The Shadow I Saw

Last week, I wrote about the coldest cycle-commute I've pedaled in many years.  The temperature rose gradually during the week, reaching the freezing mark on Friday and the 10-15C (50-60F) yesterday and today.

We didn't get much snow during the cold spell--the squall we experienced brought more wind than anything else--but the fallen flakes stayed on the ground and froze until the thaw.

The result has been mud everywhere.

Neither Punxsutawney Phil nor Staten Island Chuck  saw his shadow.  According to legend, that means Spring will soon arrive.  But I still anticipate more cold weather before the thaw becomes permanent (at least until next winter):  After all I saw this shadow

of a bare tree.  

My Personal Track

It was cold ,at least compared to the weather we've had.  It was windy.  

So what did I do today?  I went for a bike ride.

That is not, in itself, so unusual (at least for me).  For one thing, the cold and wind were balanced out by the bright sunshine.

So, perhaps, you can understand why I rode along the bay and the ocean:  to Howard and Rockaway Beaches, then to Breezy Point (which certainly lived up to its name!) and Coney Island, from which I pedaled along the Verrrazano Narrows and under the bridge named for it.

The funny thing about the beach areas, at least around here, is that they are usually a couple of degrees warmer than the areas only a couple of miles inland.  The wind, however, makes it feel colder, which is why I had long stretches of shore, beach and boardwalk almost entirely to myself.

Even on Coney Island, where I often find couples, young and old, strolling in the shadow of the Parachute Jump and and men fishing from the pier, I felt as if the boardwalk was my own personal track.

Speaking of which:  I rode Tosca.  Yes, my Mercian fixed-gear.  Pedaling into the wind on a fixie is good training, to say the least.  But riding with it--especially on such a flat ride--feels almost like cheating! 

Out Of Season, Again

Earlier today, I wrote about a "winter" ride in a place that doesn't have winter--at least, not in any way people in my part of the world--let alone places like Minnesota and Canada and Scotland and Finland--experience it.  In other words, I was writing about a warm-weather ride in January.

Well, I had the opportunity to experience such a thing.  If you've been reading this blog for a while, you might have guessed where I am.  

Yes, that is the ocean on the horizon.  Of course, there are places not far from my apartment where I can ride up the slope of a bridge and, at its apex, gaze out into an expanse of sea and sky:  the Veterans' Memorial Bridge from Broad Channel to Rockaway Beach, for example.  But yesterday I rode in a place where I could do it in shorts, sans jacket.

Here is another clue to where I am:

They don't sell fishing equipment in the Key Food or Stop & Shop supermarkets in Rockaway Beach--or, to my knowledge,anyplace else in New York.  For that matter, you can't buy a hunting rifle--or any other kind of firearm--from the Walmart in the Green Acres Shopping Mall, just over the city line in Nassau County. But you can get them in the "Wally World" about two kilometers from where I am now.

Yes, I am in Florida, for my more-or-less annual visit with my parents.  I got here this morning.  After the snow that turned to wind and rain during the past week, it is almost surreal to ride in bright sunlight and into a warm breeze that would later blow at my back as I spun and glided up Route A1A, beside dunes covered with sea oats and cacti that rippled and echoed the rustling hiss of the roiling tides.

Then again, it might be just as strange, or even stranger, to encounter unseasonably warm weather when I return to New York!

Neutral Tones

This semester, and last, I assigned--among other things--Thomas Hardy's poem "Neutral Tones" in my intro literature classes. 

We stood by a pond that winter day,
And the sun was white, as though chidden of God,
And a few leaves lay on the starving sod;
—They had fallen from an ash, and were gray.

Your eyes on me were as eyes that rove
Over tedious riddles of years ago;
And some words played between us to and fro
On which lost the more by our love.

The smile on your mouth was the deadest thing
Alive enough to have strength to die;
And a grin of bitterness swept thereby
Like an ominous bird a-wing …

Since then, keen lessons that love deceives,
And wrings with wrong, have shaped to me
Your face, and the God-curst sun, and a tree,
And a pond edged with grayish leaves.

Where I live, and where I rode yesterday, can hardly be compared to Hardy's Wessex countryside--which, actually, wa even deader than the love lamented by the speaker of his poem.  Wessex was an Anglo-Saxon kingdom the Danes invaded a millenium before Hardy started writing.  Today it consists of Dorset, where Hardy lived most of his life, and neighboring counties in southern England.

But we are entering our season of "neutral tones":  the incandescent of Fall has burned away, and even the lastflickering and smoldering hues of dying embers have faded away.  Here in New York, we can see some of those "neutral tones" in the trees, even in the light of the sky--and manmade structures:

It wasn't particularly cold, though the temperature was beginning a precipitous drop, propelled by the wind, that would continue through the night and this morning.  So, I was the only cyclist--and one of only a few people--on the waterfront park just south of the Brooklyn Bridge.

I am not lamenting a lost love--or much of anything, really--right now.  I am just tired from the heavy workload I took on during the past few months--and from the election and the ensuing tumult.  All right, maybe I am ruing the relative civility, and concern for the truth-- or, at least, the appearance of those things-- of the past few years.

The other night, I was having a conversation with someone I've come to know a bit during the past few months.  We both agreed that we are now in a completely different world from the one in which we first met:  as I recall, some time late in the summer.  We can see it in the faces of people; most important, we can feel it, we agreed:  the air of resignation and defeat in places like the neighborhood in which I work, and the belligerence (manifested in an increasing number of attacks against people who are, or look like, Muslims, LGBT people or anyone Trump scorned or mocked) in other places.  

"But you know, we created all of that.  Everyone did.  Just as Americans created the Soviet Union as much as those folks in the Kremlin did."

I reflected on that observation as I stopped along the Brooklyn waterfront.  Obviously, humans created that bridge--which I love.  But we also made the "neutral tones" of that sky and the trees.  The hues were those of winter until we made them neutral--when, as in Hardy's poem, love is lost or, worse, abandoned. 

I had another insight, for whatever it's worth, about why Christian (white ones, anyway) and Jewish fundamentalists voted for Trump.  He famously declared climate change a "hoax".  (His unique spin, of course, was to attribute the ruse to the Chinese.) The religious folk might not like the fact that he made much of his fortune from casinos and other unsavory businesses, and that he's been married three times--or that his views on abortion are those of the last person who discussed the issue with him.  But what he said about climate change aligns completely with the most fundamental tenet of Abrahamic religions (as I understand them, anyway):  that of God's sovereignty.  That notion is challenged, to say the least, if you believe that human-generated pollution can cause a rise in sea levels and average temperatures, and can wipe out entire species. 

And to think that Trump came from the same city I inhabit!

Then again, I don't think he ever took a bike ride along the Brooklyn waterfront on a winter afternoon--and saw what I saw.

Would The UCI Allow This In A Cyclo-Cross Race?

Early yesterday morning, we had one of those "blink-and-you'll-miss-it" snowstorms.  It dropped maybe a couple of inches on us before the temperature rose dramatically and turned the falling flakes to rain.

Still, it was a reminder that winter is indeed no longer in the future.  Last night, the temperature dropped even more precipitously (had to use that word!) than it rose the other day.  So, some of the snow that turned to puddles in the rain were frozen when I rode to work this morning.  Fortunately, none of them were in my path.

The snow, cold and ice got me to thinking about commuting this winter.  Last winter, we had one blizzard that dumped nearly two feet of snow on us, but otherwise a pretty mild season. Somehow I think that this season will be different.

So I want to be ready. 

Unfortunately, this "snow bike conversion kit" is no longer available.  Even if I'd never bought one (which I probably wouldn't), it's still nice to know that such a thing available.

It, however, begs the question of what exactly was converted, and to what.  It doesn't look like it began with a whole bicycle.  The wheel looks like it came from one, or could have been part of one.  And how is that thing powered?

The seller promised a "full or partial refund if the item is not as described".  That's reassuring, I guess. 

Who's Complaining About The Weather

So the temperature dropped to subfreezing levels yesterday-- for the second time!

"Oooh!  It's so cold.  I heard that a lot yesterday.  One would think the people who are complaining about the weather had just gotten off the plane from the Caribbean.  Truth is, we should've had a few more subfreezing days by now.  And, after a Christmas Eve on which the temperature climbed to 21C (72F) and nearing that level the following day and week, we were spoiled, really.

So far, we haven't even come close to experiencing anything like this

From TheCityFix

or this

From 360 Niesko

or this

From Sensuous Amberville

What if all of the complainers were Nuvanit instead of New York?

I Wasn't Pulling Their Legs After All: I Can Push A Ski

Sometimes, when people ask me whether I ride year-round, I tell them about my "ski bike".  Sometimes they believe me.

Now I realize they may not have been as gullible as I thought:

From Waterloo Bikes

 

Moonscape?

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to cycle on the moon?

Hmm...I guess it would be easier to climb, given that I'd weigh much less but have the same musculature I have on Earth.  Hydration might be a bit of a problem, though.  And I wonder whether I'd need new lights.

This is probably as close as most people will ever come to pedaling across the lunar surface:

From HubPages

 

Looking Out For Whitelaw

Today was mild, if not exceptionally so, for this time of year.  The temperature reached 46F (8C).  The skies were overcast and a breeze from the west occasionally gusted.

It was all good enough for me to go for a bike ride.  And, given that today is a holiday (the day on which Martin Luther King Jr’s birthday is observed), I had time for a longish ride.

So what did I do?  I rode to Point Lookout:  105 km (65 miles) round-trip—on my fixed gear.  The ride is flat, but it’s still longer than I might normally do at this time of year.  So I’m feeling good about that.  Perhaps I am in better shape than I thought I was, and that bulge I feel in my belly is a paranoid delusion. (Dream on!)

Of course, these guys (or girls:  I, of all people, should not be sexist!) are always in shape.  How could they not be?

And they’re more intrepid than I am:  When the snowstorm we’re supposed to get arrives tomorrow, they’ll still be flying around, swooping down and scooping up food for which people pay good money in nearby restaurants.  Meanwhile, I’ll be in my place, preparing  syllabi for the coming semester and, possibly, soup or tomato sauce.

The avian avatars will miss out on such experiences—and the irony of seeing this on Martin Luther King Jr’s holiday:

I wonder if residents of the neighborhood—Ozone Park, Queens—have ever noticed.  At one time, not so long ago, they were all white.  (I know; I had relatives who lived there!) Now many of them are South Asian and/or Caribbean.  Did they have “Whitelaw” in their old countries?

What's Winter To You?

Today we got a respite from the coldest weather we've had in about three years.  Still, by the standards of some parts of the world, 3F (-16C), is fairly balmy.  Transplants from the bitter steppes of the Upper Midwest and expats from places like Novosibrisk (Doesn't it just sound bone-chilling?) laugh when they see the fuss New Yorkers make about such temperatures and a few inches of snow.

I find it pretty funny when people ask me whether I "still ride" in the cold.  They never ask the same of people who go out for walks or go outdoors for just about any other activity besides swimming.  Really, the cold doesn't bother me much, though I admit that when it conspires with wind and wetness, I might decide to stay home and cook up a pot of tomato sauce--of which I'll freeze most.

The thing that made today a relatively unpleasant day to ride (I did only a few miles.) was the intermittent rain and the slush that had become of the snow that fell the other night.  I know, I have two bikes with fenders, those bikes and I can stay relatively clean and dry.  But such conditions are still not a whole lot of fun for riding.

I wonder whether people who live in really cold climates feel the same way:  undeterred by cold itself, but daunted by some of the things that accompany it. When it's cold, you can just add more layers of clothing.  Your body warms up almost as soon as you start pedaling. (At least, mine does.)  But when there's ice, slush and other stuff, it's--for me, anyway--a bit more challenging.

From Fader

 

 

Concrete Sunset

On my way home from work, I took a detour through the Bronx.  As I've mentioned in previous posts, the borough offers some surprisingly interesting vistas--and short rides--not far from where I live.

And, as I've also mentioned in another post, one of my favorite quick getaways has become the Concrete Plant Park.  

 
All through the fall, and with the approach of winter, the park--and the stretch of the Bronx River that winds through it--remind me more and more of a New England mill town. 

Vera really seems to enjoy this sort of thing.

It could be that for a moment, she can imagine--as I do--that we are beside some old European canal or stream.

Even if we don't, there are still the colors of the sunset, which descends upon us early at this time of year.   

I hope that the city and state parks departments follow through on their announced plan to extend the riverside bike/pedestrian path up the length of the Bronx into Westchester County.

A Rainy Commute Home

This evening I could have used one of these:

From eta

Actually, I did have raingear for my ride home.  It hadn't rained on my way to work, but the weather forecasters promised rain for the afternoon and evening.  

I managed to stay pretty comfortable throughout the ride.  The only problem was that it was dreary:  If someone wanted an image of what it's like to fall into a depression, tonight's ride home could have provided it.  It was almost, but not quite cold enough to snow.  Hard, real rain fell:  not  a drizzle that fizzles as it reaches the ground and simmers softly around the halos of streetlights.  And, this is the time of year when houses are still decorated for Christmas because people haven't yet managed to take down lights they are no longer turning on.  

To paraphrase Wallace Stevens, I may just be the sort of woman who prefers a drizzle in San Francisco to a downpour in Corona.  

When Is It Too Cold To Ride?

Isn't it too cold for you to ride?

How many times have you heard that?  It seems that even in the mildest of winters--like the one we had last year--someone asks that question whenever I'm on my bike, or look as if I've been on it.

What I find interesting is that some of the cities with the largest contingents of year-round cyclists--and the best infrastructures for cycling--experience more intense cold and get much more snow than New York ever has. Such a city is Montreal, where a cyclist took a video of the winter commute I posted last week. 

Other such cities include Oulu, Finland and Umea (Sorry, I couldn't get the little circle over the "a" !) in Sweden, where the weather doesn't seem to deter these cyclists:

From Copenhagenize

Don't you just love the light in that photo?  '

We haven't had any snow in these parts, so I have to content myself with views like these when I start my commute home:

A Devil Of A Commute In The City Of Saints

Those of us who commute by bicycle during the winter take (justifiable, I believe) pride in pedaling through cold, wind and, in some cases, snow.

I respect any year-round cyclist in any climate with variable seasons.  However, I'll admit to feeling a bit more hardcore than someone who rides year-round in, say, Portland or Los Angeles.  At the same time, I give "props" to year-round riders in Boston and points north, and in most European countries.

On the other hand, most of us have nothing on winter commuters in Montreal.  On one of my visits there, I read or heard that the 'burg Mark Twain dubbed "the city of a hundred bell towers" spends more on snow removal than any other city except Moscow.

Whether or not there's snow on the ground, it gets plenty cold in The City Of Saints.  One young man used a helmet cam to record his commute on a day when the mercury stood at -25C (-13F).  Here is the video he produced:

Early-Winter Blues

Coney Island Boardwalk in early winer.  From Kinetic Carnival

Since Hurricane Sandy, I've ridden to a boardwalk that has been completely washed away and another that has been ripped apart in some sections and collapsed in others.  While others have hopes, however unrealistic, that their beloved seaside promenades (or some reasonable replica thereof) will be ready for next summer, I mourn the loss of them right now.  I know I won't be able to ride them this winter; I am not entirely sure they'll be ready for next fall or winter.

Although I occasionally ride on a boardwalk when the weather is warm and the sun is high, I much prefer them when the sun is lower in the horizon (or when it's overcast) and a chill, or even pure-and-simple cold, blows in off the ocean.  Sometimes I take such rides with others; more often, I do them in solitude.  In fact, sometimes solitude is the very reason I take such rides:  During such rides, thoughts seem to come as clear as the winter sky and  feelings as intense, and even sharp, as the crisp salty air.

So, while others fear what they might lose to Sandy next year; I am mourning the rides I can't do now and won't be able to do during the coming weeks and months.  On the other hand, I count my blessings:  Other people have lost far more to the storm.  Some are my students, and I have met others.  At least I still have some things to offer them, even if they refuse.  And I still have hope for those winter boardwalk rides, if not this season.

No Shopping This Season?

It seems that since Hurricane Sandy left, the weather has been colder than I can recall it being at any time last winter.

Of course, I don't claim to remember every single day about last winter.  (At my age, it's hard to remember every day last week!)  But I do recall that it was an exceptionally mild season, and that we had our only snow well before the winter started and a couple of cold days after it ended. But in between, the only signals of the season seemed to be the bare trees and short days.

So now I have some winter clothing I bought last year but never used.  Mainly, I bought wool undergarments and socks, as well as some insulated waterproof boots. 

The good news is that I don't have to buy those things this year, and that even if I do no clothes shopping for this winter, I'll still have some things I can donate to the hurricane victims.

Somehow I suspect this winter won't be so mild.  

The Season of The Trompe d'Oeil

Here's one way to tell whether or not you have "bikes on the brain."

No bikes were harmed to make this picuture.  Actually, it's a couple of bike racks in front of the Scottish Parliament building.  

The photo reminds me, oddly enough, of this time of year:  You can't always trust some things--especially the weather--to be as they seem. The temperature reached 70F one day last week. It had been 60 the day before.  But the day after, the temperature had fallen to 30 and the wind increased.  

Yesterday, the weather was mild but rainy.  And now it's about to drop again.  

A day or two of mild weather in February seems like summer because of the perspective from which it's seen:  after two months of winter and a few snowstorms.  And those two recent "heat waves" melted most of the accumulated snow. That alone is enough to make it seem warmer than it is, or at least to make the spring seem as if it's closer.  There are still about three more weeks to go, I think.