In The Sun, With Arielle

Until the other day, June had been rather gloomy:  mostly gray, chilly and damp.  I did a little bit of riding, mostly for some other purpose or another.  The other day, however, seemed like a "breakout" day.

And Arielle, my Mercian Audax, knew it:

I had ridden her a bit this year, but Friday was her first long ride:  up to Connecticut, where she frolicked in the fauna and took me up and down hills. I somehow managed to make wrong turns wherever I could (Perhaps I could blame her: I think she was feeling as adventurous as I was) and entered Connecticut by way of "The Ridge" on the north side of Greenwich.  That is where you find all of those houses and horse farms you see in Architectural Digest and Vanity Fair spreads. 

None of the climbs are long, but a few are steeper than you expect if you're not familiar with the area.  And they are endless:  No matter which way you turn, you have to go up a hill. And I was riding into the wind most of the way up from my place.

One nice thing about all of that climbing is that when I got to downtown Greenwich and did a little people-watching at the Veterans Memorial (where Arielle ensconsed herself among the flowers), the pear I brought with me tasted exceptionally sweet, and the bottle of water I bought (something Italian, with essences of cherry and dragonfruit) felt like a spring coursing through my body.

However, if I thought I'd taken all the wrong turns I was going to take that day, I was wrong.  Instead of turning on to Glenville Road, I turned on to Lake Drive, where I saw the back end of all of those estates I saw from the front on my way in, and the front of all of the places I saw from the rear earlier in the day. Or so it seemed.  Buclolic it is.  And hilly.  

When I came to an intersection that kind of-sort of looked familiar, I turned in the direction I thought was home.  Instead, I found myself climbing more hills an by the time I finally realized where I was, I saw that I'd pedaled about the same distance (75 km) from the Ridge to my place--but in the opposite direction.  I was just north of Mount Kisco.

So I rode until I came to railroad tracks and followed them until I ran out of sunscreen.  By then, I think I'd gotten more sunlight than I'd seen all month!  When I find myself tiring out on such sunny day, it usually is a result of the sun.

Then I hopped a train from Hawthorne back to Grand Central, without guilt:  After all I'd ridden about 110 miles (170 km), against hills and wind.

That seemed to whet Arielle's appetite--and mine.  So, yesterday, we took a "recovery" ride--120 mostly flat kilometers to Point Lookout, with a bit of a ramble along the South Shore.  

I got more sun.  And Arielle got to work on her tan.

Why I Need To Make Wrong Turns

Sometimes I wonder whether my subconscious is steering me into wrong turns.

Freud, of course, would argue that it doesn't.  If you'd planned on going one way but finding yourself going another, deep down, you really wanted it.

Maybe he was right, although I still don't understand why I woke up next to at least a couple of the people I've woken up next to.

OK, this is a bike blog.  And my rambling ultimately has to do with the ride I took today--and one I took last week.

I rode to Connecticut again today.  I took a route that, for much of the way, follows the East Coast Greenway--I've been finding more and more of it--and takes me up a few climbs and along a ridge I discovered by making other "wrong turns".  

On the way back, though, I managed to--among other things--ride in a circle of about 15km, unintentionally.  I didn't mind:  It took me by a couple of rocky streams of the kind you expect to see in New England postcards.  Near those streams were some real, live, old-time farm houses and barns.  I guess I should not have been surprised:  I was in horse country.  

I have ridden horses only a couple of times in my life.  Given the chance, I would ride one again.  In the meantime, I am happy to see them.  They give me hope for the human race.  Why?  Well, only a century ago--even less in some places--they were beasts of burden.  In addition to carrying humans on their backs, horses pulled various kinds of farm implements as well as carts on rough roads and barges that plied canals.  Today, they do almost none of those things. But some people--some of whom don't ride--have seen fit to keep them, whether or not they serve any useful purpose.  

They are beautiful, intelligent creatures who generally treat people well, whether or not people are doing the same for them. Humans can do well to learn from them. 

The bicycle, of course, was one of the first things to take away some of the work horses once did.  People could go faster and further on two wheels.  Plus, even in postage-stamp-sized New York apartments, it's easier to store a bike--and cheaper to feed one--than a horse.

Perhaps we should thank horses for doing their work as well, and for as long, as they did--and for continuing to do it on demand.

Anyway, that loop through the horse farms and other bucolic scenes consisted of a couple of winding roads, one of which is called Round Mountain Road.  That name should have told me something!

I guess I subconsciously took those "wrong turns" because I really, deep down, wanted to see something besides downtown Greenwich and Stamford, or even the coast of Long Island Sound.  

Of course, when I am on vacation, I am always taking wrong turns.  As an example, on a day in Paris, I might decide I want to visit a particular museum or to take a ride to some particular site.  But I almost invariably end up following some street or alley or canal or another I hadn't planned on seeing.  Likewise, when I was in the provinces of France or Italy, I might decide that the destination of my day's ride would be some town or site.  But of course, I almost never took the "straight-arrow" route.  

So why does my subconscious steer me along routes the GPS would never dream of?  Well, I guess I am, if nothing else, inquisitive.  I want to see more and know more.  If I am going to spend time in a place, I want to become as familiar with it as I can.  My wanderings make me feel as if I've had a more intimate experience of the place.  For example, I have been to the Picasso Museum several times and can get to it pretty easily.  However, my experience of it seems more complete when I ride through the surrounding area--Le Marais--and, perhaps, find a street or alley I'd never before seen, or hadn't seen in a long time.

Believe it or not, even in the cities and towns and rural areas I know relatively well, it's still not difficult to find and interesting, and even new experience--simply by making a "wrong" turn.

Note:  I didn't take any photos today.  Sorry!  I guess I just got so immersed in my ride that I didn't think of taking pictures.

Wandering Into An Early Start

I've a question for those of you who commute:  How much do you vary your routes?  

Also:  Have you ever made a wrong turn, or even gotten lost, on a ride to work or a routine appointment?

Today, I could answer "yes" to the first part of my second question.  After wheeling out of my apartment, I proceeded two blocks further on 23rd Street than I normally would before making a right turn.  You might say that subconsciously (or, perhaps, not-so-sub-consciously), I wanted to make that diversion: I had left early and the weather could hardly have been better.  In fact, if I hadn't had to go to work, I would have made a few more "wrong" turns!

At first, what I got was nothing more than a slight change of scenery: I was riding along 30th Avenue, which I know but don't cycle very often because it is narrow and lined with stores.  Motorists frequently pull away from the curb, or dart into any parking space that becomes available, without paying much attention to other motorists or cyclists.  Also, pedestrians frequently dart out from between cars in the middle of a block, or saunter into that narrow space between the parking and traffic lanes, seemingly oblivious to everything else.

But, ironically, there was less traffic as I neared LaGuardia Airport.  Actually, it does make sense:   Wednesday is not a heavy travel day.  From there, it wasn't far to the World's Fair Marina Promenade.  Today was one of those days in which even the metallic hues of Flushing Bay seem almost idyllic.  

From there, I crossed the Northern Boulevard Bridge and made a couple more wrong turns under some trees that haven't yet begun to change color.  You might say that I was in a kind of seasonal denial, that I was holding onto one last moment of summer before going in to work.

The greatest irony of today is that, in spite of my meanderings, my office mates and students remarked on how early I arrived.