Riding Again: Fino Alla Prossima...

The sun shone almost all day today.  People called in to report UFO sightings.

OK, I'm exaggerating just a little.  But it's been weeks, months even, since I've seen as much sun as we've seen today.  So, of course, I took a ride.

Oh, joy!  I get to ride two days in a row and neither of those rides are commutes or errands.  I'll admit, today's ride wasn't the toughest I've ever done.  But my lack of riding this winter showed on the hills in the north Bronx and Westchester County.  

Much of the snow has melted, but I still had to ride over patches of slush mixed with road salt, mud, gravel and the detritus of this season.Both Vera and Helene, my Mercian mixtes, have fenders.  But I've put new chains on both of them and didn't want to clean up their drivetrains all over again.   

Of course, I could blame the LeTour for the added effort I had to expend.  However, the truth of the matter is that I just need to ride more.  The cold is one thing.  But I just will not ride when there's a lot of ice on the streets, as there has been for the past few weeks.  It's one thing to slip and fall into a snowbank on the side of a trial; it's something else to slide and tumble in traffic.

Anyway, it felt so good to be riding again, just for the sake of riding, that I actually started to weep as I pedaled along a path that followed the ever-so-gentle curves--and jagged rocks--of the Bronx River from the Bronx into Westchester County.  Make what you will of that; it felt good, almost as good as the riding itself!

Along the way back, I saw this:

I'm always fascinated to see old signs painted on the sides of buildings. Were the folks who commissioned them seeking immortality?  Of course, I spent the rest of the ride wondering about "Fino, the fighting Congressman"--especially since "Fino" means "till" ("fino a" means "until")  in Italian.

Turns out, he had a really interesting career.  He represented his district for eight terms in the US Congress during the 1950's and 1960's.  Although he was a conservative Republican who introduced legislation to outlaw the Communist Party, he also supported Medicare (which began during his time in Congress), increases in Social Security benefits and financing for mass transit.  But perhaps his most novel idea of all was one he proposed in 1964:  a national lottery to raise revenue for hospitals.  When he proposed it, New Hampshire had just become the first state to authorize a lottery, something no state had during the previous seven decades.

Now that I've read about him, I think much of Fino's politics had at least a touch of class resentment:  At the time, his district consisted mainly of working-class Italian and Irish homeowners who, like him, didn't like the elitism they percieved in politicians like John Lindsay, who served as New York City's mayor during the last two terms Fino spent in Congress.  

What would he have made of someone like me riding a bike through his neighborhood on a day like today?

Seeing Old And New Friends

For the first time since the beginning of the year, I rode to Rockaway Beach.  Although the temperature flirted with 5C (40F), there was still a lot of snow and ice, particularly in the areas between the parked cars and traffic--i.e., where you end up riding on a lot of streets.

I was pretty whupped when I got to the beach. I was chiding myself for being out-of-shape when one of the locals assured me that it's OK, she's tired, too.

Then I remembered that I'd been pedaling into 25-35KPH winds just about all the way there.  My snowy friend assured me that flapping her wings in such conditions is work and she gets tired, too.

I got to Rockaway Beach in time for their St. Patrick's parade.  It seems that all through March, there are parades (here in New York, anyway) for that Englishman who was kidnapped by Irish raiders and sold into slavery.  According to legend, a vision of an angel inspired him to escape and go to the continent to become a monk.  Then he returned to the Emerald Isle and, during the next thirty years of his life, covered it with churches and monasteries.  

So they're celebrating an Englishman who colonized their island?  Of course, the difference between Patrick and the later British conquerors is that he accomplished his dominion through ecclesiastical means, in contrast to the military and economic stranglehold the Crown would later have.

Rockaway Beach has long been a predominantly Irish-American community, and it seemed as if every single resident was on the streets.  A few even sauntered and shuffled on the sand by the ocean.  Most of them were too drunk--or, at least, had imbibed enough Guinness Stout not to care about history, the weather or much of anything else.

Heck, this guy didn't even care that he was riding an orange bike:

Don't get me wrong:  I love orange bikes.  I've had a few in my time.  But I have to wonder whether orange is the right color for St. Paddy's Day.