What Do We Have In Common?

The virus was kind. Or, at least, it was courteous:  It delayed its gratification.  It could have made me really, really sick more than a week ago.  Instead, it decided to wait until I finished my semester.  Not that I was feeling great as I graded all of those papers and exams:  I was functioning just well enough for that, but not much else.

So now that I'm finished until next month, I still haven't been riding.  It has nothing to do with the weather, which has been cold, but not unseasonably so:  last week's snow is gone.  It also has nothing to do with the shorter hours of daylight:  I have my blinkies and other safety equipment. And I do have one thing in common with Santa's most famous reindeer.

Yes, my nose is red.  But it won't guide any sleighs or bikes or much of anything else besides my sneezes.  

Since I can't ride, or do much else, I will try to find out what, exactly, gave Rudolph his red nose.  Surely it wasn't my virus!

From An Olympic Race To A Run For Freedom: Michael Walker

To my knowledge, I do not have any Irish heritage.  So, perhaps, those of you who have any could forgive me for not writing about one of the definitive events in the history of Eireann and the role a cyclist played in it.

Last week marked 100 years since the Easter Rising, which took place from 24 to 30 April 1916.  It is seen as the first of a series of events that led to the declaration of the Irish Republic and the Irish War for Independence.

Four years before the Easter Rising, the fifth modern Olympics--and the last before World War I--were held in Stockholm, Sweden.  Despite objections from other countries, the British Olympic Association entered three teams in the cycling events:  one each from the separate English, Irish and Scottish governing bodies of the sport.

Michael Walker

Dublin native Michael Walker, who had begun racing only a year earlier, was chosen for the team. So was his brother John, three years younger. 

They, and the other riders, lined up for an individual time trial on the 7th of July.  Incredibly, that race--which would count toward individual and team medals-- was 315 kilometers (196 miles) long.  South African Rudolph Lewis won it with a time of 10 hours and 42 minutes. 

The Irish cycling team on their way to the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm

The Irish team finished 11th of the 15 teams that competed, and Michael and John finished 67th and 81st, respectively, in the individual competitions. 

The following year, Michael won the Irish 50-mile championship and set national records for 12 and 24 hours. 

Later in that same year, he attended the inaugural meeting of the Irish Volunteers, whose chief objective was to "secure and maintain the rights and liberties common to the whole people of Ireland."  Within two years, in Dublin, an armed insurrection erupted.  That rebellion would become the Easter Rising.

The insurgents occupied six strategic positions in the city of Dublin.  The Walker brothers were posted to one of them, the Jacob's Biscuit Factory, along with 150 men, under the command of Thomas MacDonagh, with Major John MacBride second in command.  As the fighting raged on, the Walkers would spend much of their time in a role that befit their cycling skills:  as couriers whisking messages across the city.

One of the Rising's most famous leaders, Eamon De Valera, held fort at Boland's Mill, which was under siege.  He sent an urgent request to Jacob's for help.  "Members of this garrison with bicycles were selected for this sortie including my brother John and myself and we left the buildings some time in the afternoon," Michael related in a witness statement. "We proceeded... as far as Holles Street where we dismounted and fired several volleys up toward Mount Street Bridge."

On their return, however, they "came under machine gun fire from the top of Grafton Street."   The brothers escaped unhurt, and their battalion would surrender on the 30th of April.  MacDonagh and MacBride, among others, were executed.  The Walkers would be arrested and sent to Stafford Jail.

Five years later, Michael would go on to fight in the War of Independence.  He would receive medals for that, as well as his involvement in the Easter Rising. He would live another half-century, dying at the age of 85 on 15 March 1971, less than a year before the Bloody Sunday massacre in Londonderry.

In an interesting twist of fate, Rudolph Lewis, who won that 1912 Olympic time trial, would--while the Walker brothers were doing their part for Irish independence--serve in the German Army during World War I, for which he was awarded the Iron Cross.
 

Coming In On His White "Horse"

Today is the twelfth day of Christmas.  So this is my last chance to lament Santa Claus's misuse of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.  But I will refrain.  Poor Rudolph has suffered enough already.  So have you, if you've read my posts on the subject.

Instead of Rudolph, I'm going to talk about a white horse.  If someone were to ride one through the most central part of a city, along its busiest streets, how would people react?

Perhaps they would stop and stare in misbelief the way residents of Bushwick, Brooklyn did when Tammy and I rode down Knickerbocker Avenue one summer Sunday afternoon some time around 2000.  That was a few years before the Williamsburg hipsters started to cross Flushing Avenue because they could no longer afford those Williamsburg apartments they helped to make unaffordable.

But I digress.  Karnchanit Poswat rode his white "horse" through a busy area of Bangkok, his home city.  




Before you watched the video, you had already figured out that the "horse" was really a bicycle made to look like an equine--because you're smart. (Why else would you read this blog?)  Mr. Poswat, who studied film and video in his home country of Thailand,  has also made performace art recordings as well as a video about Buddhism.

So...Knowing what I've just mentioned, I think it's fair to ask:  Does the "horse" video have a deeper meaning?  Or is it a joke?  It just might be neither, or both.

Do other people in Thailand handle horses as well as Poswat handles his? If they do, it might be the reason why Siam (as Thailand was formerly known) was never colonized by Europeans, even though it's between Burma (conquered by the British) and French Indo-China.

Even if those "horses" were bicycles.

My Christmas Lights Tour

Perhaps your city has a Christmas Lights Tour.  If it doesn't, and you've never heard of the concept, give you a brief description.  You buy a ticket, get into a bus or van that takes you past the most beautifully or ostentatiously decorated houses.

And trust me, the stereotype about the most over-decorated houses belonging to Italian-Americans is mostly true.  As you can tell from my last name, my heritage (most of it, anyway) comes from the "boot".  That makes me an authority on such things.  Really!  Oh, and my family's house would have been part of one of those tours, had anybody come up with the idea of running them back then.

I don't think I will ever put so much time and effort into stringing lights and putting up props that will be taken down a couple of weeks later.  Also, even if I were to become rich, I wouldn't want to pay the electric bills the owners of those houses run up.  But I can look at them---from my Brooks saddle.

You see where this is going:  I did a "lights" tour on my bike.  I didn't stray very far from my place.  But I put in a couple of hours of riding to see these:

First, I pedaled to 2179 25th Avenue in Astoria.  I first discovered this place during the first Christmas season I spent, six years ago, in my current place.  

I am alwas amazed at how the owner of the house manages to turn the front into a collection of little Christmas dioramas.

Wherever I start, and in whichever direction I go, every "panel" seems more wonderful and elaborate than the last.  

Hey, you can even watch the umpteenth rerun of "Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer"!:

I would say that the owner of this house certainly gives the neighborhood a gift every Christmas:

From this place, I rode to "thirty by thirty":  the corner of 30th Street and 30th Road:

The four-colored lights look simple. But I like the way they're arranged.  From the front, they give this house an almost-Asian look:

Finally, back to my block.  Interesting, isn't it, how two adjoining row houses can have such different styles of decorating:

Tonight, St. Nick Might Have Another Chance To Use Rudolph As A "Blinky"

I am a heartless b***h.  Una puta.  Une putaine.

At least, some of my students are saying such things about me.  I can understand: After all, they just got their grades. 

But animal-rights activists might also be saying such things about me after what I said about Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.  Actually, they should direct their ire toward that guy with a white beard in the red costume.  After all, he's the one using a poor, innocent rangifer tarandus  as a Planet Bike Superflash--and further endangering him by putting him at the front instead of the rear, where he belongs.

Well, Ain't, I mean Saint, Nick might get a chance to perpetuate his misdeed tonight:

Even if he imposes unfair burdens on his beasts, I don't want him to crash into the Empire State Building--which, believe it or not, is in that fog, somewhere behind the "cross" on the RFK Bridge.
 

This Santa Claus Is A Rider

People of, ahem, a certain age remember Gene Autry as "The Singing Cowboy."  People of my generation know him best for singing "Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer."

He brought pleasure to many of us.  I can't comment on how much he actually knew about riding herd where the buffaloes roam. However much he knew, I hope it was more than Sylvester Stallone, a.k.a. Rambo, knows about soldiering.

On the other hand, I can say, with some certainty, that he didn't know much about road safety or optics.  After all, a red headlight is illegal in most places.  It also isn't very effective--or, at least, not as effective as a white or yellow light--for seeing ahead.

To be fair, it's not Autry's fault for miseducating, if inadvertently, a couple of generations of young people.  The guilty party is actually Johnny Marks, who wrote the song.

I got to thinking about all of this after reading a news story about a "Santa" who delivers Christmas trees on his bicycle:

On Clarendon Street in Boston, en route to Copley Square

He seems to have been born for the job in more ways than one:  His real name is Jimmy Rider, and he hauls balsam firs  in a custom-made trailer through Boston-area streets at this time of year. 

"Every person is happy to get a tree," says Rider, who operates his side business "EverGreen Delivery" out of Ricky's Flower Market in Somerville, Massachusetts.  But, as with stand-up comedy, it's not just about the material:  The delivery matters.  "He does it with such enthusiasm, whether it's snowing or raining, or early in the morning."  says proprietor Ricky DiGiovanni, who supplies the trees.   "He'll even do it late in the evening.  He gets the job done, and he does it with a smile.

During the rest of the year, Rider's main business is delivering goods from farmer's markets and restaurants on his bike.  Somehow I imagine he brings good cheer all year round--and that he knows enough not to use a red light in front.
 

Santa Claus Is Coming To Town--Without Dasher, Danner, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Dunder and Vixem--Or Rudolph

Nearly two years ago, Bill de Blasio became the Mayor of New York City.  Practically from the moment he assumed the office (or so it seems), he promised to ban horse carriages like the ones that carry tourists through and around Central Park.

He's faced a lot of opposition.  About two weeks ago it was revealed that he's backing down and seeking only a partial ban, whatever that may mean.

As you can imagine, animal rights activists aren't happy.  I can't blame them:  After all, horses simply weren't meant to walk on asphalt or concrete or to breathe smog.  (The streets around Central Park have some of the heaviest vehicular traffic in New York.)  They are used to help perpetuate a romantic fantasy about New York:  In the days when people rode carriages because there weren't other means of transportation (except, perhaps, for the horses themselves), this city was a darker, more dangerous and more squalid than it is now--unless you were very, very wealthy.

I have to wonder, though, how the animal rights activists (with whom I am in sympathy most of the time) would react to Santa and his reindeer.  Now, because Donner, Blitzen, et al, fly through the air, their hooves aren't subjected to the impact that horses experience on Gotham streets.  On the other hand, they are flying (I assume) at high altitudes. That means there would be less oxygen for them to breathe.  Also, the effects of pollutants are magnified--which, in turn, could initiate or magnify respiratory conditions.

I think I might have found a solution for Santa--and Bill de Blasio--that just might make the animal rights activists happy:

From Bing images.

On The Eve Of The Eve

This is the night before Christmas Eve.  Some time in my childhood, I heard that this is the night Santa gets his reindeer fleet ready to bring Christmas presents to everyone in the world (well, everybody who's been good, anyway) at exactly midnight.

Did those preparation involve polishing Rudolph's nose?  Checking its battery or whatever makes it shine?  No one ever explained that to me.  For that matter, I never heard much explanation of anything involving Christmas.

I'm not complaining.  I was told stranger things as a child and things stranger still--in fact, outright implausible--as an adult.  No one explained those things, either.

Whatever the story is about Santa and the reindeer, I know lots of people are getting ready for tomorrow night in various ways.  I saw a couple preparing their steeds. They did not want to be photographed, but their steeds had no say in the matter:

Any restaurant or other establishment that delivers food is going to be very, very busy tomorrow night.  That includes the guys who ride these bikes--for Sanfords Restaurant, just two blocks from my apartment.  

I actually saw one changing the battery in his "blinkie".  Would Rudolph have one on his nose if the story were being concocted today?  Would there be LEDs inside his nasal globe?  And would he need something on his tail as well?  After all, most places require that vehicles have front and rear lights.  Hmm...Is a reindeer a vehicle?  If so, would it be road, off-road or something else?  700C, 650B, 26 X whatever or a 29er?

Without Mike Or The Green Light

Now that the latest Gatsby movie is in theatres, I thought a North Shore ride was appropriate.  (I'm still not sure of whether I want to see the movie.)  Anyway, here's one of the novel's most iconic scenes, minus the green light.

Then, on my way back, I stopped for a "snack":

Of course that sign for "Mallow Marsh" was placed during the reign of Mayor Rudolph Giuliani.  Can you imagine Mike Bloomberg allowing such a thing?

A World Of Christmas Bikes

Around this time last year, I posted "Christmas Bikes And Trees". Interestingly, it's become the fifth-most viewed of the 664 posts on this blog.  What I find even more intriguing is that, although it had more views during the last holiday season, and during this one, there's been a fairly steady stream of viewers throughout the year.

I guess a lot of people associate bikes with Christmas trees, even if they never got a new Schwinn (or Raleigh or whatever) as a childhood holiday gift.  The bike under the tree is a very appealing image.  In fact, it's really a metaphor for a lot of other things--most, if not all, of them positive, I'm sure.

Of course, there are many bicycle-themed holiday ornaments and cards.  Quite possibly the only thing more fun than hanging a miniature bicycle on a tree is decorating a bicycle for the holidays.  

From Cycle The Earth

If you prefer to stick to daytime riding, you could deck out your bike like this:

Also from Cycle The Earth

Now, if you want to be a good little girl or good little boy and help out Santa, here's your steed:

Rudolph The Red Nosed Bicycle

I'm sure that wherever he is, Pablo Picasso is amused.