An After-Work Ride On A Late Fall Day

It seems that fall, as we normally think of it, has come late to this area this year.  Perhaps it has to do with Hurricane Sandy and the subsequent nor'easter, as well as the mild October weather that preceded them.

When I say "fall has come later", I'm thinking about the kind of light and the feel of the air.  Also, I'm thinking about the trees (the ones that are still standing, anyway), which seem to have shed their leaves later and have not taken on the sere, wizened facades so many of them have by this time of year.

Maybe the lateness of the season is one reason why Tosca was so enjoying this part of an after-work ride:

Admit it:  You're not above taking a roll in the leaves.  Tosca is a fine traveling companion; she's entitled.

As she so frolicked, I noticed that the house directly in front of us is for sale:

For decades, members of the Steinway family lived here, in the Astoria Mansion.  At one time, part of their piano workshop was housed on the grounds.  When that business grew (i.e., when Steinway pianos came to be regarded among the world's best), they had to build a bigger factory a few blocks away.

Michael Hiberian died about a year and a half ago after living all of his 82 years in the house.  He'd put the house up for sale a few months before breathing his last in it; now his son is trying to unload it.  At the time the house was put on the market, it had a potential buyer at $5 million.  But that deal fell through, and the current owner is looking for $3 million.

I've never been inside, but from what I'm told, it's even more impressive there than from where I stood.  The problem is that it's in, ironically, what might be the least desirable location in Astoria.  When the house was built, it was surrounded by meadows that rolled into the bay.  The house, on  the highest hill in the area, had some expansive views, to say the least.  But now the house has an even better view of the Con Ed powerplant along the shore--and the bridge to Rikers Island.  Also, in the area around the mansion are warehouses and a cement plant.

Anyway, from there, I continued to ride along the water, past LaGuardia Airport and the World's Fair Marina, to a waterfront area I hadn't seen before--at College Point.

My bikes just love waterfronts and sunsets!  

What's Your Idea Of A "City Bike"?

What is your idea of a "city bike"?

Some--including Grant Petersen of Rivendell--think that an old mountain bike with a good rack is, if not ideal, then at least the best possible.

Others, such as hipsters and some messengers would tell you that a fixed-gear bike is the only thing you should ride in the concrete canyons.  They would argue for the sheer simplicity of it.  A few would even go for a pure track bike with no brakes and a tight wheelbase, which makes them maneuverable.

Then there are those who want a plush bike to ride over sewer grates, potholes and all of the other hazards of the urban landscape.  Such riders--particularly those who do no other riding but their commutes--might opt for a hybrid or mountain bike with suspension in the front fork, and even in the rear.  Or they might ride cruisers or other fat-tired bikes.

There's also the English three-speed camp.  They are probably the most immune to fads:  Such riders will clatter along on their vintage Raleighs, Dunelts, Rudges and other machines from Albion.  Because they're immune to fads (at least in bikes), they never think of their mounts as "vintage," even if they those bikes were made before they were born.

Cousins, if you will, to the English three-speed crowd are the ones who like Dutch-style city bikes.  Some might also argue that these cyclists are variants of the comfort-bike crowd.  The difference is that, not only are the Dutch bikes built for comfort and durability, they also come with features that you may have never thought of having on your bike but "might come in handy", such as built-in locks and lighting.

And then there are those who like the speed and nimbleness of the road bike, but want a more upright riding position and a bit more style.  They're the ones who ride French-style city bikes and porteurs, which are based wholly or in part by the elegant machines made by constructeurs such as Rene Herse and Alex Singer.

Finally, there are the rat-rodders.  In other words, any bike that looks like it's been to hell and back is the right bike for the city.  Lots of cyclists here in New York follow that credo, which makes a lot of sense when you have to park your bike in high-theft areas.  The rat-rod can be just about any kind of bike; these days, the majority (at least here in New York) seem to be ten- or twelve-speeds from the '70's or '80's, or mountain bikes from the '90's.  Think of the guy (Yes, he's almost always a guy.) who delivers your supper from the Chinese restaurant or diner:  He probably brought your meal on a "rat-rod."

A variant on the rat-rodder is the urban cyclist who rides a Frankenbike.  You've seen them: the Specialized Rockhoppers with Schwinn Varsity rear wheels; the Peugeot ten-speeds with high-rise bars and forks in a color (and style) that clashes with everything else on the bike.

In the nearly three decades in which I've been riding in New York, and through the years I biked the boulevards of Paris---and while biking on trips to other large cities like London, Prague, Amsterdam and San Francisco, I have seen my notions of the "ideal" city bike evolve and change.  Sometimes I want comfort; other times, I want a bike that I can leave in urban combat zones as well as those areas--like the neighborhood around St. Mark's Place--to which thieves gravitate.  At times, I've craved speed and the ability to slice between parked cars and belching buses; at other times, I've worried about preserving dental work.  But I've always thought about what's practical for my errands, commutes and other ride-and-park activities like shopping.  And, of course, I've changed, and so has the city in which I live.

What's your ideal city bike?  Has your idea of it changed?  If so, how?

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.

A Parts-Bin Bike That Changed The World

The Trek I recently sold was a "parts bin bike."  That is to say, most of the components I hung on the frame were ones I had lying around after being stripped from other bikes--or acquired in swaps, or given to me.  

Practically every bike mechanic has put together at least one such bike for him or her self, and possibly for someone else.  Sometimes I think a true bike mechanic will not ride any other kind of bike.

Every once in a while, a "parts bin bike" gains some sort of significance beyond its maker's life.  Such was the case of this machine:

In the immortal words of Tom Cuthbertson, if you had a grand of cash and dreams of riding the Appalachian Trail on a bicycle, you went to Joe Breeze and he built you a bike like this one.

I have always liked the look of it:  an apparent cross between a diamond and French mixte frame.  (In fact, his first bikes were usually equipped with mixte bars.)  There was a reason for this design:  When Breeze, Gary Fisher and others who have claimed (or have had others claim for them) the title of the Inventor of the Mountain Bike were barreling down Marin and Sonoma County fire trails, their frames broke with alarming regularity.  The short life-spans of their bikes had to do with the abuse they incurred, to be sure. However, those pioneer mountain bikers were using bikes they picked up in thrift shops and garage and yard sales.  Some were not terribly strong bikes to begin with, but others were old bikes that probably had hairline cracks and other damage when the Downhill Dudes bought them.  Also, the old Schwinn and Columbia cruisers--which, in those days (late 1960's-mid 1970's) could be found for as little as $2--were made of mild steel.  That is why they were so heavy:  A lot of metal was used to make up for its lack of strength.

Back to Breeze's bike:  The frame was built from tubes and other pieces from wildly differing kinds of bicycles.  For example, take a look at the dropouts, fork, cranksets and brakes:

 

A mountain bike with track dropouts?  Or a fork from a newsboy-style bike of the 1950's?  How about a crankset and brakes from a tandem or touring bike?

When Joe Breeze built that bike nearly four decades ago, there were, of course, no mountain bike-specific parts.  The TA Cyclotouriste was one of the few cranksets available that could handle the kind of gearing needed.  And the Mafac cantilevers were, by far, the strongest brakes available at that time.  As primitive as those parts may seem to some people today, they were the best Breeze could find for his purposes.

I have to admit that I get a kick out of seeing a Brooks B-72 (which was standard equipment on many English three-speed bikes) on Breeze's rig.  What mountain biker rides such a seat today?

Whether or not Joe Breeze "invented" the mountain bikes, many agree that the bike pictured was the first to be built specifically for the nascent sport of mountain biking.  If nothing else, it's a parts bin bike (sort of, anyway) that changed the world.

Lighting The Way Home

Well, it's that time of year again.

Whatever route I take home from work, I pass through a couple of residential neighborhoods in eastern and central Queens that feel more like they belong in Nassau County than New York City.  In those neighborhoods, many of the homes are decorated:.  Some are gaudy, others are stunning.  

Then there are ones that are distinctive, even in an image taken on a cell phone by yours truly:

Another Blast From My Past: A KHS Aero Track Bike

Here is one of the wildest bikes I've ever owned:

If you've been cycling for 15 years or more, or if you live in a city with a lot of messengers or hipsters, you've probably seen this bike:  the KHS Aero Track bike.

Mine came in the shade of orange, and with the translucent blue panels, you see in this photo.  The frame was built from True Temper Cro-Mo steel.  Most of the components were basic, entry-level stuff from Taiwan, with one exception:  the Sugino 75 track crank.  Had I known better, I would have taken the crank off before I sold the bike!  

(The crank was nice, but it was bolted on to a cheap bottom bracket and, in turn, a cheap chainring was bolted on to it.)

The model you see in the photo is from 1999.  I got mine late that year, and rode it for about three years.  Mainly, I took it on training rides in Prospect Park, which was just up the street from where I was living at the time.  I took a few rides on the street with it--without brakes.  I was in really good shape at that time, but I was going through a kind of midlife crisis that would end when I began my gender transition.  In other words, I was going through one last "macho" phase of my life and I'd convinced myself that only sissies rode fixed-gear bikes with brakes.

But I digress.  My KHS might have been the most responsive bike I ever had.  When you look at the geometry, you can only wonder how it could not be so.  On the other hand, in riding it, I'd feel bumps and cracks I couldn't see in the road.  And, in addition to being harsh, it had that "dead", non-resilient feel a lot of oversized aluminum bikes have.

Still, I had some fun rides on that bike.  The reason I sold it, ultimately, is that it never fit.  It seemed that the Aero was offered in three or four sizes that did not correspond in any way to the proportions of a human body.  And there were large gaps between the sizes.  

A couple of years before my bike was made, KHS made the same model with a curved seat tube that made the rear chainstays and wheelbase shorter.  I never rode it.  But I knew other riders who did; one told me it was more comfortable (!) while another said he liked the response of it.  Chacun a son gout.

In addition to the ride qualities I've mentioned, and its distinctive looks, I will remember my KHS Aero for another reason:  It was one of the last bikes I had in my life as a guy named Nick.

A Very Tall Vintage Bike

This might well be the biggest mass-produced bike ever made:

During the late 1970's and early 1980's, Panasonic built the model shown here, the DX-2000.  It was a step up from their entry-level bikes in terms of performance.  Panasonic offered the bike in perhaps a greater range of sizes than any other bike maker at the time.

This bike is a 71 cm.  To put it in persepctive, I, at 5'10'' (177cm) with a 32" (81 cm) inseam, generally ride 55 or 56 cm (depending on the geometry of the bike) road frame.

In a way, it's ironic that Panasonic made such a tall bike:  The Japanese, at the time, were some of the most diminutive people in the world.  Very few, if any, Japanese people could ride such a frame.  So, it's safe to say that the bike was made for export.

And, for a time, it worked out really well for Panasonic:  Their bikes, which combined meticulous workmanship with conservative but sound design, became very popular with in-the-know cyclists.  (Several riders in the club to which I belonged when I was at Rutgers rode Panasonics).  

It would have been interesting to see Panasonic become the official bicycle of the NBA!

Privilege

 I hope yesterday's post didn't depress you.  That wasn't my intention, though much of what I saw made me sad.  Rather, I was just trying to portray a bike ride that was--by intention as well as by accident--different from others I've done, even though it traversed routes I've taken many times before.

Plus, it put a few things in perspective.  At first, I wondered--as I always do when I see a favorite bike route damaged--when things would be back to "normal".  But I soon realized that "normal", at least as I'd defined it, no longer existed.  Even if everything that was damaged or destroyed were to be rebuilt or reconstructed to a semblance of what was before the storms, things wouldn't be the same, for there would be the memory of what was.

But, more to the point, what is "normal" now for the people who lost homes or simply had their lives disrupted?  A few might relocate.  However, most, I suspect will stay.  But even if their homes and communities were (or could be) restored to what they were before the storms, their lives have changed,and will change more.  

Save for my bikes, books and cats, I may not have had much before the storm.  But at least I didn't lose any of those things, or people who are in my life.  I still could ride to the Rockaways; I have a wonderful bike to ride.  Compared to the people I saw yesterday, I am indeed privileged.

Cycling After The Tide

This sign should have given me some idea of what I was getting myself into:

From 91st Street in Howard Beach--where I saw the inverted sign--I took the bridge into Broad Channel and the Rockaways.  

Broad Channel is a bit like the Louisiana, with colder weather.  It's only a three to four blocks wide, with Jamaica Bay on either side.  Some of the houses are built on stilts; many of the people who live there have never been to Manhattan.  In Broad Channel, it seems, there are as many boats as there are cars or trucks.  Some of them were torn from their moorings and were "beached" in the middle of streets, or in front of houses:

But, not surprisingly, there was more to come.  The retaining wall that separates the bay from the entrance ramp for cyclists and pedestrians of the Cross Bay Bridge was gone.  So was most of a restaurant that stood beside it.

When you arrive in Rockaway Beach, you come to a McDonald's.  You know how powerful the storm was, and how much desperation there is, when you see this:

But the contents of that restaurant weren't the only things gone from Rockaway Beach:

This sandy lot was, just four weeks ago, a community garden and flea market.  But something that had been a part of Rockaway Beach for much longer was also gone:

There was a boardwalk here. It extended from Far Rockaway, near the border with Nassau County, to Belle Harbor, about five miles  along the beach.  Gone, all of it, gone:

Much of Riis Park was cordoned off.  But the part that was still open felt utterly desolate:

There were dunes along this stretch of beach.  I don't know how long those dunes stood, but given the force of the storm, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that they were destroyed in an instant.  

At Riis Park, I met another cyclist. Together we rode to a beach club to which he'd once belonged.  Its parking lot was full of sand, and doors of cabanas were pulled off their hinges.  

He had to go home to his sick wife, but I continued toward Breezy Point.  In normal times, it's a sort of gated community:  One enters it through a kind of tollbooth where security guards stand watch.  Normally, when I ride my bike, they barely notice me at all.  Today, though, a female NYPD officer was checking people who entered.  "Ma'am do you live here," she intoned.  I probably could have lied that I did, or said that I was a volunteer who was meeting other volunteers.  But that didn't seem right:  I could only imagine how residents might have felt about an interloper like me.  

What I had seen up to that point was worse than what I'd seen in the news accounts.  I'm sure it was even worse in Breezy Point; for now, that assumption will have to suffice.

I'll close this post with an observation:  It was, or at least seemed, much colder than I expected.  Of course, that would be par for the course in an area, especially on a day as windy as today was.  However, I also realized that many of the houses and other buildings were empty and still had no electricity or heat.  Perhaps it really was colder due to the loss of ambient heat that normally radiates from buildings.  (It's one of the reasons why, on summer days, central city areas are usually hotter than the "ring" neighborhoods or suburbs.)  So it's not hard to understand why people who are sleeping in tents or in the open air are coming down with frostbite and other ailments.

I hope they can all go home soon.

America's First Bike Path

A running joke among New York City cyclists (particularly those in Brooklyn) concerns the Ocean Parkway Bike Path:  It is the world's first bike path, and looks it.

In other words, maintenance seems to have been deferred ever since it opened in 1894.  

The Ocean Parkway Bike Path when it opened in 1894.

Still, it's an interesting--and even fun--ride for all sorts of reasons.  For one, you can use it to ride from Prospect Park to Coney Island, as I have often done.   For another, it's separated from the pedestrian path and rows of benches by an old railing.  If it's not raining, some of the last remaining Holocaust survivors will share bench space with Hasidic and Orthodox Jewish women and their children, wizened Russian men and Middle Eastern people in various states of being covered up.

Plus, the Parkway is a cross between one of those grand Boulevards you find in European cities, and an urban highway.  That is not surprising, when you consider that Frederick Law Olmstead--who designed Prosepect Park (as well as Central Park, Fairmount Park in Philadelphia and Mount Royal Park in Montreal)--took those boulevards as his inspiration when he built the Parkway. Whereas most European boulevards lead from one grand square or plaza to another (as the Champs-Elysees leads from la Place de la Concorde to l'Etoile), Olmstead's parkways led to or from one of the parks he designed.

Ocean was thus the first Parkway ever built; Olmstead followed it with Eastern Parkway which, as its name indicates, radiates from the park to the eastern edge of Brooklyn.  

Olmstead designed those boulevards in the 1860's, before bicycling became popular.  So, of course, he wasn't thinking about bicycles, let alone automobiles, when he planned his parks and routes.  However, he seems visionary in that it was relatively easy to incorporate bike paths into the Parkway routes as well as in the parks he designed.

But I don't think he planned on the kind of maintenance they would--or, more precisely, wouldn't--receive!