Agonizingly Rewarding

I've cycled in the Green Mountains, Adirondacks, Catskills, Sierra Nevada, Pyrenees, Alpes Maritimes and the Alps of France, Italy and Switzerland.  I've also done some challenging climbs in places like the Greek island of Milos, where the road up the mountain, I think, was first built long, long before I was born and simply paved over.  

I don't know whether that climb was tough (but rewarding) because of the less-advanced state of engineering at the time it was first carved out, the hot weather or my age.  But it felt nearly as arduous, at times, as one stretch of the Col de Portillon, on the Spanish border.  I climbed it--and was both terrified and exhilarated by the views from the guardrail-less virages--on a bike loaded with full panniers.  I don't know whether that stretch--about a kilometer of a 10 kilometer climb --was steeper than the most vertical stretches of the Alpe d'Huez or Col d'Agnel (a.k.a. Colle d'Agnello: It's on the Italian-French border) but I remember a group of people applauding me when I made it to the top. 

Well, there is one climb that claims to put those, and all others, to shame.  Every year, the Mount Washington Auto Road Bicycle Hillclimb takes cyclists to the top of the highest peak in the Northeastern United States. The route can lay claim to one of the world's steepest climbs:  The average grade is 12 percent; extended sections rise at 18 percent and for one part near the end, cyclists have to pump their way up a 22 percent climb.  

When bumper stickers proclaim, "This car climbed Mount Washington," you know it has to be quite ride for cyclists. (The road is closed to auto traffic on the day of the ride.)  What makes the ascent all the more laborious is the weather, some of the most severe and changeable in the world. For years, the race was held in September, but cold, wind, rain and snow caused organizers to move it to August--where there is still a chance of starting off in typically summer-like conditions but pedaling through cold, wind and freezing rain before reaching the top.

At the start of the 2017 ride. Photo by Joe Viger

Mark Greenleaf would know.  He plans to participate for the 35th time when this year's edition is held on 20 August.  

In 1983, he was living in Providence, Rhode Island when, one day, he grabbed the mail before going out to dinner with friends.  Among that day's delivery was a copy of Bicycling! magazine, in which he noticed an article about the ride.  "After a couple of beers, we dared each other to do it," he said of his friends at that fateful dinner.  The following year, he did it for the first time.

After each climb--which he completed--he always felt it was "agonizingly rewarding."  I could say the same for the climbs I've made.

A Color Of My Ride

As much as I love riding along the sea, I have to admit that the sight of the waters around here leave me pining for those almost preternaturally azure waves around the Milos and Santorini.  

I don't know whether the waters were, or ever could be, so blue around New York.  But I rather liked what I saw on my Point Lookout ride the other day:

The water reflected the moss on the rocks. Or was it the other way around?

For A Professor, Comic Relief From Bicycle Face

One of my graduate school professors said, "If you can't say it in English, say it in French.  If French doesn't work, go to German.  If you still can't say what you're trying to say, try Latin. If that fails, there's always ancient Greek."

Well, I could follow his advice only partway:  Although my French was, and is, good, I had reading, but not conversational or writing, ability in Latin.  And I only knew all the German I learned in one semester and while biking through the country, just as I know a few words of Greek acquired just before, and during, my most recent trip.  (I wonder, though, how much Socrates' Greek was like the language I butchered in the marketplaces of Milos and cafes of Thissio.

I got to thinking about my old professor's advice when I heard about another professor--Louis Vivanco, a cultural anthropologist at the University of Vermont.  His specialty is the anthropology of environmental movements, and he had a particular interest in cycling.  So, not surprisingly, he spent a lot of time looking at old newspaper articles about the "maladies" that afflicted early cyclists in Vermont, and other places.  There were warnings about "bicycle face," a mask into which a cyclist's face contorted itself,  as well as explanations about "cyclist's neuralgia," a condition that manifested itself with, among other symptoms, shriveling penises in men and "spinsterhood" (oh, my!) in women. 

He wanted to present his findings to a wider audience.  That brought him to a crisis:  He realized that an academic paper could not do them justice.  For a researcher like him, that's akin to a writer learning that words don't do justice to anything  (You mean they don't!) or a mathematician realizing that numbers can't express the relationships he or she is trying to elucidate.

His "crisis", if you will, came to a head while he attended a symposium on comics in academia.  At the end of a lecture, he went up to the presenting professor and asked "How can I do this myself?"

That professor's advice:  "Go get yourself an illustrator."

Such advice is sound, except for one problem which I, as an educator, can relate to:  Vivanco couldn't afford to hire such a professional.  So, he decided to "give it a shot" and draw the illustrations himself.  "I try to be kind an idiot savant:  I look at art and books and comics and then I do my best to reproduce what I see."

That work has led to comics about cycling throughout history, and in the present. They illustrate, if you will, much about the way larger society related to cycling and cyclists.  Today we lobby for better cycling infrastructure, or to get any such infrastructure at all.  So did cyclists 120 to 130 years ago, in Vermont and other places.  The difference, as Vivanco points out, is that because bicycles were far more expensive in relation to people's incomes than they are now, cyclists tended to be well-off and well-connected, and therefore had connections to leaders or power-brokers, if they weren't those leaders or power-brokers themselves.  Thus,  cycling clubs in places like Brattleboro and even larger cities were part of the political establishment and were quite effective in getting safer roads and other amenities.  Today, in contrast, cyclists are, in most places, organizing and lobbying as outsiders looking in at the lawmakers and institutions they're trying to influence.

From what Professor Vivanco says, media like comics are a way to help open the doors by making information more available to non-specialists.  He points out something I know very well:  Academic discourse has a language and culture all of its own and, because they are learned by relatively few people, reach very few people.  The same could be said for any number of professions related to urban planning and policy-making, such as law, engineering and environmental psychology.  Comics and other graphic media can also help people who are not specialists--and busy professionals who don't have the time or inclination to read lengthy tomes or ponderous articles on topics outside of their fields--to better understand how the struggle to get better conditions for cyclists is related to other efforts to make cities and other environments more livable and sustainable. 

Most important, perhaps, comics like Professor Vivanco's can show how demands for better air quality and bike lanes are not new, and are not battles that can be won today and forgotten tomorrow.

I'll close by saying that I like Vivanco's drawings:  They remind me of the work of Rick Morrall, who did the illustrations for Tom Cuthbertson's bike-related writings.  At least, I think that's what Morrall's work would look like if Bike Tripping  had been published in 1892 instead of 1972.

One More Day In Greece

On Monday, my last full day in Greece, my toe was still hurting.  And if I were to rent a bike, whether from Athens by Bike or anyone else, I'd have to worry about returning it before closing time. (Athens doesn't have a bike-sharing program, and dockless services like Lime and Ofo don't seem to be available in Athens.  So I decided, reluctantly, to skip cycling.

All was not lost, though.  I figured that in a few days, I'll feel better and start riding again, on my own bikes.  Also, exploring Athens for one more day would be fun, however I did it.

So, from my apartment (Funny, how I started to think of it that way), I crossed the street to the path to Filopappou Hill and the Hills of the Nymphs, just to look at the views and imagine.  Then I descended to the Odeon of Herodes Attiicus

and sauntered along a stone path to the cafe-lined streets of Thissio, near the Agora, where I stopped for some coffee and yogurt.  Then I took the Metro to the Cycladic Art Museum to--look at more of the statues and pottery I saw on Milos!

Actually, I am glad to have come to the museum when I did, just as I was glad to visit the Acropolis Museum after spending time in the Acropolis itself.  For one thing, those museums contain artifacts that can't be left on the sites where they were found.  Also, the museums, in the ways they exhibit their collections, help to contextualize what you see in the Acropolis or archaeological sites on the islands.

Yesterday, I mentioned that some images in the Byzantine and Christian Art Museum made me think of early photography. Well, in looking at some of the very early female figures from the Cycladic islands (which include Milos and Santorini), I found myself thinking of Pablo Picasso and artists who were influenced by him (OK, who wasn't between 1910 and 1950?) like Joan Miro.  

Even some of the pottery made me think of those early 20th Century sculptors and painters.  Seeing those almost-geometric representations of female bodies made me re-think something I'd always been told (or had read) about Picasso:  He is seen as a "visionary," or a "trailblazer."  Now I can't help but to wonder whether he was trying to "get back to basics."  After all, some of what you see in those female representations could also be seen, more or less, in the African masks Picasso collected.

Now, as a woman, and especially as a trans woman, I have problems with objectifying or abstracting a female body.  Then again, such work was being done by male artists and artisans.  Would female artists see male bodies in terms of their elemental forms?  (For all I or anybody knows, some of those sculptures may have been done by women.)  

And, really, how different is any of that from the way I experienced my body in the sea at Milos?  I felt myself as waves; my arms and legs were no longer the taut, straight lines I had always assumed they were.  And, if that's all we were--sinews and flesh in straight lines--we would be nothing more than machines pumping other machines (e.g., our bicycles).  We pedal (or swim or walk) our best when our bodies are flowing, when we are in a state of grace, which is to say in balance with our essential selves. 

Now, I have a confession:  After spending time in the museum and learning all of those wonderful lessons, however inelegantly I have expressed them, I headed to the flea market.  Please don't hold that against me!

A Thousand Words For "Red"

Even with the mishap I described in a previous post, Milos was great.  The swim alone would have been worth it, not only for its own beauty but for the way in which I was able to experience my own body.  Also, Irini is an absolute gem.

I went back to Athens on Saturday night.  Irini took me to Adamas, the port of Milos.  "Those ferries never leave on time," she advised me.  She was right:  Mine left more than an hour behind schedule.  I wasn't worried, though:  I wasn't making any connections in Piraeus or Athens.

If you've read anything having to do with ancient Greece, you might have seen Piraeus mentioned.  When people fly into Athens to take cruises, their ships leave from this port, which is in essence, if not in fact, part of the city of Athens.  It's at the western end of the #3 (green) Athens Metro line, which includes the stop (Petralona) nearest to the apartment where I stayed.  The train ride took about fifteen minutes, then it was about a five-minute walk (uphill!) to the apartment.  So, in spite of the ferry's tardiness, I got back at a decent hour.

The next morning, on the advice of the doctor at Milos, I called a doctor in Athens, who came to the apartment, took a look at my wounded toe and told me that the nail would need to come out.  Did I want to do it right then and there--she had the local anaesthetic--or wait until I got home?  I decided to do it then and there, even though I had to pay (I'll most likely be reimbursed by my health insurer) because I didn't want to think about it for the rest of my trip.

By the time she finished, the morning was all but gone and Athens by Bike closes early on Sunday.  I probably could have rented a bike elsewhere, but I figured that being off the bike for a day might not be such a bad idea, even if the doctor said riding would be OK, as long as I wore open-toed sandals.  

So, the afternoon seemed like the perfect time for something that was highly recommended to me:  the Byzantine and Christian Art Museum. "Don't think about the "Christian" part; it's a great museum," advised Kostas, the young man who drove me to Delphi.  He was right; I think I've found one of my new favorite museums.

"Byzantine" is often used as a synonym for "intricate" or "complicated."  If your tastes don't extend beyond minimalism or even late moderinism, you probably mean the latter.  For me, though, the Byzantine artists were just as meticulous and studied as the great Renaissance figures, even if their priorities are completely different. 

Oddly enough, I found myself thinking about photography.  The artists who made all of those amazing icons of the Orthodox church weren't, of course, striving for anything like photographic realism:  How could they?  For one thing, I'm not sure whether anyone had any concept of "photographic."  And, if they did, how could they apply it to representations of Biblical scenes?

What made the connection, for me, was that, like medieval artists of western Europe, they were creating two-dimensional objects and images, and realized that not everything could be "classically" proportioned.  Also, I felt as if some artists were exploring different ways of looking at (actually, imagining) faces, particularly expressions, in ways the early photographers did.

I can't help but to think those artists understood that whatever they were making could be seen in a variety of different ways--whether by the leaders of the church or the lay people, many of whom were illiterate.   Those artists even understood that what, if anything, you saw depended on where you stood in the church.  So they even created double-sided icons, like this one:




The museum also contained architectural adornments and other objects from Orthodox churches:

In looking at the painted icons, I came to this conclusion:  If Byzantine were a language, it would have at least a thousand words for "red."

A Mishap And A Mining Museum

After all of those wonderful experiences I had on Friday (which I described in my previous two posts), the night ended, not in tragedy, but in a way not befitting of the goddesses.

After returning to the hotel, I dozed off for a bit.  When I woke, I was hungry.  It was past ten, and my mind told me not to eat at such a late hour.  But I ignored my mind and walked down to the waterfront.  I bought a soulvaki from Yanko's, where everything is fresh and cheap, and a small salad with olives goat milk cheese from Gregory's, a place next door, and took them down to a park by the water.

After reveling in the tastes of that moment, and the other sensations I experienced during the day, I started my walk back to the hotel.  The apartment in which I stayed the previous night was now occupied by a couple on their honeymoon so, as Irini said, I was moved to another room.  While not as spacious, I hardly felt cramped:  It's bigger than apartments in which I've lived, and had a balcony of its own.

But the doorstep stood a few inches above the ground, with a "step" carved of stone in between.  I wasn't looking for it:  I entered as if the doorstep were level with the ground.

I let out a howl not usually heard in Milos.

My left foot struck that "step" and pushed my big toenail back 45 degrees, pulling away the skin.  One of the hotel staff members ran up to me and, seeing the blood spurting from my toe, called Irini, the owner, who drove me--up the winding road I pedaled earlier in the day--to the tiny hospital in Plaka.  

There a medic splintered and bandaged my toe.  He didn't remove the nail; instead, he told me to go to a doctor in Athens, where I was headed Saturday, the following evening.  And he prescribed an antibiotic.  

Irini stayed with me the whole time and, the next morning, went down to the port, where my prescription was filled in a pharmacy.  When I went to the courtyard for breakfast, she gave me the pills.

I have to admit, I was tempted to change my plans and stay in Milos.  But I had a boat ticket to Athens (Piraeus),  where I am as I write this,  for Saturday night  and another ticket back to New York for Tuesday morning.

So I went to a place I never imagined I'd go:  a mining museum.  (Last year, I went to the Landmine Museum in Cambodia. I never thought I'd go to a place like that, either.) Turns out, Milos and other Cycladic islands are rich sources of minerals. Why do you think such beautiful pottery and jewelry were made there?  Even today, a few minerals are extracted for use in everything from paper to cement.  The exhibits also include films in which old miners were interviewed.  

What I found really interesting--and encouraging--is that the museum makes a real attempt to show that women did at least their share of the work.  Many worked as sorters and packers, but some actually worked the mines.  I have a hard time, though, imagining how one would carry so much equipment and bear the heat of those mines in an outfit like this:

Oh, Irini took me to the museum and back to the hotel for lunch--and to the ferry.  With hospitality like that, I'm going back to a place where an orange guy tells the world there's no room left in his country?

How I Became Aprhodite By Sunset

No, I'm not in Paris again.

After climbing to the castle (see yesterday's post), I descended back into Plaka's Archaeology Museum.  There, among pottery and other objects found on Milos and other islands, is this replica of Venus de Milo.   In the Plaka museum, it's called Aphrodite de Milos.

When I left the museum, I rode along another winding road to the place where a farmer, while digging for stones, came upon Aphrodite/Venus.   So how did she end up in the Louvre?  Well, as it turns out, some French naval officers were doing some digging of their own in a nearby area and took notice and, after some negotiations, bought the statue and bundled it onto a ship to France.  It was presented as a gift to Louis XVIIII, who in turn gave it to the Louvre.

How she ended up armless in France is another, much longer story, which I won't get into here.

Anyway, I continued along the road to a Roman theatre in Trypiti

and catacombs, which I didn't photograph because it was too difficult and, well, some of those people just might not like being photographed.  

From there, I pedaled up another widing road to a Klima and onto another rocky winding road to Areti, where an elderly couple leaving their house saw me and applauded. "Bravo!"

Of course, after all of that climbing came the descents to the sea, back to the port at Adamas, where I turned south and rode along the coast to Papikinou and the hot springs of Zefira.  By then, it was late in the day, and I wanted to swim before the end of the day.  After all, I'd brought my bathing suit with me and it would have been a shame not to use it, right?

So I stopped and descended the stairs to a pebble-sand beach with the clearest water I've seen in a bathing area.  Ahead of me the blue (yes, it really is!) Agean spread between volcanic islands.  I  started to duck behind this rock and was about to change into my swimsuit when I noticed a young boy and girl wading from the water.  Both were as naked as the day they were born.  So were their mother and father.   

Just past them, I saw the sign:  Nudist Beach.

They say that whatever happens in 'Vegas stays in 'Vegas.  Well, I figured the same holds true for Milos.  I probably would not see that family, or any of the other people--clothed or unclothed--again.  So I decided my bathing suit would have to wait for another day.

In that water, I became an acrobat and a ballerina.  I moved with the waves; my arms, my legs, even the rest of the body, became waves.  Maybe that is what our bodies really are, rather than the hard, straight lines we are taught to strive for in a commodified society.  Even the slender men and women in Greek sculptures were not composed of sinews and pistons; they move, fluidly, through time and light.  

When I stopped and stood, for a few moments, with those blue waves lapping up to my neck, I felt something silky and gelatinous, at the same time, against my legs.  I looked down through the clear water and saw little coral-colored fish with black stripes on their tails nibbling at me.  Were they feeding on some mineral my body exuded?  Or were they merely curious?  

Whatever (if anything) they were thinking, those fish didn't care that I was naked.  Neither did the other people, naked or otherwise, on that beach.  A guy in a swimsuit and googles made for racing pumped past me and didn't give me a second glance.  Everyone, it seemed, was there just to swim or wade as they pleased.  

After that swim, a few more things made sense to me.  To the ancient philosophers, life was about balance a balance, and the body was central.  And that is the reason, I realized, why there doesn't seem to be any body-shaming here:  Each of us is born with our own shape, size and other characteristics, and all we can do is make them into the best they can be. Venus/Aprhodite, however she is depicted, is simply the best version of herself. What the capitalist/materialist media in America and other places teach us, instead, is to strive for other people's reality.

I stayed in that water, swimming, dancing, or simply waving my arms and legs, until the sun started to descend between two hills.  Then I started pedaling along the road back to Adamas, and my hotel.

The sunsets on Santorini were beautiful.  But this one was, by far, the most rewarding I've ever experienced.

Did I become Aprhrodite, just for a moment?  Could it be that when you experience beauty, when you feel beauty, you become your own beauty?  

Now I'll confess that after I got back to the hotel and had dinner, I did something entirely un-graceful.  More about that in my next post.

Hills By The Sea--And Kastro

Whenever I travel, I tell people I'm going for culture, nature, food or some combination thereof.  They believe me, and there's no reason why they shouldn't.  I also tell everyone--again, truthfully--that at the end of a day, I'm usually ready to sleep.  So, when it comes to accommodations, I care only that they're clean and quiet.

But it sure is nice to wake up and sashay onto a balcony offering views like these:

and to take a dip before going to sleep:

or to have a choice of whether to sleep on the upper or lower level:

I had not made arrangements for my accommodations before coming to Milos, knowing full well that it's the high season.  But high season on this island isn't quite the same as high season on Santorini.  So, I figured that I'd find something, somewhere.

There are a number of hotels, modern and cozy, around the waterfront of Adamas, the island's port, and within a few blocks.  After a bit of walking, I saw a rustic-looking sign for Thalassitra Village hotel, which stands at the end of a path and contains spacious rooms as well as apartments.

The owner, Irini, is practically a force of nature.  She's lived on the island all of her life, has seen other places and wants to live nowhere else. (I can't blame her.)  The place was full, she said, except for one apartment for one night.  She understood that, traveling alone, it was far more than I ever would need.  I agreed to let her show it anyway.  

I have to admit, I was thinking, "Just this once."  Perhaps she sensed it. She told me the price, knowing full well that I would never spend that much.  But, since it was available for that one night, Thursday, and a couple on their honeymoon was coming in for a longer stay, she was willing to give for half of the normal price.  And, if there was a vacancy for the following night, for a standard room--which she found later in the evening--she'd give me a discount on that, too.

Up to that point, I really hadn't spent much, so I thought, "Why not?"

What would I tell my younger self who stayed in hostels for a few dollars a night, or camped? I still haven't answered that.  Maybe I won't.  Maybe I don't need to.

Really, it--and the room in which I stayed the following night--felt more like spas than any hotel, hostel, pension in which I've stayed, let alone anyplace in which I've camped or slept on couches.  Why, there were even those white robes found in all of those pricey spas!

Now I'm going to tell you something that would truly appall the 21-year-old guy named Nick I once was. (Actually, he wouldn't have been as appalled as he would have claimed to be!):  I felt no guilt.  So, the way I spent the day--after seeing that view from the balcony--could have been a "penance," but it didn't feel that way.

I rented a bike:  another Ideal, which seems to be the "national" brand of this country.  This one, though, wasn't nearly as well-maintained as the one I rented from Athens by Bike.  In fact, after a bit of riding, I had to return and ask the mechanic to fix the front brake.

Still, I managed to ride it up the road to Plaka and Tripli, with five turns that looked like this:

Then, when I got to Plaka, a charming hilltop village full of those blue and white houses you see all over these islands, I came to this:

Of course, for a second, I saw "Castro."  I mean, I was riding on a steep hill by the sea and I've seen, well, at least a few gay people.  Of course, those are about the only comparisons one can make between Plaka and San Francisco.

"Kastro" means "castle".  After a while, the path gave way to uneven stone stairs and a rocky path.  I parked the bike and walked the rest of the way up.

The castle houses an Orthodox church.  It seems to be open only for services, so I don't know whether there are artistic treasures inside, or even these views:

The ride and hike were just the start of my Friday in Milos.  I'll tell you more in my next post.

(By the way:  This post is #3000.  Thanks for reading!)