Hey Dude! Catch This Wave!

For a few years, I did a pretty fair amount of mountain biking.  I even had two "crews" I rode with.  In one of them, I was the only white, non-Caribbean rider; in the other I was the oldest.  We rode, went out to eat, went to movies and engaged in all sorts of ribaldry.   And we talked a lot of trash--to and about each other and everyone else in the world, it seemed--all in good fun, of course.

I have never surfed, but somehow this milieu reminded me of what I always imagine "boarders" enjoyed with each other.  We had a kind of high-octane testosterone-fueled camaraderie and egged each other on in making fast turns and drops and, on occasion, chatting up women.  (Oh, if they could see me now..;-)).  Much of the slang we, and other mountain bikers, used at that time was that of surfers.  Someone who took a tumble "wiped out", tough terrain was "gnarly" and anything particularly pleasurable or exhilarating was "bitchin'! and could leave us "stoked".

Oh, yeah, and the way we, and other mountain bikers used the word "dude".  Yes, it was a slang term for anyone male, but it was also used as an all-purpose rhetorical exclamation. "Du-u--de!" Lots of riders would yell it when bombing down a steep drop. 

It all made sense to me when I realized that in some ways, mountain biking--especially the downhill variety--has a similar thrill, a kind of adrenaline rush, that "riding the waves" does.  Even cross-country riding has some of that feel:  When you ride fast through turns and over rocks, creeks and such, after a certain point, it's not about how hard or fast you're pedaling; you stay on your bike and move forward to the degree that you can ride the "waves" of whatever terrain your tire treads roll over.

So, I guess, it does make sense that someone actually created this:




From Charlie Kelly's website

"Soon to Revolutionize Self Propelled (sic) Recreational Vehicles"?  It must really be revolutionary if the rider doesn't need a helmet or other protective equipment!

Now I'm The "Older Woman" Riding A Bike

Time was (How many posts have I started with that phrase?) back in the day (Or that?) when I could develop love interests only with people who were older than me.  Or, at least, I couldn’t get involved with people who were younger than I was.

Anyway, I was describing my old dilemma, if you will, to a friend.  She sighed knowingly.  “I understand how you feel,” she said.  “The young ones look good.  But finding one with whom you have much in common is difficult.”

“Forget that,” I retorted.  “I’m getting to an age where there are fewer and fewer people who are older than I am.”

She laughed.  “And, you know, when you look for men who are available and don’t have baggage, the pool shrinks even more,” she added.

I didn’t tell her that I wouldn’t limit my prospects to men.  If I can find a woman close to my age with whom I’m compatible, I could make the rest of it work, I think.

Why am I talking about these things?  Well, I found myself thinking about my concept of “older” the other day while riding home.  What triggered such a rumination?  

While riding to work, I saw two women who, from all appearances, were in the later stages of middle age. (No, they're not the ones in the photo!) One rode a Cannondale road bike with dropped bars; the other pushed pedals on a Specialized hybrid or flat-bar road bike.  Both looked as if they were dressed from the Terry catalogue.  

 Then, during my bike ride home, I saw a woman who seemed a few years older than the two women I encountered earlier.  She could have been a poster child for the AARP.  Her scarf very stylishly swirled a pastel paisley between her neck and breasts; her pants and blouse were tailored but un-self-conscious.  She was navigating the streets on what looked like a French mixte of some sort:  I couldn’t see the brand, but I knew it wasn’t Peugeot, Motobecane, Gitane, Ficelle or any of the other Gallic marques I know.

Later, as I dismounted my bike in front of my place, I saw a woman riding an English three-speed down my street.  That itself was not as remarkable as that she was, apparently, older than the other women I saw by at least a decade.  What’s more, she looked as if she’d been living in the neighborhood all of her life.  If that is part of her story, she is probably Greek or Italian (She looked the part) and, most likely, the wife of a blue-collar or middle-class worker.

Time was  (There’s that phrase again!), not so long ago, when a woman like her would not have been on a bicycle.  Nor would her husband or any other member of her family old enough to drive.  For that matter, I would not have seen women like the others I mentioned.  

As I’ve mentioned in other posts, when I was in my late twenties and thirties, I could ride the whole length of Vernon Boulevard, near where I live now, cross the Pulaski Bridge and ride down Kent Avenue and further along the Brooklyn side of the East River and New York Bay without seeing another cyclist.  Back then, most of the neighborhoods were blue-collar or lower middle-class, except for some then-low-income areas of Williamsburg and Sunset Park.  The culture of those places was much like that of the neighborhoods in which I grew up:  You simply didn’t ride a bicycle if you were old enough to drive a car, whether or not you actually drove one.

 

Furthermore, those rare adult cyclists I encountered were all male.  Most were close to my age; occasionally, I’d pass one who were older than my parents.  Usually, such an older male cyclist was an immigrant who never gave up the habit, so to speak, after settling in the New World.  But I never saw a female cyclist unless I rode into a neighborhood like Brooklyn Heights or the Upper East Side or out of the city into a suburban enclave.  The few I saw weren’t commuting or running errands; perhaps they were riding for fitness, but most likely, just to decompress.  

It was rarer yet to see “older” women ride.  Of course, at that time, my elders were in their late thirties or older.  I recall two simply because they were so unusual:  One, who was probably in her forties, wore a Chanel suit and slingbacks while riding a women’s Colnago--to this day, the only one of those bikes I've ever seen.  The other rode with my bike club; she was about the same age I am now.  Even more interestingly, her husband didn’t ride.

I’m her now, minus the husband.  That is to say, I’m an “older” woman, at least in the way I used to define it.  Although I like it, I often wish I could have begun my gender transition at an earlier age so I could have lived more of my life as a woman.  Then again, given the conditions of the time, would I have grown up to be that woman I so admired on our club rides?  Or the one I saw on the Colnago?  Or one of those women “of a certain age” I used to see riding to marketplaces, to parks, to stores and offices—sometimes to their jobs—when I was living in Europe?

An Old Riding Partner--Or Racing Rival?

"Mind if I ride your wheel?"

"No, not at all!"

He didn't realize it's the best--or, at least my favorite--question anyone has asked me in a while. It's  as good as "How old are you?  Forty?"

We'd been playing "tag" along Cross Bay Boulevard, the road that runs the length of an island in Jamaica Bay between Howard Beach and Rockaway Beach.  It's a long (about 4km) flat stretch, which makes almost anyone on a bike feel like a sprinter, at least for a few minutes.  The day was sunny, though chilly, and we were buffeted by the winds one expects at this time of year.  Still, I think both he and I felt  about ten years younger.

Actually, I felt even younger than that. A man--a trim one, who looked like he'd been riding more than I'd been--wanting to draft my wheel.  Hey, if he'd asked me, I probably would have pulled him with one hand!

Somehow he looked familiar.  He was maybe a centimeter, if that, taller than me and, as I mentioned, trimmer.  His dark beard was flecked with gray, and his fair black skin had a few small wrinkles.  I'd've guessed him to be close to my own age.  That guess would turn out to be correct.

As we talked, I couldn't help but to think we'd met--actually, ridden--together.  When I was living in Park Slope, he was living on the other side of Prospect Park, in Crown Heights.  Now he lives in Bedford-Stuyvesant.  So, naturally, we talked about riding in Prospect Park, and how we both had the "ten lap" rule:  Once we could ride that much in the park without much effort--something that would happen around this time of year, maybe a bit earlier--we'd "graduate" to longer rides outside the park,and even outside of Brooklyn or New York City.  I had a feeling I'd ridden with him on at least one of those longer rides; he had the same feeling. 

He also mentioned that he'd road-raced, around the same time I did.  Like me, he quit racing (and I also stopped riding off-road) after turning 40:  Although, ironically, I had more strength and endurance than I did 15 years earlier, my wounds weren't healing as quickly as they once did.  He also gave that as a reason for not chasing trophies, and other riders.

I rode with him for a couple of hours and, actually, off the route I'd planned to ride.  But I didn't mind:  Just as I was wondering whether I'd ever get myself into any kind of shape, ever again, he wanted to ride my wheel.  And he thought I'd been riding more than he'd been.  To be fair, I have to give at least some of the credit to Arielle:

To answer a question you might be asking:  He gave me his name (which was familiar) and told me where he works.