In the middle of the journey of my life, I am--as always--a woman on a bike. Although I do not know where this road will lead, the way is not lost, for I have arrived here. And I am on my bicycle, again.
One week ago, I noted the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln—and Charles Darwin.
When I was a child, Lincoln’s and George Washington’s birthdays were commemorated with their own holidays on the 12th and 22nd of February, respectively. Some time in my early puberty—when the deluge began!—that tradition ended in favor of the generic Presidents’ Day, on the third Monday of February: today.
OK, now I’m going to get political on you, dear reader. On one hand, I’m offended that this holiday, in essence, elevates Donald Trump to the same plane as Washington, Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt. On the other hand, it’s part of the reason why February is Black History Month, which I wholeheartedly support. Originally, there was a Black History Week that included Lincoln’s Birthday. When Abe lost his own billing, the commemoration of a long-deleted part of this country’s heritage was expanded into the month.
Anyway, in an earlier post, I mentioned that during the late 19th Century Bike Boom, Washington’s Birthday was Bicycle Day. Dealers and manufacturers debuted new models and offered special deals, often accompanied by a lavish party. Bicycle Day morphed into Auto Day, which became part of the current Presidents’ Day.
When Washington’s Birthday was Bicycle Day, electoral campaign images often included bicycles, sometimes with the candidates riding them.
The “bad” government on the left (!) was that of Democrat (!) Grover Cleveland; the “good” on the right was the prospective administration of William McKinley.
So, since I broke a promise I never made to never discuss politics, I will mention one of my beefs with McKinley: His administration included the lynching of, I mean war against, Spain, which was predicted on a lie. (Sound familiar?) The spoils, if you will, for the US included Puerto Rico, Cuba, Guam and the Philippines (which, ironically, gained its “independence” from the US on the 4th of July, in 1946). Some historians argue that the war also made the invasion, I mean annexation, of Hawai’i possible.
Even if he hadn't killed eight cyclists, I would've been as terrified: I have ridden that lane a number of times, for transportation as well as recreation. For the cyclists who died that day, some of whom were tourists, it was most likely their only ride on that lane.
The fear and grief I have felt since then has turned to rage: Yesterday, during Saipov's trial, US Attorney Jason Richman recalled that the accused was "smiling" when he asked to hang the Islamic State flag in the hospital room where he was confined after the incident. "He was proud," Richman told the jurors. "He was happy about the terrorist attack...He had done what he came to do."
We don't have the death penalty in New York State. Federal law still allows for it, however, and since terrorism is a Federal crime, Saipov could be condemned. If he's not, he will be sentenced to life in prison.
Even his defense lawyers concede that Saipov carried out his attack. They argue, however, that he should be acquitted of a racketeering charge because they dispute the charge that he carried out the attack so that the Islamic State would allow him to join. They claim that to do something "so awful" (their words), he must already have been an IS member and that he "had an expectation that he would die by police shooting."
In other words, according to the defense, he wasn't carrying out a gang initiation rite. Instead, he was trying to be a martyr for the cause. How that absolves him of racketeering is beyond me, which is probably one reason why I'm not a lawyer.
Whatever Saipov's motives, to me he's no different from the motorist who yelled "More of you should be killed" to cyclists who staged a "die-in" where a truck driver ran down Sarah Schick, a 37-year-old mother of two. She was riding down a bike lane along Brooklyn's Ninth Street that is protected up from Prospect Park West to Third Avenue, but is separated from a major truck route by nothing more than a couple of lines of paint west of Third--at the exact point where a mixed residential and commercial zone turns into an industrial area. I know it well: I used to ride that way quite often when I was living in Park Slope--and there wasn't any bike lane at all on Ninth, or almost anywhere else in the neighborhood outside of Prospect Park.
That motorist and Saipov are also no different from a colleague who, during my second year at Hostos, remarked, "When I see bicyclists, I'd love to run them down." When I told her I am a cyclist, she accused me of "overreacting" and complained to HR. When I told them about her comment, they said there was "nothing we can do" and questioned my motives for taking umbrage. "Well, that wasn't any different from saying I should die because I'm trans. She's saying I should die because of who I am." The HR person dismissed my comparison because cyclists aren't a "protected category" but admonished me to "watch what you say" because that faculty member was a member of a "protected minority"--as if I wasn't.
Anyway, I am disgusted by the way people can so casually call for, or even commit, violence against cyclists. While Saipov may not have been targeting cyclists because they were cyclists, I am guessing that he saw them as the "low-hanging fruit" to carry out his gang initiation or bid for martryrdom. In that sense, he is no different from the motorist or colleague I've mentioned.
A few years ago, I spent an extremely pleasant long weekend in Montréal . What's not to like about a beautiful, diverse city with good food and art where French is spoken?
What made all of that even better? Cycling. La ville aux cent clochers is, simply, one of the best cities for cycling I've encountered. The bike lanes aren't just lines of paint in a street: They're physically separated from the rest of the traffic (although a couple I rode seemed a bit narrow for two-way bicycle traffic) and there seems to be more respect, or at least a better detente , between cyclists and drivers than I've seen in any US locale.
Moreover, the lanes I encountered weren't just paths that suddenly began in one place and just as suddenly ended somewhere else, far from any place else. (Perhaps if I'd spent more time in the city, I might have found such useless paths.) Instead, there are at least a couple of lanes on which you can cross the city, and other lanes are actually useful in getting to and from anywhere you might be or want or need to go. You can even ride a lane to the Jacques Cartier Bridge or other crossings to or from the city, which is on an island.
What I didn't realize was that much of that pleasant, stress-free riding was a result, directly or indirectly, of "Bicycle Bob" Silverman.
In 1975, he co-founded Le Monde à Bicyclette, or Citizens on Bicycles. His choice of the French name was important because he knew that if he were to realize his dream of starting a "velorution " to break the "auto-cracy," he would need to reach beyond his mainly-anglophone circle. Also, he said, the main cycling organization in his province--la Fédération quebecoise de cylotourisme , now known as Vélo-Québec, was focused mainly on recreational cycling.
In the previous paragraph, you might've noticed that Silverman had a penchant for appropriating the rhetoric of political upheval. That was no accident: He identified as a Trotskyite and, in his twenties, lived in Cuba, where he met Che Guevara, before he was deported for distributing anti-Soviet literature. After that, he lived and worked on an Israeli kibutz before "bouncing around Europe" and falling in love with cycling while riding in France (of course!).
His vocabulary also reflected his flair for the dramatic. Le Monde à Bicyclette staged "die-ins" to protest cyclist deaths--which have since decreased significantly--in the city and province. Silverman and his organization argued that the reason was not, as some claimed, that cyclists were careless or they shouldn't have been cycling in the city in the first place. Rather, he argued that there were too many cars and that their number wouldn't stop growing as long as the city's and province's infrastructure is built around moving them rather than on human interactions and sustainable transportation--and that the bicycle is as viable a mode of transport as any other.
He also led other kinds of demonstrations, like the time he dressed up as Moses* and pretended to part the waters of the St. Lawrence River to lead cyclists across. (Hmm...Maybe this is why he was called a "prophet" of the bicycle-friendly, sustainable city.) Another time, he rolled out a carpet on Boulevard Maisonneuve to press for the group's demand for an east-west cycle route (which now exists) across the city. In yet another action--which got Silverman three days in prison--he and a group of fellow cyclists painted clandestine cycle lanes in the dark of night.
Save for his time in Cuba, Israel and Europe, and the past few years in the Laurentians, Bob Silverman was a lifelong Montreal resident born and raised in the city. His work was therefore not only abstract ideas about sustainability (before that became a widely-used term) or even cycling itself; it was his way of trying to achieve the kind of city he wanted. That, according to Michael Fish, the architect who founded Save Montréal at around the same time Silverman and his friends started Le Monde à Bicyclette. "Nothing since the multiple achievements of Robert Silverman for the rights of cyclists has so affected positively the environment of the region, at almost no public cost," he explained.
He and others want to memorialize Robert Silverman, who passed away at age 87 on Sunday.
Whatever the city does, the next time you ride there (or if you ever get to ride there), thank him.
*—I tried to find a photo of “Bicycle Bob” in Old Testament prophet mode. To this day, my mental image of Moses is Charlton Heston: a result, most likely, of seeing “The Ten Commandments “ every year, on the night before Easter, during my childhood.
Although bicycle commuting and transportation is on the rise here in the USA, the bicycle is still commonly associated with pleasure, fitness, recreation and sport. That, I believe, is why cyclists incur resentment and antagonism from drivers: Most Americans drive because their communities and lifestyles all but require it. Even in my hometown of New York City, there are “transportation deserts,” defined as places more than a 15-minute walk from a subway or bus station. Truth be told, many of us who ride to work, school or wherever have other options.
In other parts of the world, the situation is different: People pedal because they don’t have other options. In fact, many associate bicycles with poverty and hard times. Irina Echarry describes this in her article published in today’s Havana Times.
She also draws a very interesting connection: whenever the economy takes a turn for the worse in Cuba, “two things flourish: fields and bikes.” People “turn to planting their own crops so they don’t die of hunger,” she explains, and “turn to bikes so they can keep moving.”
When she draws that comparison between planting a vegetable garden and riding a bike, she is saying that both are means to self-sufficiency, and even survival.
I have to admit, once or twice...well, okay, maybe three or four times...I've attended concerts, readings, plays, lectures or other events because I liked the advertisement for it.
Now tell me you wouldn't attend a lecture after seeing a photo like this. Of course, it combines topics as close to my hearts as my Mercians: cycling, history, women's history and gender identity. Tessa Hull, who gave the lecture, didn't come to her topic--summed up in the lecture's title, "Women, Trans and Femme Riders in Early Cycling History"--through a women's or gender studies program. Instead, she encountered it while on her own journey, literally: She's cycled alone from Southern California to Maine and in Alaska, Cuba, Ghana and Mexico. She said that, wherever she went, people were generous, but she heard the same warning: "You know, a woman can't travel alone." Well, I know that's not true! And so did some women in the late 19th Century, during the first "Bike Boom." Although there probably are more women cycling now than then, she believes that the culture around women and bikes has retrogressed in some ways. In the old bicycle ads, she explains, "you see packs of women riding bicycles, and women riding on the front of tandems," none of which is "really a norm now." She feels we are "trying to get back to where we were in the 1890s " and warns, "[I]f you don't keep pushing for the advancement of culture, things can quietly digress." I have to admit, even I--who, if I do say so myself, knows a thing or two about the history of women and cycling--was surprised to see women attired as they are in the photo. And they have rather athletic builds. These days, it seems that most women in bike ads are there to entice men and look as if their limbs would break if they actually tried to pedal.
It happened in the US after World War I. It happened, perhaps to a lesser degree, first in England, then in Continental European countries, after World War II. And it happened in China and Cuba during the early years of this century. The "it" is this: Greater prosperity led people to forsake the bicycles they had used for transportation and recreation in favor of automobiles. When it happened in the US, surviving bike manufacturers sold the public on the idea that a bicycle is a toy--or, that if it is indeed useful as transportation, it is suitable only for those who aren't old enough to drive. On the other hand, in England and the rest of Europe, adult cycling survived mainly as a recreational activity practiced by a slowly but steadily declining portion of the population. In the US, England and continental Europe, those who switched from cycling to driving seemed, as often as not, to see the bicycle as a symbol of privation--or of those things which they had "grown past" or "grown beyond". This was particularly true for poor or working-class people who acquired the means to own a car: They simply would not dream of "going back". I believe that this is one reason why we see more bicycle disdainers among people who are, say, over 50 than among the young.
Similar phenomena have taken place in China and Cuba. In both countries, especially China, the bicycle was a, if not the, primary means of transportation-- particularly in cities. The leaders most identified with those two nations--Mao Tse-Tung and Fidel Castro--had much to do with turning people into cyclists. Both rulers saw the bicycle as a "people's" way of transportation, and the "Communist"* parties they led promoted it as such. But while the numbers of bicycles and cyclists in China grew steadily from the time of the Revolution (1949) until the end of the century, Cuba experienced a surge in cycling during the 1990s. The Soviet Union, the island's chief benefactor, had just collapsed. In its wake, the supply of cheap petrol that had flowed to the Pearl of the Antilles dried up. So did the cash subsidies from Moscow, which meant that less was spent on public transportation and other infrastructure improvement. And so did the supply of bicycles from the Soviet Bloc. Some people bought bikes from foreign tourists or other sources. It was at that time that the first bicycles were manufactured in Cuba: one model, called the Minerva. It left most people wishing for imports and black- or gray- market bikes: The Minerva was of "poor quality," according to Lazaro Pereira, a bicycle repair specialist in the city of Cardenas. "The forks split, and when this happened, passers-by would mock people falling off their bikes," he recalls. I imagine that alone would have stopped some people from cycling. But in the early 2000s, the island began to recover from the loss of Soviet subsidies and cycles, and people abandoned two wheels in favor of four. Bicycles developed a "negative connotation...associated with the poverty that characterized this period," according to Naybis Diaz Labaut, the owner of VeloCuba, a repair and rental enterprise in Havana. She has seen "significant movement in the world of bicycles in Cuba" during the past five years or so, which has allowed her to open two shops. All of the bikes she rents, or that her guides use on tours, were purchased from foreigners. Even with the increased interest in cycling, the bikes sold in Cuba are "Chinese models made of iron" and "of poor quality," she says. She believes that cycling "has a big future in Havana" even though it has yet to achieve the popularity it's regained in the provinces. Still, one of the biggest challenges to the growth of cycling in Cuba, she says, is motorists--and not only because many of them won't get out of their cars and bike on their bikes. There is a "lack of motorist education," she explains: A generation of people has grown up without cycling, while some older motorists have been away from cycling for a long time. That sounds like a problem we still have in the US and it won't change tomorrow, as several post-World War I generations didn't ride bikes as adults, or at all. At least the Cubans have lost only a decade or so rather than a generation.
More than 120 years ago, Susan B. Anthony said that the bicycle has done more than anything else in the world to emancipate women. She certainly had a point: Cycling itself gave women freedom and mobility we hadn't previously experienced. It also led to less-restrictive clothing than women had previously worn which, of course, freed us in all sorts of other ways. I mean, I simply can't imagine living in a whalebone corset and petticoats.
Still, the bicycle's potential for emancipating women hasn't come close to being realized. While I still wish that women's racing would get the attention it garnered, say, 30 to 35 years ago (in the days of Rebecca Twigg and Jeanne Longo), I think the real power of cycling for women lies elsewhere.
One example is in VeloCuba in Havana. Three years ago, Nayvis Diaz left her job in the Ministry of Foreign Trade and sold her Peugeot car to finance the opening of this rental and repair shop. All of its seven employees are women, including Dayli Carvo, who once raced for Cuba's national team.
One of VeloCuba's employees works on a bike.
In addition to repairs and rentals, VeloCuba also conducts bicycle tours of the Cuban capital. "We place great emphasis on knowing historical matters," Diaz says of her guides, who conduct tours in English, French and German as well as Spanish. "We are very keen for our visitors to discover art, architecture, new places they can go at night, and learn about Cuban society," she explains.
VeloCuba has, in its brief history, expanded to two locations--one in the central neighborhood of Vedado and the other in Old Havana. It has not arrived at its success, however, without running through a couple of obstacles.
One is something that even the expertise Diaz gained in her old job couldn't resolve: how to get bicycles. In spite of its relatively rich history of cycling, the island has no bike industry. So, VeloCuba has had to buy bicycles from tourists visiting the island.
The other is that for more than half a century, Cuba, like other Communist countries, had no advertising. Even today, there are few advertising venues. The shop's clientele, therefore, has been built mainly through word of mouth. At the risk of sounding sexist, I daresay that is something we, as women, rely on in so many areas of our lives.
In addition to bicycle rentals and repairs, VeloCuba repairs and maintains wheelchairs--for free. Diaz sees it as a way to "offer some help to society."
The goodwill she is creating may help her to realize another dream she has: that "one or two days a week, only cycling is allowed in the city."
As Hurricane Irma churned up from Cuba to Florida, we enjoyed a weekend of perfect weather: high temperatures between 20 and 24 C, and lots of sunshine. But, as high cirrocumulus clouds drifted across blue skies, the tides spilled the distant storm's fury onto our shores.
Since I'm not a surfer, I heeded the warnings against going into the water. So, of course, I cycled. Specifically, I took Arielle, my Mercian Audax, for a "doubleheader": a ride to Connecticut on Saturday and Point Lookout on Sunday.
On my way up to the Nutmeg State, I pedaled into a stiff headwind most of the way. That meant, of course, that it blew me back to New York. En route to Point Lookout, I pedaled into what seemed to be the same wind to the Rockaways and it whipped at my side as I rode along the South Shore. Then, of course, I had to pedal into the wind on my way home.
I'm not complaining about that headwind on my way home. It's hard to imagine a more pleasant weekend of riding locally. Is it still a guilty pleasure if you're grateful for it?
Everyone knows that New York is a big city. How big is it? Well, in terms of population, it is about three times as large as Los Angeles or Chicago, its nearest competitors in the US. Its population is also that much greater than any European capital except London. (I know: Some will say England isn't really part of Europe!) As for its geographical size, the Big Apple doesn't come anywhere near that of those sprawling municipalities found in the American South, West and Southwest like Jacksonville or Phoenix. Still, it is a good deal larger than the aforementioned European capitals or even some American cities like Boston or San Francisco. When most people talk about "New York City", they are referring to the island of Manhattan--which, until 1898, was indeed the whole. But in that year, as the US was taking Guam, the Phillipines, Puerto Rico and Cuba from Spain in retaliation for something the Spanish didn't do*, New York City annexed the counties of Kings (Brooklyn), Queens, Bronx and Richmond (Staten Island). As a result, the city was ten times as large as it was in 1897--and larger, in area, than almost any other city in the world: at that time, those sprawling Sun Belt cities either didn't exist or were hardly more than villages. To put the city's size in perspective: You can cycle from the Porte de Clignancourt, at the northeastern end of Paris, to the Porte de Saint Cloud, in its extreme southwest, in 50 minutes or less, depending on your pace and route. However you go, you won't have to pedal more than about 12 km, or a little less than 8 miles. On the other hand, a ride from Columbus Circle, in the center of Manhattan, to Rockaway Beach stretches for about 25 miles, or 40 kilometers. If you ride about 25 kilometers (16 miles) in the opposite direction from Columbus Circle, you can go to City Island, near the northeastern extremity of the Bronx. I am thinking about this because a San Francisco-based bike share company Spin announced a plan to bring its services to the Rockaways and other outlying areas of the Five Boroughs. The city, however, put the kibosh on that plan, citing the "revenue contract" is has with Citibike. That agreement gives Citibike gives exclusive rights for its first two phases, which include Manhattan, Brooklyn and parts of Queens--though not the Rockaway area.
Long Island City, the Queens neighborhood closest to Manhattan, is part of the area included in the agreement. But it didn't receive its first Citibikes until last spring, some three years after the blue bikes first appeared on Manhattan streets. Astoria, where I live, borders on LIC and is slated to get its first Citibike stations in the coming months. That begs the question of just how long it will take for Citibike to reach neighborhoods like Rockaway Beach which, in the summer, has some of the most crowded bike lanes. The district's City Councilman, Eric Ulrich, has said that allowing Spin--or, for that matter, any bike sharing program--in the Rockaways should be a "no brainer" because, among other things, "it doesn't cost the taxpayers a dime." So why won't the city allow Spin to operate in the Rockaways? I suppose the places that rent bikes might object, but I don't think they are a terribly large constituency. And they're all seasonal. I'm not a lawyer, but I should think that there would be a way to provide a temporary or provisional permit for Spin to operate, at least until Citibikes come to the Rockaways. The reason why the city won't do that, I believe, is this: Spin charges only $1 for 30 minutes: less than Citibike's rate. Also, Spin's technology is more advanced, so it is easier for someone with the right app to access one of Spin's orange machines than it is to use a Citibike. In the meantime, in Ulrich's words, the Rockaway Beach--a location for bike shares if there ever was one--is "deprived" of such services, all over a war between Blue and Orange. In this city, it makes no sense. *--This event is commonly called "The Spanish-American War." I think of it as the American lynching of Spain.
Today is May Day. In much of the world, this day commemorates labor movements. In the United States, too many people believe--as I did, before I learned otherwise--that it was celebrated mainly in countries that are or were Communist, like Cuba and the former Soviet Union. And, when I used to hold such mistaken beliefs, "Communist" was one of the most pejorative terms one could apply to any person, place or thing. The funny thing is that the origins of May Day are as American as, well, Schwinn used to be. So, for that matter, is socialism, which has its roots in workers' struggles to obtain an 8-hour work day (10 to 16 was the norm) and safer working conditions. In fact, socialist movements in Europe and Latin America took much of their inspiration from movements in the US. Unfortunately, workers in the bicycle industry--a major employer at that time (late 19th Century)--were not exempt from exploitation by their employers, as so many workers were and are. As an example, Schwinn's metal platers and polishers struck for a 44-hour workweek and 85 cents an hour in 1919; the company retaliated against striking workers as well members of other unions and dealers who cancelled, or didn't place, orders. In 1980, workers in Schwinn's Chicago factory, who had recently affiliated themselves with the United Auto Workers Union, went on a strike that would last four months. In the meantime, the company accelerated its overseas sourcing and built a new factory in Mississippi, where labor was less expensive and unions all but non-existent. Within a year, the Chicago plant ended more than eight decades of operation.
Schwinn' Peoria machine shop, 1895
In 1963, Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradlewas published. In the novel, the narrator--an everyman named John who calls himself Jonah--travels to the fictional Caribbean island of San Lorenzo. On his way there, he meets "another fellow American, H.Lowe Crosby of Evanston, Illinois, and his wife, Hazel," whom he describes as "heavy people, in their fifties" who "spoke twangingly." Mr. Crosby says he owns a bicycle factory in Chicago and gets "nothing but ingratitude from his employees." Therefore, he plans to move his business to "grateful" San Lorenzo. The narrator asks Crosby whether he knows San Lorenzo well. Crosby admits that he'll be seeing it for the first time but that he likes everything he's heard about it. "They've got discipline," he explains. In Chicago, he says, "we don't make bicycles anymore. It's all about human relations." He proceeds to bemoan, basically, having to treat his workers like people. Jonah asks him whether he thinks things will be better in San Lorenzo. "I know damn well they will be. The people down there are poor enough and scared enough and ignorant enough to have some common sense!" Hmm...San Lorenzo sounds like a few not-so-fictional countries I can think of. And Crosby sounds like a few not-so-fictional capitalists I can think of.
This morning in my local post office, one of the clerks was chatting with a customer. "So, are you following the Copa America?" The customer shook his head. "In Puerto Rico, no soccer. Just beisbol." It had never occured to me before. Soccer--or what the rest of the world calls "football"--has never been very popular in Puerto Rico or, for that matter, the Dominican Republic or Cuba. Or Haiti. On the other hand, lots of young people play--and lots of people, young and old watch--the game in Jamaica and Trinidad. Although futbol has grown steadily in the US--newscasts routinely feature the results of matches--interest in the game seems to have bypassed Puerto Rico, at least for the time being. The customer added this observation: "In Mexico, they love futbol." His observations are accurate. In fact, Mexico even hosted the 1970 World Cup tournament, which attracted practically no attention in the US. It's as if Customs and Immigration were stopping every ball floating across the Rio Grande or rolling across the line in the sand that separates California, Arizona and New Mexico from the country to which they once belonged. Hmm...Would Donald Trump try to stop the "beautiful game" from invading America's heartland? Now, one could argue that the reason why baseball gained such popularity in La Isla del Incanto, but soccer didn't, was the influence of the US, which colonized the island in 1898 as one of the spoils (along with Cuba and the Phillipines) of victory in its war against Spain. Speaking of which...the Phillipines have never been known as a soccer powerhouse. I mention the conversation, and my musings about it, because it got me to thinking about why certain sports, including cycling, become popular in one place but not in another.
Bicycling has been both a popular spectator and participant sport (and recreational activity) in most European countries, and in England, practically from the time bicycles first appeared. Until World War I, it was at least a popular in the US. Right up to the six-day races of the 1930s, some of the best racers in the world were American, and at least until Babe Ruth reached his prime, cyclists were among the best-paid athletes. The decline of cycling in the US, particularly in two decades or so after World War II, has been attributed to increased affluence-- which put the price of automobiles within reach of most working people and families--along with the construction of the Interstate highway system and cheap gasoline. It took longer for affluence to come to Europe, and even after it did, the price of cars and, especially gas, remained prohibitive for many people. So, bicycles continued to serve as a primary means of transportation, and even recreation, in Europe, particularly among the working and middle classes. Also, my tours on the continent were made possible, in part, by well-developed systems of secondary and tertiary roads through the countryside and small towns, especially in France, Belgium, the Netherlands and England. Much of the United States lacked such routes; in fact, in some remote areas (for example, in the Rocky Mountains and the deserts), the interstate highways were the first roads to be built. So, while Americans were taking to the highways for their vacations, Europeans continued to pedal the paths of Provence and byways of the Black Forest. It's been said that because Europeans vacationed as well as commuted on their bicycles, they appreciated the physical effort and discipline it took to ride long distances, day after day, and that is why they continued to support bicycle racing. Meanwhile, in the 'States, kids pedaled to school or the park, and their bikes were discarded as soon as they got their drivers' licenses. So, they couldn't understand, let alone care, about grown men (or women) riding hard and fast every day for three weeks, only to win or lose by seconds. Those explanations make some kind of sense, up to a point. For one thing, it doesn't explain why the British developed a cycling culture--and racing scene--that was, at least until the 1960s, almost entirely separate from that of the Continent. (The Brits tended to focus on time trialing more than stage races.) Also, it doesn't explain why other countries where people were, arguably, even more dependent on their bicycles than Europeans were, never developed a significant racing scene. I'm thinking about countries like India and Pakistan, where the main sports seem to be cricket, rugby, field hockey and the ancient indigenous game of kabaddi. Additionally, I'm thinking about China, where there are more bikes and people riding them than in any other place on earth. Although races have become more commonplace in recent years, Japan, with about a tenth of the population, still has more events and competitors. I understand that more cycling events, including tours and races, are also winding their way through Puerto Rico. Although cycling might well be more popular than soccer on the island, it remains to be seen whether it attains the status that it has even on the mainland US, let alone that of beisbol.
Someone once told me, only half in jest, that the best auto mechanics are in Cuba. "After all," he explained, "anyone who can keep a car running when replacement parts haven't been made for it in fifty years must be very skilled--and creative". I don't have any way of refuting his assertion, so I'll accept it. Any mechanic, anywhere in the world, who can keep, say, an Edsel running is almost certainly better than most. Perhaps a similar principle applies to bike mechanics. It's really not that difficult to repair or maintain a well-maintained late-model machine that's been used mainly for recreational cycling. On the other hand, people whose bikes are used for transportation or other utilitarian purposes are more likely to be riding older bikes. Think of all of those English three-speeds and European city bikes people rode to work every day, and for an occasional weekend jaunt in the park, for decades. To my knowledge, no one is making replacement parts for Sturmey-Archer three-speed hubs that were made in England or cottered cranksets. Still, many such bikes are still in use in their home countries and all over the world. Mechanics in places where the bike is still what one rides because gasoline and car ownership are expensive, I imagine, have developed some interesting work-arounds. Somehow I think mechanics' tricks are even better-developed in places where people depend on bikes, and are poor--say, India, where this photo was taken:
Now that the United States seems to be on the road to recognizing that Cuba does indeed exist (Was it just some black hole from which a species of aliens called "Cubans" came? So that's why we have that prison in Guantanamo!), it's hard not to wonder about the future of cycling there.
Of course, American groups have been taking bicycle tours in Cuba for years--under the pretense of "cultural exchange" as, officially, Americans aren't/weren't allowed to visit Cuba as tourists. Everyone, it seems, who's gone on such a tour there raves about it: The roads are quiet, there are plenty of places to stay, the people are friendly--and it's cheap, once you get there. Hey, I could be enticed into going there. All I'd have to do is get myself and my Spanish in shape. About the latter: I recited a short poem by Federico Garcia Lorca in the original at a recent poetry reading, and all of the Spanish-speakers understood it. A few even complimented my Spanish afterward. So maybe I'm better in that category than I thought. And the rides I've taken lately have felt really good.
Anyway, in cycling the word "tour" can refer to the kind I've mentioned: riding, seeing the sights and mingling with the people. But there is another kind of "tour", as in Le Tour de France or other multi-day races. Unbeknownst to most norteamericanos, "The Pearl of the Antilles" had its own multi-day race that covered much of the island.
Poster of the 1969 Vuelta a Cuba, by Jose Papiol.
La Vuelta a Cuba was held for the first time in 1964 with Sergio "Pipian" Martinez winning. He would take four of the first six editions of La Vuelta. Not surprisingly, most editions of the race were won by Cuban riders--and, until 2002, the only non-Cuban winners came from Soviet-bloc countries. That year, Italian Filippo Pozzato of the Mapei-Quick Step team took the honor; the following year, Todd Herriot became the first and only US rider to win.
The race was not held from 1991 until 1999. Although no one seems to have said as much, that suspension may have been a result of the fall of the Soviet Union, which probably funded much of Cuba's cycling program (and much else in the country). Races throughout the former Soviet bloc met similar fates during that time. Some were discontinued; others, like the Peace Race (which ran through Poland and the former Czechoslovakia and German Democratic Republic), held on for some years but finally succumbed to the difficulties of finding funds after state sponsorship disappeared.
Somehow La Vuelta de Cuba was revived in 2000. It was held every year until 2010. In all, the race was held 35 times. (There was no race in 1970, 1975 or 1982.) Sergio Martinez's four victories were exceeded only by the six Eduardo Alonso attained, in 1984 and every year from 1986 through 1990.
Somehow it makes sense that the leader of the Rough Riders would start a Scorcher Squad. In 1898, the Secretary of the Navy resigned his position so he could join the First US Volunteer Cavalry. This unit would gain renown in Cuba during the Spanish-American War. For their exploits on the island, they and the former Navy Secretary would be nicknamed "Roosevelt's Rough Riders". Three years earlier, this Theodore Roosevelt had been the New York City Police Commissioner. That year, 1895, may have been the peak of America's first Bike Boom, and pedaled two-wheelers were the fastest vehicles on the streets of the Big Apple. Particularly fast riders were known as "scorchers" for the way they blazed past everyone and everything else on the road. Now, every good crime-fighter knows that one of the most effective ways to make his or her city's streets safer is to harness the skills of renegades and outlaws. A modern example of this would be to enlist hackers to help in the fight against cybercrime. In the final years of the 19th Century, that meant using "scorchers" to apprehend speeding horse-drawn carriages. That is exactly what "Teddy" had in mind when he formed the "Scorcher Squad". This 29-member unit of cyclists made 1366 arrests in its first year. That number is particularly impressive when one realizes that the city then consisted only of the island of Manhattan (Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island and the Bronx would join it in--que coincidencia!--1898) and had only a sixth of the city's current population.
Roosevelt's creation was so successful that in less than two decades, it expanded to include 1025 bicycles in addition to 276 motorcycles and 327 horses. But after World War I, cars as well as motorcycles replaced bicycles on patrol. By the 1930's, bikes had all but disappeared from constabulary units in New York as well as other American cities. But in the late 1960's and early 1970's, three Presidential commissions concluded that community policing was more important than technology and crime-fighting, which had been the foci of law enforcement agencies for more than three decades. Cities began to reinstitute bicycles and, by the late 1980's, bike patrols had made a visible comeback. Can't you just picture the Rough Rider on one of today's police bicycles? N.B.: The above photo and some information in this post were taken from Bowery Boogie.
Normally, I'm not much of a fan of organized bike rides. But I must admit that the first time I did the Five Boro Bike Tour, it felt great to be "taking over" the Verrazano Bridge and various streets throughout the city. Sometimes people stood on the sidelines and cheered us on. But some jeered us, and once I heard someone scream, "Go to Cuba, you f---ing commies!" I guess if I feel that I can "claim", if you will, a place by pedaling across or through it, someone's going to feel threatened. I don't think my "claim" gives me sole possession; rather, it makes me a part of where I've ridden, and that place becomes part of me--and others can feel the same way. But I guess that's just not how some people see it: To them, a group of people riding through their neighborhood--especially if they look and dress a little different--is an invasion, an intrusion, on their way of life. The funny thing is that even though I am white, the most hostile reactions I've experienced were from other white people. Some of the friendliest receptions I encountered while on organized rides came in Harlem, when it was still entirely black, and Williamsburg when it was Puerto Rican. So...What kind of a reaction would I and fellow riders had been black or Latina, and riding through some white ghetto? Would the irrational resentments some feel toward cyclists have been exacerbated by racial tension? I got to thinking about such questions after showing A Bronx Tale to two of my classes last week. It's the first film Robert de Niro directed. In it, he plays Lorenzo, an Italian-American bus driver whose son, Calogero, witnesses a mob hit and doesn't "rat out" the perpetrator. From there, the film follows Colagero--then nine years old, in 1960--through the ensuing decade as he, and his world change. One of said changes is in the complexions of the skins of people who live in the neighborhood. By 1968 or thereabouts, blacks have moved within a few blocks of their neighborhood. A group of them rides down the street where the young Italian-American hoods hang out. They--with the exception of Colagero--charge into them, knocking them off their bikes, and beat and kick them to the ground. Colagero--"C" to everyone in the neighborhood--tries, in vain, to stop them. As the young black men are being beaten and their bikes trashed, the Moody Blues' Nights In White Satin plays in the background.
