Early Spring....To Early Summer?

 Over the weekend, I put in fewer miles (kilometers) than I'd planned.  But I got more Vitamin D.

So how are they related?

Friday was like much of this Snpring, to date:  cloudy and chilly.  I went for a late-afternoo ride and in Bensonhurst, near my old stomping grounds, was "stomped" by a sudden, violent storm.  I don't mind riding in the rain, but I draw the line when I can't see to the next block.  The rain--and, I believe, some hail--came down in a cascade that rivals anything you'll see on this side of Niagara.  

Some time during the wee hours of morning, the sky cleared--and the temperature climbed, it seeemed, even faster than the rain fell.  By mid-afternoon, the temperature reached 33C (92F) in Katonah.  I'd swallowed the contents of my water bottle and bought another in the town--and another in Morris Bronx, Bronx, even though I was less than 45 minutes' ride from home.  

Yesterday was just as hot, and the sun just as intense, as it had been on Saturday.  But I'd stayed close to bodies of water:  the East River, Jamaica Bay and the ocean.   Of course, plenty of other people, on foot or bikes or scooters, did the same.  While riding along the shore wasn't quite as sweaty as Saturday's ride, I still felt the effects of the heat and sun because, I realized, I hadn't acclimated to either.  

Not my leg, but close enough.

In a "normal" year, the temperature and sun's intensity increase gradually, so my body--especially my skin--has a chance to adjust.  But literally overnight, from Friday to Saturday, the season changed directly from early-spring to early-summer, or so it seemed.  The past weekend reminds me of rhe time, a few years ago, I "bonked" on routine ride: Cold gray air had turned incandescent within a day and burnished my flesh with the hue of a heritage tomato.

At least I didn't burn quite as badly this weekend: I remembered to use sunscreen.  Even so, I could feel the effect of the sun and heat:  I was tired, more tired than I would normally be after riding at this time of year.

But I probably took in as much Vitamin D durng my rides as I got from the cheese I ate afterward.  I enjoyed both.

Another Reason Why Bike Lanes Aren't Safer Than The Streets

As I've mentioned in earlier posts, I generally avoid the bike lanes here in New York City.  Most of them are poorly conceived, designed and constructed.  Moreover, I see more motorized bikes and scooters than pedaled bicycles on them.  Those vehicles--and the folks who operate them--are, in my experience, far more dangerous than motorcycle, auto or truck traffic.  For one thing, you can't hear the scooters or Vespa-style bikes until they're practically at your elbow.  And the people who drive them tend to be more reckless than anyone else.

But lately I've encountered other reasons not to ride on the marked lanes--even the ones separated from motor traffic by physical barriers. Lately, I've been seeing more broken glass an other debris in them.  Worse still is that the lanes seem to have become magnets for all sorts of haters and their bad behavior.

To wit:  Late yesterday, I rode two blocks down the Crescent Street lane in Astoria.  Along the way, I saw two dude-bros weaving in and out of it.  I don't know whether they were drinking, but even if their motor coordination were somewhat impaired, they could have easily walked along the sidewalk:  Few other people were using it, and there wasn't any construction or other obstructions.  But they chose to weave in and out of the bike lane, playing "chicken" with and shouting obscenities at anyone who happened to be riding by.

About three or four meters ahead of me, a young woman on a Citibike--a tourist, I'm guessing--just barely missed being entangled with them.  "F---in' bike bitch," one of them yelled.  She, and I, managed to dodge them and a delivery worker riding a motorized bike in the opposite direction.  A little further on, she stopped.  I pulled up alongside her.  She told me she was OK and thanked me. 

But I was furious. I turned around, saw the dude-bros doing their pedestrian slalom and rode right into their faces.  "Who are you callin' bike bitch?" I bellowed.

One of them tried to put on his "fight" face.  But he, his buddy and I knew he was bluffing.  "Oh, no.  We were just talking about our friend Mike Rich," the other one claimed.  

I stared at them and intoned, "OK.  Have a nice holiday."

"You do the same."

(Hmm...I guess it might've damaged their sense of themselves to get their asses kicked by a trans woman of a certain age!)

Although the exchange didn't lead to a physical confrontation or worse, I was still upset and worried:  I am seeing, and hearing about more and more aggression against cyclists, especially in bike lanes, and not only from motorists who think we've taken "their" traffic lanes and parking spaces, in this city and elsewhere.  I fear that one of us could ride into something like the attack a 46-year-old Texas cyclist suffered at the hands of a shirtless, pipe-wielding guy:

The cyclist was "shaken" but not seriously injured. Understandably, he doesn't want to ride that lane again.  Even before the attack, he had a "weird feeling" about the path, he said. "[I]t's right next to houses and there's probably a lot of NIMBYs out there."

The attacker might well have been a disgruntled homeowner. But, on seeing him, I thought of the rioters at the US Capitol on 6 January.  Looking  at the comments on the YouTube video of the attack gave me a clue as to why:  Some of those comments compared us, cyclists, to all of the folks Trumpsters love to hate:  the Bidens, Democrats in general and so on. While I'd bet that most of us voted for Biden in the last election, it hardly makes us the threat to their way of life they fancy us to be.  

Oh, I also couldn't help but to notice that one commenter said that we, and all the others they love to hate, "love protecting your pedos."  How is it that all of their fantasies about us seem to lead to pedophilia?  The bike paths in this city should have such clear destinations!

When A Death Is A "Failure To Yield"

A Postal Service driver runs over and kills a cyclist.

Five months later, that driver is...charged with a misdemeanor for "failure to yield." And he's gotten a ticket for..."failure to exercise due care."

That "failure to yield" charge "doesn't even suggest that a man died," Christopher Brimer lamented.  "It's more  like, 'Whoopsie, I guess I didn't look."

Ms. Brimer has a right to be angry:  The cyclist who died in the crash on 29 June is her husband, Jeffrey Williamson.  He was riding northbound (uptown to us New Yorkers) on Central Park West.  He had the right of way as he crossed the intersection at West 86th Street when Sergei Alekseev made a right turn with his 2019m Peterbilt truck.  Around 5:40 pm--still broad daylight at that time of year--Alekseev slammed into Williamson.

Jeffrey Williamson (inset) and the scene of his fatal crash.  Photo by Ken Coughlin, from Streetsblog

A civil notice of claim has been filed against the Postal Service, but won't be dealt with until after the criminal case is resolved.  Brimer's lawyer, Steve Vaccaro says that Alekseev should plead guilty.

Even though the charges against him seem almost trivial, they are still exceptionally rare.  Last year, the NYPD wrote 35,257 summonses for failure to yield.  That translates to roughly one per day in each of the city's 77 precincts.  What's even more galling is that such summonses are rare even in fatal crashes:  Streetsblog reported that in 2019, only six drivers--about one out of five-- who killed cyclists got so much as a summons.  The rate for drivers who killed pedestrians, while better, is still too low:  58 percent.

What makes Williamson's death all the more egregious, though, is that Alekseev was driving where trucks aren't permitted.  (I know this because I've cycled on Central Park West many times, before and since the bike lane was designated on it.)  On top of that, the USPS has a reputation of "getting away with murder." It is a behemoth that can summon lots of money and other resources.  I don't know what Brimer's financial situation is, but even if she's a multimillionaire and Vaccaro is one of the best lawyers in the world, she's fighting a lonely battle--against the USPS, and the hidebound culture of the NYPD that could only come up with a charge of "failure to yield" in her husband's death.

I’ll Keep It Charged For The Ghost

 Riding in New York City can, at times, feel like an archaeological expedition. Urban treks reveal artifacts of a city past, and one that is passing.  Sometimes I see “ghost” signs of long-gone businesses, political campaigns and products.  (One of my favorite non-cycling blogs, Ephemeral New York, has devoted several posts to them.)

Those signs also marked things that were once ubiquitous but have all but disappeared, at least in much of the developed world:

I spotted that sign on Van Dam Street, in an industrial area of Greenpoint, Brooklyn.  The phone was nowhere to be seen.  A truck driver who was munching on a sandwich waved to me.  I asked him whether there was a public phone anywhere in the vicinity.  He laughed. “Haven’t looked for one of those in years,” he said.

We wished each other a good afternoon.  “Be safe,” he avised me. “And keep your phone charged!”

Behaving Myself Before A Blizzard

I was on my best behavior during yesterday's ride.

It had nothing to do with my surroundings or the discipline it took for me to climb the same hill (short, but fairly steep) six times in a row. It wasn't even a matter of pretending not to notice when a woman, driving in the opposite direction, stared at me during my fourth climb.

It also wasn't related to the fact that atop that hill sits the mansion that once housed one of Astoria's most prominent citizens--or that, just a couple of blocks away, he made pianos used in concert halls all over the world.  (If my behavior were related to that, I'd've worn a tux or gown.) Or that those pianos--Steinways--are still made on that same site, in a newer, larger facility.

My restraint also had nothing to do with my passing by the entrance to the bridge leading to Riker's Island--which, by the way, you can enter only by bus or in an authorized vehicle. (No bicycle is authorized.)  I tried to ride to the Island once, on my absolute best behavior, and was turned back by someone who was not amused.  But I digress.

Perhaps I behaved myself because I don't know when I'll be able to ride again.  Oh, I know that day will come;  I just don't know when.  You see, I was getting that ride in before the snowstorm that began late yesterday afternoon.  

I felt that storm coming:  As I was circling around to my third or fourth hill climb, I felt the wind off Long Island Sound.  My behavior would not have stilled that wind, or changed the trajectory of the storm that would leave us with a foot of snow.

So why was I so well-behaved?  Perhaps it had something to do with this:

I mean, a whole truck of Superego--parked along the path of my ride!  How could I not behave myself--or, at least, conform to prevailing social norms, even if nobody was there to see it?

Well, at least there was an answer two  questions I never asked:  What if Freud had gotten into the trucking business?  And what trucking company would Donald Trump never, ever use? (As best as I can tell, the election-denier lives entirely, and has tried to govern, by his id.)

I remember when the old mail-order bicycle company Bikecology changed its name to Supergo.  When I saw the first catalogue with the new name, I misread it as "Superego."  It may have had something to do with just having taken the first of my two college psychology classes. But I digress, again.

Really, though, I behaved myself during yesterday's ride.  Really!

John, 40 Years Later

Some things really can make you feel old.

I know, it isn't all about me.  At least, what I'm about to relate isn't.  But I write this blog, ostensibly about bicycling, and end up talking about myself.  Then again, what blogger doesn't talk about him/her/themself?

So here goes:  Forty years ago, John Lennon was murdered by someone who claimed --like other actual and would-be murderers and assassins--to have been inspired by Holden Caulfield (who was, not a killer, but a teenage rebel who feels disgust for almost everything in the adult world) of Catcher in the Rye.

Four decades ago? Four decades ago!  At the time, I had lived barely half that amount of time.  On the other hand, John had lived as long (having turned 40 two months earlier) when he was shot.

In an earlier post, I relayed one of his fondest memories:  of getting a bike as a kid. He rode it everywhere and didn't leave it outside at night, as other people  in his neighborhood did.  His wheels accompanied him to bed, he said.

Of course, what is better-known is someone who accompanied him to bed:

Yes, a bicycle accompanied him and Yoko during their first "Bed-In For Peace" in Amsterdam.  I don't know whether they had a bike during their second Bed-In, in Montreal, but it wouldn't surprise me if they did.

Here they are in 1972, stopping for what has long been a quintessential New York experience, but one that is disappearing.  Those iconic Sabrett's hot dog carts are being replaced by Halal food trucks and carts that serve kebabs and chicken or lamb with rice, as well trucks and carts offering other tacos, pizza and other "street foods."

(As best as I can tell, John is riding a Bottechia ten-speed and Yoko is on a Dunelt or Rudge three-speed. At least, I'm sure it's a three-speed but not a Raleigh.)

John, apparently, never gave up his love for cycling, even when he and the Beatles were touring and turning out an album or two every year.  

Tell me:  Does that look like '60's England, or what?

It certainly looks like John, expressing his kind of joy.

A Ride Of Remembrance

If you can stand it...

I'm going to subject you to some more images of a late-day ride in the city.

As I rode, I reflected on the significance of this day.  For one, it's Transgender Day of Remembrance.  For another, on this date 75 years ago, the Nuremberg Trials began.

You can understand why TDoR is personal for me.  The day was first observed in 1999, one year after transgender woman Rita Hester was murdered in her Allston, Massachusetts apartment.  Her death came just a few weeks after a more-publicized case:  the killing of Matthew Shepard. 

The Nuremberg Trials are also, in their own way, personal for me.  I am not Jewish (at least, I wasn't raised as one:  a DNA test said that I have a small amount of Jewish heritage), but the Holocuaust is probably the largest mass hate crime event, with the possible exception of the Third Passage, in world history.  

(That same DNA test said I'm 4 percent African.  No surprise there:  That the human race began on that continent is Anthropology 101.)

Anyway, today's ride, like so many others, was a time to reflect.  

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.  

The Votes Are Here

Today I cycled into Manhattan for an appointment for an otolaryngologist.  It wasn't far--about 7 or 8 kilometers--and I rode even with the threat of snow squalls because I knew I could pedal there faster than the trains or buses (or a cab--or Uber, even!) could take me.

The office was located  Rutherford Place, just across from Mount Sinai Hospital.  The neighborhood, nestled between Irving Place and the East Village, is a real oddity in today's Manhattan:  Most of the Victorian, Greek Revival and Beaux Arts tenements and townhouses are still standing and the environs aren't really gentrifying because, well, they never fell into decrepitude.  

Some of those buildings, like others throughout the city, have names that are rarely, if ever, used, today.  Some of the names make sense, like those of people who are famous or simply have a connection to the building or neighborhood.  But there are some names are just confounding:

The US Senate? On Second Avenue between 14th and 15th Streets?

I thought of the tourists and newly-arrived expats from one place and another who walked by.  Did any of them wonder whether they'd gotten off at the wrong city?   

As I was about to write this, I looked for some information about the building.  Turns out, that building was built along with another named for W.M. Evarts, a well-respected Senator who lived in the neighborhood.  Before he became a Senator, he served as Rutherford B. Hayes' Secretary of State and Andrew Johnson's Attorney General.  That meant he had the privilege of representing Johnson during his impeachment trial in 1868.  That must have been interesting, to say the least!

So I guess the name makes sense.  Even if I didn't learn about the history of the building, I suppose the name could have been justified in one other way:  Early in the nation's history, New York City was its capital, if only for a year.

Given the demographics of the neighborhood and city,  residents of the building are more likely than members of the legislative body to vote for impeaching the current president. 

What They Notice

Years ago, I would attract attention while riding my bike.  In many communities, people stopped riding bicycles as soon as they were old enough to drive--if, indeed, they ever rode bicycles in the first place.  Seeing an adult on two wheels instead of four, and pedaling instead of stepping on a gas pedal, was strange for many people.  

And, in my workplaces, I was "the one who rides a bike."  I didn't mind the appelation:  I simply wished others would ride.

Apparently, it's still possible to get attention simply by riding a bicycle:

From The Water To The Port

Three years ago, the Canal St. Martin was drained.  The City of Paris does that about every ten or fifteen years.

In dredgings past (sounds like a series of old therapy sessions!), the "treasures" at the bottom of the Canal included home furnishings, street signs, gold coins(!), World War I shells and even a car.  But the most recent drainage served as a sort of geological record of changes in the neighborhood around the canal--mostly the 10th Arrondissement--and in the City of Light itself.

The streets around the waterway have become the sites of bars, restaurants and clubs.  (The Bataclan, site of a mass shooting during a November 2015 concert, stands literally steps from the canal.)  The area is home to "Bobos"--a term combining "bohemian" and "bourgeois".  They are probably the Parisian equivalent of hipsters. At any rate, they share many of the same tastes with their Brooklyn counterparts.  

They include a thirst for craft beers (French as well as American) and wines.  Empty bottles and cans bearing those labels littered the bottom of the canal when it was dredged. So did another passion of that evanescent group:  bicycles--specifically, those from Velib, the city's bike-share service.

As far as I know, neither of the city's two canals--the Harlem River Ship Canal and the Gowanus Canal--has ever been drained.  Interestingly, the Gowanus--one of the most toxic waterways in the United States--flows, like the St. Martin, through a hipsterizing (Think of it as the hipster equivalent of gentrifying.) neighborhood.  According to an urban legend, the Mafia used to dump their "hits" in the Gowanus because the bodies would dissolve.  

Which brings me to this question:  Could a Citibike survive a dive into a city canal?

Somehow I doubt it would be even as intact as the bike in the photo.  That Citibike, missing since September 2017, showed up in the bike-share service's port at 73rd Street and Riverside Drive, where filmmaker Ted Geoghegan found it.  Its coating of barnacles and mud indicates that it spent time in the Hudson River--which, at that point, is actually an estuary.  

No one, it seems, can explain how it got from the river (or wherever it was) to the bike dock?  Did a thief take it, dump it, feel guilty and dive into the water to fetch it?  That seems unlikely because, well, that's not what thieves usually do, but also because if the thief did indeed dump the bike in the river, he or she wouldn't have found it in the same spot, or anywhere nearby.  The more likely scenario is that some boater or fisher found it and, not knowing what else to do, quietly brought it to the bike port.

That bike is more than likely beyond repair.  Spending almost any amount of time in the water would have destroyed the bike's electronics, and the growth on the rest of the bike indicates that the brackish water has corroded the rest of the bike so that it's structurally unsound, and its moving parts are probably irreparable. 

(Interesting aside:  The Gowanus and Harlem Ship are the only two canals in New York City today. In the 17th Century, however, lower Manhattan was laced with canals. That's not surprising when you realize the area was then called Nieuw Amsterdam, and the Dutch settlers were following a model of urban planning for which their capital is famous.)

Blame The (Phantom) Bike Lanes!

Every one of us, I suspect, has had a moment when we realized that someone we looked up to was just plain wrong about something.  

Most of us, I guess, have such a moment in childhood.  That person who suddenly became, as it were, mortal might be a parent, older sibling, teacher, coach or other adult who nurtured us in some way.  Such a moment might have seemed like "the end of the world," at least for a moment, and left us feeling angry, hurt, abandoned or empty.  Fortunately, though, most of us move on from such an experience and learn the lesson that "nobody's perfect."

Good thing, too, because as we go through life, people we respect or admire have moments of stupidity, arrogance, greed, meanness or thoughtlessness.  We learn that our heroes--if we still create such figures in our lives--are, after all, human.

For many years, I've been a major fan of Whoopi Goldberg.  In fact, when I was still watching TV and had a schedule that allowed it, I watched The View mainly because she was one of the panelists.  She is a funny, irreverent woman who always seemed to resist pressures from society and the entertainment industry (where, perhaps, such pressures are the most intense) to conform to prevailing notions about attractiveness or femininity--which, of course, are Caucaso-centric. (Is that a word?)  Also, she has been an outspoken advocate for causes, like LGBT equality, that matter to me.

Of course, one can be outspoken about things one doesn't know much about. I've probably done it any number of times on this blog! If I have, I hope I haven't caused harm, or at least not much of it.  I'd like to think that I expounded on things I know little or nothing about only because I didn't know as much about them as I thought I knew--or because I was acting on information I didn't realize was inaccurate.

I hope that such is the case for Whoopi Goldberg.  I am willing to believe that it is because, well, I've always liked her.  Also, I think she probably doesn't ride a bike much in Manhattan, if she rides at all.

You see, anyone who regularly cycles in Manhattan knows where the bike lanes are.  Mainly, they're in midtown, and parallel major uptown-downtown and crosstown thoroughfares.

While Tenth Avenue runs the length of midtown, on its west side, it's not one of the streets with a bike lane.  She could be forgiven for not knowing that.  On the other hand, she blamed the non-existent bike lane for "ruining" the avenue and traffic flow in the city.  



 

  Oh, but it didn't end there.  She went as far as to say that the bike lanes are part of a conspiracy to bring Manhattan traffic to a standstill so that the Mayor can implement "congestion pricing"--which, of course, would take a bite out of her bank account as well as her "right" to drive--or, more precisely, be driven--in Manhattan.

What's really crazy about her rant is that it was a non sequitir. She was interviewing Mayor Bill de Blasio about something else entirely.  I guess she figured that since she had him in her crosshairs, she could unleash her pet peeve--however unfounded it is--on him.

Here's something I find really ironic:  She, among celebrities, has been one of the most outspoken critics of El Cheeto Grande.  Yet she behaved no differently than he has in any number of public appearances:  She told a lie or repeated misinformation (depending on what you believe) and doubled down on it.  Her tirade, like most of what we hear from T-rump, is devoid of facts and fueled by a sentiment of "If I feel it, it must be true."

Then again, she does have a few things in common with him:  They are, or have been, television stars.  They live in mansions and are driven in limousines or armored SUVs everywhere they go.  And they haven't ridden bicycles since they were kids. 

It Could Have Been Me

Today I could have posted something faux-spooky or silly for Halloween.  But, as today is the one-year anniversary of a tragedy that hit close to home, I am going to repeat my post from the day after Halloween:

It could have been me.

I could not get that phrase out of my mind as I rode to work this morning.

It could have been me.

Today dawned bright and clear for me, as it did for them--yesterday.  A beautiful mid-autumn day, sunny, a little chilly but not unpleasantly so, with strong breezes shaking leaves turned red and yellow from their branches and rippling reflections of the sky, glass, steel and concrete at the mouth of the Hudson. 

In other words, the sort of day people picture in their fantasies about bike-riding in New York.

It could have been me.

And so they went for a ride, for fun.  I was riding, too, in an entirely different part of town, from my job back to my apartment.   Though they weren't going to work, many others who followed their path, on bike or on foot, no doubt were.  I myself have ridden along that path, to work and for the same pleasures they were enjoying.

I could have been one of them.

Five came from Argentina--old friends celebrating the 30th anniversary of their graduation from their high school.  Another came from Belgium, with her mother and sister.  They survived because they weren't with her.

I could have been her.

So could any of the kids who were leaving Stuyvesant High School at that very moment.  No doubt some of them sauntered along, or pushed or shoved each other (as high school kids are wont to do) into or along the path.  They would hang out with other kids.  Or they would go to practices in sports they play, languages they are learning, plays in which they are performing or skills for tests they will take and essays they will write in the hopes of getting into the colleges they or their parents choose.  One assumes that one day, at least some of them will be part of some 30th anniversary celebration, wherever in the world they may be.



They could have been among them.

Still others walked dogs, pushed strollers and held hands as they strolled along the nearby piers.  Or they sluiced through crowds on skates and skateboards.  They were all mere blocks away from the 9/11 Memorial and even closer to--though, as fate would have it, a world apart from--the Argentinian and Belgian tourists on bicycles.

I could have been with them.

For a time in my life, I was riding daily along the stretch of the Manhattan Greenway known officially as the Hudson River Greenway-- or more commonly as the West Side Highway Bike Path-- along the stretch that separates Greenwich Village, SoHo and Tribeca from the river.  At that time, it was part of my route to work.  Before and since then, I have ridden there for pleasure--sometimes as part of a city jaunt, as the tourists did yesterday; other times en route to a ferry or bridge that would take me to another part of my ride.  More often than not, I rode alone, but sometimes I'd accompany whomever I happened to meet--along the way to my job or wherever else I happened to go.

They could have been with me.

Every time I pedaled along that path, I was home within a few hours.  Today I will be home about 40 minutes after I leave work and get on my bike.  They, I am sure, thought they were going home, too--today, tomorrow, next week or the week after. 

I could have gone with them.

But they are not going home.  They probably never even imagined that they wouldn't:  They could not have foreseen the way their rides, their vacations, their journeys, would end.

It could have ended that way--for me, for anybody.

The Argentinians, the Belgian, never suspected that under a clear autumn sky in New York, death would descend upon them.  They certainly never expected it to come in the form of a van jumping the barrier that kept all of the other West Street traffic away from them, or for said van to be driven by someone who knew nothing about them except that they were riding bicycles peacefully.  On their bikes, they never expected to meet the fate of the folks sipping drinks at Le Carillon or listening to music at the Bataclan.  Or the ones enjoying a fireworks display on Bastille Day or shopping in a Christmas marketplace.  Or simply out on a summer day.

No one expects it to end that way.

Of those five Argentinians and the Belgian who went for a bike ride--and two others who went for a walk--on the West Side Bike Path, all that remain are mangled bicycles and shards of clothing and other personal items.  They went for a stroll, they went for a ride, and each of them is gone, gone, gone.

It could have been me.


I can only be grateful that it wasn't.  My thoughts are with the victims.

The Heights Of Fall

Today is the first day of Fall.  And it feels like it, in a pleasant way:  Billowy but thin clouds waft over cool breezes.

A few hundred kilometers north of here, the leaves have begun to change color. Here, though, they're still green.  So if we want Fall colors, we must look elsewhere:

People who don't know the area don't associate these houses with Harlem.  But they line Convent Avenue, a street that bisects the City College campus in a part of Harlem known as Hamilton Heights.  

I was all smiles on my bike, and everyone and everything--including the stones of these houses--seemed to smile back.

Arielle And Amber

You know a winter day in New York is mild if it doesn't seem cold after you've just spent a week in Florida.

Today was such a day.  Actually, I experienced a day or two in the Sunshine State that were even a bit chillier than today.  For me, it was perfectly fine for riding.

And it was for Bill, too.  What inspired us, aside from the sheer joy of being on our bikes, was the light of this day:

It wasn't only the clarity of the sky that so inspired us.  Rather, it seemed that on every street, in every field, sunlight became the bricks, reeds and even the trees--all of them amber momentos of days, of seasons.

One way you know you're in a park in New York is if you see a rodent and you know it's not a rat or a squirrel.  As we carried and pushed our bikes on a trail I'd ridden before, but was today submerged in mud and dotted with slates laid down as stepping stones, we saw rustles in the reeds.  I never realized muskrats were so quick!

So...How did we know they were muskrats?  Well, in that marshy area by Willow Lake--really a dot to the dash that forms an aquatic exclamation point in Flushing Meadow  Park--what other rodent-like creatures would we have seen?  A sign at the entrance to the trail--where we exited--listed muskrats among the "wildlife" in the area.

All of those creatures seemed to enjoy the light as much as we did.  

So did Arielle, my Mercian Audax.

N.B.:  I took the bike photo with my cell phone.  Bill took all of the other photo in this post.

Leaving The Sunshine In State

I've left the Sunshine State.

Did I leave in a state of sunshine?  

Maybe I left the sunshine in the state:

Yes, I'm back in New York now. The sidewalks look like 7-11 Slurpees without the bright colors.  And snow is fluttering down.

One thing I didn't bring with me was the wind I experienced while in Florida.  Oh well.  ;-)

First Flakes, First Time

I saw snow for the first time....

...this morning.  This season.

Yes, flurries floated down to my helmet and the roadway as I pedaled to work today.  A few flakes fluttered through the air as I arrived on campus and locked my bike to the rack. 



By the time I'd finished my first class, the snow had stopped and none of it accumulated.  Still, I have to wonder if it's a harbinger for the season:  I don't recall seeing snow this early last year.  Then again, I've seen earlier snow in other years and perhaps any sign of winter is a surprise, given how warm it was during October and the first few days of this month.

So, does seeing snow for the first time--this day, this season--mean much of anything?  Probably not, at least for me or anyone else who lives in this part of the world.  But for the guys in the photos, it's another story.

You see, they are the Rwandan National Cycling Team.  They were at a camp in Utah, training for the Tour de Gila (their first US race) in 2007 when they encountered the white stuff on the side of the road.

They were so in awe of it that they were stuffing it into their jersey pockets, not realizing that it would melt.  Some of them also put it on their heads and got a case of brain freeze.

I sort of envy them, for their cycling abilities and for their sense of wonder at seeing snow for the first time.  I wonder what could stop me in a similar way during my commute!

Making More Sense Than The Department of Transportation

The New York City Department of Transportation seems to operate from the same misguided notions that guide other cities' efforts to be--or seem--"bike friendly". 

Once again, the NYCDOT is showing its ignorance in a report it released recently.  That report, among other things, designates two Brooklyn neighborhoods--Ditmas Park and Sheepshead Bay--as "Priority Bicycle Districts" that could receive new lanes.

Now, if you've been reading this blog, you know that I am, at best, ambivalent about bike lanes, at least as they are usually conceived, designed and constructed.  From what I can see, the NYCDOT wants to repeat the same mistakes it has made in other parts of the city, the most egregious of them being "bike lanes" that are little more than lines painted on asphalt and run next to the parking lanes of streets--into which drivers open their doors, delivery vehicles stop and drivers of all kinds double-park.  

An all-too-typical "protected" bike lane in Brooklyn

Oh, did I mention that too many of those lanes lead cyclists straight into the paths of turning or merging vehicles?  I wouldn't be surprised sif the proposed lanes did the same.

Anyway, of the two neighborhoods I mentioned, one--Ditmas Park--might welcome the new bike "infrastructure", at least somewhat.  Parts of it are quite charming, with Victorian houses and the kinds of cute little shops one finds in neighborhoods with young creative people before they turn into, well, Williamsburg.  That means there are a number of people who cycle for transportation as well as recreation.

The other neighborhood--Sheepshead Bay--lacks such cyclists.  It lies further from the central areas of Brooklyn and Manhattan than Ditmas Park and is far less served by mass transportation.  In fact, one subsection of Sheepshead Bay--Marine Park--has no subway and little bus service at all.

What that means is that most residents of Sheepshead Bay drive.  Some drive their cars to their jobs; others are building contractors or self-employed in other ways and are therefore dependent on their vehicles to transport equipment and for other purposes.  Sometimes families ride their bikes to the park, or individuals might go for a late-day or Sunday ride, but relatively few ride for transportation.  

It is in such neighborhoods that one finds the most opposition to bike lanes and other amenities.  Some of it is class or generational resentment:  Cyclists are seen as entitled elitists or worse.  Some of the other objections, if they don't have merit, are at least understandable:  People who depend on their motor vehicles in places where streets are narrow and there is no room to expand are, understandably, wary of anything that might make driving or parking more difficult or, at any rate, more inconvenient.

Something really interesting is happening, however in Sheepshead Bay--especially in and around Marine Park. In New York, when a city agency like the DOT makes a plan, it is presented to the local community board for the neighborhood that would be affected by the plan.  Last year, the DOT sent a proposal to the local community board for Sheepshead Bay/Marine Park.  The community voiced its objections to it, partly for the same driving and parking issues I've mentioned.  

But they also made some of the same arguments I, and other experienced cyclists, have made against bike lanes.  They pointed out that a cyclist is no safer in a bike lane that runs next to a parking lane than he or she is in a traffic lane.  They also mentioned, as I have, that too many lanes lead cyclists directly into the path of turning or merging vehicles.

They also described a situation that makes their neighborhood different from the more central urban areas like Williamsburg and most of Manhattan.  Sheepshead Bay--especially the Marine Park area--bear more semblance to a suburban town than a city neighborhood in at least one respect:  The majority of residences are detached or semi-detached private houses with driveways rather than than apartment buildings.  Cars and vans frequently pull in and out of those driveways.  

The proposed bike lanes would have run right in the path of those cars entering and leaving the driveways.  Too often, drivers pulling out of driveways are driving in reverse, which makes it more difficult to see cyclists (or anyone or anything else) in the bike or parking lane.  And, when cars make turns to enter driveways, they would turn right into what would be the path of the proposd bike lanes.

So...While we still need to help drivers who aren't cyclists understand, if not empathise with, cyclists, we still need to hear them out--especially when they're making more sense than the Department of Transportation!