The Best Response From Some First Responders

A sixteen-year-old boy is riding his bike.  A car turns onto the street.  

"I was assuming he would stop for me," said Alex Zhao.  "I guess he didn't see me."

Alex doesn't remember much about the impact because "it happened so fast."  All he knows is that it threw him clear of his bike, which ended up underneath the car.  

Paramedics who responded to the crash offered to take it to the fire station so he could pick it up later.  But the bike, which held "a lot of memories" for him and was his only mode of transportation, was a wreck.

Steven Nuckolls

Seeing his sadness, the firefighters went to a nearby bike shop to see whether the bike could be fixed.  Shop employees said it was impossible.  So, the firefighters decided to buy him a new one.  "We kinda looked at it, looked at each other and said we think it's the right thing to do," explained Steven Nuckolls of the Arcadia, California Fire Department.

That shop, Helen's in Arcadia, donated the bike--in fire engine red--and a helmet, which Alex wasn't wearing when the car hit him.

Then the firefighters called Alex to the Arcadia Fire Department.  He believed he was going to pick up the remains of his bike.  What he found instead moved him to tears.  

Oh, and the firefighters helped him deliver a painting he'd created for an art contest, and was carrying with him when the car struck him.  He made the deadline to enter.

I hope he wins again.

This Price Is Right

$88 billion isn't chump change, even for Warren Buffett.

It's greater than the GDPs of about 50 countries, including Moldova, Kosovo and Rwanda.  Moreover, it's the value of a not-insignificant industry.

Now, when I say that something is "not insignificant" on this blog, you know it has something to do with cycling.  In this case, that $88 billion is the "economic impact" bicycles have on the United States.  

The fellow who pointed that out ought to know:  His state is one that benefits more than most from all of those bikes, parts, helmets and related items cyclists buy--and from related services.

He is David Price, who represents North Carolina's Fourth District in the US Congress.  That district includes much of "The Triangle," home to several leading universities and research laboratories--where one finds, not surprisingly, lots of cyclists.  

Also, right in the heart of that district is the headquarters of Performance Bicycle, one of the world's largest cycling retailers.  Their "command center" employs 200 people, while another 2000 work in its online store or retail shops.

It also just happens that some 35 bicycle equipment manufacturers are located in the Tar Heel State, as well as 229 brick-and-mortar retailers and 44,103 PeopleForBikes members.

I don't know how many people are employed by those manufacturers or retailers, but I'm sure that it's more than a few.  And that's just in North Carolina:  There are surely thousands, if not millions, more in the rest of the country.

So why is Congressman Price pointing out the economic impact of the bicycle in the US? 

David Price

He is part of the PeopleForBikes Summer Campaign, which includes a tour of bicycle industry companies and retailers.  The campaign, says Price, "highlights the impact that Federal infrastructure investment programs have in providing alternative modes of transportation that can enhance the quality of life in a community."  

He knows what he's talking about:  he is the highest-ranking Democrat on the Congressional subcommittee responsible for federal infrastructure investment.   Moreover, he is a member of the Congressional Bike Caucus who vows to "continue fighting for programs that enhance the cycling experience."

Of course:  If you "enhance the cycling experience", you just might entice people to leave their cars home for errands, shopping trips or even their daily commutes--and for day and weekend trips, or even vacations.  That will keep more than a few people working, I'm sure!

Robert Davis Is Still A Winner

Yesterday I alluded to my brief, undistinguished "career" as a racer.  Among other things, I mentioned that the best I ever did was a third-place finish (out of about 25 or so riders) that resulted from the crash of a rider who probably would have taken my place on the podium had he not taken his tumble.

The time I spent competing--and, more important, training for it--left me with respect for those who continue to train and race, and admiration for those who win.  If anything, these days, I feel even more respect and admiration for those who are not considered "elite" or "world-class" cyclists, especially with all of the scandals and shenanigans at the so-called higher levels of the sport. 

For most cyclists, the reward of cycling is cycling itself and the memories it inspires.  For a relative few, there are tangible rewards: in the rarest of cases, money, but for a few more, trophies and other momentoes.

Robert Davis, with his trophy from the bicycle race he won in 1949, when he was 16.

Robert Davis has one on his bedroom dresser.  Every morning, it reminds him of a 100 kilometer race he won.  His victory even earned him, and the race itself, an article and photos in one of the world's most popular magazines.

That magazine was Life.  The race, however, is one you probably don't know about--I admit, I didn't, either, until today--unless you were involved in it or lived in the US state of Georgia.  

Robert Davis, then.

The Valdosta Times-Boys' Club Bicycle Marathon ran for the first time in 1946 and continued every year through the 1950s.  Davis competed in the Marathon's third edition, in 1948, and again two years later.   In between, in 1949, he won.

Robert Davis crossing the finish line.

He was 16 years old and finished ahead of 100 other boys around his own age.  They all prepared for the race by riding after school and during holidays; some, like Davis, delivered the Times on their bicycles.  When he crossed the finish line, with hundreds of people cheering him on, he felt "elated," he said, that he "could have the endurance" to ride such a distance.

Davis has every reason to be proud, nearly seven decades later.  If nothing else, he's inspired some young people.  Among them are his two grandsons:  Both are avid cyclists. 

Defining A Human Right

Many, many years ago, I raced, albeit briefly.  My "career", such as it was, barely registered a pawl-click in the history of bicycle racing:  I once placed third and now I'm going to admit, for the first time, I probably finished that far up because someone better than I had a mishap.

I was young, full of myself (Who isn't at that age?) and full of...testosterone.  (You were expecting something else?)  Yes, in those days, I raced as a male because, well, I lived as one, by my given name and the gender marked on my birth certificate when I came into this world.  (It has since been amended.)  I could probably say the same for my erstwhile competitors.

The difference between them and me is that, as far as I know, they're all still living as males.  One or two might still be racing; I would guess that at least some of the others continue to ride, whether for fun, fitness or other motives.  I can't tell you whether any of them ever entertained any notions of living as anything other than the males they always knew themselves to be: My guess is that none of them have, though it wouldn't surprise me too much if one or two did.

If any of them were to undergo the same transition I have undertaken and wanted to continue racing, how would that rider be classified?

I'm not talking about "veterans" or "Category 3" or the classifications normally associated with racing.  Rather, I'm speculating on whether they would compete as males or females. 

You see, a couple of months ago, USA Cycling released its policy on transgender athlete participation to "bring clarity" to its "efforts at diversity and inclusion."  In all fairness, USA Cycling's new policy is clearly more progressive than that of other governing bodies in cycling or other sports--when, indeed, those governing bodies have written policies at all.

USA Cycling has divided its athletes into two groups:  Non-elite, which includes Category 3-5 racers, and elite, which includes Categories 1 and 2 as well as professionals.  

Non-elite cyclists may self-select their gender category, and if any questions arise about an athlete's eligibility, they may be resolved with medical documentation, how that athlete identifies in "everyday life" as well as other criteria.  None of that, really, sounds terribly different from what I used, before I had my surgery, to establish myself as female under the law as well as for employment, insurance and other purposes.

"Elite" cyclists, on the other hand, are subject to the more stringent rules of the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) and the International Olympic Committee (IOC), which focus on hormone levels and medical monitoring.  

The reason USA Cycling has these two sets of standards is that "Elite" riders can qualify for international competitions, while non-elite riders generally race only within the US.  

Rachel McKinnon, a philosophy professor who teaches a class on sports ethics and inclusion, says she has mixed feelings about this new ruling.  Her thoughts are especially interesting since she is a Cat. 1 racer who transitioned from male to female before she started cycling.  

She believes the fact that the rules even exist at all is good because they say that transgenders can indeed compete in races.  Some of us don't race--and many other would-be athletes don't participate in other sports--simply because we don't know that we're allowed to do so.  Others don't compete because we fear, or have experienced, harassment from other athletes who either believe trans people shouldn't be competing against them or simply don't want us around.   

Moreover, even if we are aware, some of us don't participate because we don't feel safe "outing" ourselves to organizations, especially if we are not "out" at work or in our communities.  Trans people, McKinnon says, " were voluntarily excluding themselves because they didn't want to take the risk."  Having a set of guidelines tells athletes that it's OK to compete, she says, and tells them "Here's how you do it."



Her praise for USA Cycling's new guidelines, however, is tempered by her criticism that they don't go far enough in another area:  Not all Cat 1 and Cat 2 riders race internationally.  (I would guess that the majority don't.)  She believes that those who don't should not be subject to a testosterone limit or any of the other medical criteria imposed by international governing bodies.  "I think that aspect of the policy fails to meet ethical standards of justification," says the philosophy professor.

In response, Chuck Hodge, USA Cycling's Technical director, says the new policy was crafted "not to create a witch-hunt" but to build "firewalls" primarily so that non-transgenders won't try to race as another gender "to prove a point".  I guess such a thing, were it to happen, would be more likely in non-elite domestic competitions rather than international matches.  Still, I'm not sure how many guys it will keep from competing as women, or vice-versa.  For that matter, I'm not sure that very many have ever tried to compete as their "opposite" gender.  

Still, I think USA Cycling should be commended for its new policy.  While it adheres to more stringent IOC (and UCI) rules about gender identity, it does affirm Point #4 of the Fundamental Principles of Olympism, spelled out  in the Olympic Charter (p.13):  Participation in sport is a human right.

The Right Kind Of Protection?

As I promised, I went for a ride yesterday.  And, yes, I was out during the eclipse.

I didn't have a pair of eclipse glasses.  I vaguely remember projecting a 95 or 97 percent eclipse through a pinhole onto a piece of construction paper or something when I was 11 or 12.  Since I couldn't recall the method exactly, and couldn't look it up, I wasn't able to view an image, let alone the eclipse itself.  Then again, even if I had remembered,  I might not have been able to see it:  Clouds moved across the sky and, I believe, the sun.  No one seemed entirely sure of whether the momentary dimming of the sun was caused by the moon or clouds.

All right...Maybe I'm just trying to rationalize not witnessing the big cosmic event of the year.  I wasn't prepared, pure and simple.  But, perhaps, someone else was:

At any rate, someone was more prepared than I was

and found an interesting way to use an old bike rack!

I'm Not Following This Eclipse. I Can't Ride That Far In A Day.

You can follow it here on WNYC.

Now, if you don't live in the NYC area, you can be forgiven for not knowing that WNYC is a radio station.  It's part of the Public Broadcasting System, like TV Channel 13.

So what can we follow on WNYC?

Well, according to Brian Lehrer, one of the station's many erudite and often witty hosts, you can "follow" today's solar eclipse on his station.

Of course, he was joking.  But whoever "follows" the eclipse on radio just might be paying more attention to it than I am.

Call me ignorant or snobbish or anything else, but I'm not making any special effort to look at it, mainly because it will only be partial in my part of the world.  I suppose that if I'd planned further ahead, I could have traveled to someplace within that swath of the US that will see a total solar eclipse. But I didn't, and I figure that it would be just my luck to schedule such a trip only to find rain or worse when I arrived.

I've seen partial eclipses before.  In fact, when I was about 11 or 12, I saw one that was 95 or 97 percent--or somewhere in that range:  almost, but not total.  And in my neck of the woods, today's show won't be nearly as complete.

So I'm going for a bike ride today.  I haven't decided where yet:  All I know is that even when I was in the shape I was during my racing days, or when I took those tours of the Alps and Pyrenees, I couldn't have made it from where I am to South Carolina, the nearest part of the Path of Totality, in a day!

Oh, and I probably won't ride to Connecticut:  I did that yesterday, on Arielle, my Mercian Audax.  The funny thing is that I got home faster than I got to Connecticut, even though I had the wind at my back most of the way up to the Nutmeg State!

I've heard that eclipses affect the wind.  Is that true only of total eclipses, or partial ones as well?

Teach Your Children

In yesterday's post, I mentioned that some people are riding to work, school or wherever because it's cheaper than driving.  Some are too poor to own, maintain or park a car; others, who can easily afford four wheels and an engine, opt for two wheels and pedals because it saves them money they can use to...buy a more expensive bike.  Or accessories.

While buying even the most expensive bikes, parts and gadgets isn't nearly as bank-breaking as acquiring even some of the least expensive motorized vehicles, you can still find yourself spending more money than you'd planned.  Some would say it's like an addiction:

If it is "as addictive as cocaine and twice as expensive," wouldn't you rather see your kids hooked on bikes?

The Future In A Milk Crate?

Perhaps it has to do with having gone from living as a guy named Nick to a woman named Justine. Or maybe it's just a result of aging.

Although I still like long rides--and, sometimes, to pedal as long, fast and hard as I can--my attitudes about cycling have been changing.  Now I can see how arrogant and, frankly, elitist--at least when it came to cycling--I was not so long ago.  Sometimes I still find remnants of those old notions within me: I still get annoyed with riders (these days, many of them on Citibikes) who twiddle along and take up just enough of the lane or road to keep me from passing.  Those dilettantes!  But now I understand how such snobbishness--whether against riders who aren't kitted out in the latest lycra uniforms or bikes that aren't what riders in the Tour would ride--has kept bicycles from becoming the vehicles for change (pardon the pun) they can be.

To be more precise:  Such attitudes have kept people (like yours truly) from allowing the bicycle to transform our cities and our lives in, well, ways that would make our cycling more pleasant as well as practical.  Too many planners see planning only in terms of painting lines on a streets and calling them "bike lanes"; in turn, too many people see those lanes--as well as bike share programs as entitlements for privileged young people.  

As much as I love my nice bikes and rides, I know that if cycling has a future, it lies with the unemployed and minimum-wage workers who ride so they don't have to spend large portions of their incomes (or savings) to buy, maintain, fuel, park and repair cars.   It lies with people pedaling to their schools, offices and shops, and those who go for a spin with their kids or parents or neighbors at the end of the day--as well as those who want to have schools, offices and shops to ride to, and people to ride with.

Last year, I wrote about how city planners and non-profit groups came to recognize these facts, and re-thought what makes a city "bike friendly". They came to see that in Reading, Pennsylvania, where they were working, it meant creating a network of bike lanes that actually allowed people to pedal quickly and safely all over to the city.  They also realized that, in a poor post-indstrial city that has little mass transportation, they had to make bicycling more affordable and convenient for residents.  So, bike racks were installed on city buses, and when Reading's first bike shop opened, it concentrated on selling used bikes and affordable parts, conducting safety and repair workshops--and loaning tools.

Now, I don't know whether planners in Stockton, California have been paying attention to what the folks in Reading have done.  It seems as if they have been:  The city's latest plan calls for a series of bike lanes that will allow cyclists to pedal out of their neighborhoods and ride all over town.  But these lanes won't be just lines on the street:  They will be separated from motor vehicle traffic by barriers or raised medians.  In some areas, traffic lanes will be removed in order to make room for cyclists.

Whether or not the planners in Stockton followed the work of their peers in Reading, they at least seemed to be listening to the concerns of everyday cyclists like Alfonso Macias.  He is a 56-year-old farm worker who doesn't own a car.  Bungee cords hold a grocery crate to the rear rack of a bike he pedals to the store, where he buys the food he carts to his house.  Along the way, he has to share streets that don't have bike lanes, or even shoulders, with drivers who weave around him, or around whom he has to weave.  "Thank god I've never been hit," he says.

Now, he is cycling out of necessity.  Others, who could choose to leave their cars home and ride for errands and such, are deterred from doing so because of the hazards Macias faces.  Here in New York, people have expressed similar concerns, and even wondered how I could ride in this city's traffic. "Aren't you scared?," they wonder.

Even if people perceive cycling as more dangerous than it actually is, their fears need to be heard.  So must the concerns of folks who tie grocery crates to their bikes so they can go shopping.  They, not the wannabe racers encased in lycra, are the future of cycling.

This Ride Was Good

All rides are good.

At least, I can't think of any bike ride I wish I hadn't taken.   And I've been riding for a lot of years!

Some would say that some rides are "better" than others.  Of course, "better", when it comes to rides is subjective:  Some want to climb as many steep hills as possible; others prefer land flatter than their dinner tables.  Some of us love riding by an ocean or a lake; another cyclist's idea of a "dream ride" takes him or her through deserts or prairies.

You might to ride in the hottest weather with the brightest sunshine; I like it cooler with a mix of sun and clouds.  Your friend might not go anywhere near a bike if there's a single cloud, let alone if a single drop falls from the sky; his or her club-mate believes that if you don't get wet, it's not a "real" ride.

I'll admit there are a few conditions I'll avoid if possible. For example, I don't mind the cold or even rain, but I prefer not to have both together when I'm riding.  (Snow, on the other hand, can be fun.)  And, while traffic doesn't scare me, I prefer not to cross entrances to, and exits from, highways:  When I ride to the Rockaways or Point Lookout, I take a detour through the side-streets of Howard Beach so I can avoid having to traverse the on- and off- ramps of the Long Island Expressway and Belt Parkway that feed into, or lead away from, Woodhaven and Cross-Bay Boulevards.

I took a similar diversion yesterday after I crossed the Victory Bridge over the Raritan River in New Jersey.  On the Sayreville side, I zigged and zagged through an industrial area and residential streets simply to avoid a stretch where State Route 35 (of which the Bridge is a part), US 1 and US 9 merge and are one for about five miles.  There, it's a four-lane road which, at times, sees surprisingly little traffic but, at times, really seems to be carrying the load of three major highways.  

That wouldn't be so bad if there was a shoulder for the whole length.  Unfortunately, the shoulder appears and disappears, much like those bike lanes to nowhere that I see too often.  Worse, a large part of the traffic consists of trucks, which aren't allowed on the stretch of the Garden State Parkway that parallels the section of Route 35/US 1 and 9 in question.  

My detour, naturally, added some distance to my ride, which I'd started in the afternoon.  I didn't mind:  I avoided that potentially-bad section of road and wandered through a couple of historic districts and other areas with cute little gingerbread houses by lakes, streams, Raritan Bay (with great views of New York City) and the ocean.

Starting my ride in mid-afternoon and taking a circuitous route had its advantages, including this:

Now, if you've been reading this blog regularly, that I love descending bridges that lead to the ocean.  I coasted down this one, after pedaling up the hills on Route 36 (They don't call it the Atlantic Highlands for nothing!) for the first time when I was about 13 or 14 years old--either the year my family moved to New Jersey, or not long afterward.  

Call me sentimental, but I still get goose-bumps, especially when it's late in the day and the sun, through a scrim of clouds and haze, begins to tint the blue sea and sky with shades of violet and orange.  Once I reached the base of that bridge--in Sea Bright, on a strip of land not much wider than a football field with the ocean lapping up one side and the river on the other--I was floating.  My bike was a cloud; I had wings.  I felt that within an instant, I'd sailed--on two wheels--into Long Branch, some 8 kilometers down the road--without effort, and that every drop of surf mist, every ripple of wind, and every step of people walking with their partners, their children and their dogs along, had become a part of me.  

In Long Branch, I saw the soft twilight colors darken into the night that would engulf the streets as well as the sky and sea.  All rides are good; this, like so many others, made me happy in its own way.

Making An Entrance

There was a time, about ten or fifteen years ago, when it seemed that every other urban and suburban bicycle shop was trying to be a "bicycle boutique".  There are still shops like that, though, it seems, not as many as there were in those days: I guess folks who can afford such places don't have the time to go to them, so they shop online.

The "boutiques" did everything they could not to seem like bike shops.  If anything, some of them tried to look and feel like the sorts of gyms young people with lots of disposable income frequent in order to meet other young people with lots of disposable income.  Or they tried to look like the sorts of coffee bars that try to be like Starbucks without being Starbucks.

There's a certain kind of atmosphere, though, that simply can't be achieved merely with track lighting and espresso machines.  Those things simply can't match a great entrance:

Some things, you can only find in Italy--Florence, to be specific.