Piloting From Behind

Can a tandem "stoker" be a "back seat driver"?

Postponed--We Hope

I am happy I can still ride my bike.  In some places, COVID epidemic-related restrictions are so severe that people can leave their homes only to buy groceries or medicine, if they can leave at all.

Still, here in New York and other places where cycling is still allowed, mass rides and other bike-related events have been cancelled or postponed.  Among them is the annual Five Boro Bike Tour, originally scheduled for tomorrow.  Its organizers say they are discussing "new potential dates with our New York City agency partners."  Given that nobody really knows when the epidemic will stabilize, let alone end, it's hard not to think that the 5BBT, and other events, may not be held this year.

Among the canceled events are some races, including most of the early-season "classics" in Europe.  Then there are various rallies, swap meets and sales, including one in Traverse City, Michigan.  As part of the swap, which has been held in each of the past ten years, people sell their bikes and the event's sponsor, the local Recycle-A-Bicycle, receives 25 percent.  The proceeds help RAB recycle and refurbish used bikes.  The organization is "not in dire straits," according to a spokesperson, but "it's nice to know" they can have the swap, not only to raise money,   but so that bikes that are in garages will go to people who will ride them, rather than to landfills.

RAB hopes to have a smaller sale some time this summer.  I think a lot of event organizers have similar hopes.

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Citibike Expands To Essential Neighborhoods

I have never ridden bikes from share programs. But I am glad such programs exist.

Blue Citibikes have been rolling along the street of my hometown, New York, for seven years.  That makes it one of the older share programs.  When it began, its organizers had the benefit of the experience of other cities' experience with programs.  While Citibike provides a useful and reasonably-priced service, it is not without its flaws.

Perhaps the most legitimate criticism of Citibike is that, even with its relative low cost and its offer of free or reduced-price memberships for people on various government assistance programs, the service is still out of reach for many of this city's residence.  Even if they can afford to use a Citibike, it's not available where they live.

It just so happens that they live in communities such  as Washington Heights, Mott Haven, East New York, Melrose and South Jamaica.  What they have in common is that they are, shall we say, not hipster havens.  In other words, they are--you guessed it--darker (in residents' skin tones) and poorer than places like Greenwich Village, Williamsburg and Astoria-Long Island City, where Citibike ports are plentiful.

It also happens that the neighborhoods that haven't had access to Citibike are home to many workers that have been deemed essential.  They are doing the jobs that can't be done in their rooms or apartments:  they have to get to the stores, nursing homes, hospitals, transit yards and other workplaces when subways and buses are on greatly reduced schedules.

Now, Citibike has announced that, starting on Monday the 4th, it will begin to install new docking stations in Upper Manhattan and the Bronx.  Included will be new stations in Harlem Hospital, located in its namesake neighborhood, and Lincoln Hospital, in the middle of "Asthma Alley" and the heart of the poorest Congressional district in the United States.  

There is little doubt that the nurses' aides, orderlies, maintenance workers and others who work at Lincoln and Harlem and other hospitals need those bikes for transportation.  One can also hope that some of the area's residents might use the Citibikes for recreation or other kinds of riding:  One reason why the neighborhood surrounding Lincoln has the highest rates of asthma, diabetes and other health problems is the lack of outdoor recreational opportunities.

So, the timing of Citibike's latest expansion is good.  Let's hope that the benefits continue after the virus is gone.

Don't Follow O.J.

O.J. Simpson's life can basically be divided into two parts:  The part that most of us can't imitate, and the part that none of us should emulate.

About the former:  He became famous because he was a big guy who could run fast.  That is what made him one of the greatest running backs in the history of the NFL.  Before becoming a professional American football player, he attended the University of Southern California, where he starred, not only in football, but in track-and-field.  At USC, he was part of a relay team that set a world record in the 4 X 110 relay.

I think it's fair to say that while he worked hard at becoming a great runner and football player, most of us never could have achieved what he did no matter how much we trained.  He purely and simply had talents that very few of us have.

Among his other physical gifts were his looks:  Check out a photo of him from his playing days.  His appearance, and his charisma, ironically, led him to the part of his life no-one should try to emulate:  his acting career.  Someone--perhaps OJ himself--made that all-too-common mistake of thinking that looking good on camera is the same as putting one's self in the shoes of a character.  Perhaps I am not being fair:  It may be that even if he were a more talented actor--or if his movies and TV shows had better writers-- people would always see OJ and not the character he was playing. 

Being a famous athlete and acting turned him into a celebrity, which can warp just about anybody.  By the time he reached his nadir, OJ seemed, at times, to be a parody of himself.  A decade and a half after his football career ended, he was involved in the incident that has defined him ever since:  a slow-speed car chase.  I can't decide whether it's worse to actually be involved on something like that or to live with the infamy that follows.

Byron Gentry of Bryant, Alabama will get a taste of it.  Because he has never been as famous as OJ, he will never be quite as infamous.  To paraphrase Andy Warhol, though, he may well have gotten his fifteen minutes of infamy.

He was riding along Country Road 784 in nearby Sand Mountain when a deputy pulled up to talk to him.  Gentry wasn't willing and fled into a nearby yard.  

The chase, which WDEF described as "low speed," moved to County Road 141.  Gentry refused to stop.  Another deputy joined the chase.  Gentry ditched the bike and ran into nearby woods, where the deputies caught him.

The police didn't say why the deputies pursued Gentry.  But when they ran a check on him, they found an outstanding warrant for domestic violence.  That charge will be compounded by charges of resisting arrest and Attempt to Elude.

All of this goes that getting involved in a slow chase--especially if you are the one pursued--is not a good idea.  OJ Simpson should have proved that for all time.

The Only Tour We'll See?

I saw the Tour de France today.

If you thought that was a cheap trick to get your attention, well, maybe it was.  The Tour normally doesn't begin until early July, a little more than two months from now.  Its organizers say that it's been rescheduled to begin on 29 August and run until 20 September.  Given how many other races and other sporting events--not to mention concerts, festivals and other gatherings--have been canceled altogether for this year, it wouldn't surprise me if this year's edition of the race meets a similar fate.

But, I tell you, I really saw the Tour today:

OK, it wasn't the race.  For that matter, it's not like any bike that would be ridden in one of the world's major competitions.  It seems rather like any number of other basic hybrid bikes one can buy:  probably not terrible, but not fantastic either.  Not bad looking, though.

Oh well.  It might be the only Tour de France we see this year.

Ben Banks On Re-covery

If you've been reading this blog for a while, you know that I like Brooks leather saddles.  I ride them on all of my bikes except Martie, my Fuji Allegro.  It's a commuter/errand bike, so it doesn't get ridden for more than an hour at a time and gets parked on the streets in all kinds of weather.  For the same reasons, the Cannondale mountain bike I gave Georgios didn't have a Brooks saddle.

The main reason I ride them, of course, is that I find them comfortable once they're broken in.  But I also believe, perhaps erroneously, that they're better than other saddles for "green" reasons.  When the leather or vinyl covers of plastic-based padded saddles (like the ones from Cinelli, Bontrager and other companies) rip or deteriorate, they are as likely as not to end up in a landfill.  

Well, it seems that someone is trying to address that issue.  Someone who sells under the name "BankBen" on Ebay has contracted with a furniture upholsterer to re-cover those seats. (He writes the word as "recover," which made me think, at first, that they had been rescued--which, one could say, they were.)  There are Flite-type racing mounts as well as Avocet-type seats.  Here is a lovely example of the latter:

The red paisley covering came from an old piece of furniture.  So did the olive-covered top on this one:

and this nice brown distressed leather cover:

and this gray suede:

 



So, these saddles offer a double benefit:  They're recycling, not only what people sit on when they ride, but what the might recline in after the ride!

Coming Out

The other day, I rode to Connecticut.  It was one of the most spring-like days we’ve had so far:  bright and breezy.  So, I encountered a little more traffic than I’ve seen during the past few weeks.  On the other hand, I can remember very few days, under any sorts of circumstances, when I saw more people on bikes.  Some were cycling in groups, others solo, and a number of families were riding together in and around the parks in New Rochelle, Mamaroneck and Rye.

I also remember few times when tulips seemed so bright or beautiful—even if they were growing on the war memorial monument in the Greenwich Common.

The Persistence Of Riding

What if Salvador Dali were to design a bicycle?

An Essential Worker Gets What He Needs

If you've been reading this blog, you might remember that back in June, I got a 1996 Cannondale M300 mountain bike for not much money.  I fixed it up and turned it into a pretty decent city commuter.

It was actually good for the purpose:  I could ride it over almost any pothole or other obstacle without thinking.  It gave a smooth, fairly responsive ride, but I didn't have to worry about parking it because, in ten different shades of battleship gray, it didn't attract much attention.

So why am I talking about the bike in the past tense?  Well, I learned that Transportation Alternatives, of which I am a member, was participating in a program to give bikes to essential workers who are trying to avoid the subways and buses as they run less frequently and are thus more crowded. (Subway cars and buses been described as "Petri dishes" for coronavirus.)

I have my Fuji Allegro, which had been sharing commuting duties with the Cannondale--and had been my commuter before the 'Dale came along.  I got to thinking:  I have two commuter bikes and I'm not commuting.  Someone else has to commute and doesn't have a bike.

So why did I decide to give the Cannondale away?  Even though I installed upright bars, fenders and a rack, it's still a fairly close to its original self.  The Fuji, on the other hand, is a bit more idiosyncratic: The ways in which I altered it might not appeal to everyone.  Also, it fits me better than the 'Dale--and it's a mixte.

I sent Transportation Alternatives the bike's measurements and my height.  They found Georgios,an emergency-room doctor at Mount Sinai Hospital-Queens, just two blocks from where I live.  He's a little shorter than I am, and the bike has a long seatpost extended fairly far out, so the bike could be adjusted fit him well.

Georgios:  a hero.

The other night, when he finished his shift, we met.  Georgios, who's from Greece, told me his bike had been stolen and since the pandemic struck New York, he had been walking to work from Manhattan--about eight kilometers--because he didn't want to take the subway.

He'd applied to Specialized bike- match program, but all the bikes were gone, he told me.  He said, almost apologetically, that if Specialized contacts him and offers a bike, he'll pass the Cannondale on to someone else who needs it.  I told him not to worry:  If he likes the Cannondale, he should keep it, even if another bike comes along.  Besides, I am not about to place conditions on anything I give to someone who, in the course of doing his job, has seen patients as well as co-workers die.

I'm having a bad hair day--and week--and month!

All I asked is that he stay in touch: I want to be sure he's OK.  And I hope the bike is useful and brings pleasure for him.

R.I.P. John Forester

The things you read in adolescence never really leave you, even if you stop believing whatever they teach you.

For some people, the things they read passionately during their teen years include the Bible or other holy books.  Some people continue to immerse themselves in such texts.  But even if you convert to another religion or become an atheist, whatever holy text you read (or were fed) when you were young continues to influence your thinking.

For other people, those literary works might include Atlas Shrugged.  I have to admit, it (and The Fountainhead) had a hold on me for a time in my life. As John Rogers has pointed out, AS or The Lord of the Rings "can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life.  Of those books, he says, "one is "a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with unbelievable heroes," which leads "to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood" in which one is "unable to deal with the real world."  The other of those two books, he says, "involves orcs."   

My mind was also seized, at various times, by Les Miserables, Fathers and Sons and A Tale of Two Cities, as well as poems by Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Hilda Doolittle.  And, since my "formative years" as a person also just happened to be the years I was born, if you will, as a cyclist, I was--and continue to be--influenced by three cycling books in particular.  One is Eugene Sloane's Complete Book of Bicycling because it was the first comprehensive book about cycling I read--or even saw.  Before I encountered it, I didn't even know that books about bicycling existed.

Next came Tom Cuthbertson's Anybody's Bike Book, from which I began to teach myself how to fix my bike.  It also taught me about writing and teaching, even though I really wasn't thinking about becoming an educator or writer.  He had a "light touch":  He took his information seriously, but could convey it in a friendly, even humorous, style.

Later, another cyclist would introduce me to what might be one of the most controversial cycling books of all time.  What made it controversial is that it wasn't just a cycling book:  It was also a critique of the way urban planners were treating cyclists--and of the way cyclists saw, not only traffic, but themselves.

That book is Effective Cycling.  When its first edition was published in the late 1970s, some cities were building bike lanes and even installing separate signs and signals for cyclists.  The thesis of EC was that all such efforts were misguided or wrongheaded.  In order to become viable options for transportation, planners and cyclists themselves had to treat the bicyclists as vehicle operators rather than as faster pedestrians.  

Its author, John Forester, was a lifelong cyclist who became an activist and advocate.  That avocation began in the early 1970s, when he was ticketed for cycling on a street rather than the adjacent bike lane.  He fought--and beat--the ticket because, as an engineer and planner, he was able to demonstrate that cycling in the bike lane was indeed more dangerous than cycling in the street.

Although his arguments had merit, they gained little traction among planners who, for the most part, perpetuated the mistakes he railed against.  One reason why those ideas weren't more widely implemented is that they were (and are) radical and therefore a threat to established notions about automotive and bicycle traffic.  Another reason might have been his style, which--in contrast to Sloane's earnestness and Cuthbertson's humor and relatability--was often called "preachy" or even "abrasive".  

Whatever you think of his idea of the "bicycle as vehicle," his critiques of bike lanes and policies were spot-on.  Unfortunately, four decades after EC's initial publication, I make some of the very same criticisms in this blog.

His long career--and his cycling--continued almost until the end of his life, which came last Tuesday.  He was 90 years old.