In The Saddle, Through The Eyes Of A Bee

About a decade ago, New York City, my hometown, legalized beekeeping.  Other cities have done likewise, and in some other cities, the practice has always been legal.  A result is that the number of urban beekeepers has grown exponentially.  

In the Big Apple (Now there's something a bee would like!), the first apiarians were amateur hobbyists.  These days, however, there are beekeeping businesses in formerly-abandoned industrial buildings as well as other "recycled" spaces.  As you might expect, beekeepers in New York and other cities are selling honey--some with interesting and unique flavors--in farmers' markets and even to stores.  They also, ironically, sell bees and hives to farmers and fruit growers.

Another trend in large and mid-sized cities coincided with the re-discovery of beekeeping.  Since you're reading this blog (Aren't you smart!), you have probably guessed what it is:  bicycling, for transportation as well as recreation.  Just as hives were being built in old warehouses, bike lanes and other infrastructure were blazing their way through urban neighborhoods.

It makes sense, then, that these two trends would meet at some point.

More precisely, they have met in someone:  Jana Kinsman, founder of Bike a Bee in Chicago.

Jana Kinsman. Photo by Adam Alexander.

Seven years ago, she was working in graphic design but wanted a change.  To help satisfy a lifelong curiosity about bees, and insects in general, she took a winter beekeeping class with the Chicago Honey Co-op.  After that finishing that class, she went to Eugene, Oregon to apprentice with a beekeeper.  She brought the skills she learned there back to the Windy City, and began a Kickstarer campaign that raised $8000.  With that, and her 1974 Peugeot PX-10 (You can do damn near anything with that bike!), she "started Bike a Bee out of my apartment," she says.

Jana with bike and bees.  Photo by Brent Knepper.

In the beginning, her operation was in her apartment.  "All of the equipment was stored in my bedroom and we extracted honey in my living room," she recalls. (I must say that I've lived with housemates who did less to contribute their fair share of the rent, and who were far more dangerous!)  Today, Bike a Bee maintains more than 50 hives in community gardens, schools and urban farms on the city's South Side.  She pedals between those sites to conduct inspections and collect honey.  From those places, she transports honey all over the city, where it is sold in farmers' markets and stores.

She says she has yet to find the need for a motor vehicle.  What's more, working by bicycle has other benefits.  Not only does it keep her physically active, it helps her to be more mindful and enjoy the community around her.  "When you're on your bike, you're slower," she explains. You're able to take things in more.  Stop whenever you want, wherever you want.  You can see nature more, the blooms in the trees.  You connect much more with the world around you by bike."

Could it be that from the saddle of her Peugeot PX-10, Jana Kinsman is seeing her city through the eyes of a bee?

Jana with bees. Photo by Adam Alexander.

When The Tide Was Out

The other day I took a ride to Point Lookout. Despite the warmth and humidity, I didn’t see many people along the Rockway beach and boardwalk, or on the Nassau County south shore.  I felt as if I had the seaside to myself.  Well, almost....

...and until I got to Point Lookout.

The tide was out.   But I behaved myself.  I’m not proud of myself:  What else could I do?

I enjoyed the ride nonetheless.

Fourth Wheels

Today is US Independence Day.

I'm going to sneak in a bike ride before going to a barbecue with friends.  (I've been riding quite a bit lately; I haven't been writing about it because I've been taking familiar rides, e.g., to Greenwich and the Rockaways and Point Lookout.)  One thing I won't do, though, is decorate my bike for the occasion.

I mean, really, why should I when one can see creations like these?:

From Cool Mom Picks

Happy Fourth.  Oh, and it's my birthday.  

The Right To Mobility

Are bicycles a human right?

The organizers of a workshop don't ask this question directly.  But they could have:  Their event, to be held on the University of California-Davis campus on 1-2 November, is concerned with "mobility justice."

The school's Feminist Research Institute is inviting "emerging scholars" whose work "engages issues of race and inequality in studies of bicycling and sustainable transportation."  These junior scholars and graduate students will discuss ways in which "complex systems of history, power and oppression affect people's movement and ability to live, work and play."  The goal is to make bicycling, along with "new mobilities" and other forms of sustainable transportation, "accessible and desirable to all."

This sounds interesting and necessary.  As I have said in other posts, bicycles and other sustainable forms of transportation are vital to our future for all sorts of reasons, from mitigating climate change to making cities more habitable.  But they're also vital, in some places, for giving people any sort of mobility at all:  Think of jungles and other rural areas where, even if people could afford cars and trucks, they wouldn't be able to use them.

Well, judging from what UC-Davis Feminist Research Institute says about its upcoming workshop, they seem to think mobility is a human right.  I would agree, and bicycles are certainly part of that.

We Love Our Bikes--But Not The Way She Loves Hers

If you read this blog regularly, you probably "love" your bicycle(s).

I use the word "love" in quotations because, although most of us would say that our bikes make our lives better in any number of ways, what we mean by "love" can be very different.  

For me, my bicycles have meant that I can commute without having to deal with traffic jams, crowded subway or bus stations and the costs of gasoline, tolls and parking, among other things.  My bikes have also given me many hours of pleasure, whether I've pedaled the back streets of the Bronx or Belleville, a path through Cambodian rice fields or jungles or a seaside ramble. Oh, and I've even moved my possessions from one apartment to another on my bike.

In short, I have a difficult time imagining my life without bikes or bicycling.  Others could say the same thing, though for very different reasons.  

Esther Deaver is one such person.  Known as "The Bicycle Lady" to residents of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, she not only depends on her bike; she lives on or with (depending on your point of view) it.  She doesn't own much else in this world, and most of her meals consist of what she finds or  local residents and merchants give her. 

As you have probably realized, she lives on the streets.  There are a number of stories about how she got there, but the most verifiable accounts say that she went to Winston-Salem with a church group and lost touch with her family.  Not surprisingly, mental health issues seem to have played a role.

She has never tried to harm anyone, and attempts to place her in institutions have been unsuccessful.  So some people keep an eye out for her and try to help her in whatever ways they can.

Other people, though, are not so benevolent.  One took her bike recently.  An anonymous benefactor left her a new one.  The gift has everything she likes except for a banana seat and sissy bar.  But the owner of a local bike shop says he can remedy that for her.

Even with that anonymous gift, she still feels sad about losing her old bike.  It may have been the sort of machine at which many of us would have turned up our noses.  But she loved that bike in ways most of us could never understand.

The Idaho Stop Comes To Oregon

A couple of months ago, I wrote that Jonathan Maus, the editor/publisher of Bike Portland, was trying to persuade the Oregon legislature to legalize the "Idaho Stop."  In essence, it allows cyclists to treat a red traffic signal as a "stop" sign and a "stop" sign as a "yield" sign.  What this means is that a cyclist wouldn't have to stop unless traffic were crossing the intersection.  That allows cyclists to get out in front of the traffic approaching him or her from behind, and to cross ahead of incoming traffic. These maneuvers prevent cyclists from being hit by turning vehicles.

Of course, people who don't cycle don't understand as much. They think that cyclists must behave exactly like drivers and  stop when and where the drivers stop.  They also think we are supposed to ride as far to the right as possible, which of course exponentially increases our chances of getting flattened by a turning car or truck--or of getting "doored."

Apparently, 28 such people in the Oregon legislature think this way.  Fortunately, 31 others "get it", and voted to bring the "Idaho Stop" to Oregon on Tuesday 25 June.  The bill will now go to Governor Kate Brown's desk for signing, and will become law six months from now, on New Year's Day of 2020.

What He Learned From The Army And Huck Finn

In the military, and in other large, bureaucratic organizations, it's often said that it's "easier to get forgiveness than permission."

What that means is that if you know something is useful, constructive or just good, it's best just to go ahead and do it rather than to wait for approval, which might be denied because of some technicality or mere whim.  

One thing is for certain:  Whatever you want to do, or get, won't come as a result of prayer.  Such great minds as Huckleberry Finn have reminded us of that:  

Miss Watson she took me in the closet and prayed, but nothing come of it. She told me to pray every day, and whatever I asked for I would get it. But it warn't so. I tried it. Once I got a fish-line, but no hooks. It warn't any good to me without hooks. I tried for the hooks three or four times, but somehow I couldn't make it work. By and by, one day, I asked Miss Watson to try for me, but she said I was a fool. She never told me why, and I couldn't make it out no way.

Well, it seems that someone has, at a very young age, internalized the lessons of Huck and the Army:

Let's hope that he retains his healthy cynicism about prayer and forgiveness--but learns that stealing is, well, not good for one's karma.

When I Say "Never"...

Last Friday, I did something I said I'd never do again.  Actually, you might say I did two things I vowed not to do.

Yes, I bought a mountain bike: my first in nearly two decades.  I admit, it doesn't have the latest technology and wasn't even a high-end bike in its day.  But I don't plan to do some of the crazy stunts I did when I was younger.  

When I say the bike wasn't high-end, I mean that it was the lowest-level mountain bike its manufacturer was offering.  Which leads me to the second thing I said I'd never do:  I bought a Cannondale mountain bike.  An M-300 from 1996, to be exact.

Now, I don't have anything against Cannondale bikes per se.  I realize that, like certain saddles, some people just like the ride of them.  The Cannondales I had felt particularly harsh.  Then again, they were some of the company's early road bikes.  I've heard that C-dale refined their offerings, but I decided that since I generally prefer steel bikes, I'd stick to them.

The way I figure it, though, is that a Cannondale mountain bike won't be as harsh as one of its road bikes because of the mountain bike's  fatter tires and the slacker geometry.  Also, I don't reckon I'll take this bike on the sorts of long rides I take with my Mercians.

Oh, and the bike has a Rock Shox Indy fork and a suspension seatpost.  I plan to get rid of the latter: I can replace it with a long  27.2mm rigid seatpost I have lying around.  I'll leave the Rock Shox on the bike for now and if I don't like it, or just don't want to maintain it, I might switch to a rigid fork.

The rest of the bike, though, I'm going to leave as-is, at least until the parts wear out.  The only thing I absolutely must change is the right shift lever:

When I pointed it out to the man from whom I bought the bike, he knocked the price down.  I told him I was willing to pay his original asking price, as he let me ride it and I found that the bike tracked straight and everything else was working as it should. (I tried shifting the rear derailleur by hand, and I could see that it will shift fine with a functioning shifter.)  In a way, that broken shifter is just as well because I don't like twist-grip shifters*.  I plan to replace it with a cheap Sun Race thumb shifter and, if and when the rest of the drivetrain wears out, I will decide whether I want to "upgrade" to 8 or 9 speeds--or turn the bike into a single-speed, something I might do if I decide this is a "snow" bike.

So, here I am, with my first mountain bike--and my first aluminum frame--in ages.  Don't worry:  I'm not going rogue!

Oh, and the man from whom I bought the bike had every intention of selling it--unlike the fellow I wrote about yesterday.




*When I say I don't like something, I don't necessarily mean that anything is inherently wrong with it.  It's just a  matter of my personal preferences. For example I know some of you like bar-end shifters and if you do, you should use them.  They're just not for me. I'd say the same for certain saddles.

Sold--By Mistake

A onetime cycling buddy, Lewis, had his bike sold out from under him.  He didn't realize what had happened until several years later.

It's not that he was stupid or gave up riding.  He'd joined the Navy and was sent to far-flung locales.  He was in one of those places when his term of enlistment was about to end, and he signed up for another.  Four years later, he re-upped again.

All told, Lewis stayed in the Navy long enough to retire from it.  He said that, in a way, he couldn't really blame his family for selling his Frejus track bike--all-chrome, with blue decals that looked like stained-glass windows--because they really didn't know when he'd be back.  Even though he found other rides, and would eventually have a custom frame built for him, he missed that Frejus.  "It was the first really nice bike I had," he recalled.

The only thing that really upset him, he said, was that his parents sold the bike for $25.  Even in those days, that was a bargain price for a high-end bike that was in good shape.  "They didn't know any better," he explained.  "To them, a bike was a bike, and they were happy to get that much money for a used bike."

I hadn't thought about Lewis in a long time, until I heard about Allan Steinmetz of Newton, Massachusetts. Like Lewis' parents,  he sold a bike that had great meaning to another member of his family.  The bike, a Motobecane Grand Touring from the 1969-early 1973 era.  I say that from my knowledge of Motobecanes and looking at catalogue scans of that era.  Also, Steinmetz says it was new his father-in-law gave it to his wife "more than 45 years ago," when she was 16.  



He didn't say how much he got for the bike. But whatever it was, I'm sure it won't make his wife happy.  Her father was a Holocaust survivor and "made it a priority to give his family the very best."  Now, most of us wouldn't say the bike was "the very best," but it certainly was a very good touring bike for its time.  The frame was made from 1020, a carbon steel used in French bikes that weren't built from name-brand tubing like Vitus, Reynolds or Columbus.  That long-cage Huret Allvit rear derailleur is certainly a time capsule, as are the Huret levers that could be used to paddle canoes in a pinch. 

If I saw the bike in a garage sale, three things about it would tempt me:  the frame's long touring geometry, the Ideale 80 saddle and, best of all, the Stronglight 49D cranks.

Anyway, Steinmetz is pleading with the bike's buyer to return it.  "I can't win," he lamented.  "The only thing I can win is by getting this bike back."  His wife wanted to "give the bike to our granddaughter one day, which I didn't know," he said.

In a way, I could understand how and why Lewis' parents sold his bike.  But I wonder how Steinmetz could have "accidentally" sold a bike which, he surely knew, had so much meaning for his wife, whether or not she actually rode it.

From Mexico City To Colorado, And A New Purpose

There are times when I believe that cycling is the only reason why I have anything that can be described as mental or emotional health.  I become sad, even depressed, when I can't ride for significant periods of time.  Also, I took two bike tours that were, at least in part, attempts to restore myself to some degree of sanity, and another led me to the single most important transformation I had to make.  

The latter ride took me up the Col du Galibier as well as other famed Tour de France and Giro d'Italia climbs in the Alps.  I started that tour in Lyon, France as a guy named Nick.  Two years later, I began my current life as a middle-aged lady named Justine.

The other two tours followed crises in my life, one of which culminated in a sort of minor breakdown.  In both of those rides, I spent weeks--actually, months on the first tour--on my bike in foreign lands, living on a student's wages or less.  Don't get me wrong:  I experienced all sorts of pleasures on both of those rides, as well as the one in the Alps.  But they also were power-washes, if you will, against the detritus of some past experiences that had been causing me even more internal distress than I'd realized--or, perhaps, was willing to admit.

So when I came across Rafael's story, I felt as if I'd met someone after my own heart.  Of course, I don't imagine that his ride from Mexico City to Colorado will lead him to the sorts of changes I made.  But he does talk about the restorative powers of his ride, and how it led him to a mission, if you will:  fixing bicycles for underprivileged people in his newly-adopted community.

The next time someone asks you why you ride, ask yourself (and that person):  What would your life be like if you didn't ride?