I Needed Him More Than I Knew

 In my previous two posts, I reminisced about things that would change my life, and the world—even if I didn’t realize it at the time—that began during this time of year, specifically during a too-early-for-the season heat wave.

My most recent post described how a morning ride with a friend became a journey to the end of fifth grade, a time just before my body and so much in my surroundings would change irrevocably.

That was May of 1969. Now my “Time Machine”—in this case, Tosca, my Mercian fixie, on which I took another early ride—will bring us to 1991. 

My bikes in those days:  a Colnago Arabesque and Bianchi Aelle.  I’d spun the Colnago’s pedals up and down the “seven sisters” on the Jersey side before crossing the George Washington Bridge back to my place.  After showering and eating, I took the subway downtown to a workshop led by poet Martha Rhodes.

One of the workshop’s participants had a cat who’d just had kittens.  As much as I love anything with whiskers that meows and purrs, I could have understood had Martha been annoyed at my fellow student bringing her little ones to the class. But Martha adopted one.  I took another. Or, rather, he took me:  He gave me a look that combined vulnerability and confidence in a way I’ve never seen in any other living being before or since:  He seemed to say, “Oh, I’m just a little kitty” and “You know you’re taking me home” at once.

We didn’t look away from each other on my way home. When I brought him to the vet, the receptionist, technician and vet himself fawned over him: He seemed to be cuter by the minute. And he would develop a bond with me and Caterina, my other cat, that deepened.

I quickly became as impressed with his intelligence as his friendliness.  But at the time, I didn’t realize how much, and how soon, I would need him.  That is not to say that Caterina wasn’t loving. She was already eight years old (according to the vet) when I adopted her five years earlier.  My new “fur baby,” on the other hand, would become the first—and, to date, only—friend I’ve had from the beginning (He was two months old) until the end of his life.

I named him Charlie. Why? It just sounded right—like a “buddy” name.  Like someone who showed up at just the right time.

My ex and I had separated; it would soon become a divorce. Although I wanted our (dis)union to end, it was difficult. For one thing, she fought it, at least in the beginning. Part of me said I should give it one more try, because she wanted it,  but I knew, almost from the beginning, how untenable our relationship was. Also, as much as I wanted out of it, I never realized what else would end with it. Even in a bad relationship, there are some things that are pleasurable or meaningful only when you are together—like the cafe where the waiter knew us. I never went back. 

Sometimes the very people who knew your relationship shouldn’t have happened in the first place are the ones blame you for “abandoning” your former partner. Or you find out that people with whom you thought you would remain friends were really friends of the couple, so to speak, not you.

On the other hand, the breakup gave me a chance to do things simply because I wanted to: the bike ride, taking Martha’s workshop, adopting Charlie.

I joke sometimes that he got me through my first semester of graduate school and college teaching that Fall. Who do you think helped me read and write all of those papers? Seriously, though I was happy to be doing those things, they were at times stressful because they were new to me (and because I didn’t get my first paycheck until the middle of November even though I started teaching in late August). I had to relate to people—my students, my fellow students and colleagues—in ways to which I wasn’t accustomed, in part because more than a decade had passed since I was last a student, and because the environments in which I’d worked had been very different. And, of course, I looked at relationships, all of them, differently as a result of my marriage.

Oh, and there was one other reason why I would need Charlie in ways I could not have foreseen. A week and a half after I adopted him, I learned that a college friend, Robert, had died. While I stayed in touch with him episodically after we graduated, he was always important to me because he was the first person to utter the words, “I am gay” in my presence. I had suspected as much, but it mattered, in ways I couldn’t realize at the time, that he would make such a declaration. He wasn’t trying to get a date with me; it simply came up in the course of something he, another friend and I were talking about. In that place and time, such an admission could be anything from risky to deadly. To this day, I really don’t know why he told me; I don’t believe that I was one of the more sensitive or open-minded people, even in that environment.

Since we are in 1991, you might have surmised what took his life:  AIDS-related illness. By Christmas of that year, four other friends or friendly acquaintances would die the same way. Another took her life; still another was murdered. (Actually, I consider the AIDS deaths, like those from COViD, to be murders because they resulted, directly or not, from what health and government officials did or didn’t do. ) And on the day before Christmas Eve, Caterina passed away.

What would I have done without Charlie—or cycling?

(Note: The cat named “Charlie” in this post is not the same as the one I mentioned in some of my early posts, although they were eerily similar in looks and personality. Charlie II came into my life as an adult cat a few months after Charlie I died. Charlie II was rescued; his rescuer named him Charlie.)

From An Island To A Memory Of A Street

 

My friend Sam—one of the first people I met when I moved into my current apartment—took an early ride: me, on Tosca, my Mercian fixed gear and he, on the aluminum Trek road bike I fixed up for him.  The breeze we felt as we crossed the bridge into City Island and at the end of the island itself would be the last relief we would feel before the sun would turn brick-lined streets— which we followed from Pelham Bay  to Bronx Park—into ovens.

The bricks—faded, cracked and pockmarked like faces who have survived winter, poverty, betrayal and the births of those who have died along those streets—smoldered with their remains and the last buds blown away from cherry blossoms, magnolias, crabapples and early spring flowers like tulips and hyacinths planted around those trees.

The too-early-for-the season heat, which reached 95F (35C), turned their shadows, all of them, into the pores, wrinkles and cracks in bricks and concrete slabs that will endure, perhaps, longer than the street—at least, as I have know it—will.

I walked down a street like it, a couple of blocks from where I lived in Brooklyn, on a day like this, which had followed and preceded another like it, near the end of my fifth grade year.  1969: The world was about to change because of events I would know about as they happened—Woodstock, the Apollo 11 moon landing and protests against the Vietnam War and racial prejudice—and ones I wouldn’t know about until later, like Stonewall.

But, even though summer had not officially begun, it seemed to have always been. The faded, flaked bricks and pinks, purples and yellows turning green felt suspended in the haze of that heat. Just as the world beyond it was changing, I somehow knew that what I was seeing and feeling that day wouldn’t be there forever. Nor would I. The heat was no longer only a meteorological phenomenon: I felt, in a way I couldn’t describe, that it was flaring within me.  And within a year it would change me, as it would change my neighborhood.

On my way home that day, I saw a man who, at the time, seemed ancient to me, sitting on his stoop, as he did nearly every day. I would never see him again.

Sam and promised each other we’ll ride again, perhaps tomorrow morning. The afternoon is forecast to be as hot as today.

(More to come.)

Saturday Solitude

 How does one find peace and solitude without going to a retreat in the mountains?

That’s what I did yesterday.  What’s more, I did it without leaving New York City, at least not technically.

Fort Totten, near the border with Nassau County, is further from Times Square—or my apartment in  Bedford Park. Nestled by Long Island Sound on the eastern edge of Queens, it the former military base offers expansive vistas and has long been one of my favorite ride destinations.

After pedaling out there, I didn’t see a single visitor. That’s unusual for a Saturday, even if the weather was on the cool side for this time of year. Perhaps even more striking was how little traffic I encountered along the way.  

But what struck me even more, though, was the absence of bicycles, e-bikes or even motorized bikes anywhere I rode, from my apartment through the Bronx River Greenway, Randall’s Island and Queens neighborhoods from Astoria to Bayside. Not only did I not see bicyclists on training or simply “fun” rides; I didn’t encounter anyone on an e-bike or motorized bikes:  not even delivery workers.

On one hand, I enjoyed having Fort Totten, Randall’s Island and the Bronx River trail to myself.  On the other, it was a little weird to be the only one on the road or trail in New York City.

In a way, it reminded me, in my midlife, of some rides I took when I first moved back to New York City. In the mid-1980s, I could pedal from Manhattan, where I was living, to working- and middle-class Brooklyn neighborhoods like the one in which I grew up (some of which have “gentrified” or changed in other ways) without encountering another adult cyclist.

Hmm…am I “cycling back” in midlife? I used to enjoy the solitude in those days, especially when I knew it would precede a night out.   But I didn’t go out last night: I spent time with Marlee and “Cora,” the girlfriend of “Sam,” my neighbor and sometime cycling buddy.

A Prelude To Another Midlife Journey?

I have been home from my Japan trip for as long as I was there. I can’t stop thinking about it. The other night, I e,

availed myself to the Taco Tuesday special at Webster Cafe and Diner. (It’s really good!) There, I encountered Robert, one of the regular customers.

“Wearya bin?”

I told him about my trip and showed him a few pictures.  He, a neighborhood “lifer,” told me he’d been to Japan briefly when he was in the Navy. “Then I got sent to the Philippines.” He said he’d thought about going back—“Japan was great,” me exclaimed.

I nodded. “I fell in love with it, especially Kyoto.” Then I tried to describe how I felt, much to my surprise, that I was in the right place and everything felt right even though the culture is as different from any other I’ve experienced as any culture can be, and I don’t speak the language. “Even when I got lost and Google Map directions weren’t making any sense, I felt I was going where I wanted and needed to go, if that makes any sense.”

“You weren’t just taking a vacation. You were on a journey.”

He understands my travel philosophy, exactly! I nodded again.

Then he reverted to his neighborhood lifer voice. “So why the hell did you come back?”

I’ve been asking myself that same question. Marlee: Any time I travel, I miss my cat(s) more than anything else. Friends. My bikes.  And…and..

Four days in Tokyo. Three in Osaka, five in Kyoto and one more in Tokyo. Robert was right: It wasn’t just a trip; it was a journey. Could it have been a prelude to another midlife journey ?

Why Do We Call It A Bike?

 When I was growing up, and when I was living as a man, everyone in my family called me by a shortened version of my old name, with an “ee” sound at the end of it. I always hated that nickname even more than my full name. There reasoning was that an uncle and my father shared that name. 

(I hated being a “junior “ even more than my nickname.)

For some reason, however, no one ever called my brother Michael “Mike.”

What got me to thinking about all of that? This:

What I Didn’t Know

 Alert: I am, once again, invoking my Howard Cosell rule to write about something not directly related to cycling.  It is, however, a reflection from the vantage point of midlife, as I have defined it on this blog.

The night was hot, even for early summer. Judy Garland had just died, 47 years old. Patrons of a particular bar were mourning her passing. Or, perhaps, they simply wanted to release some tension, or simply have a good time.

Some of the bar’s regular patrons had been forewarned about one event about to take place. But at the time, they could not have known its aftermath.

On this date in 1969, New York City police officers raided a bar. That, in itself, was not unusual. Nor was the fact that its “respectable” patrons—mainly white-collar and creative men with wives and families not very far—at least geographically—from that place had been forewarned.

The remaining patrons consisted of “undesirables ” and “throwaways”: kids kicked out of their homes by families who didn’t approve of their “lifestyles;” others, young and old, who survived on the streets by catering to the most lurid fantasies of men (mainly) richer and more powerful than themselves, and those who were expressing their gender identity and sexuality in then-illegal or yet-unnamed ways.

I am talking, of course, about the 1969 Stonewall Rebellion. I was a week and a day away from turning and would know nothing about what happened that night for many more years. By that time, I was close to midlife—at least as I define it on this blog—and had become an avid cyclist.

Midlife Climbs

 It’s noon—and 94 degrees F (34.4C) already. I am glad I took an early morning ride to City Island and Orchard Beach after a cup of coffee and before breakfast!

It’s as if nature were reminding us that summer has indeed arrived. Tomorrow’s weather will be similar; I probably will do another early ride.

The weather is such a contrast to what we had a week ago, when I joked with a neighbor that we don’t have to go to London because its chilly mist drifted over to us. 

That day, and on two others last week, I headed for the hills. In Yonkers and other points north of the city, the peaks and escarpments aren’t very high, but the roads and paths leading to them can be steep—enough so that roadside signs tell drivers to shift gears.

I did all of those rides—and today’s—on Tosca, my Mercian fixed gear.  At times I berated myself because I was climbing more slowly than in times past—like, say, when I was in my 20s and 30s. But people applauded and shouted encouragement—“You go, girl!”—and I kept on pedaling.  Tosca has always been a joy to ride, however strong or slow I might be.

Sam, my neighbor and sometime riding buddy, reminded me that other people in our building marvel at what I’m doing. “Well, I’m lucky,” I demurred. “I am not in as much pain as they—or you—are.”

His back has been bothering him. He doesn’t want to “hold me back,” but I remind him that I am riding because I can and want to—and I’m willing to “slow down “ for him and his girlfriend, who has expressed interest in riding with us.

So now a question enters my mind: Why am I willing to “wait for” them but not to meet myself at the stage of my life, and riding, where I find myself? I enjoyed every pedal stroke of the rides I took and felt joy at the end. So what if I couldn’t climb a hill as quickly as I did 40 or 30 or even 20 years ago? As long as I simply enjoy riding, whether solo or with others, why do I need to criticize myself—especially in ways I never would criticize anyone who wants to ride with me?

I am not “too old.” I am in midlife as long as I don’t know when or if I must stop riding. So, I believe, is anyone else who, at whatever age, slings a leg over a bike, for whatever reason. And at any speed.

Quinceañera

 So why, you may be wondering, is this post titled “Quinceañera?”

If you are familiar with Latin American cultures, you have heard of “Quinceañera”—or, perhaps, been part of one. Basically, it’s a “coming of age” party for a girl who’s turned fifteen years old.  I guess you could say it’s a Hispanic version of “Sweet Sixteen,” one year earlier.

Of course, I am not writing this post because I’ve turned fifteen. When I was that age, it never would have occurred to me that I was in midlife, or any other particular stage of life.  I probably was as self-absorbed as (or possibly even more self-absorbed than) other kids of that same age.  Now I realize that it, like much about adolescence that is denigrated (“oh, that’s so adolescent!”) is actually normal: Kids are trying to figure out a lot of things as their bodies are changing in ways for which they’re unprepared. In my case, my solipsism had to do with those things and, ironically, something I was trying to avoid—and wouldn’t make any attempt to resolve until decades later, when I realized that I was in midlife but would soon be at the end if I didn’t resolve it.

The resolution of that conflict became part of the basis of a blog I started two years before this one:  Transwoman Times. Writing it led me to start Midlife Cycling: Someone who read  TT noticed that some of my posts were about cycling and suggested that I start a blog specifically about cycling.

So, on this date in 2010–fifteen years ago—I wrote the first of 4754 posts I’ve  written on this blog. Back then, I had no idea of how long I would keep up this blog: Would I run out of things to say? Do I have undiagnosed ADHD that would distract me from this and cause me to start another blog, or some other project? Or would I stop “fooling myself,” as some might say, with the notion that I’m in the middle of my life as long as I don’t know when I’m going to die and finally admit that I’m old?

The answer to that last question is an emphatic “NO!” As long as I can ride, I am not “too old” for, well, anything—including a Quinceañera, if only for this blog.

So, I thank all of you who have been reading—and following me as I cycle through my midlife and this blog’s Quinceañera!

Women’s Work?

When I rode with the Central Jersey Bicycle Club, more than four decades ago, not many women were dedicated cyclists. Save for one who was, probably, close to the age I am now*, they were usually accompanied by boyfriends or husbands.

In most couples, the male cyclist spent much of the ride “drafting” his partner: He rode a few meters ahead of her so she could pedal in the slipstream. There was, however, one couple who “flipped the script.” At first—being young and not knowing otherwise—I thought he followed because he liked looking at her from the rear. (Hate me, if you will, for saying this: I couldn’t blame him.) After a few rides, though, I realized she was the stronger cyclist.

I thought about them, for the first time in ages, when I saw this:

*—I was less surprised by her skill and dedication than I was by her husband, who seemed completely sedentary.

You Can’t Do That Here!

 Europeans sometimes forget that things they’re at are considered normal in their home countries can get them into trouble here in the good ol’ USA.

I was reminded of this about twenty years ago, when I was starting my gender affirmation process. Michéle (whom I’ve mentioned in my posts about my Paris visits) came to town with Jeanine, who has since passed away and Marie Jeanne.

It wasn’t the first trip to New York for any of them. They therefore weren’t interested in the usual tourist spots.  Instead, they liked to see unique and unusual sites.

So, that day, we took the D train to Brighton Beach. a.k.a. Little Odessa by the Sea. We, of course, did some shopping and bought, among other things, bread, sausages, cheese and pickled vegetables for a picnic on the beach.  

It was a warm summer day, so they all decided they wanted to go swimming. I would have liked to, I explained, but I didn’t have a bathing suit with me.  If I recall correctly, I was wearing a ruffled top and flowy skirt.

“Aucun problème,” intoned Jeanine.  She, it turned out, packed a swimsuit.  At first I didn’t think it would fit: She was about eight inches shorter than I am, though a bit wider in the hips than most French women. (Her grandparents were Russian and Azerbaijani.) 

She motioned for me to change. “Je pourrais être arretée pour ça!” I cautioned.

They shook their heads. “Ici n’est pas France,” I protruded.  They all gave me that, “come on, there’s nothing to worry about,” expression that I believe the French have patented.  Marie-Jeanne, the only one of the three anywhere my height, held up a beach towel to my right. Michéle, who is only slightly taller than Jeanine, held up a blanket to my left. Thinking, “I’ve done riskier and stupider things,” and seeing no cops, I changed.  Much to my surprise, I fit—though barely—into the swimsuit: It was made of Lycra or some other stretchy material.

(Turns out, Michéle, Jeanine and Marie Jeanne were wearing swimsuits under their clothing. Jeanine explained that they heard “Beach” and so prepared themselves—and that she always packed an extra swimsuit.)

Michéle and I laugh about that now.  But Laurens ten Dam and Thomas Dekker weren’t so lucky. The Dutch former professional road cyclists went to Kansas for this year’s edition of Unbound Gravel. After a training ride, they drove to a supermarket and department store in Marietta where, after previous rides, they’d gone to change out of their cycling clothes and freshen up before a meal.

Laurens ten Adam

But a tornado destroyed both the supermarket and department store. There were other options for meals, including the Mexican restaurant they chose. But where to change out of their sweaty cycling kit and wash up?

They came up with an idea that reminded me of my day with Michéle, Jeanine and Marie Jeanne at the beach. They opened the doors on one side of their car. Between them, the cyclists took off their bike gear and poured water over themselves for a makeshift “shower.”

Well, if they weren’t cognizant of a cultural difference between the US and a European country that is, arguably, even more liberal than France, it’s understandable that they wouldn’t know that there is almost as much difference between different parts of the US—like, say, Marietta, Kansas and my hometown of New York. 

As they “showered,” ten Dem recalled, “I heard a man screaming.” The next thing they knew, he and Dekker were in handcuffs and clad in a way they’d never anticipated: all in orange, but not that of the Dutch national football team. Oh, and they were fingerprinted.

They spent the night as Inmates ten Dam and Inmate Dekker in a Kansas jail cell under “inappropriate behavior in public spaces” legislation.

After spending the night in un-anticipated accommodations and paying a $185 bail fee, they continued their preparations for the Unbound Gravel race, where ten Dam finished 42nd and Dekker 50th.

Riding To My Own Guitar Solo (Or Overtime)

 On Monday morning and early afternoon, I took Dee-Lilah, my Mercian Vincitore Special, for a spin out to Point Lookout and back: 120 kilometers (about 75!mikes). Yesterday morning I took Tosca, my Mercian fixed gear, for a shorter ride—about 40 kilometers (25 miles) to Fort Totten and back.

What did these rides have in common, besides the fact that I enjoyed them?  Well, both bikes are purple, though in different shades.  Also, I timed both rides to, as best I could, finish before the most intense heat—and worst air quality (those Canadian wildfires, again!) of the day.

Both rides also have something in common with every other ride I’ve taken in my life:  I rode without headphones, eat buds or any other audio device.  Sometimes I feel I’m the only person who still rides that way.

I think I’ll always ride that way.  For one thing, I don’t want to impede my ability to hear traffic or other ambient sounds—including bird sings and ocean tides. But I also believe  don’t need devices to hear music, if only inside my own mind.

Back in the day, the term “ear worm” didn’t exist. (At least, I hadn’t heard it.) I would,!however, find myself riding to a tune playing through my head—usually, somethings I’d heard not long before.

I first noticed myself riding to a tune I was carrying with me during a ride when I was, probably, fifteen years old.  I’d been pedaling a long, flat stretch of New Jersey Route 36 from Sandy Hook to Long Branch. The ocean stretched thousands of miles to my left—it years would pass before I saw the other side. The sky stretched even further above and beyond me.  And, even though I knew the road ended—or, more precisely changed direction—in Long Branch and I was gliding toward it on a combination of youthful energy and the wind at my back, I saw myself pedaling forward, forced, even further than that road could take, or my own vision could guide, me.

That ride’s ear worn before there were ear worms?  The long guitar riff of Black Sabbath’s “Rat Salad.”  It’s trippy yet hard-driving and expansive: the way I was pedaling on that long-ago ride.

And what did I hear as I pedaled, with a light breeze at my back, along the long,f flat—and surprisingly deserted—Rockaway Boardwalk? You guessed it: Rat Salad. As Kurt Vonnegut would have said, I was woozy with deja vu.

Oh, and during yesterday’s ride, my “ear worm” was an overture from Debussy’s “La Mer”: one of the first pieces of classical music I came to truly love—and an “ear worm” on another long-ago ride.

Given what I’ve described, you might think I was a strange kid. I wouldn’t try to disabuse you of such a notion.  Of course, you may think I’m an even stranger adult—one in mid-life—because I’ve never ridden, and intend never to ride, with headphones, ear buds or any other audio device.

You Don't Have To Ride To The End Of This Tunnel To See The Light.

 As a cyclist, I have an interesting relationship with tunnels. (A Freudian would have a field day with that statement!)  I've ridden, probably, my share and some long underpasses that could just as well have been tunnels.  (I think of one in particular that dips as it goes under the Long Island Railroad trestle at 130th Street in Queens.)  I can't say I seek out those long, enclosed passages, but when I enter them, I experience a mild adrenaline rush: Even if I know what's on either end of it, I like to imagine that I'm going to emerge in a different world from the one where I entered.

That said, one of the most gratifying experiences I've had as a cyclist took me through a tunnel. I detoured from one Alpine road--closed, probably, by an avalanche--to another, only to come to a tunnel in which an electrical outage extinguished the lights.    

A driver in a Citroen waved to me.  He told me to ride ahead of him, in the wake of his headlights, and the drivers behind him would follow.  And they did!

I thought of that day when I came across this news item:  A three-kilometer (1.8 mile) tunnel through the base of  Lovstakken mountain Bergen, Norway has just opened in Bergen, Norway.

While that, in itself, may not seem so unusual--after all, the Norwegians, French, Italians, Japanese and other people who live in or by mountains have been building them for centuries---the purpose of the tunnel makes it a record-breaker.  

Photo by Ronny Turoy

The Norwegian under-pasage is the longest such structure built specifically for cyclists and pedestrians.  There are separate lanes for each, and motorized vehicles are verboten. (OK, I know that's a German word.  I don't know Norwegian!)

Perhaps the most unique and gratifying part of the tunnel, though, is that its designers seemed to do everything they could to make it seem less like a tunnel.  The walls are lined with art and other visual delights, and the cave is illuminated with different colors of light in different parts of the tunnel, which helps to give people who pedal, walk and run an idea of how far they've progressed through it.  And, in the middle of the tunnel there's a "sundial" in a place where the sun will never shine.  It's intended, in part, to further break up the monotony of the tunnel, which is completely straight (which is something I never could claim) except for slight bends at the entrance and exit. 

In Suspense--Or In Thrall To Aesthetics?

Sometimes I think the '90's were the end of an era:  when you could care about aesthetics and still buy a high-end road racing bicycle.

Today, you can get a beautiful frame from a builder like Mercian or any number of other custom makers.  But even though it can be sleek and relatively light, it's likely to be heavier and less aerodynamic than a new racing bike.  Those gorgeous frames with their beautiful lugs or filet-brazed joints and lustrous paint jobs are most likely to be steel, whether from Reynolds, Columbus or some other maker, but most racers are now astride frames made of carbon fiber.  Although I can appreciate the lightness and stiffness of carbon fiber frames, I know that their lifespan is nowhere near that of most good steel, titanium or aluminum frames.  Also, their Darth Vader shapes and surfaces are too often plastered with cartoony or just plain creepy graphics.

But during that last "golden era" for road bikes, two disparate groups of cyclists seemed to abandon any sense of velocepedic voluptuousness.  According to Eben Weiss' latest article in Outside magazine, those riders were mountain bikers--especially of the downhill variety--and triathlon competitors.   As he notes, mountain biking and triathlon racing  came into their own as disciplines at roughly the same time, more or less independent of the prevailing cycling cultures (racing, touring, track, club riding).  Although many mountain riders came from road riding, they tended to be younger and not as bound to the prevailing traditions and conventions of riding.  Then there were those mountain riders who, like most triathloners, had little or no previous experience with cycling and were therefore even less wed to ideas about what bikes should look or ride like.

One result of that disdain for bicycle tradition was modern suspension systems.  One irony is that those who developed them for mountain bikes thought they were doing something new and revolutionary when, in fact, bicycle suspension  has been around for almost as long as bicycles themselves.  The chief question seemed to be whether to suspend the rider or the bike itself:  The former would offer more comfort and would, therefore, keep the rider in better control of the bike. The latter, on the other hand, would make the bike itself more stable at high speeds and in rough conditions: what would encounter on a downhill run or on technical singletrack.

One of the earliest--and, perhaps, still most widely-used--forms of suspension is the sprung saddle, which would fall into the category of suspending the rider. Later, balloon-tired bikes from Schwinn, Columbia and other American manufacturers came with large bars and springs connected to the handlebars and front forks.  How much shock they actually absorbed, I don't know.  I get the feeling they were added, like the ones on the "Krate" and "Chopper" bikes of the '60's and '70's, so that kids could pretend that their bikes were scaled-down motorcycles. 

Around the same time as those wannabe Harleys were made, Dan Henry (of Arrows fame) rigged up a Reynolds 531 fork with springs which, he said, allowed him to ride the lightest rims and tubular tires even in the roughest conditions.  But the '70's and '80's saw little, if any, experimentation with, let alone manufacture of, suspended bikes or parts.

That all changed when the first Rock Shox forks and Girvin Flex Stems were introduced in 1989.  The latter defied all notions of the graceful "gooseneck" in mirror-polished or milky silver, and Rock Shox looked nothing like those curved or tapered blades seen on classic road bikes.  Then, it seemed, all sense of aesthetics went out the window--unless your idea of art is a sex toy or something that would render a man incapable of bringing any new cyclists into this world--with the Softride.

I must admit I never tried Softride:  Even though I was leaner and lighter than I am now, I was leery of mounting anything that didn't have support from below. (Read that as you will.)  Weiss rode one recently, three decades after its introduction, and found it to be "more subtle" than he expected though, he pointed out, he could have been just as, and more elegantly, cushioned from road and trail shock with a leather saddle or wide tires.  Subtract the "diving board" and Girvin Flex stem, he notes, and one is left with a rigid mountain bike like the ones riders had been riding before. 

If I had a couple of barns or garages, I'd probably acquire a Soft Ride to complete the collection I'd have.  But even if I liked its suspension qualities, I'm not sure how much I'd ride it:  I'm still too wedded to my vision of a beautiful bicycle.  There are some things I just don't want to be caught dead on. 

Making (S)Trax In The Snow

In 1995, I gave myself a holiday gift of sorts:  a Bontrager Race Lite mountain bike frame.  I just happened to get a really good deal on it and transferred the upgraded parts from my Jamis Dakota. I still had most of the Dakota's original parts, which I re-installed before gifting that bike to someone who was even poorer than I was.

Anyway, just after the New Year, I took the Race Lite on a ride Keith Bontrager, from his base in Santa Cruz, California, may not have envisioned.  One of the biggest snowstorms in the history of New York City dumped about two feet of the white stuff.  A state of emergency was declared, which meant that the only motorized vehicles on the streets were pushing plows or spreading salt.  But, as happens in such storms, the streets filled with snow, it seemed, seconds after they were plowed.  

The Race Lite--or, more precisely, the tires--made tracks along deserted Flatbush Avenue to Prospect Park which turned into, if you'll pardon the cliche, a winter wonderland. I giggled as I twisted, turned and tumbled--sometimes on purpose--into still-pristine beds of snow.

I can remember only a couple of snowstorms to rival that one here in the Big Apple.  So, unless I move to some place where such snowfalls are normal--and where the ground is therefore covered with snow for longer periods of time--I probably won't have use for something I'm about to describe.

The Austrian company FasterBikes has just released the S-Trax Snowbike Conversion Kit.  Included is, not surprisingly, a ski that replaces the front wheel.  It's paired with "crawler" unit that replaces the rear wheel. Not surprisingly, that "crawler" has snowmobile-like lugged rubber track and rollers.  It also has some new "twists":  a mechanical disc brake and an Enviolo Extreme hub-incorporated stepless gear system.  One chain runs from the bicycle's existing crankset to that hub on the drivetrain side, while another chain runs from the hub down to the track on the non-drivetrain side.

In some ways, this setup is similar to another made by Canadian manufacturer Envo.  The main difference is that, unlike the Envo setup, S-Trax doesn't come with a motor.  So, if you don't have an electric mountain bike with a mid-mount motor, you will be propelling your snowbike the way I rode my Race Lite:  on the power of your legs.

Oh, and FasterBikes doesn't recommend using the kit with a carbon-fiber frame 

She Knew: Self-Care Is Not A Luxury

 Alert:  I will reveal something very personal (yes, even by the standards of this blog) in this post.  

She would be 87 years old today. But she lives on for me, and many other people.

I first encountered Audre Lorde's poetry when I was in college--right about the time the world (as I knew it, anyway) was discovering black artists and lesbians--and colleges were starting to offer courses in Women's Studies (no gender studies or queer studies) and African-American Studies.

That was during the late 1970s.  The way I came to her poems--and her work as a feminist activist--wasn't through class assignments:  She came to read on our campus.  Honestly, I knew nothing about her before then--or, to be fair, many of the poets who gave readings at our college. That, of course, is exactly the reason I went to those readings.

Some I've long since forgotten.  But I knew Audre Lorde would stick with me, even thought I was far from being "out" as a non-heterosexual, non-cisgender person and am about as white as anybody can be.  (According to a DNA test, I am 4 percent African.  Anthropology 101 tells us the human race began in Africa, so that proportion seems like some sort of baseline for everyone.)  Her poems were unlike any I'd heard or read up to that time and, in ways I wouldn't articulate until much later, she showed there were ways one could carry one's self in this world that, up to that point, I hadn't seen.

She's one of those writers that even people who've never read her quote, sometimes without realizing it.  "Poetry is not a luxury." Of course, you're not going to hear that from your parents or most of the people you know when you announce that you're changing your major from Business or Engineering to Creative Writing or English Literature (unless, of course, you tell them the latter is a preparation for teaching or law school). What she meant is that poetry is, in her conception--and mine--an attempt to say what hasn't been said and, as often as not, what others won't say.

I don't know whether she did much cycling.  But these words of hers capture the reason why many of us  ride:

She knew about self-care:  Some of her later activism was motivated by her battle with breast cancer, which claimed her at 58 years old.  Her spirit motivates my riding and writing, which are as much a part of my self-care as visiting my doctor.  

Oh, my doctor is part of the Callen-Lorde Community Health Center, of which she was a co-founder.  I go to that doctor because I like him, and on principle:  That he would work for C-L when he probably could make more elsewhere says much about his motivations, of which Audre Lorde would surely approve.

Tubes--And No Tubulars

 Tubeless tires have been one of the most-ballyhooed developments in cycling during the past few years.  I have not used any myself, but I can see the appeal for certain kinds of riding, particularly off-road:  Tires ridden at low pressures are more prone to "pinch" flats than to punctures.  

The debate over whether tubeless tires will displace their more traditional counterparts reminds me of the argument I heard when I first became a dedicated cyclist:  tubulars vs. clinchers.

My first "serious" bike, a Peugeot PX-10, came with tubular tires.  Their casings wrapped around the tube and were sewn together (hence the nickname, "sew-ups).  They were then attached with a cement with the consistency of applesauce (until it dried) to a rim with a crescent-shaped surface.

The fully-enclosed tube made for a more buoyant (not for nothing do the French call these tires "pneus boyeaux") and lively ride.  They also were lighter than any clinchers available at the time, which accentuated their performance advantage over "clinchers," the tires 99 percent of us ride.

Clincher (top) and tubular tire.

Tubed (left) and tubeless clincher tires

Getting a flat on any tire is not fun, but fixing one on a tubular is an ordeal.  We usually carried a spare with us and, if we flatted, we changed the tire, letting the cement dry to about the consistency of bubble gum.  Then we'd cross our fingers for the ride home. Professional racing teams are trailed by cars, which usually carried spare wheels with tires glued solidly onto them.

That is why, for my first tour-- which I did on the PX-10--I had a set of clincher wheels built.  In those days, some riders toured (with loaded panniers!) on tubulars, but I was not going to do any such thing, especially when I ventured into the countryside of a foreign land.  Those wheels--my first custom-built set--and tires, together, weighed about two kilograms (a pound and a quarter) more than the tubulars, even though they were among the lightest of their kind available.  The tires were less prone to flats and much easier to fix.

Over time, companies like Michelin, Continental, Panaracer and IRC developed lighter clincher tires with improved durability, and Mavic created  rims--the "E" series--that adapted the weight-to-strength ratio of tubular rims to clinchers and added a "hook" bead that made it possible to use high-pressure folding clincher tires.  (Any rim made today with even a pretense of quality, in whatever diameter or width, is based on the “E” rims’ design.) Thus, the gap in speed and road feel between tubulars and clinchers narrowed to the point to the point that whatever benefits tubulars offered no longer offset their fragility, at least for most riders.

After my brief foray into racing, I kept one set of tubular wheels for fast rides.  But, as I developed other ineterests (and relationships), I decided that I'd rather spend my time riding than fixing flats.  Also, tire-making companies were offering fewer options in tubulars, or stopped offering them altogether.  So, about twenty years ago, I rode tubulars for the last time.  I'd own my last set of such wheels and tires, briefly, when I bought "Zebbie," my 1984 Mercian King of Mercia, just over a year ago.  Hal Ruzal built me a nice set of clinchers (with classic Campagnolo hubs and Mavic Open Pro rims) and I sold the tubulars that came with "Zebbie" about a month after she came into my life.

I mention all of this to provide context for a story I came across yesterday.  It seems that the tubular vs. clincher, and not the tubeless vs. tubed, question has once again reared its head.

For the 2021 racing season (assuming, of course, there is one), both of Specialized Bike's  World Tour men's teams--Bora Hansgrohe and Deceuninck-Quick Step--have committed to abandoning tubulars for all races except the early-season classics.  Both teams plan, eventually, to get away from sew-ups altogether.

Roval Rapide CLX wheel

What might surprise some people, though, is that they are not casting their lot with tubeless tires.  While both teams used tubeless, as well as tubular, wheels and wheelsets during the shortened 2020 season, their decision to go with clinchers might have been inspired by Julian Alaphilippe's Tour de France stage win on them.  Also, Roval, the wheel-maker of choice for many in the peloton, is making two of its lightest road wheelsets for use only with tubed clincher tires. "When it's possible to create tubeless wheel/tyre systems that outperform tube-type clincher systems, that's what we'll recommend to riders," read a statement from the company that, for the past couple of years, looked ready to go all-in on tubeless clincher tires.

So, for the time being, some of today's young racers on high-tech carbon-fiber bikes have returned to the choice many of us made two or three decades ago:  clincher tires.  With inner tubes.

A Path From Work

Two of my uncles and my maternal grandfather worked on the Brooklyn waterfront docks. I don't think they could have envisioned anyone going there for a leisurely late-afternoon walk or bike ride.  They probably would have thought such an undertaking in the dead of winter was sheer insanity:  After spending the day working outside in the cold, they wanted to ensconce themselves in the warmth of their apartments and the suppers my grandmother and aunts cooked.  

For that matter, my grandfather and uncles probably could not understand how physical activity could be a way to "relax" at the end of a day.  To be fair, grandpa's last gift to me was a bicycle--albeit one I wouldn't be able to ride for a couple of years--and my uncles lived long enough to see that I would not give up two wheels and two pedals the moment I was legally old enough for four wheels and one pedal with a motor.

Then again, they might have thought it odd that someone would construct a bike and pedestrian lane along the waterfront where they unloaded ships--or that anyone would make a trip, whether by bike, bus or car, to it--and pay money to shop in the stores or eat and drink in the cafes around it.  

Really, I had to wonder what they would have thought of me, spinning my pedals along a path that zigs and zags around places where drinks are poured and shopping carts are unloaded--in the very places where men like them hoisted crates and even railroad cars from ships.

What might have been the strangest thing of all, to them, about the ride I took late yesterday is that I actually find beauty in those places--such that I would stop to take a photo of two bare trees in a copse of steel and brick at the time of day when they would have left the Red Hook twilight's metallic haze  for the incandescent glade of their kitchen tables.

Magical Mystery Turismo

I wish I had spent more time....

So begins a familiar deathbed lament.  When the end is imminent, people say they wish they'd spent more time with their kids or grandkids or doing almost anything besides whatever they did for a living or anything else they had to do.

What got me to thinking about that?  Well, if you spend enough time listening to National Public Radio, you could come away thinking that during the lockdowns and other COVID-19 related restrictions, everyone in the world learned a new foreign language or how to bake sourdough bread.  Or they figured out how to do, on Xoom or some other online platform, the things they did before or with flesh-and-blood humans.  If they didn't engage with such pursuits, they were writing novels, making furniture or taking advantage of all of those business opportunities the pandemic presents--assuming, of course, you have the cash to invest.

You have to wonder whether, when things revert to "normal," whatever that mean, some people will say, "Gee, I wish I'd spent more time (fill in the blank) during lockdown."

Well, OK, you don't have to wonder. (Who am I to tell you that, right?)  But I do because, well, my mind wanders into all sorts of dark and arcane places and leads me to all manner of useless knowledge and speculation.  I have, however, started to ask whether I did one particular thing that might have added to the treasure trove of knowledge and wisdom--well, all right, wit and whimsy--found in this blog.

So what could I have spent more time doing--during the pandemic, and before?  Reading old Campagnolo catalogues?  Hmm...Maybe.  Just when I think I know as much about Campy as Sheldon Brown knew about, well, everything (or so it seemed) related to bicycles, I find out something that changes my view of...what I know and don't know. (Is that solipsistically esoteric, or what?)

I console myself with the thought that until I learned--within the past few days--what I'm about to relate, I held the same mistaken belief 99 percent of Campagnolo (or retro-bike) aficionados held.  I can further assuage my guilt feelings by telling myself that while this is fairly significant in the world of cycling, in the scheme of things, it pales in comparison to, say, the fact that until the middle of the sixteenth century or so, almost everybody thought our little orb is flat. 

Believe it or not, some folks--who have access to the same technology you're using to read this--still cling to such a notion.  Then again, millions of people in the richest and most technologically advanced nation the world have ever seen continue to deny the result of said nation's most recent presidential election.  Ergo, according to their logic, Joseph R. Biden is not the Leader of the Free World, just as their country claimed, from 1949 until 1979, that a nation containing one of every four people living on this planet didn't exist.

(Imagine what would have happened if the US hadn't, finally, recognized the People's Republic of China.  Mango Mussolini would've been blaming Mexicans for everything!)

But I digress.  The revelation that shook my foundation--of Campagnolo knowledge, anyway--is the revelation that the Gran Turismo rear derailleur isn't what I--and, probably, you--thought it was.

No, I didn't learn that it actually shifted better on 14-34 freewheels than the SunTour Cyclone GT or Huret Duopar and that mine didn't because I didn't use butter from the milk of buffaloes grazed and milked in the shadow of the Croce d’Aune to lubricate the pulleys.  I didn't learn that because, well, I never actually owned or rode a Gran Turismo. I adjusted and replaced a few GTs when I worked in shops, and even their owners admitted the GT wasn't great.  

What I learned is that the mechanism that looks like a baroque scimitar, and was introduced in 1971, is not the only  Campagnolo derailleur with “Turismo” in its name.  Nearly a decade earlier, Campy brought out a derailleur called simply the "Turismo."  

It bore almost no resemblance to the later contraption bearing the same name.  For one thing, it didn't have those wild red "C" bolts. (For a long time, they were the reason why I wanted to a GT, if only to collect.)  For another, and more important, thing the earlier Turismo doesn't look like it was designed with touring in mind--unless you are a credit-card tourer who sprints across flatlands (flat earth?).  If anything, the Turismo appears to be a less-expensive version of the original Gran Sport, which became the Record/Nuovo Record.

I've spent some time looking up old Campagnolo catalogues.  The only listing I could find for the Turismo is in the 1962 edition.  Then again, Campagnolo sometimes--especially in those days--manufactured items that were never listed, or continued to make or offer parts without listing them.  So it may well be that the Turismo wasn't a one (year)-and-done affair.

1962 Campagnolo Turismo.  I don't know whether they were typical, but the pulleys on this one seemed to be a "transition" or "compromise" between earlier smooth pulleys and later toothed ones.

Campagnolo Gran Turismo, circa 1972

I couldn't find much other information about the derailleur.  But from my knowledge of other Campy stuff, I believe that the  Turismo might have been a "transitional" derailleur.  Their original Gran Sport rear derailleur*--the first with their familiar dropped-parallelogram design--appeared in 1951 and continued until the introduction of the Record (a refinement of the GS) in 1963.  The Record had the same parallelogram as the GS but its pulley cage was offset from the bottom pivot to allow for a more nuanced chain gap between the derailleur and freewheel and, thus, somewhat larger gear capacity. The Turismo, on the other hand, had a slightly longer cage than either the GS or Record and its lower pivot was set to allow more rotation--which, in theory, should have allowed for the self-adjustment in chain gap and greater gear capacity (26T vs 24T) offered by the Record. 

Tullio Campagnolo may well have intended  the 1962 Turismo as a touring derailleur.  If that is the case, it reflects his, and the company's misunderstanding of, or disdain for (depending on what you believe) bicycle touring.  It's equally plausible that he was trying to make a "budget" version of the GS:  The pressed-steel cages and cadmium plating on most parts would indicate as much.  Or, as I posited earlier, the Turismo was to be a "transition" model from the GS to the Record.

Whatever Tullio's reasons for creating it, or how long his company produced it, the Turismo is an interesting curiosity.  Do I wish I've spent more time perusing old Campagnolo catalogues during lockdown?  Well, maybe...

*—The original Campagnolo Gran Sport, made from 1951 to 1963, is similar in design but different in materials and finish from the derailleur with the same name that was produced from 1975 to 1985.  The original GS was Campy’s “professional “ offering, while the later one was the company’s second-line (to the Record/Nuovo Record) offering.

Going Back Is Not An Option

I am writing, now, during the final hours of Donald Trump's presidency. I have no wish to analyze, interpret or even comment on it; really, there is much about it I'd prefer not to remember, at least now. 

To tell you the truth, I can't analyze or interpret or comment because I'm not thinking at this moment.  I'm not even sure that I can:  My mind's eye is projecting a stream of images, a riot of feelings, some related to personal experience, others coming from seemingly unrelated works of art.

About the latter:  One is a story I first read many years ago, and assigned in a few of my classes:  Eudora Welty's "A Worn Path."  The protagonist, an elderly black woman named Phoenix Jackson, trudges along the "worn path" through all manner of obstacles--as winter is bearing down--to get to town, ostensibly to procure medicine for her grandson who, as she tells the nurse who supplies it, never fully recovered from the damage to his throat caused by swallowing lye.  

What she encounters sees along the way is so real that it seems hallucinatory, or so hallucinatory that it seems real, depending on your point of view.  The nurse treats her with condescension and casts doubt on, not only Phoenix's story about her grandson swallowing lye, but even on the existence of the grandson himself.  But, perhaps, it doesn't matter whether Phoenix's story is actually true or the grandson is alive or ever existed in the first place.  One senses (or at least I sensed) that Phoenix had to make that journey, for whatever reason.  Or, more precisely, she couldn't not make it--perhaps she simply couldn't stay wherever she was.

A favorite film of mine, Cafe Transit  (released in the Anglophone world as Border Cafe), is full of characters like Phoenix. The film opens with Reyhan just having lost her husband and deciding to support herself and two young daughters by taking over his cafe, located on a mountainous Iranian road near the Turkish border.  

Because of its location, the cafe serves as a meeting and stopping-off point for people on their way to or from one place to another.  Some, like a Russian girl who lost most of her family members and who survived a sexual assault by a truck driver, have a definite destination:  She wants to be reunited with her sister, her sole surviving family member, in Italy.  Reyhan gives her an almost maternal welcome.  Others, like a Greek truck driver who takes a liking to Reyhan, simply can't or won't return home, whether because of some trauma (like the driver's wife leaving him) or because that home is gone.  

I mention all of this because while most viewers and reviewers focused (as I did, the first time I saw the film) on Reyhan's independence, I think she shared this with those other characters:  She was moving forward--on the road ahead, as it were--because, really, she couldn't do anything else.  For her, supporting herself and her kids wasn't about making a statement or defying the norms of her society:  Taking over that cafe, and making those meals (which you can practically taste while watching the film!) is her path.  

In other words, hers was not an act of defiance; she simply knew that following the norms of her culture by assenting to her brother-in-law's desire to become her second husband wasn't for her.  He wasn't a monster or villain--if anything, he's rather sympathetic, at least until the end of the film; she simply knew that her way forward didn't include him.  And the way forward was all she had.

So it was when I took  two of the most important bike rides I've ever taken.  One I described in "The Mountain We Climbed" and "Up the Col du Galibier." The other, shorter and less arduous, I took about a year later:  the last one from the apartment I shared with my former partner to my current life.  I had moved almost all of my stuff to my new place; I went back to pick up a few small things I'd left--intentionally, so I would have to take that ride?

I feel as if the coming Biden presidency will be like those journeys:  None of us knows what lies ahead; we just know that we must move ahead.  Going back is not an option.