What Kind Of A Lesbian Cyclist Am I?

Five years ago, as I was recovering from my surgery, "Velouria" of Lovely Bicycle! suggested that I start a bike blog.  (Now you know who to blame!;-)) At the time, I had been writing  Transwoman Times for a bit less than two years.  When I started Midlife Cycling in June of 2010, I thought TT would run its course and I'd keep it online for posterity--or, perhaps, revisit it from time to time.

Well, nearly five years later, TT is still going.  I can't seem to let it go.  That may be because its focus shifted from my own experience of transitioning, surgery and starting my new life to LGBT-related subjects in general.  Not only that, I can't seem to keep trans (or L, G, or B) themes out of this blog any more than I could keep cycling out of Transwoman Times.  

Once again, those aspects of my life are going to meet--in this post.  You see, I came across something from The Most Cake, a blog by and about young and hip lesbians in London.  

While I've noticed a number of young lesbians and genderqueers (or people who simply don't fit into most accepted definitions of gender and sexuality) at bike-related events and establishments here in The Big Apple, it seems that there is a more prominent subculture of lesbian cyclists in the British capital.  At least, that's the impression I get from The Most Cake and from things I've heard from people who've been in London more recently than I've been. I can't say I'm surprised, really.  

Anyway, according to the author of the post that caught my eye, there are five distinct types of lesbian cyclists in The Big Smoke: 

1.  Aggressive girls in Lycra
2.  Eco-warrior on self-built touring bike
3.  Feminist cyclist with a cause
4.  Fixie lesbian with tatoos and piercings
5.  The catch-all lesbian cyclist who cycles because she likes it and it's better than public transport or walking or micro-scootering.

 

Hmm...Had I been living as female earlier in my life, I definitely would have been 1, possibly 3 and/or 4.  Of course, if I'd started living as a woman when I was 20, I wouldn't have been wearing Lycra, as it wasn't yet available.  But I would/could have been the equivalent of type #1.  

If I had to classify myself today from any of those types, I'd say I'm number five, with some of number three thrown in.  And, perhaps, number two--after all, I've built a touring bike of my own and I try to do what's environmentally sustainable.

But I don't plan on getting any tatoos or any more piercings than I already have (on my earlobes).  Or to wear Lycra again, even if I lose weight.  But I do plan to keep on riding.  And, perhaps, I'll meet Ms. Right.

Playing Hide-And-Seek With The Season

Compared to past winters, this one has been brutal--or, at least, especially dreary--and has seemed endless.  This putative beginning of spring feels more like a truce, one that can be broken at any moment, than a true end to the hostilities.

So far, I've done three rides that weren't commutes or related to some specific purposes. Even though I pedaled along streets, paths and boardwalks I've ridden many times before, those rides felt like discoveries and releases at the same time:  The tears that rolled down my cheeks were not only from the wind.

But somehow I feel I rode as furtively as the season slinking its way among bare branches piqued with buds not yet ready to open.  I am like a cat creeping, ready at any moment to scamper back into shelter.

The rides have been really good.  But I am anxious for the season to take root, for flowers to open and to ride expansively and endlessly.  Hopefully all of those things will happen soon. 

Riding In "Their" Neighborhood: A Bronx Tale

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.

In Living Colors

Back when I was racing, we had to wear white socks.  I don't remember whether that was a UCI, or merely a USCF (now USA Cycling), rule. But wearing any other color under your Detto Pietro cleated shoes got you disqualified from a race.

In the early days of mountain biking, riders wore black socks in defiance of that tradition.

I wonder what they--or the UCI or USCF--would make of this:




From Biking Toronto



Early Spring Ride: Waking Again, For The First Time

So good to be riding just for fun again.  

Yesterday I took one of my seashore rambles that have been so much a part of my cycling life.  You know something's a part of you when you've been away from it for a while and, when you go back, it's like reconnecting with an old friend:  It's familiar and new at the same time.

The beaches and boardwalks are all imprinted in my mind.  And the bracing wind that pushed at me, whipped me sideways and, finally, took me home felt as if it had always traveled with me, in my skin and on it, yet was as bracing and chilly as the air itself feels to someone who's coming out from layers of stilled dreams, of time itself.  

And there is the light I have always seen again for the first time.



I wish all of my fatigue were that of the kind I experienced while riding yesterday:  of waking again for the first time.

The Alphabet--Or The Periodic Table?

Many, many years ago, I took Chemistry.  It was so long ago that whatever I learned could just as well have been alchemy.

Anyway, I had a really strange prof.  Since then, I've been told that all chemists are strange because of the fumes they breathe in the laboratory.  Even if that is the case, I still think my prof was strange for all sorts of reasons.

Maybe it's because, on the first day of class, he said, "You may have heard this course will take all of your time.  That's not true, but it does require conscientious attention on your part--say, four or five hours a night."

After a couple dozen people walked out, he continued:  "Now look at the person on your left.  Now look at the person on your right.  One of them will fail, if not you."

Then, after a few dozen more people walked out, he said, "We're going to start this course by learning the alphabet."  I thought, "OK, maybe this won't be so bad after all."  If that didn't show what I clueless freshman I was, I don't know what did.

By "alphabet", he meant the periodic table.  There would be a test on it, he said.  

I thought about that when I saw this "alphabet"--or is it a periodic table?:

 

From Velojoy

The First Day Of Spring (With Or Without Powdered Sugar)

Officially, Spring began at 18:45 EDT  yesterday.  And--you guessed it--snow fell.  

This morning, I went to the store.  I'd left the LeTour parked outside.  She complained that I wouldn't treat a dog that way.  I reminded her that I don't have a dog.  Well, then, your cats she retorted.

OK, so I didn't really talk to the LeTour--or, at least, it didn't talk back.  But it certainly captured the spirit of the beginning of this season:

It's interesting to see where snow collects, and doesn't:

I could just imagine some little bug finding shelter under the arch of that cable.

Cycling is sweet.  If that's the case, are our bikes confections

with or without the powdered sugar?

I know what I'm having for breakfast:  waffles, of course.  

What A Man Grows

In yesterday's post, I decried the sexism and lack of artistry displayed by Allan Abbott in building a bicycle that's supposed to look like a nude woman.

So...how am I going to follow it up?  With a post about one of the most andro-centric topics imaginable.  Why?  Well, for one thing, as one of the few (if not the only) male-to-female transsexual bike bloggers, I am one of the few people in this world who can get away with such a thing.

But, dear readers, please indulge me.  I'm not writing this post to be politically incorrect or contrarian, although I rarely shy away from being either.  Rather, I saw a cartoon and photo on the topic that was purely and simply humorous.

The subject?  Beards.  Yes, facial hair in which some men take pride.  According to the photo, the longer a male cyclist's beard, the greater his bike knowledge.

From Imagur. com

There might actually be some truth to the bike knowledge-to-beard ratio.  The photo at the end of it confirms what you know about Sheldon Brown if you ever looked at his webpages:  The man was a Library of Congress, a Biblitheque Nationale of cycling knowledge.  And Frank Chrinko III, the proprietor of Highland Park (NJ) Cyclery--where I worked--knew more about bikes than anyone in his twenties or thirties should.  During the time I worked for him, his beard grew from "Rides and has built a bike from old parts" to "Wizard" length. 

Me?  I grew a beard in those days, too.  Mine, though, never got longer than "Rides" length.  I didn't let it. 

Not For Women--Or Anybody

When I was writing for a newspaper, a police precinct commander sold me something I haven't forgotten:  "Lucky for us that most criminals are stupid."

For many perps, their folly begins in thinking that they'll actually get away with what their misdeeds.  But for others, their foolishness shows in the ways they execute--or don't execute their offenses. 

I got to thinking about all of that because I think there's a parallel principle in making works of "art".  We are lucky, I believe, that most of the truly offensive stuff--you know, things that are racist, sexist, homophobic or otherwise show contempt for some group of people that did nothing to deserve it--is purely and simply bad.  And that is the reason why it is usually forgotten.


So why am I pontificating about virtue and virtu on a bike blog?, you ask. Great question.

Yesterday "The Retrogrouch" wrote about a bicycle displayed at the North American Handmade Bicycle Show (NAHBS).  Its builder, Allan Abbott, dubbed it "The Signorina."

With a name like that, you might expect a nicely-made women's city or commuter bike with some Italian pizzazz.  Instead, it's a not particularly well-made (for a handbuilt bike, anyway) machine that's supposedly built in the likeness of a naked woman.



So far it sounds like a silly novelty item, right?  But it doesn't seem like anything to get worked up about. Or does it?  

Now, I'm sure there are places where such a bike could not be ridden because it would offend the sensibilites of some people.  I'm not one of them:  I have no aversion to nudity, although I have to wonder whether anyone in his or her right mind would want to see me naked.

But I digress.  If you're going to use a human form, au naturel, in one of your creations, at least show it in all of its imperfect glory--the way, say, any number of painters, sculptors, photographers and writers have done.  Whatever its gender, size, colors, shape, age or state of alertness or weariness, make it a reflection of what we are, and aspire to.  Above all, make it living, human and organic.

The supposedly female form in Abbot's frame is none of those things.  If anything, it's plain creepy:  The "signorina" is on her "hands" and "knees"--and headless.  I'm sure there are people--a few of whom are cyclists or collectors--who are turned on by such degradation.  I guess I'm philistine and reactionary:  I'm not one of them.

But, to be fair, if "Retrogrouch" hadn't described it, I might have needed time and an extra look or two to discern the nude female form straddling the wheels.  Call me slow or un-hip if you must.  Even after reading about it on Adventure Journal  as well as Retrogrouch's blog, I'm still not convinced that the bike in any way--realist or abstract, linear or Cubist, Classical or Impressionist--evokes a female, or any other human, form.

In other words, it doesn't work as art.  Perhaps we should be thankful for that.  

Somehow I get the impression it's not such a great bike, either. 

Another Celt Blazes A New Path For Cycling--And Everyone

Now, on the day after St. Patrick's Day, I'm going to talk about another Celtic person in the world of cycling.

Unlike Sean Kelly, this person was from Scotland but lived in Ulster (a.k.a. Northern Ireland).  Another difference is that this person I'm about to mention never won any Tour jerseys or classics.  In fact, as far as I know, he never raced at all.  

But we should all be grateful to this person, who invented something that not only revolutionized (in every sense of the word) cycling, but the whole world. 

That last clue may have tipped you off.  Yes, this person's invention had to do with the wheel.  No, he didn't invent the wheel:  That came a few millenia earlier.  But what he did made the wheel--and the bicycle--versatile in ways no one could have previously imagined.

What's just as interesting is that this person not only was not a racer, he wasn't an engineer or a technical person.  In fact, he was a veterinary surgeon at the time he invented the thing I'm going to mention.

Early pneumatic tire.  From Dave's Vintage Bicycles

That thing was...the pneumatic tire.  Without it, bicycles are no faster than horse-drawn carriages--and wouldn't be able to traverse some of the terrain our bovine friends have trod for milennia. Ditto for automobiles:  They would have been all but useless, especially given the road conditions of around the time the gasoline-powered engine was invented.  And aircraft, at least as we know them, could not take off or land.

John Boyd Dunlop

 The man in question is John Boyd Dunlop.  As the story goes, his young son was prescribed cycling as a cure for a heavy cold.  Given the relative cost of bikes at that time, it took a pretty fair amount of audacity to complain that his tricycle--with hard rubber tires on iron wheels-- was uncomfortable.

No one knows exactly how Dunlop pere came up with the idea of bonding canvas together with liquid rubber to make an inflatable tube.  But he did and in 1888 he patented the idea--and, in the process used the word "pneumatic" for the first time.  

A local firm, W. Edlin and company, agreed to make casings for the new tubes and the following year, a well-known cyclist, Willie Hume, used the new tires to win a race at Cherryvale.  A paper manufacturer who was one of the spectators would buy Dunlop's patents a few years later.  By that time, he had moved to Dublin, where he manufactured bicycle frames in collaboration with a local firm, Bowden and Gillies.