Fitting Man--And Woman--To The Machine

Note:  This post contains a frank discussion of a female-specific cycling issue.

Perhaps I am the last person in the world who should criticize anybody for having a surgery.

Still, I couldn't help but to cringe when I heard about women who had their toes shortened to better fit into sky-high stiletto heels.  To me, it sounded like a version of foot-binding that has the imprimatur of the medical establishment.

I mean, it's one thing to go under the knife, or to be bound and stitched to look the way one wants to look.  Countless people, including many transgender women I know, have had surgeries to lift cheekbones or chins, raise eyebrows or lower hairlines, or to change the shape of their noses or ears.  Still others have had their breasts augmented and buttocks lifted and firmed or had that most common procedure of all:  liposuction.

It's sad when people are cut, broken, bound and stitched to fit some Barbie-like "ideal" that no real woman meets.  Most such people look perfectly good the way they are; the others are simply unique.  But I won't knock anyone who has surgeries or other procedures if it makes them happier and better able to function in the way they wish.  After all, some people would say--wrongly, I aver--that my gender reassignment surgery fits into that category.  Certainly, I could have lived without it:  after all, I did, for decades before I had it.  I just don't know how much longer I could have lived, at least as I was.

What disturbs me, though, about toe-shortening is that it's done in order to fit a device, i.e., high-heeled shoes.  (A device for what?  I'll let you answer that!) How many of us would have our hands surgically altered to better fit our keyboards or our bodies reshaped to the contours of a chair?

Now, you are probably asking what this has to do with cycling.  Well, I'll tell you:  There are women who are having parts of their inner labias removed because they rubbed against their saddles.  This sometimes causes chafing, bleeding and even infections, as it did for me when I first started cycling after my surgery. 

Sometimes I still feel pain, as many other women do.  But it has been less frequent for me, as I have found saddle positions that work for me, most of the time, on each of my bicycles. And I have been experimenting with ways I dress when I ride, especially when I wear skirts.

But I am not about to undergo what some are calling "saddle surgery".  For one thing, my labia was constructed by a surgeon.  She did a great job (and it cost me a bit of coin), so I don't want to undo it.  Also, I simply can't see myself altering my body again to fit a machine, even if it is a bicycle.  If anything, it should be the other way around:  the machine should fit the human.

And my identity--the reason I had the surgery--is not a machine.  

Also, the pain I experience these days is really not any worse than the pain and numbness I sometimes experienced after long rides before my surgery.  Besides the equipment I have now is a lot less noticeable under form-fitting shorts than my old equipment was!

Mother Wouldn't Have Told Me To Do Otherwise

Whatever we can do about climate change, there isn't a whole lot we can do about the weather.

At least, that's what I told myself when I went for a ride today.

I talked to my mother this morning.  She and my father were bracing for Hurricane Matthew.  They'd done what they can, she told me, and they couldn't do much more.

I'm sure she knew I was feeling anxiety--and a bit of guilt. After all, in my part of the world, we had one of those perfectly gorgeous October days you see in Fall Foliage Tour ads.  And I didn't have to go to work.  So, of course, I was just itching to go on a ride.



I offered to help my mother and father.  She reminded me that, really, there was nothing I could do because I have no way of getting to them. Even if I had a drivers' license, I probably couldn't have driven there.  Also, there were no flights into the area.  I think even Amtrak suspended service to the area.

So I went on a bike ride--to Connecticut, again.  I mean, where else would I ride on a day like today--unless, of course, I were going to take a trip to Vermont or Maine or Canada or the Adirondacks:  places where the foliage is already in bloom.  I have no such plans for this weekend.

Naturally, I rode Arielle, my Mercian Audax, and thoroughly enjoyed it.  The temperature was just right (a high of about 21C or 70F) and the wind blew out of the east and northeast, which meant that I was pedaling into it up to Greenwich and sailed my way back.



Although we don't yet have the blaze of colors one would see right about now in the other places I mentioned, there are subtle changes in color--and, more important in the tone, texture and other qualities of light that signal that fall is well under way.

Just as I was about to cross the Randalls Island Connector--about 20 minutes from home--my mother called.  The worst of the storm had passed:  the rain had stopped and the wind wasn't much stronger than it is on a typical day. She and Dad were OK.  They had no electricity, they said, but aside from a few small tree limbs and other debris in their yard, they suffered no damage.  

After I got home, I fed Max and Marlee.  Then I wiped my bike down, and fed myself.  Mother wouldn't have told me to do otherwise.

Entering A Gate, But Not Hell

These days, on my way to work, I ride by the Gates of Hell.

Actually, it's better known as the Hell Gate Bridge.  If you've taken the train to or from Boston from New York, you traversed this span.  

The Bridge is named for the stretch of the East River that runs underneath it.  You wouldn't know it from seeing the boat in the photo, but this length of the East River (which isn't actually a river, but rather an inlet of the ocean) has strong undercurrents.  Inexperienced or careless (or, in at least a few cases, drunk) pilots wrecked their vessels as a result of them.

Strange, isn't it, that a spot with such a turbulent, tragic history can calm me down--even though it's still called Hell Gate!--on my way to my job?

I guess it's not so surprising when you see what set the Gate ablaze this morning.

And, when I arrive at work, I pass through gates to the lot where I park my bike.  A security guard nods when I roll my bike up to the rack.  He is not a keeper of the Gates of Hell.