About Last Night

Today I will once again invoke my "Howard Cosell rule." That means today's post won't involve bicycles or bicycling.

By now, you know what happened last night.  During the previous two Presidential elections, I admonished friends, co-workers and other people I knew not to be so confident that Donald Trump "didn't have a chance" to win.  Ironically enough, I was, in my own way, pointing out  exactly what the right-wing pundits and media accuse them of:  not seeing anything outside of their liberal/New York/academic "bubble."

The first time, in 2016, I was accused of being "alarmist," "too sensitive" or even "paranoid" for expressing my fear of a Trump victory.  Even in the 2020 contest, held during the worst of the COVID pandemic, I didn't think another Trump victory was beyond possibility:  It seemed that his mistakes emboldened him, and his supporters, precisely because he seemed not to learn from them. Those same supporters believed Trump had a second term "stolen" from him and the Capitol riot was a "peaceful protest."  

Some of my friends and co-workers who couldn't or wouldn't see the world (or, more precisely, the USA) beyond the Hudson simply didn't understand someone in a moribund small town or rural area who saw his (or, in rarer cases, her or their) place in this country threatened by immigrants or people of color. Or why they believed that they were losing their rights as women, racial minorities and LGBTQ people were gaining those same rights.  

I could, because I was once one of those white males who believed I was being told to "shut up and pay your taxes" so that others could "sponge off" the system and, through "affirmative action," was being denied jobs that went to people who were less qualified than I was.  And throughout my life I have remained in contact, partly through family ties, with people who believe people like me and others different from themselves are getting "special privileges" when they are simply afforded the same consideration for education, jobs and other things cisgender heterosexual Caucasian Christian men (and, to a lesser degree, women) could take for granted, even if they weren't wealthy.

My views have changed, in part because of affirming my gender identity (what some people still call "gender transition" or "gender change"). Donald Trump's hostility toward transgender people is obvious.  Now that he is older and less inhibited than he was during his previous term, I fear that he will have less, if any, compunction about  targeting us in ways that Ron de Santis and Vivek Ramaswamy couldn't envision--or, at least, couldn't execute because they don't have the governmental and other resources available to them that Trump will enjoy as President. He has talked about ending protections equality for us. And too many of his supporters simply hate us, whether for religious reasons or because of their views about "masculinity" and "femininity." Worst of all, as we saw in the Capitol riots, they feel emboldened by his rhetoric and personality to commit violence against us, and anyone else they see as a threat to their world-view.

The last clause in the previous sentence, unfortunately, illustrates the political and intellectual climate of this country.  I am old enough to remember when if you were of one party and debated someone from the other, you could at least have a fairly civilized discussion of economics, foreign policy, social issues or even the arts.  Now it is a fight over your right to simply exist.  And that is what I fear most about the upcoming Trump term:  For me, and others like me, it will be simply about staying alive, much less out of prison or a mental hospital (to which we could be committed involuntarily). 

I also fear that too many of my fellow Harris supporters will understand why she lost this election even less than they could have fathomed a Clinton defeat/Trump victory in 2016.  That is the biggest reason--not the "low information voters" or people who "vote against their interests"--why Trump won again last night and why his second term could be more ominous than his first.

A Dying Breed?

 

Curtis Phillip, one of New York’s last remaining bike messengers. Photo by Kay Bonrempo.

In 1983-84 I worked for two small businesses in the same industry. Both are long gone. That, on its face, is not remarkable: Few small businesses, in any industry, last four decades.

I have noticed, however, that none of the other companies that were part of that industry when I was working in it are still in business. In fact, industry itself barely exists and what remains of it is very different.

I am talking about the bicycle courier business. Not so long ago, one would see legions of cyclists, most of them young men, large rectangular bags slung across their bodies. pedaling fixed-gear bikes in slaloms through throngs of buses, taxicabs, vans and pedestrians.

I was one of those couriers, and I saw hundreds of them every day. Now I rarely see even one, even in the Wall Street and Midtown areas of Manhattan.

Apparently, bike messengers like the ones I’ve described are a dying breed, not only in New York, but also in Washington DC and other major cities. Their disappearance has been hastened by the pandemic: Many professionals and businesses still haven’t returned to their traditional downtown office spaces.

But the decline of the bike courier business and bike messenger culture has been unfolding for decades: more or less since I made my last delivery four decades ago. While the world-wide web hadn’t come into existence, there were networks that linked computers within certain geographical areas and industries. And fax machines were already in fairly wide use.  Documents that didn’t require physical signatures could therefore be sent remotely. 

For a decade or so after I left the business, the number of messengers didn’t seem to decline much, if at all. They were, however, getting less work and their pay—whether by the hour as or per delivery—stagnated or declined. From what I’ve heard and read, messengers today make less in actual—not adjusted—dollars than I made 40 years ago.

Another blow to the world of messengering I knew was, if not a direct result of, then at least accelerated by, the pandemic: food delivery apps. When people used them, they discovered that they could get their sushi brought to them for less than it cost to deliver a sales report. They lost what little reason and inclination they might have had to use a messenger service like the ones for which I worked.

Some bike messengers became “hybrids”: They combined food delivery with ferrying documents and small packages to offices. Those couriers, however, found that delivering food ordered on Door Dash or Grub Hub was taking more of their work day. Some quit because orders placed  on apps paid less than their old messenger companies; others didn’t or couldn’t (or didn’t want to) become part of the new wave of delivery workers who ride eBikes or mopeds.

80 Years Ago Today: D-Day

 Eighty years ago today, uniformed fighters from Australia, Canada, Czechoslovakia, France, Greece, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, South Africa, Southern Rhodesia and, of course, the United Kingdom and the United States, staged the largest seaborne invasion in history. Today we know it as D-Day.

I reckon that not many of those soldiers, sailors and other fighters who opened the door to liberating Europe from the Nazis are alive today. It seems not so long ago that there were many more survivors—you saw them at Memorial and Veterans’ Day parades and other events—and they weren’t much older than I am now!

Anyway, I am observing this day precisely because I am a (mostly) pacifist:  While I understand that Hitler may have been, as Kurt Vonnegut described him, “pure evil” and had to be stopped, I also understand that war is not only about the fighting itself or the ostensible causes; it’s also about the social and economic factors—including tax laws that reward a few people for making war on the planet, if you will. I shudder to think about the lives that have been wasted and ruined—including those of many veterans—as a result. 

In other words, ensuring that no veteran wants is one of the things we must do in order to work for peace.

Now that I’ve delivered my message, such as it is, for this day, I am leaving you with images of soldiers who landed on the Normandy beaches with bicycles strapped to their backs.  Of course they weren’t going for a pleasant tour in the countryside. They brought those bikes, which folded in the middle, because they could reach places, swiftly and silently, that couldn’t be accessed with motorized vehicles.

Whither Campagnolo?

Photo by Will Jones

I can still remember the day I finally attained a full-Campagnolo Record-equipped bicycle.

My Trek 930 racing bike, made from Columbus SL tubing, had one last non-Campy part:  Galli brakes.  They were essentially lighter-weight Italian versions of late-1970s Dura-Ace.  I'd bought them for another bike because the price was reasonable and they were gold anodized--which, I thought, looked really bad-ass on the bike which, like the Trek, was black.

One of the mail-order companies--Nashbar, I believe--ran a dead-of-winter sale on Campy and other stuff.  I bought the brakes, for even less than I could have had them with my employees' discount (i.e., wholesale price) at Highland Park Cyclery, where I'd been working the previous season.  Frank, the owner and head mechanic, said he didn't blame me for buying them at that price--$59.00, if I remember correctly.  (They typically sold for around $80-100 in the early 1980s.)  

Did the Campagnolo Record Brakes stop or modulate any more efficiently than the Gallis?  No.  But in those days, having a bike that was tutti Campagnolo was like having a book by your favorite writer inscribed and signed by that writer.  Just as having such a volume wouldn't make you a better writer,  having a set of components designed by Tullio himself, and made by little elves in Vicenza (all right, I know that's not true)--and, more to the point, ridden by nearly everyone in the professional peloton--didn't make you ride faster or break the wind for you.  But it sure felt as if Campy's stuff--even his gold-plated corkscrew--held some sort of mystique.

Oh, and better yet, I had an all-Italian bike.  Well, sort of.  The Trek frame was made in the US--by Tim Isaacson--but, as I mentioned, from Columbus SL tubing (the lightest available at the time) in a more-or-less Italian style.  Oh, and the French Mavic rims and Ideale 2002 saddle (my favorite racing saddle at the time), were "honorary Italian:"  members of the peloton and rich Sunday riders alike rode them on their Campy-equipped machines.  Ditto for the DT spokes.

Now, to be fair, Campagnolo Record components had a mostly-deserved reputation for performance and durability.  To this day, I don't think a better traditional ball-bearing hub or bottom bracket has been made.  While the brakes weren't the best at braking, and the cranks sometimes cracked under heavy use, they held up well for most riders and were beautiful.

But even if you never won--or entered--a race, having a Campagnolo Record-equipped bike gave you cred, to yourself and possibly to others who shared your obsession or were simply status seekers.

It's that last group of riders --or, in some cases, non-riders-- who, according to Will Jones, Davide Campagnolo (the grandson of founder Tullio) is courting.  The Cycling News tech writer, in sighing, "meh!" to the Campagnolo's latest offerings, wondered about the company's direction, if any.  He got his answer in Signor Davide's declaration that Campagnolo is becoming a "sports luxury" brand.

He's thus said the quiet part out loud. Although Campagnolo had a near-monopoly on the peloton for about two decades, many weekend cyclists bought their stuff as much for prestige as for performance.  So, in that sense, for those who weren't racing or racking up thousands of miles every year, Campagnolo has been indeed a luxury brand.

Jones inferred that the emphasis will be on "luxury."  That, to me, begs this question:  How would whatever Davide is planning be different from, say,  Armani or Versace offering bicycle clothing? Or Ferragamo cycling shoes or Gucci bike bags or other accessories?

Here is another indication that the emphasis will be on status and fashion:  Last year, among World Tour teams (the ones that compete in the Tour de France, Giro d'Italia and other prestigious races)  only AG2R-Citroen's bikes sported the Italian maker's components. This year, no World Tour team is riding them.

When They Arrived

 Once again, I will invoke my Howard Cosell rule to write about something that doesn't directly relate to bicycles or bicycling.

At least this time, I am invoking that rule to commemorate a joyous occasion.  

On this date in 1964, four young "lads from Liverpool" stepped off a Pan Am flight in a recently-renamed airport.  In a scene that couldn't be replicated today, millions of young people thronged the terminal and spilled onto the tarmac. (Post-9/11 security measures would not allow such a thing.) According to witnesses, those youngsters--mainly girls--squealed and cheered so loudly that one couldn't hear planes taking off.

Some argue that "fangirls" and, to a lesser extent, "fanboys" were born that day.  Whether or not that was true, it's hard to imagine such a raucous reception for any other group or performer.

I am talking, of course, about the Beatles.  The airport where they first set foot on American soil was formerly known as Idlewild but had recently been re-christened as John F. Kennedy International Airport.

The timing of John, Paul, George and Ringo could hardly have been more fortuitous.  Just two months and two weeks earlier, JFK was gunned down in Dallas. I was a very young child during that time and didn't understand the events, but I could feel the grief that filled the air after the President's death and the joy--a catharsis (a word I wouldn't learn until much later) that the "Fab Four" released.

Now, as a lifelong Beatles fan, I will say this:  Those early tunes were sappy love songs.  So were many hits from the pioneers of rock'n'roll--who by that time were nearing, or had recently passed, 30 years of age.  They wouldn't have looked or sounded right doing songs like them but Elvis, Chuck and others from the "doo-wop" generation hadn't yet found their new directions.  The "lads," on the other hand, were still young enough for such things.  And, I believe--with the benefit of hindsight--that people wanted those songs and, more important, the youthful, upbeat energy the Beatles exuded at that point.

Of course, their music would become very different.  But I think their energy was exactly what was needed to move rock'n'roll music forward so that it could absorb such diverse elements and influences as the sitar, Bach and Scottish folk ballads.  Oh, and they even would do a song with lyrics in French--a language none of them spoke.  (Jan Vaughan, a French teacher and the wife of an old friend of Paul's, wrote them.) So, it might be said that the Beatles made, or at least helped to make, rock'n'roll into an international musical genre.

Also, the Beatles helped to change fashions in hair and clothing--and, more importantly, to influence the ways we see gender and sexuality.  Even though they were undeniably straight cisgender men, they were criticized and mocked because their hair and clothing didn't comport with the expectations of men at that time.  

Now that I think of it, they may have had a role, however small, in sparking or stoking the '70's Bike Boom in North America.  The Beatles themselves, especially John, seemed to enjoy cycling.  That was not unusual for adult men--in England, their home country.  But not so in the US:  the bicycle was seen as a toy or, if an adolescent used it for transportation, he or she passed it on to a younger sibling or neighbor, or a parent discarded it, once the kid was old enough to drive.  And at that point in their lives, young people were expected to act and dress "like grown-ups":  coats and ties for men, skirts or dresses and high heels for women.

That the Beatles would, in time, appear on stage and for recording sessions in jeans and T-shirts or dashikis no doubt showed millions of other people, mostly young, they could do the same.  And, let's face it, even if your bike has full fenders and an all-enclosing chainguard, you'd rather ride in comfortable clothing that can be easily washed. Oh, and who wouldn't want to ride with "Here Comes The Sun" as an earworm?

I must end this post, however, by noting that I formulated the Howard Cosell Rule because of one Beatle in particular--or, more precisely, how he met his demise.  Cosell interrupted his play-by-play commentary of an NFL game to announce that John Lennon had been murdered on the night of 8 December 1980.  Cosell and Lennon were friends and, I am sure, influences on each other. 

A Mirror?

 Recently, I heard someone refer to cyclists as "narcissists."

Of course, my reaction was to think, "It takes one to know one."  I think that person was saying that we are entitled or a privileged class because we now have bike lanes--never mind that riding on some of them, at least here in New York, is more dangerous than cycling on the streets.

That person might have been right, in a way.  Narcissus saw his own reflection.   

Of course, we won't fall onto the pavement while kissing an image of ourselves.  At least not intentionally.

JFK: What If?

 

I hesitated to write this post.  But even if what I say seems irrelevant or simply wrong, I have to say it.

As you’ve heard by now, sixty years ago today, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated.

I was a very, very young child that day.  My memories of that time are not of the event itself, but of people expressing grief or—to use a word that I wouldn’t learn until many years later.  Even in Brooklyn, where I lived at the time, there were people who hated Kennedy as much as any Klan member, and for the same reasons.

I would say, though, that grief or, at least, shock. He was the first Roman Catholic to become President, and most of the people in my neighborhood shared his faith or, at least, attended the same kinds of churches.  Most of the non-Catholics in our community were Jewish—working-class, like us—and felt as much as we did that JFK “belonged” to them.

I’ll spare you all of the hackneyed rhetoric about the youthfulness and optimism he radiated. And I won’t insult your intelligence by repeating that oft-echoed canard that the nation “lost its innocence” that day.  This nation was never innocent; nor was any other, ever.

And for all that he accomplished, his re-election in 1964 probably wouldn’t have been a “slam-dunk.” People referred to the states south of the Mason-Dixon Line as the “Solid South:”  Democrats had won most elections, from those for Congress and governors’ mansion all the way down to dog-catcher, for the century that had elapsed since the Civil War. But the “Dixiecrats” had completely different ideas about race relations and other issues from those of Democrats like Kennedy and Franklin D. Roosevelt. They, however, needed Dixiecrats’ support not only to win elections, but also to pass legislation.

It almost goes without saying that if JFK had lived and won the next election, we would be living in a very different—and, I believe, better—country. For one thing, it would be easier (though not easy; it never is) to be non-White, non-male, non-heterosexual non-cisgender and non-wealthy. I think legislation intended to guarantee the rights of people I’ve mentioned (who include me) would have passed sooner and wouldn’t have been weakened.

I also think we’d be in a “greener” country.  JFK was the first President since pre-war JFK whose guiding principles included environmental consciousness. Most of his efforts focused on coastal landscapes because those were most familiar to him as someone who sailed from Cape Cod. But I believe that his consciousness about the natural world would have expanded—which would have helped to foster an environment that encouraged research and development of cleaner energy sources—at least in part because of his friendship with Rachel Carlson.

Who knows?  If Kennedy had lived and served longer, the bicycle might be seen as a mode of transportation and not a toy for kids-or adults. Might we have more and better bike lanes? Would my hometown of New York be the new New Amsterdam?

The Chains Of Freedom

 At one time in my life, I knew just enough German to get myself in trouble in Cologne. Still, it’s more than I know now. So, I have to accept it on the authority of someone I know—a German soaker—that Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels didn’t actually write “Workers of the world unite; you have nothing to lose but your chains.”  Rather, the last line is more properly translated as, “Proletarians of the world, unite!”  The second part, “you have nothing to lose but your chains,” was added in a translation Engels approved.

Another aphorism commonly and mistakenly attributed to the authors of the Communist Manifesto is, “The truth shall set you free.” While they may have agreed with it, they—or, at least Marx—would not have approved of its source:  the Bible, specifically, John 8:31-32.

It is therefore interesting to speculate about what they would have made of this:

Somehow I think they would recognize that the bicycle has liberated poor and working people—or, at least, given them mobility and even pleasure.

I know I have always felt freer while spinning my chains!

Bikes On The Walls

Here in the USA, the news we hear about Argentina tends to fall into two categories:

           its football (soccer) team and players

           the bad news.

In the latter category was, during my youth, the Peron regime.  These days, it's about hyper-inflation:  People spend their money as soon as they get it because it loses value faster than a dot-com stock in 2000.

What's often forgotten, though, is the country's creativity:  Not for nothing has its capital, Buenos Aires, been called "the Paris of South America."

And the city's and country's artistry isn't limited to what ends up in museums or on pedestals in public squares.  From what I've heard, few cities have more murals.  And those displays that adorn the city's walls encompass all kinds of styles--and subjects, including bicycles and bicycling.

Mart Aire started to grace buildings and other structures with his artistry in the 1990s---when he was 12 years old.  I just love the way his colors and sheer whimsicality express the flights of fancy and sheer freedom I experience when I'm spinning along a seashore, pumping up--or coasting down--a hill or zigging and zagging through city streets.

A Ride From Astoria To Denmark, Via Atlanta

I have a confession:  I rode a bike-share bike the other night.

No, I wasn't in some faraway place without one of my bikes.  I was in my home city--New York, where I live with almost as many bikes (and Marlee) as I lived with family members when I was growing up.

So what was I doing on a CitiBike?

Well, I went to some place where I wasn't sure I could park any of my bikes safely.  A phone call confirmed that there is no on-premises bike parking. And, while there are on-street bike racks-- in addition to sign posts, railings and such--I didn't want to lock up my bike for the three hours or more I expected to be at my destination.

This image will give you an idea of what the neighborhood is like:

All right, the whole neighborhood isn't like that.  It's actually one of the more affluent areas of the city.  The crime rate is lower than in most other neighborhoods but, as in similar neighborhoods, a fair amount of that crime consists of bike theft.

That semi-submerged house is, as you may have surmised, a prop on a stage--specifically, in the Delacorte Theatre, the home of Shakespeare In The Park.

There I saw a very interesting production of Hamlet.  All of the major soliloquies (speeches), and most of the original language, was intact. But it was set in suburban Atlanta, and some liberties were taken with the chronology.  

Whenever I've assigned the play, I've told students that there are really two Hamlets in the play. The one who delivers "To be or not to be" and those other immortal lines is really Hamlet Jr. or Hamlet II, and he is brooding the death of his father--Hamlet Sr, if you will.  In this production, he becomes the patriarch of a mixed-race family. The play opens with his funeral, which includes soul and gospel songs and dance. 

For me, the cast (Ato Blankson-Wood is one of my favorite Hamlets!) helped me to see something that has been in the play all along but what is seldom emphasized:  what we now call "intergenerational trauma."  It also conveys the effect of murder and other kinds of violence on families and communities.  And some of the "tweaks" to the original dialogue--such as "Denmark's a prison" becoming "this country is a prison" (so powerfully delivered by Blankson-Wood)--makes the play almost scarily relevant.

Those who insist traditional, period-correct productions may not like this one.  And I'll admit that some attempts to transpose a contemporary Black/mixed-race American milieu with medieval Denmark don't always work.  But this production "hit" far more often than it "missed" for me, and I recommend it. Oh, and if you need an excuse to ride a Citibike even if you have a few bikes of your own, here it is.

Voices Of My Rides

In "Sounds of Silence," Paul Simon wrote, "the words of the prophets are written the on the subway walls."

I've been riding daily and haven't been on the subway.  But I have seen, if not the words of the prophets, then at least expressions of the zeitgeist, if from different points of view.

During my Saturday ride to Point Lookout, I chanced upon this in Lido Beach:

I don't think I've seen such a large US flag anywhere else, let alone in front of a suburban house.  When I stopped to take the photo, I talked to a man walking his dog.  He said the house is "outsize for this neighborhood" and that he's seen "the flag more than the people who live there."  I quipped that I've lived in apartments smaller than that flag.

Not only is its size overwhelming:  It's placed so that in whichever direction you walk, ride or drive, you can't not see it.

As I've said in earlier posts, ostentatious displays of outsized flags--often seen on the back of "coal rollers"--seem less like expressions of patriotism and more like acts of aggression.

In contrast, during yesterday afternoon's ride down the waterfront, from my Astoria apartment to Red Hook, I saw something more inclusive on one of the last ungentrified blocks of Long Island City.

The author of that bit of graffiti, I suspect, also gave us this:

That person is not the enemy of the flag-flaunters and coal-rollers--and would surely know that I'm not, either. 

Tina Turner: She Deserved Even More

(Spoiler alert:  This is not a bicycling-related post.)

By now, you’ve heard that Tina Turner passed away on Wednesday.

For me and, I imagine, for others, her death is not merely the loss of another famous musical performer. Rather, we feel that we have lost an inspiration and role model, even if our loves and work, and our very identities, are very different from hers.

She is that (and “all of that”) for the same reason she is, for me, part of a pantheon of musical performers that includes Aretha Franklin (whose passing I noted on this blog), Nina Simone and Billie Holiday.

What did they have in common?  They sang as if their lives depended on it.  I am not talking only about a paycheck, though there is that. Rather, their singing, and their stage presence, were all that stood between them and being subsumed by the circumstances of their lives and what is commonly called “inner turmoil” but, like language that doesn’t fit the prevailing aesthetic, has its own logic and grammar that are necessary to turn the ore of experience (which may be labeled “unusual” by those who don’t understand) to the most hard-won of truths.

What I described in that previous (and, admittedly lengthy) sentence also explains, at least in part, the “sexuality” that was attributed to her performances and her very self. It wasn’t a “come hither” gesture.  Instead, it was an assertion:  She would not be destroyed by Ike’s abuse, parental abandonment, her sister’s teenage death or anything else.

That is why her answer to Mike Wallace’s presumptuous question does not seem arrogant or conceited.

"I deserve more": In a decades-old "60 Minutes" interview, Tina Turner shows Mike Wallace around her estate in the south of France. She had lived in Europe for over a decade at that point.

Now, an exchange from the interview is going viral. https://t.co/vKBiJliqrx

— CBS Mornings (@CBSMornings) May 25, 2023

Even if I hadn’t known about her backstory—or heard anything besides “What’s Love Got To Do With It?” (which itself made her a compelling performer)—she deserved every damned thing she had at the end. And more.

Cyclist Shot For Stopping To Help

It's bad enough that there are four guns for every three people in the United States of America.  Even worse is the potential for suicide and other kinds of self-harm, and for crimes that wouldn't have happened otherwise.  I am thinking, of course, about mass shootings, of which we've had three for every two days here in the US, and mass killings, nearly all of which happen by gunfire and of which we are on track to have nearly twice as many in 2023 as in any previous year.   

But I also have another kind of tragedy in mind:  the kind that unfolded just before noon yesterday in New Haven, Connecticut.  A man was cycling down Chapel Street, between Ferry and Poplar.  He stopped to help a driver who'd fallen asleep at the wheel. Another driver started to argue with the cyclist.  Then he shot him.

The cyclist went to the emergency room and is expected to survive.  But it makes me think about the times I've stopped to help people while I was riding.  What if someone else took issue, whether for a rational reason or not?  And what if that person had a
weapon? 

From Edmunds

For that matter, I have to wonder whether, one day, some motorist who resents my presence on "his" road might decide to make his point with the tip of a bullet? 

What Color Are Their Burgers?

 An after-work ride took me through some familiar areas of Queens and Brooklyn.

When I say “familiar,” I don’t mean only that I know which streets go where.  I’ve seen some of those neighborhoods when you lived in them when you had no other choice—or where the people in them were, well, like me and my family when I was growing up and less like the person I am now. Indeed, I don’t think any of us could have imagined a woman in, ahem, middle age riding a bicycle—and writing a blog about it. 

(Of course, we didn’t know about blogs because they didn’t exist!)

Anyway, I can remember when Cobble Hill was an enclave of blue-collar Italian-Americans, like some of my relatives.  Court Street was a corridor of stores, cafes and bakeries, some of which served and sold the sorts of things what the proprietors’ families made and ate themselves.  

In other words, whether it was American, Italian or Italian-American, it was rich but unpretentious: No one tries to make the pastas, pastries, pizzas and parmigianas (chicken, eggplant or otherwise) seem like anything other than what they were. 

So all I could say was, “There went the neighborhood “ when I saw this:

There was an old joke that people like me didn’t know we came from working-class or blue-collar backgrounds until we went to college and encountered those terms in a sociology class—or people who didn’t come from those classes.

Likewise, only people  who comes from privilege can go to a place like that because it’s their idea of “blue-collar,” just as they choose to go to “dive bars” (or even call them such) if they have the monetary or social capital to go to a place people are chauffeured into.

I wonder whether those “blue collar” burgers are made from organic New Zealand grass-fed beef—and served on avocado toast and washed down with a triple IPA aged in an oak barrel previously used for a vintage wine or single-malt whiskey.

What Would They Have Seen?

In the Hollywood version of the immigrant's story, a poor young person emerges--his coat, but not his spirit, tattered--from the dark, dank steerage section of a ship to a deck, just as the sun breaks through clouds over the Statue of Liberty.

I can't help but to wonder how many actually had snow swirling around them, or were soaked in a downpour or struck by sleet, as they gazed out onto the harbor.  Or, perhaps, their first glimpse of Lady Liberty was shrouded in mist.

For a couple of days, we had an early taste of summer:  the temperature reached 33C (91F) in Central Park on Friday.  Then the clouds rolled in and and fog enveloped the city--especially the waterfront--late on Saturday and Sunday, interrupted by rain on Sunday morning.

I pedaled through a bunch of Brooklyn and Queens neighborhoods, from my western Queens abode to East New York, and zig-zagged along the waterfront.  I stopped for a mini-picnic (some pistachios and Lindt's 85 percent dark chocolate) in Red Hook. 

I have ridden to the Hook a number of times and still can't get over the irony of my riding--or people from all over the city, and from outside it--to it for pleasure.  I mean, what would the relatives of mine who worked on the docks or the nearby factories have thought of people whose "Sunday best" are airbrushed, more expensive versions of the clothes my relatives wore to work. Or of the three young men munching on matching artisan chocolate-coated Key Lime ice cream pops as they sauntered along the pier.  Or, for that matter, of the fancy wedding taking place inside a warehouse turned into an "event space."

 

My relatives walked and took streetcars to those piers and never went anywhere near them after they clocked out, let alone on Sunday.  And, of course, the folks who arrived from further away--as my relatives or, at least, their parents--came by boat.  What would they have thought of someone like me arriving by bike--Tosca, my Mercian fixed-gear, to be exact--on her day off, just because she could?

Or, for that matter, that I am a she?  What could they have seen through the mist?

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 seemingly-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 it 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 in a downhill 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's (of the 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. 

Secondary Victims Of The COVID-19 Bike Boom?

The COVID-19 pandemic led, at least in places that weren't under hard lockdowns, to a kind of bike boom.  As public transportation systems shut down or imposed severe restrictions, people who hadn't been on bikes in years were pedaling to their jobs (if they had to work in person) or to shop or run errands.  And folks who were working from home were going hopping onto the saddle for exercise and to de-stress from being cooped up in front of a screen.

Like the Bike Boom of the 1970s, the COVID epidemic was great bike-related businesses--at least some of them, for some time.  During the first few months of the pandemic, bikes and anything related them were flying out shop doors and keeping Amazon delivery workers busy.  In time, though, some shops and web businesses became victims of cycling's newfound popularity.  Shops ran out of inventory as supply streams dried up.  Some kept themselves open by repairing bikes that people were resurrecting from basements and garages.  But as cables, tires and tubes became difficult to find, they took to cannibalizing other bikes--until there were no more bikes to "harvest."  With nothing left to sell or even use for repairs, a number of shops--including longstanding and prominent ones like Harris Cyclery--to close permanently.

Now there might be some secondary victims, if you will.  Among them is Moore Lange, a UK distributor that went into receivership last week after more than 70 years in business.  Their offerings included bikes and parts from a wide array of brands like Forme, Lake, Barracuda, Microshift and Vitesse. 

 

According to Moore Lange director Adam Briggs, the company's troubles can be traced, ironically, to supply streams flowing again.  Actually, the trickle or dry bed turned into a torrent:  "[L]ots of stock arrived in the first quarter of 2022," he explained.  "There was a year's worth of bikes arriving in the UK at that time"--just as the Boom was turning into murmur--"which meant there was a massive oversupply."

Apparently, in the UK as in other places, the demand for bikes and anything related to them is falling from its 2020-21 heights.  Distributors and some shops now are overstocked, at least in some items, which led to "significant discounts," according to Briggs.  Given that profit margins are significantly smaller for bikes than for other items, a decrease in sales has led to a "perfect storm" for some shops and distributors like Moore Lange. 

The company's inventory will be auctioned off.  If there is a silver lining in the clouds of this storm, it is for British cyclists who are looking for good buys on bikes and parts.

  

Cycling Through The PTSD of History--My Own and This Country's

Spring arrived yesterday at 17:24 (5:24 pm) local time in New York, where I am.

At that moment, I just happened to be out on Dee-Lilah, my custom Mercian Vincitore, for an after-work ride.  I knew I'd have about an hour and a half of daylight from that moment on, and I intended to take full advantage of it.

The sun shone brightly; there was scarcely a cloud in the sky.  But the wind, gusting to 40KPH (25MPH), and the temperature, which barely broke 5C (40F), reminded me that winter would not loosen its grip so easily.  Still, the ride was delightful because of Dee-Lilah (Why do you think I so named her?) and because I'd had a full day of work- and non-work-related things.

Also, I may have felt the need to work with, if not out, the lingering sadness I felt:  Yesterday marked twenty years since the United States invaded Iraq.  If 9/11 was America's first step into the quicksand of a perennial war, on 20 March 2003, this country had waded into it, at least up to the waist. If I believed in karma, I would say that the trials and tribulations this country has suffered are retribution for that act of violence--which was precipitated by one of the more monstrous lies told by a public official.  (That so many people see such dishonesty as normal in political and official discourse is something else I might have taken as some sort of cosmic payback.)

US Marines in Kuwait, near the Iraq border, the day before the invasion.  Photo by Joe Raedele, Getty Images

I remember that time all to well.  For one thing, I marched in the massive anti-war demonstration a month earlier, where I was just a few bodies away from those horses NYPD officers charged into the crowd.  For another, I was preparing to live as the woman I am now:  I had begun therapy and counseling a few months earlier, and started taking hormones a few weeks before that demonstration.  All of the jingoism and drumbeats I heard in the lead-up to the invasion-- not to mention the invasion itself, premised as it was on lies--disturbed me because they showed how profoundly disrespectful some people can be toward other people simply because they are darker, speak a different language, worship differently (or not at all) or express their gender or any other part of their identity in ways that are not accepted by the society around them.

Sometimes I am called "over-sensitive:"  I have PTSD from a few things that have happened to me and sometimes I think I suffer it simply from having been alive when great evils were committed.  It's a good thing I have my bikes, and riding!

A Ride Of March

Beware the ides of March...

We've all heard that warning.  You probably know that it came from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, even if you haven't seen or read it.  It was spoken by a soothsayer--a prophet or fortune-teller, depending on what you think--who foretold the emperor's assassination.

The transition from one season to another conjures up visions of other changes.  The middle of March, in particular, carries the weight of hope for new beginnings, which can be as fragile as new buds in this month's winds or a late cold snap.

Today it's a bit colder than normal for this time of year.  That, and gusts of 80KPH (about 50MPH) push reminders into our faces that winter isn't finished with us, not yet.

Two milennia after Caesar's murder, and four centuries after Shakespeare's play, the admonition is relevant.  I'm going to sneak in a ride, however brief--and beware the ides of March.

From Ride and Seek