If the Other Shoe Doesn't Drop, It Popped Out of My Commuter Basket

I don't get sick often.  But it seems that when I do, I am ridiculously busy as soon as I get back to my normal routine.  And so it has been the last two days.


Well, at least I got to ride to and from both jobs today, and the other day.  Both days were full of fall colors and decidedly non-autumnal warmth.  Yesterday, on the other hand, we had weather that was even less autumnal, except for the kind of light we had:  Wind-driven downpours frizzed and soaked everything in sight so that even the reflections of sidewalks in the windows frizzed and soaked like cats dropped into swimming pools.


So...an unrideable day was sandwiched between two days of near-perfect riding conditions. I guess I'd rather have it that way than the other way around.


I was running a bit late this morning on my way to my regular job.  So I barreled down streets--including a stretch of one that looked like a washbord and made me feel as if I were riding on one--like a moonshiner on a backwoods Southern road during Prohibition.  I don't know whether it had to do with the vibrations or my blood pumping (or both), but  felt as if the things that had been making me sick were leaping out of my body.  


Even with all of the vibrations that shook me--and even though I was riding to work--I was enjoying the ride as if it were a foliage weekend tour in Vermont.  Inside one of the rear baskets, I carried a canvas tote bag that contained my students' papers, a textbook for one of the courses I teach and a pair of black patent slingback high heels.


The only problem was that when I got to work and reached into the bag, only the left shoe was in it!  I checked inside the bag and  in the area surrounding the spot where I parked my LeTour and up the block:  No luck.  I didn't have time to re-trace my route.


 So I was reduced  (literally) to spending the day in the black flats in which I'd pedaled.  They aren't bad-lookng shoes, and they're very comfortable.  And, to tell the truth, they really weren't bad with my outfit, which consisted of a plum-maroon cardigan with gray piping over a lavender blouse, a flannel skirt in the same shade of gray as the pipng, and a pair of sheer pantyhose in that same hue.  As one of my students said, it all looked "very elegant."  But the patent slingbacks with three-inch heels would have given it a bit more pizazz.


Oh well.  Maybe some kid along my route found that other shoe.  I guess if the kid were mine, I'd rather that he or she found a middle-aged woman's dress shoe in size 11 wide than a crack vial or shell casing!

Cycling To Work In A "Hippie" Skirt

Yesterday the new semester started.  Had it been a movie, it would have been the beginning of best time in mine, or someone else’s life:  The rain of the previous three days had passed and the sky was even clearer and bluer than the bodies of water one sees on postcards.

Naturally, I rode my bike to work.  As I was not looking forward to going to my regular job, I needed something to pump up my Happy Hormones (or endorphins, or whatever you want to call them).  I also knew that wearing a favorite outfit—one in which I feel both confident and comfortable—would help.

But I needed a way to wear it—specifically, the skirt—while riding my bike.  Even though clearing the top bar on the LeTour wasn’t a problem, the skirt—which drapes nearly to my ankles when I stand up—could get caught in the chain or between the brake pad and rim.  I haven’t yet installed the dress guard “Velouria” gave me. 

So what’s a lady prof to do?  

Turns out, there’s a really simple solution.  All you need is an extra-large paper clamp.  All you have to do is to gather the skirt so that you can clip it, but not so tightly that you can’t move your legs freely.

It’s best to gather and clamp your skirt when you’re seated, in a position in which you typically ride, on the bike.  The first time I tried it, I had trouble mounting the seat because I’d effectively made a strait jacket around my thighs.  And of course you don’t want to wrap or clamp the skirt around your knees. 

I wonder whether anyone else has tried my skirt-clamping method. 

Now I’m thinking about how I used heavy rubber bands whenever I rode in trousers.  As with the skirt on the clamp, I found that I liked to pull on the rubber bands when I was seated on the bike, maninly because I didn’t want the trouser leg or the rubber band to rub and chafe the bottom of my calf or other sensitive areas.  Also, I found that if I wore the band too low, it would slide off the pants and onto my ankle.  (That’s what the reflective bands with Velcro, which were popular a while back, seemed to always do.)

After work, I took a ride to one of my favorite spots in Queens:  Fort Totten.  It’s at the western end of Long Island Sound and within sight of the Whitestone Bridge.  Just across the cove, it’s Gatsby country, where white sails skitter in the wind like white crests that cap the ripples on the water.

You may have noticed that I said “my regular job.”  That’s because in addition to it, I am teaching a course in another college:  the one I visited last week.  The chair offered me a class that started yesterday.  And it’s at the perfect time:  After my regular college job, I have enough time to pedal there.

And, because I had to take care of business at my new gig, I stayed a bit later than I anticipated.  But when I rode to Fort Totten, I didn’t mind, because from there, the majority of my ride home would skirt the bay.  The sun began to set as I neared the World’s Fair Marina.

Oh, I should mention this:  I rode 11 miles to my regular job, another six and a half to my part-time gig and about eighteen home in my clamped skirt, all after getting up at five a.m.—after going to bed at two a.m.  Although I felt good when I got home, I didn’t want to cook or otherwise prepare my supper.  So I stopped at the the King of Felafel and Shawarma for one of their wonderful chicken and rice plates.  Not long after bringing it back to my place and eating it, I fell asleep.

Keeping Your Balance: It's In The Shoes

"Life is like riding a bicycle.  To keep your balance, you have to keep on moving."


Who said that?  This guy:

Anyone who can, or even tried, to explain the universe is entitled to a theory or two about life, doncha think?


But you can't keep moving unless you start.  And you can't start if you can't get on the machine:

Emma, I don't mean to be condescending, but you can do it.  If I can ride my diamond-frame fixed-gear bike in a short, snug skirt and boots, and a long jacket, you can do it, too.    If you need some guidance, take a look here:  http://www.sfbike.org/?diva.


On the other hand, you can do things the easy way:

Then again, Audrey Hepburn made everything look easy, or at least effortless.  Isn't that the definition of grace?


Lance said it's not about the bicycle.  He knew a thing or two about moving forward.  One thing he didn't mention--because he couldn't have known--is that a lady needs the proper shoes for cycling:

A big "thank you" to the editor of "Girls and Bicycles" for setting me straight--to the extent that anybody can do that! ;-)


Doncha know?  Bike shoes are for cycling, not walking.  At least, that's what I used to tell customers when I was trying to convince them to spend $200 on a pair of shoes to go with their $200 pedals and $30 cleats.  I actually believed that.  I also believed that one could not move forward--and therefore keep one's balance--without the proper shoes.


Today I know that for a fact.  The difference is in my definition of the proper shoes.  But sometimes it's hard to find them in size 11 wide. 

Still, I will keep moving forward.  And keep my balance.  After all, isn't that what being a woman on a bicycle is all about?  

I Rode That Way Then Because This Is How I Ride Now

"Velouria" wrote about me and this blog on her "Lovely Bicycle!" blog.  


She made me blush.  I may not know much, but I know this:  The only thing better than a man who can make a woman blush is another woman who can make another woman blush!


Part of me wonders whether I deserve such a wonderful write-up. First of all, look at the photo at the top of her blog and the one at the top of this one.  Not only is she (or whoever took that photo) a better photographer than I'll ever be, she's also more beautiful and stylish.   Take a look another look at that photo:  Do you really think I can compete with that?


Also, look at the layout and design of Lovely Bicycle!  I wouldn't have a clue as to how to do anything like that. And, finally, read her writing and compare it to my ragged prose.


But, hey, what can I say?  I'll take the compliments.  Besides, she's right definitely right about the fact that I've experienced two completely different aspects of cycling, and I'm one of the very few people who's experienced both of them.  


The funny thing is that I was the "lycra-wearing, hard-training, fast-spinning, Alps-conquering roadie...named Nick" precisely because I wanted to be "the woman who cycles to work in a skirt and heels."  Or, more precisely, I was the hard-riding guy precisely because I always knew that, deep down, I was, and was meant to be, that woman cycling to work, to the marketplace and down a country lane to the sea.


So why did I live and cycle as I did?  Well, I have to admit, I enjoyed competitive riding, whether or not it was sanctioned in a race, and the camaraderie that accompanied and followed it.  But I now realize that I wanted to ride as hard and as long as I did because I had so much anger in me.  By now, you probably realize what forged much of that anger:  the cauldron of rage that roiled from the fires of my unfulfilled desire--to live as the woman that I always knew myself to be.


Some guys' worst nightmare is finding out that the girl for whom they've fallen was once a guy--and probably even more of a guy than any of them ever were!  Of course, I don't mean to make light of that:  Too many of us have been killed over that. But, it's hard not to see the irony in it, and to apply it to my cycling life:  What if some of those guys I used to ride with and against were to meet me today?  

Actually, one of those guys has.  And he's taken it very well.  He has an even stronger sense of himself than I ever imagined he did.  What am I saying?  Back in the day, I wasn't even thinking about whether he or anyone else was secure within his own skin.  There was simply no way I--as I was in those days-- could have thought about that. 


But as for the other guys...well, I'll tell you about one of them.  He would have utterly despised me, as I am now.  Or, at least, he would not have been seen with me, whether or not either of us was on a bike.  But I know for a fact that if no one else were watching, I am the very first person he would have come to, for love, advice or just about anything else.  He would have--if he were honest with himself--spent the night with me rather than with his wife or any girlfriend he ever had--or, for that matter, almost any other woman and absolutely any man.  He would have gone for rides with me for the same reasons he would have gone to museums, poetry readings and stores, and walked the streets of Paris, San Francisco, Rome and Boston with me.  


Actually, he wouldn't have done any of those things with me.  He did those things with me.  What's more, he did them with me, and in the presence of his wife and girlfriends.


By now, you've probably figured out who that man was.  Yes, he was me.  And he was who he was--including that "lycra-wearing, hard-training, fast-spinning, Alps-conquering roadie"--because he was me:  the "woman who cycles to work in skirts and heels."