A Market, A Canal, A Church And A Fountain

My bike ride today took me to alternative universes in Paris.  That's what they seemed to be, anyway.

I encountered the first one after riding some side streets near the Place de Clichy, I wandered up some cobblestoned streets (that were really more like lanes) and found myself at the Porte de St. Ouen.

If you are cycling, walking, driving or taking any other kind of ground transportation, you enter or leave the city through those "portes", which are usually passages under the Peripherique, a highway that rings the City of Light. The location of the "portes" are said to approximate the location of openings in the walls that surrounded the city itself and those outlying towns in earlier times.

Anyway, just after passing through the "porte", I saw a sign for "puces".  No, the French highway folks aren't telling you where to find fleas.  Rather, it's shorthand for "flea market" (marche de puces).  So, of course, I followed it.

I hadn't been to the St. Ouen-Paris flea markets in some time. The hyphenated designation isn't just marketing hype:  Although most of the market's stalls are indeed in St.Ouen, a whole section of stalls lies within the Paris city limits.

Notice that I used the plural:  "flea markets".  That's because there are in fact over a dozen different markets, each of them arranged along different streets of the city.  Or, you might say that the markets are like a city of open-air malls.   The only shopping experience that even remotely reminded me of St. Ouen is the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul.  Of course, they are very different because the GB is covered and, of course, because of the disparate cultures (even if some of the sellers at St. Ouen are Turkish). I don't know which is bigger, but they both dwarf any flea market I've seen elsewhere.

In both places, it's possible to buy just about anything, though there are certainly more antique and vintage-item sellers in St. Ouen than I recall seeing in Istanbul.  But St. Ouen made me think about the term "flea market", which is a direct translation of "marche aux puces". (The French usually call the markets "puces" for short.)  The term is said to have originated because the sellers in the original markets were often homeless, and covered with fleas.  According to what I've read, their practice began in the latter decades of the 19th Century, when much of the city was rebuilt under Baron Haussmann.  (He's the one who replaced the serpentine medieval streets with straight thoroughfares that radiated out from plazas and parks:  Think of the "Etoile" in which the Arc de Triomphe is located.)  As a result of this realignment, many old buildings were torn down, and their contents were left lying  in the streets--where they were scavenged.

Now, I must admit, some things indeed looked as if they were brought in by people (or even dogs or cats) with fleas.  But some other things certainly didn't.

And, while many of the structures that became stalls were old industrial facilites, others looked like they might have given a bourgeois lady or gentleman quite a view.

There are also some interesting contrasts, such as this:

I like it a lot, but it's kind of funny to see the kind of graffiti art you might see in Bushwick or Mott Haven on a building in which old paintings and prints are sold.

Speaking of structures, later in the day, at the other end of town, I encountered a church unlike any I've seen in this city--or anywhere else.

All right, from the outside you might think it's just another late-19th (or early-20th) Century church built in the Romanesque style.  And, in fact,it is, deliberately so:  It was built to replace another church similar in style--on the outside.

Once you get inside, the church still shares some characteristics with other Romanesque churches, including the high, vaulted ceilings--which, of course, are designed to get parishoners to look upward and be reminded of the vast power of God.  But then there's something you've never seen in any other Romanesque church--or, probably, any other church:

Steel girders!  If someone were to build a Romanesque church in Manhattan's Meatpacking District (when it was indeed a district where meat was packed) or Soho (when it was still industrial), I might expect something like this--maybe.

The girders inside the Notre Dame du Travail (Our Lady of Work) were taken from the Palais d'Industrie constructed for the 1855 Universal Exposition and torn down in 1891.  And the stone on the outside was taken from an earlier church that had become too small for the community it was serving.

Even though the city made a rather detailed historical marker for it, and the church offers pamphlets and other materials explaining the church's history, I guess they don't expect tourists to visit, as it is on the far southern end of the city, far from better-known sites.  Thus, the marker and the printed materials are only in French--which, fortunately, I can read, so I was able to write about the church (however sketchily) here. 

Along the way, I made other stops at interesting spots--and for a picnic lunch on the Quai de Jemmapes, by the Canal St. Martin.  And near the end of my ride, I stopped at Place Felix Eboue to hydrate:

Well, if I were my iPhone or laptop, I guess I could have hydrated there.  I enjoyed it nonetheless.  It's different and it's Paris, after all! 

Happy KREM Classic!

Happy New Year!

Different countries and cultures have different ways of turning the page on their calendars.  One of the most interesting and best is a bicycle race that is one of the country's major sporting events.

Is that country in Europe?  Or is it Japan?  Australia?

From the 2016 KREM Classic

No, it's Belize.  That a bike race would help to bring in its new year isn't surprising when you realize it was, until 1981, a colony of a nation with a strong cycling history and culture:  England.  And, much like Jamaica, Guyana and even Canada, it has retained British culture and customs to a much greater degree than the United States.

The 2018 women's winners

The race I'm talking about is the KREM Classic, sponsored by the country's first independent radio station.  The first edition of the race was  held in 1991.  One interesting feature of this race is that cash prizes are awarded to the winners of each stage as well as for the best overall finishes.  It also features a women's as well as a men's race.

Oh, and the race is clean:  During the last few years,  all of the riders have been tested and none came up positive.  How many major races can say that?

Lights Out And Broken Glass

We often say, "There's good news and bad news..."

Well, on this date in history, there is a bad event and a terrible one.  Neither relates directly to cycling, so if you want to skip today's post, I understand.

Anyway, I'll start with the bad news in history.  It's an event I remember pretty well, especially given how young I was. If you are of a certain age, you might have lived through it, too.

On this date in 1965, it was "lights out."  Yes, that's the literal truth:  The lights went out in the northeastern US and the Canadian province of Ontario.  It was the result of failures in power generating station, beginning with one near Niagara Falls.  



My family and I were living in Brooklyn.  We weren't in the dark for as long as some nearby areas:  Around 11 pm, power gradually returned, after about six hours without.  O the other hand, some parts of Manhattan and other boroughs and states didn't have "juice" until the following morning.

In some senses, we were lucky:  It was a classic autumn evening, crisp but not too cold.  More important, perhaps, were the clear skies and full moon.  People did what they could outdoors, but some homes (including ours) had at least some light coming through our windows.

And, even all of these years later, I recall how calm and even helpful most people were.  My father couldn't get home from work, as the subways stopped running,  but he was able to call us from a pay phone (Remember those?)  and assured us he was OK.  There were also some funny stories, like the one about people who got stuck in Macy's furniture department and slept on the showroom beds.

Such an atmosphere was in contrast to another blackout a dozen years later that affected mainly New York City.  It was a hot summer night and that year, it seemed, the city was in chaos, what with Son of Sam was shooting and the Bronx was burning.  Well, it seemed that the gates of Hell or some Freudian subconscious opened:  More fires were set, and stores all over the city were looted.  New Pontiacs were driven off a dealers' showroom on Jerome Avenue in the Bronx; the Brooklyn neighborhood of Bushwick suffered devastation from which it would not recover for another three decades.  Lots of glass was broken that night.

And on the night of 9 November 1938 as well. Many fires were set, too.  On this date in 1938, what is often seen as the opening salvo of World War II occurred.  At the very least, it changed the nature of hatred in a nation.  Up to that time, Jews in Germany, Austria and other European countries were losing their rights--if they had them in the first place--in much the same ways African Americans lost rights during the Jim Crow era.  (I am not the first to draw this parallel; some scholars have said as much.)  For a brief shining period--about a decade or so--after the US Civil War, newly-freed slaves and their descendents enrolled in schools and universities, earned licenses to practice nearly every kind of trade or profession (including medicine and law) and were even elected to public office.  Those rights were withdrawn, as they were for Jews, and worse things came.

In the US, the Ku Klux Klan as well as other groups and individuals intimidated, harassed, beat and even killed black people who stepped out of "their place."  The Jews of the Reich didn't even have to do that:  On this date eight decades ago, bands of Nazis--as well some freelance thugs--destroyed synagogues and Jewish businesses all over Germany and Austria.  The police were under orders to do nothing except prevent injury to Aryans and damage to Aryan-owned homes and businesses.  

Although Jews were harassed, beaten and even killed--and their homes, businesses and synagogues vandalized--before this date, this event--known as Kristallnacht, the "night of broken glass"--marked the first mass, systematic terrorization of Jews.  And it shifted the means of expressing hatred of Semitic people from the legal and social to outright physical violence.  That night, more than 100 Jews were killed and 30,000 able-bodied men were arrested and sent to death camps in Dachau, Sachsenhausen and Buchenwald. (Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen had not yet opened.) Thus began the first mass deportations of Jews (and other "undesirables") to the camps: Until then, the arrests and deportations were less numerous and widespread.

In the US, citizens were outraged--at least for a while.  Newspaper editorials condemned the violence; no less than the New York Times suggested that the German government instigated the violence to line its coffers, both with the possessions seized--and fines levied on--Jews:  "Under a pretense of hot-headed vengeance, the government makes a cold-blooded effort to increase its funds."

Yes, the Jews were forced to pay for the violence they "instigated."  Sadly, Nazis and their followers in the Reich weren't the only ones who believed that the Jews brought it on themselves:  Father Charles Coughlin, and influential Catholic priest, said as much in his radio broadcasts, which reached tens of millions of Americans when the nation's population was about a third of what it is now.

Worse, though, was the initial inaction of the US government and others with power and influence.  At least some of it was a result of unconcious anti-Semitism, but I think a larger reason was that, for one thing, by that time, more Americans came from German ancestry than any other.  And people whose parents and grandparents came from other nations simply couldn't--or weren't willing to--believe that such systematic brutality could happen in "the land of Mozart".

Homes and synagogues burned as glass was broken and the lights went out.  I guess my family and city were lucky twenty-seven years later:  Our lights went out, but there was no broken glass.  And nothing burned.

Into The Ocean Blue...To Where?

In school, we were taught that Christopher Columbus "discovered" "America" on 12 October 1492.  

During my elementary school years, we got the day off on 12 October.  Then, around the time I was beginning adolescence, "Columbus Day" was moved to the second Monday of October.  So it is observed today.

As the story goes, he set sail for India. Instead, he landed somewhere between Port-au-Prince and Santo Domingo.  Thus, he didn't even make it to what we call America (i.e., the continent) today.

What I have never understood, though, is why we have a holiday for a guy who got lost.

And, as an Italian American, I don't know why he's a source of pride for us.  I mean, we have Michelangelo, Galileo, Leonardo, Raphael, Dante, Bocaccio, Cassini (OK, he turned French), Marconi and all sorts of other folks who distinguished themselves in every imaginable field.  Heck, we even have great fashion designers.  I'd rather have a day for Armani or even Versace--or, of course, any number of Italian cyclists.

All right, I'll shut up and go for a ride--and enjoy my lasagna afterward!

The Future, For Now? Am I Responsible For It?

I'll take credit--but not blame.

No, I'm not channeling El Cheeto Grande.  Rather, I am here now to tell you that a line I tossed off in an earlier post has become a reality--better (or worse) yet, a business plan.

Last year I wrote about the then-new dockless bike share programs making their debut in China.  They have since appeared in European and North American locales:  In fact, there's talk of bringing such services to the Bronx and other parts of New York City not presently served by Citibike.

I called those dockless programs, which allow anyone with the company's app on his or her smart phone to pick up or leave a bicycle, "Uber for bicycles."

Now--you guessed it--Uber is getting into the bike share business.  I am not surprised, really:  If the future is in driverless cars (the Force forbid!) or fewer or no cars, it makes perfect sense for the company to look at other forms of transportation.

Uber is doing something to many other companies failed to do:  look at the industry, not the business, of which they are a part.  Some business writer, I forget whom, said the real reason why the New York Central and Pennsylvania Railroads--at their peak, the world's two largest corporations-- are in the dustbin of history (Funny, isn't it, to quote Marx when talking about business?) is that they didn't realize that they were not just in the railroad business--which was dying in the US--but in the transportation industry.  So, by the time they merged, it was too late to save either of them.

One of the better analogies I can think of in the bicycle world is Schwinn.  They failed to see their role in the bicycle industry, which changed dramatically.  That is why the company started by Ignaz Schwinn in the 1890s didn't start making (or even offering) BMX or mountain bikes until other bike makers, some of them newcomers, had already taken hold of those markets.  The company's management seemed to think that its industry consisted of making and selling people the bikes their parents and grandparents bought--the only difference being that it added derailleurs and skinnier tires to the two-wheeled tanks they'd been making.  

Which reminds me:  For all of the Varsities and Continentals they sold during the '70's Bike Boom, they really missed the boat when, a couple of years in, college students and other young adults started to demand lighter bikes, like the ones offered by European and Japanese makers.  

At that time, the only really lightweight bicycles Schwinn offered were the Paramount and, depending on how you define "lightweight", the Sports Tourer.  The  former was beyond the means of most young people, while the latter was indistinguishable, appearance-wise, from the company's flash-welded bikes.By the time Schwinn started to offer the Japanese-made LeTour and Voyageur, in 1974, the Bike Boom had already crested and people who wanted lighter bikes had already bought Nishikis, Fujis, Motobecanes and Raleighs.

Anyway, it seems like Uber is not falling into the same trap as Schwinn or the railroads.  They are debuting their new share program in Berlin, Germany and, I am sure, will expand into other places.  With the popularity of dockless share programs and the company's name recognition, it seems like Uber has an unbeatable combination--for now.

It'd be nice if they give me credit, though--although it would be nice to be compensated at least as well as someone who created one of the world's most recognized logos.

There's A Bike Mechanic In The Family!

My high school had a vocational-technical ("vo-tech") program that trained students to work as auto mechanics, beauticians and as other skilled trades- and craft-people.

That high school served a fairly large township that included everything from mansions with Cadillacs in their driveways (In those days, you had as much of a chance, on any given day, of seeing a BMW or Mercedes as you did of meeting a member of the Royal Family.) to storm-battered bungalows with tousled kids tumbling on bristly lawns.  What they had in common was aspiration, whether from the parents or the kids themselves.  

Such aspiration wasn't limited to economic mobility:  People wanted to increase their status and reputation.  A decal from a prestigious college or university on the rear window of a family's car meant that the parents "did something right" in raising their child; dirty hands and clothes meant that the kid didn't work hard--or simply wasn't smart--enough and were seen as signs of poor parenting.

So, the success of my high school, and many others, was measured by the percentage of our graduates who went to college--never mind that the kids who became auto mechanics or plumbers or beauticians could make as much money as those who became educated professionals.  Training for one of those trades was seen as the "loser track", in contrast to "the college track" and other more prestigious paths in the school.

Because such scenarios played out all over the US, many high schools ended their vo-tech programs and new schools opened without them.  Young people and their families continued to equate success with graduating from college and entering white-collar professions.  In the meantime, auto mechanics, beauticians and the like got older and employers had a hard time finding replacements, just as those jobs became more technically sophisticated.  

Then college tuitions started to rise at a much faster rate than prices in general. (My salary hasn't kept pace--it's not even close!)  And companies figured out that their office work could be automated or relocated just as easily as assembly-line jobs.  So, the college degree that costs so much more than it once did is no longer the ticket to a "good" job and middle-class life it once was.

Also, because people had a harder time getting good jobs, they started fixing stuff--including cars and appliances-- they would have tossed or replaced earlier.  Now, as a result, some young people and their families are starting to realize that their may well be more of a future--especially for a kid who doesn't like to sit still and read--in the kinds of work people in my generation were taught to disdain.

Another result of what I've described is that people are riding bikes to work and school.  Those bikes need to be kept running, and not everyone has the time or inclination to adjust their brakes or shifters, or fix their flats.  At the same time, bikes are getting more technically sophisticated.  This means mechanics, who are increasingly referred to as "technicians" will need to be more skilled.

As a bike shop owner, Berri Michel is certainly aware of what I'm saying.  She had trouble finding good employees for Bicycle Trip, her Santa Cruz, California shop.  So she did what any desperate employer might do:  She trained people.  Specifically, she showed high-school students how to fix bikes.  That was back in 2007.

That was the beginning of Project Bike Tech, in which students earn academic credit for learning how to repair bicycles.  Since then, it has expanded to other schools in California and three other schools in Colorado and Minnesota plan to start similar programs soon.  The scope of the course, which spans four semesters, has also grown.  Now students learn interviewing, resume-writing and team-building techniques in addition to adjusting headsets and truing wheels.

Ms. Michel says that in the class, students are introduced to other bicycle-industry careers such as fabrication, marketing, sales and graphic design.  And, because students don't sacrifice their academic training to learn the bike trade, they are also ready to go to college or enter other careers when they graduate.  Some even pursue other trade careers like construction and auto mechanics because "they discover that they love working with their hands," says Project Bike Tech director Mercedes Ross.

Could the day come when parents proudly announce, "There's a bike mechanic in the family!"

Because They Are Able

The Place de la Concorde is one of the world's most impressive public squares.  The first time I saw it, however, I tried to imagine it "covered with blood," as more than one writer of the time described it, as members of the French nobility and royal family were guillotined.

I have seen other beautiful places with terrible histories.  Sometimes their histories make their beauty all the more wonderful, in much the way lilacs are (and smell even better) because they bud and bloom at the end of winter.  

(Last week, I clipped some that were growing in a lot near the RFK Memorial Bridge.  They're some of the latest I recall picking or buying, and their scent was all the more intoxicating because it seemed our winter simply would not end.)

All of this brings me to Elliot Lake, Ontario.  It's in the northern part of the Canadian province, above Lake Huron.  I've never been there, but the photos I've seen are enticing.  I hear that people go there for outdoor sports--or to retire.

Not so long ago, however, it was known as the "uranium capital of the world."  Just about any kind of mining is dangerous to the miners and the place being mined:  All you have to do is look at parts of West Virginia and Southeastern Colorado to know that.  The Elliott Lake area is no exception.  Though it doesn't seem to have suffered the environmental devastation some mining areas incurred, plenty of miners and other workers were injured, disabled or even killed while doing their jobs--not to mention those who got sick from uranium poisoning.  

Well, today some cyclists are going to set off from Elliot Lake and ride 170 kilometers to two other former mining centers in Ontario:  Massey and Sudbury.  What's interesting about this ride is that some of the cyclists were themselves injured or made ill on their jobs.  Friends and family members will ride with them, in part to support injured workers, but also to protest the cuts in benefits paid to such workers.

Concrete Plant, Banana Kelly And Longwood

The past couple of weeks, we've had our best weather during the work week--just when I've had to teach classes and go to meetings.  And all through the past weekend, we had the sort of weather only Marlee could love--because it keeps me home and she can cuddle with me!

So, yesterday, I snuck out for a ride between classes and a meeting.  A curtain of clouds crept between us and the sun, but no rain fell and the air was rather mild.  Once again, I rode in the Bronx, within a few kilometers of my job.

Yes, that really is dust in the background.  But it has nothing to do with the tall cylindrical structures in the background

though it could have at one time.  Until the 1980s or thereabouts, they served as an industrial facility.  Now they are part of the Cement Plant Park along the Bronx River.  I've ridden by and through that park before.  It's small, and not exactly rustic, but is oddly quaint and bucolic in the way an old industrial town in New England or the Midwest might be.

Out the other side of the park, I followed a few streets to the area around The Hub, and into a neighborhood often referred to as "Banana Kelly" after the shape of Kelly Street.  On another street a couple of blocks from Kelly--Dawson Street--I saw this

and this

and this

all within a block.  Not surprisingly, that street is landmarked as part of the Longwood Historic District.

All of those houses, and others on nearby streets, were designed by the same architect, Warren Dickerson, in the 1890s.  At that time, the Bronx was still developing:  much of the northern and eastern parts were still marshlands, woods or farms.  

The houses in this district are 2 1/2 stories tall and semi-detached, separated from each other by side driveways and ornamental iron gates.  As attractive as they are, they seem, at first glance to be variations on a theme.  That is becuase they are, and that is what Dickerson intended.  He wanted to create a unified streetscape, and that he did.  While they started with the same basic design, they distinguish themselves from each other in the details in much the same way family members have their own individual characteristics but resemble each other.  But what makes them work together is that houses alongside or across from each other "mirror" the angles curves of each others' stoops and bays.  

The houses in that district were one of the first attempts--if not the first attempt--to create such visual unity in a neighborhood in New York City.  That such a block, and others like it, were created is all the more remarkable when you realize that there were basically no zoning codes in Westchester County--of which the Bronx was a part until it joined New York City, which also had no zoning laws, in 1898.

That those houses remained intact is practically a miracle given the devastation and abandonment that consumed nearby streets and communities during the 1970s.  While some of those surrounding areas in the South Bronx have been rebuilt, they do not have the character of the houses I saw on Dawson Street.

Then I biked back to the college, and a meeting.  Nobody tells you about such things when you're in graduate school!

Greetings From Asbury Park, New Jersey

By now, everyone has seen what might have been just another postcard from a fading beach resort

had it not graced the cover of a certain singer/songwriter's first album.

By now, everyone has heard of Bruce Springsteen and someone's claim of having seen him for $1 before he was famous. I swear, it's true!  

One of the great things about getting to be, ahem, a certain age is that the statute of limitations runs out.  You see, when I saw the then-obscure Bruce, the legal drinking age was 18.  Still, I was a few years shy of that.  So were a couple of the youngsters who accompanied me, and their siblings who were just on the other side of that age.

In those days, the Stone Pony was a "dive bar" in what was then a dying town.  If you were in Atlantic City before the casinos opened--or have ventured more than a couple of blocks away from its "strip"--you have an idea of what Asbury Park was like in those days.

It had become so unfashionable, in fact, that this was nearly demolished:

I used to ride through it and, as often as not, have no company besides a pigeon or seagull or two.  Now it houses a bar and a few stores--and you can't ride through it.  Cycling isn't allowed through the promenade, but even if you've spent your life riding criteriums and downhill slaloms, you couldn't have ridden through the crowd I encountered there the other day.

I'm not complaining.  I had a great ride down there, from my place in New York, and back up to Long Branch.  I reckon I did about 120 kilometers in total before taking the train back.

Though it was warmer--about 14C--the air felt almost as chilly as it did during my Connecticut ride on Thanksgiving day, when I started in OC conditions and the temperature didn't get much above 5C.  I wasn't complaining, though:  My seashore ride had the sun and clear skies I saw during my ride to the Nutmeg state.

No, I didn't see Bruce, or stop at the Stone Pony. I did go by it, though. Not surprisingly, it's become a tourist attraction:  While some parts of the city are still worn around the edges and suffer from unemployment and poverty, the beachfront and downtown areas draw strollers, shoppers and others from around the area.

By the way:  Contrary to what some have mis-reported, Bruce was not born in Asbury Park.  He did, however, spend his formative years--at least, musically--in the city.  

On the other hand,"Bud" Abbott of the Abbott and Costello comedy team was born in AP.  So were Danny DeVito and Leon Hess.  And, as much as it pains me to mention her name, Wendy Williams.  

Oh--a fellow named Arthur Augustus Zimmerman also first came into this world in Asbury Park.  In 1893, he won the first World Championship of cycling.  

Finally--You might say that Asbury Park is where the "joy buzzer" went to die.  At least, that's where its inventor--Soren Adam Sorensen--drew his last breath!

Going Dutch--Into The Wind

I haven't spent a lot of time in the Netherlands, and it's been a while since I've been there.  So I won't claim to be any kind of an expert on the country or its people, both of which I loved.  I will, however, offer an impression, which relates to a comment on yesterday's post.

Like just about every place I've ever visited, the Netherlands and the Dutch people have their paradoxes. They can be most readily seen in, I believe, their art.  This is a nation, remember, that has given the world Vermeer, Rembrandt and Mondrian as well as Collin van der Sluijs and, of course, Van Gogh.  The contradictions can also be seen in the country's history and social policy:  More than a few historians and econominsts have argued that capitalism as we know it began in the Netherlands in the 16th Century, but in more recent years it has become famous for having a social "safety net" that is tightly woven even by the standards of its western European neighbors.  Also, the country that embraced the social order of Calvinism more than any other would become among the first to legalize same-sex marriage, heroin and other drugs and the right to die.  And, finally, what other nation could have produced a politician like Pim Fortuyn, who famously declared, "I'm not a racist.  I like Arab boys!" ?

I mention all of those things because, if you know about them, what the commenter brought to my attention makes perfect sense.  Perhaps an orderly society creates the need for people to do crazy things:  Sports like bungee-jumping aren't invented in places like Syria and western Sudan.  Mountain biking was born in America, not Afghanistan.  

So a competition that forces cyclists to pedal into 100 kph headwinds would originate--where else?--in the land of tulips and stroopwafels.  Oh, it gets even better:  The riders aren't astride the latest aerodynamic carbon-fiber bikes.  Since they are riding in the Netherlands, they are required to ride--what else?--Dutch-style city bikes.  You know, the kind in which the rider sits up like a dog begging for the treat in his owner's hand.  The kind with fully-enclosed chainguards and wheel covering so extensive that you can pedal to your wedding in your gown or tux.



Naturally, the Headwinds Championship is run along the Oosterscheldekering storm barrier that protects the land from the sea, but not the riders (or anybody or anything else) from wind.  I have alongside seawalls and other coastal barriers, so I know that if the wind is blowing the right (wrong?) way, they can act as funnels or tunnels, especially if the barrier is on an isthmus or some other narrow strip of land.

The competition is organized on short notice, so as to all but ensure the worst possible conditions.  I wonder whether the race is organized by the same folks who put together the Paris-Roubaix race.  I wouldn't be surprised if some of them are Dutch!

Who's Going To Make What Great Again?

Today I took two short rides: before and after having lunch with my mother and a friend of hers, of whom I am fond.

My rides took me through alongside creeks, swamps and woods, as well as through small-town streets lined with shabby houses and suburban subdivisions full of houses that are imitations or parodies, depending on your point of view, of structures built by Spanish, French and English settlers to this area.

Once again, the weather was delightful.  At one point, I even saw two frolicking fawns just yards away from me, and white herons that ambled even closer.  People seemed relaxed, even if they were doing home repairs or yardwork.  The kids were happy, of course:  They had the day off from school.

The reason is that today is the holiday to commemorate Martin Luther King Jr., who would have turned 88 yesterday.  He didn't live to see his 40th birthday, and many of the people for whom he fought had even shorter lives that ended as tragically as his.  A few years ago, a student of mine who is about a decade older than I am, and grew up in Jacksonville--about 105 kilometers (65 miles) from where I am now--told me about one of those victims: a relative whose flaming body dangled from a tree in Mississippi.  As a little girl, she saw that.

It probably wouldn't surprise you to learn that from 1882 until 1968, more black people were lynched in Mississippi than in any other state in the Union.  I don't think it would cause much consternation to say that the next states on the list were Georgia, Texas, Alabama and Arkansas.

Florida is right behind them.  The "Sunshine State", however, had the highest per-capita rate of lynchings among the states from 1880 through 1940.  In fact, Florida's lynch rate, in proportion to the population, was more than double that of Alabama and nearly four times that of Texas!

Today, as I rode through the subdivisions, and the ramshackle houses, I saw many "Trump:  Make America Great Again" campaign signs.  In fact, I even saw a couple in a trailer park.  I don't recall seeing so many campaign signs for any candidate still standing on lawns, or tied to signposts or windows, so long after an election as I saw today.  

Now, I am sure that some of those who voted for Trump--and, perhaps, a few who didn't--are resentful that King gets "his own" holiday: something no other individual  in the US has.  Or, to be precise, no other white individual has.

I can understand, even if I don't condone, what they feel:  that they are losing "their" place in society to "privileged" minorities (which, of course, can include LGBT people as well as any number of racial and ethnic identities--as well as "the 51 percent minority"). One thing my own experience has taught me is that privilege is something you don't know you have until you lose it, and the process of losing it is painful and can cause intense anger and resentment.

What are students learning these days?

What I can't understand, though, is something I saw on a news program this morning: People who claim that if King were alive today, he would have supported Donald Trump's election to the Presidency.  I tried to understand their arguments, but those of the Flat Earth Society  actually make more sense to me.

Of course, cycling and writing have made more sense to me than all of those things ever could.  So did those fawns and herons I saw.