops like Larsen's.

Faster Than Amazon?

The mayor of my city and the governor of my state raise the possibility of new lockdowns, which would mean "non-essential" businesses would be closed.  Government officials in other places are also speaking of such things.

At the same time, they are encouraging people to support small businesses.  I wholeheartedly agree, whether that "small business" is a bike shop, book store or beauty salon.  

One thing I fear, though, is that this might be the "last chance" for some establishments that barely survived the lockdowns of last spring. Whatever business they do might tide them over for the next couple of weeks, or however long they can operate before they're forced to close.

Another worry is that some customers who resorted to Amazon during the lockdowns won't return to their old shopping habits.  They may have been lulled by the convenience of having PlayStations or whatever brought to their doors.

What some small business owners have done, of course, is to start making deliveries.  Luca Ambrogio Santini is one of them.

He operates LibriSottoCasa, which he describes as "the smallest bookstore in the world."  How small is it?  Oh, about the size of one of those boxes that fits on a porteur-style front rack.

Santini once operated one of the best-known independent bookstores in Milan, Italy.  That is, until rent and management costs rose too high.  So, five years ago, he started to operate without a storefront--and with a delivery bicycle. Customers place orders on his Facebook page, on Whatsapp or via e-mail, and he delivers, mainly in the southern districts of his city.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the pandemic has been good for his business.  While he concedes that Amazon and other forms of e-commerce are convenient, he says "the physical presence of the bookseller who can advise and communicate with the customer" is "an added value" that "is disappearing" but "we must not lose."

In addition to being that bookseller we all love, he has another aspiration:  "I want to be faster than Amazon."

Shut Down Without A Lockdown

 I am feeling somewhat encouraged:  Over the weekend, I managed to take two rides.  I don't know exactly how much I rode, but I guess that I pedaled about 70 kilometers on Saturday and that much, or perhaps a bit less, on Sunday.

Each trek took me through various parts of Brooklyn and Queens.  One thing is that, although I had to navigate traffic in some of the shopping areas, I found some solitude, in expected and unexpected places.

Lockdowns have been imposed in other states and countries.  There has been talk of one here, too:  Schools reverted to remote instruction last week, and if infection rates rise, "non-essential" businesses could close. (Good thing I got my hair done on Monday, even if I'm not going on a date or to any weddings, graduations or other large gatherings!)  If I hadn't known any better, I would have assumed the city had shut down when I saw this:

 

Thirteenth Avenue in Borough Park has long been a busy commercial strip.  My father grew up just off it; as a kid, I can recall trips to stores and bakeries--and pizza runs!--when we visited his parents.  In the decades since, the neighborhood has become one of the world's major Orthodox (Lubavitcher Hasidic) Jewish enclaves.  That, of course, is the reason why everything was closed--and I could ride on Thirteenth Avenue as if it were some country lane.

Well, most stores were closed because of shabat.  Gino's--yes, the destination of our pizza runs--managed to survive the changes in the neighborhood at least until a year or so ago.   Any time I was anywhere the neighborhood, I'd stop by for at least a slice or two--they were still as good as my childhood memories!--though, it seems, they stopped making arancini, one of the world's great comfort foods, some time ago.  

I know time marches on and all that, but I couldn't help but to feel what I saw from the Canarsie Pier on yesterday:

Well, I am healing, at least physically.  I suppose I'll "recover" from losing Gino's, too, even if it was one of the last old-school Brooklyn pizza joints.  

More Riders+ Not Enough Bikes=Theft

 For as long as there have been bicycles, there have been bike thieves.  That's my guess, anyway.

I also reckon that bicycle thefts increase along with the popularity of cycling.  As I've mentioned in other posts, I became a dedicated cyclist as a teenager, late in the North American Bike Boom of the 1970s.  Until that time, there didn't seem to be much bike theft and the loss of a bicycle was seen like losing a toy, mainly because almost all bikes at that time were ridden by kids.

During the "boom", for the first time in about half a century, significant numbers of American adults were riding bicycles.  While most pedaled for recreation or fitness, a few rode to work.  That, I believe, the reason why bike theft was taken more seriously.

That is, by everyone except the police.  If you were to report your stolen bike, you'd be told, explicitly or implicitly, that you wouldn't see it again.  They had bigger fish to fry; never mind that the person might have been using the bike to put food on his or her table.

History repeats itself, plus ca change, or whatever how you want to say it.  Bike sales have surged.  So have bike thefts.  Worse, methods that haven't been seen since the "bad old days" of high crime have made a comeback.  There  are reports of bikes lifted, along with the railings to which they were locked,  from the insides of buildings.  And, in the Bronx, eight men attacked a 15-year-old boy and took the bike he was riding.

Stealing the bike may not have been the ultimate goal in that attack, though the bike was a worthwhile "haul" for the perps.  Some of the other thefts may have been "fenced" for quick cash.  But, according to reports, some of bikes may have been stolen because of the current shortage, caused by a spike in demand combined with a disruption of supply chains.

We're Riding. How Many Of Us Will Keep It Up?

Early in the history (all 10 years) of this blog, I wrote about the ways some people reacted to me, a woman on a bicyce.  It was particularly interesting to me because I started this blog a little less than a year after I had my gender reassignment surgery and was, at the time, was taking my first rides as a post-transition after nearly four decades of cycling as male.

The reactions ranged from encouragement to hostility and rage; a few folks--Hispanic men, mainly--admonished me to "be careful."

In the neighborhoods where I encountered such men--in the Bronx, eastern Brooklyn and Queens neighborhoods like Corona (a less-than-ten-minute ride from my apartment), I was also the only female cyclist in sight.  On the other hand, in communities like Brooklyn's Park Slope, Manhattan's Upper West Side and my own neighborhood of Astoria, I encountered other women on bikes.  Some were riding to stores, classes, jobs or yoga classes; others were riding for its own sake.  But even in those neighborhoods, we were distinctly in the minority.

The pandemic is changing that picture, however slowly.  Even the Times is taking note, but what I've heard from Transportation Alternatives and WE Bike--two organizations of which I'm a member--corroborates my observation.

According to the Times, the new COVID-inspired "Bike Boom" has been fueled largely by female cyclists, not only in New York, but in other cities.  The author of the article, however, asks two of the questions that have been on my mind:  Will the "boom" continue once things return to "normal?"  And will women continue to ride.

As the article points out, a lot of people started cycling, not only because they didn't feel safe in taking subways and buses, but also because the lockdown-induced decrease in automobile traffic made people feel safer in riding a bike.  But now that some people are returning to their offices and other workplaces, their distrust of mass transit is also causing them to drive more---or even to buy cars for the first time.  

I have noticed the increase in traffic--and agression of drivers.  It's fair to wonder whether new cyclists, female or otherwise, will continue to ride if traffic continues to increase in volume and hostility--especially if this city (and other US communities) continue to build a disjointed system of poorly-conceived and -constructed bike lanes and other bike infrastructure.