Mayor Pete Might Master This

Should cycling proficiency be required of anyone who would lead a transportation organization?

Most readers of this blog would answer "yes!"  My own unbiased (wink, wink) opinion would incline me to agree.  But some would disagree; not so long ago, most people would have.  I think one's answer depends on whether one sees bicycling as a form of transportation; although the number of people who see it that way is increasing, there are still many who see cyclists as young people with a sense of entitlement.  Those, I believe, are among the people who are upset whenever a bike lane "takes" "their" parking spaces.

While we're talking about definitions: If the director of a transportation organization or agency should exhibit cycling proficiency, what, exactly constitutes it?  I think most of us would agree that Pete Buttigeg, the Secretary of Transportation doesn't have it, at least judging from the video from which this still is taken:

⁦

To be fair, he even joked about his cycling skills, or lack thereof.  But we all know that time and practice makes you more proficient and savvy.

That last sentence, by the way, can apply to his political aspirations.  When he ran in last year's Democratic Party primaries, he was younger and less experienced than the other candidates.  I think that he'll run again and, possibly, win in 2028--when he'll be about the same age as Obama, Clinton and JFK were when they entered the White House.  And maybe, just maybe, Pete will ride to his inaugural--and look good doing it!

 

I Deny It! I'm Not Getting Old!

 For more than a decade, I've been writing and publishing this blog under the name Midlife Cycling.

I have no plans to change.  As a very wise person told me, "As long as I don't know when I'm going to die, I'm in the middle of my life!"

No, I am not in denial about getting old!

From Displate

It Isn't Easy Ridin' Green

One of the risks in making a film (all right, movie:  I am a snotty intellectual, what canitellya?)  that relies on special effects is that those effects can very quickly appear dated and primitive.  If the film doesn't have other merits--say, a compelling story, good writing, impressive cinematography or fine acting performances--then there is little reason to watch once the effects start to look clunky.

I haven't seen it in a while, but I suspect that The Muppet Movie might escape that unfortunate fate.  For one thing, I think the Muppets will always be fun to watch.  For another, four decades after the Muppets graced the silver screen, one effect in particular is still impressive because it's deceptively simple and doesn't rely on gadgetry:

How can we forget Kermit the Frog riding a bicycle?  How did he--or, rather, Muppeteer-in-Chief Jim Henson and special effects supervisor Robbie Knott--achieve the feat?

Well, they started by making a scaled-down model of a Schwinn cruiser.  Now, I don't know whether an actual frog can ride a bicycle, but I don't think a puppet can.  So, for the bike-riding scene, Henson and Knott, in essence, turned Kermit into a marionette.  

The full-bodied Kermit puppet was posed on the miniature bicycle, hands on the bars, feet on the pedals.  Then invisible wires were attached to him, which allowed Knott to maneuver him from a crane hidden from the camera's view.  For close-ups, Henson used a hand puppet of Kermit, which he operated below the camera while riding a low-rolling dolley.

Henson and Knott undoubtedly would agree with Kermit:  It isn't easy bein' green!

On Thin Ice, Literally

Some years ago, I read Fooled By Randomness.  Its author, Nassim Nicholas Taleb--who is credited with coining the term "black swan"-- made his money on Wall Street before embarking on an academic career. (Hmm...Is that what I should have done?)  What I remember about the book now is that in it, Talib shared one of the lessons he learned as a trader:  People trust to chance precisely the events they shouldn't and try to control those things that are bound by fate.  

One problem, I think, is that people who work in jobs that jobs that reward caution, too often, play it safe in other areas of their lives:  They are the kind of people who will order the same dish in any restaurant of any kind anywhere in the world.  Conversely, some people who work in areas where risk-taking is rewarded, or at least expected, tend to take unnecessary and even dangerous chances with other things. 

An example of the latter kind of person might be Boston cyclist and vlogger Lucas Brunelle.  "I ride my bike the same way I trade stocks," he explained.  What's more, he documents his risky rides on videos he posts to YouTube.  To wit:

On 15 February, he departed from a parking lot in Allston and pedaled onto an frozen Charles River. At least, that's how the river probably looked to him. He transversed about 800 feet before falling through a crack in the ice.

Venturing onto any glazed body of water is risky. But ponds and lakes, which are usually stagnant and filled with fresh water, are more likely to develop a thick icy crust than a river, which has a current.  What makes a river like the Charles even more treacherous is that while it normally contains fresh water, salty currents from Boston Harbor--an inlet of the Atlantic Ocean--wash into it.  Salt water freezes at significantly lower temperatures (which is why, among the major oceans, only the Arctic and Antarctic freeze), so a river like the Charles might not develop a solid base underneath what appears to be a coat of ice.

Ever the risk-taker, Brunelle took to the ice the following week.  And, he says, he plans to continue his risky rides.  After all, what rewards him as a trader will make his rides rewarding, right?  Just ask Nassim Nicholas Taleb.

Did She Or Didn't She--Vote?

 Late yesterday, I zigzagged between Brooklyn and Queens on Tosca, my Mercian fixed-gear bike.  I sometimes take rides like that with no particular destination, and turn wherever something looks interesting--or, sometimes, just to take the path of least resistance (less traffic, a better-looking road or just inertia).  Rides like the one I took yesterday inevitably lead me along streets never frequented by hipsters or the bourgeoisie and never visited by tourists.  Those streets are also among the increasingly-small number of byways not enclosed by towers built from beige Lego blocks, black metal bars and windows designed for people to look at, but not see themselves.

One such street--Borden Avenue--parallels the Long Island Railroad tracks in Hunter's Point, about five kilometers from my apartment.  It's still an industrial area, and sometimes interesting graffiti-murals (like the lamentably-gone Five Pointz) can be found.  

While pedaling along Borden, I chanced upon something I would have expected to see on Five Pointz but, surprisingly, graced a billboard.

I have to admit that I felt a bit of shame.  Sojourner Truth, Alice Paul and Ida B. Wells are familiar names to me, but until yesterday, Mabel Ping Hua-Lee wasn't.  All of them fought for human rights, specifically for women and people of racial "minorities."   The sad part is that, among them, only Ms. Paul (who died in 1977) lived long enough to fully benefit from the legislation for which she fought.  

Sojourner Truth was born into slavery and died decades before the 19th Amendment became law.  Ida B. Wells lived to see it, but not the civil rights legislation of the 1960s.  Ms. Ping Hua-Lee apparently (I'll explain) lived long enough to enjoy the right to vote and to be a benificiary of civil rights legislation--but it's not clear as to whether she could, or did, take advantage of those rights.

Ms. Lee was born in China but came to New York as a child when her father, a missionary of the Baotist church, was sent to take over a church in Chinatown.  The neighborhood--now endangered as a result of pandemic--could just as well have had a wall around it.  Back then, it was much smaller.  Some people, especially the women, almost never left their homes because of the hostility they faced and, like Lee's mother, had bound feet that made walking difficult.  And, in contrast to today (or, at least, say, a year ago, before the pandemic), tourists rarely visited, except to gawk.

Moreover, Lee's father was unusual, not only for being a minister, but because he was able to enter the United States at all.  The Chinese Exclusion Act was passed about a decade and a half before he arrived, but a few people like him--diplomats and other educated professionals--were sometimes allowed to emigrate.

Lee quickly took to the educational opportunities available to someone of her intellect and talents.  She attended Erasmus Hall Academy, whose alumni include Beverly Sills and Barbara Streisand and whose most illustrious dropout is Bobby Fischer.  After graduating Erasmus, she would attend Barnard College and become the first Chinese woman to earn a PhD in the United States--in economics, from Columbia University.

What she is best known for is her leadership in the suffragist movements, especially her role in the massive 1912 march.  Energized by these experiences, she wanted to return to China and spark a similar movement.  But those plans were thwarted when her mother fell ill and her father died.  Although she wasn't a minister, she became the director of his church and used her position as a platform to advocate for gender and racial equality.  Interestingly, she believed that Protestant theology could be used to advance causes of social justice, knowing full well that one of the goals of the Chinese Exclusion Act was to help keep a white Protestant majority in the United States.  Of course that, thankfully, failed:  Most of the mass immigrations that came from southern and eastern Europe between 1880 and 1919 wasn't Protestant. (Catholics and Jews, oh my!) 

Little is known about Mabel Ping-Hua Lee's later years.  She is believed to have died in or around 1966.  It's not clear as to whether she ever became a citizen--and, thus, whether she exercised the right to vote for which she fought!

Now, in case you were wondering:  After I got home from my ride and ate some vegetarian nachos I made for supper, I did a Google search on Mabel Ping-Hua Lee.  I often do such things after rides and, in the days before the Internet, I'd go to the library the first chance I got after riding.  You might say that bicycling has caused me to continue my education!

Let's Hope They Don't Get Stranded On The Island

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a few paradoxes.  The bike business is booming, but some shops are closing because supply chain disruptions have cut off their supplies.  And more people are riding, but bike tour companies are struggling.

The latter situation is playing out in, among other places, Maui.  And two enterprises in particular embody its contradictions more than most.

"I am currently seeing more people out riding their bikes," reports Donnie Arnoult. A longtime cyclist, he owns Maui Cyclery on the island's north shore.  Sales and repairs have surged during the pandemic, and rentals increased during the holidays but slowed a bit this month.  "{M}y clients are people who can work remotely and they are staying in Maui for a longer period of time," he explains.  So, he is "busy with less numbers, but still riding just as much as before the pandemic."

Photo by Matthew Thayer, The Maui News

In contrast, Bike Maui is struggling.  They re-opened in October after halting services for a few months.  Though Bike Maui has a shop and mechanic "for locals and their repairs," the "majority of our business is tourism," says Ron Daniel, who directs operations, sales and marketing.  Visitors are the ones who rent Bike Maui's bikes and ride in the company's guided and self-rented tours, and tourism has suffered, possibly, more in Hawaii than anywhere else in the US. 

So, while many new cyclists in Maui say they plan to continue riding after the pandemic, and tourists will almost certainly return, one can only hope that Bike Maui and Maui Cyclery will still be around to serve them.

Are Helmets An Issue Of Racial And Economic Justice?

 Four decades after helmet-wearing became widespread among cyclists, at least here in the US, helmet laws and regulations remain controversial.  Medical experts are all but unanimous in recommending helmets, citing their efficacy in preventing brain injury (something to which I can attest).  So, most doctors and surgeons favor requirements to wear head protection.

On the other hand, not all cyclists favor such regulations. I admit that sometimes I miss the wind through my hair, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels that way.  But I want to keep on riding, so I am willing to sacrifice that to keep my brain intact. And, as much as I respect this country's Constitution, with all of its flaws, I don't buy civil libertarian arguments against helmet laws--which some cyclists voiced years ago but I rarely hear anymore. (That, of course, may be a consequence of where I live and the people I normally see.)  Still, I am conflicted about helmet laws.  I certainly encourage cyclists to wear helmets, but I also understand that laws have unintended consequences.

One such outcome has played out in the Seattle area.  In a way, as upsetting as it is, it shouldn't come as a surprise because it's a result of a pernicious, pervasive problem:  the unequal enforcement of the law. 

If you are, or are perceived as, a member of any "minority" group, whether by race, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, or socio-economic class, you are more likely to be cited for minor infractions--or for no infraction at all--than other people are.  (Yes, it's happened to me.)  Turns out, one such minor infraction can be riding bareheaded in places with helmet laws.   And, if you are a member of a "minority" group, that citation for a minor infraction is more likely to turn into a major fine or even a jail sentence, just as a cut is more likely to turn into an infection or something more serious if you don't have the means to treat it.

The key word here is "means."  "Folks aren't riding around without helmets because it's fun," according to Edwin Lindo.  "They're doing it because helmets aren't cheap."  Lindo, who identifies as Central American Indigenous, started the NorthStar Cycling Club to support Indigenous, Black and other cyclists of color in the Seattle area.  He was referring to Seattle Municipal Court statistics showing that while an estimated 4.7 percent of the city's cyclists are Black, they receive 17.3 percent of the summonses for not wearing helmets.  For Native American and Alaska Native cyclists, those numbers are 0.5 and 1.1 percent, respectively.

Edwin Lindo

For this reason, and others, Lindo and other activists encourage helmet-wearing but want Seattle to repeal its mandatory helmet law.  They cite the experience of Tacoma, which repealed its own helmet law, because it was, if unintentionally, reflecting the racial and other disparities in law enforcement.

One of the other disparities is economic:  Homeless and poor people are also disproportionately cited for not wearing helmets.  As often as not, they are riding bikes that were acquired for little or nothing.  So, they don't have funds to pay for buy a helmet--or pay for a ticket when they're cited for not wearing one.

So, the question of wearing helmets raises a question the COVID-19 pandemic has brought up:  How does a society promote the health and safety of the greatest number of people without exacerbating racial and economic inequities?

Chocolate, Quakers and Chinatown

Over the weekend, I rode on ribbons of shoveled asphalt and sand occasionally punctuated by patches of ice and slush--or mounds of snow that inconveniently appeared in my path.  Since I try to give people the benefit of the doubt, I'll assume that shoveling snow into a bike lane is an honest mistake, not an act of aggression!

Anyway, on Saturday I pedaled out to Coney Island, again, where I saw a surprising number of people strolling (and sometimes slipping) along the boardwalk, and on the Verrazano-Narrows promenade on my way back.  I didn't take any photos, as I didn't see much of anything I didn't see when I rode there a week ago.  I did, however, make a point of stopping at William's Candy Shop.  It's a real old-school seaside sweet shop, lined with ancient glass display cases filled with almost-as-ancient glass bins full of candy apples, marshmallows on sticks and chocolate, fruit gel and other sweet substances in various shapes and sizes, as well as a popcorn maker like the ones you used to see in movie theatres. William's is a remnant of a gritty beachfront strip that's quickly being swallowed up by condo towers, chain restaurants and stores, including It'sugar. (When the old flea-market stalls along Surf Avenue--including one where I bought a Raleigh Superbe--disappeared and were replaced by Applebee's, IHOP and the like, I knew Coney Island as I knew it wasn't long for this world!).  Whenever I go to Coney I stop by, in part, to reassure myself it's still there.  I bought nonpareils (an old favorite), sour cherry balls and a hunk of dark chocolate. The old man who owns the place just happened to be there, giving his gruff-but-warm old-time Brooklyn greetings and thanks, in unison with the more effusive pleasantry of a twentyish young woman (his granddaughter?) who was working there.

I brought some of those nonpareils and cherry balls with me yesterday, as I pedaled up and down the Steinway Manor hill half a dozen times on my way out to the World's Fair Marina, Fort Totten and the coves along the north shore of Queens.  I ventured a bit into one of New York's "other" Chinatowns, in Flushing.  On my way back to the World's Fair Marina, I spun along Bowne Street, named for the man who occupied this house:

It's one of the oldest still-standing habitations in this city.  But it's not just a place where John Bowne sipped his cup of tea at the end of a long day--and sometimes they were long!  There, he and the other Quakers living in Flushing worshipped.  

At that time, most of Queens was still wood- or marsh-land, and reaching the few settlements (like Flushing) could take a day, or longer, from Manhattan.  That, probably, is the reason why Bowne and the Quakers settled there:  They could live self-sufficient lives as farmers, fishers, artisans or tradespeople, "under the radar," so to speak, of the Dutch colonial government.

Here in America, one of the ways we're inculcated with the notion that winners win (i.e., get rich or otherwise "succeed") because they deserve to and losers deserve their fate for being naïve or worse is through  the way we're taught about Peter Stuyvesant.  According to the story we're taught, he bought an island for the equivalent of twenty-four dollars worth of trinkets.   

That island is, of course, Manhattan.  (And real estate developers today think they've gotten a good deal when they score a fifth of an acre in Washington Heights for a million dollars!)  In painting him as, essentially, America's first real estate mogul, the writers of our textbooks--and teachers who presumably don't know any better--leave out his brutality and flat-out bigotry.  He owned slaves which, as terrible as that was, wasn't so unusual for a man of his stature.  But even for his time, he bore an inordinate animus for Jews and Catholics, of whom there were very few in his or any neighboring colony, save for the French settlement of Quebec.  

His most intense hatred, however, was reserved for Quakers.  The best explanation anyone has for it can be found in the name of the denomination, which is really a nickname (officially, they're the Society of Friends) derived from their practice of praying so intensely they sometimes shook ("quaked").  So, no matter how quietly they otherwise lived, their worship practices made them conspicuous.  Other religions, on the other hand, were more able to worship "in the closet," if you will, in places like New Amsterdam that had official religions like the Dutch Reformed Church.

Anyway, Bowne was arrested and extradited back to the Netherlands where he made his case for religious freedom to the Dutch authorities, who reprimanded Stuyvesant and returned Bowne to America.

Somehow, it seems fitting that Bowne's house still stands in a neighborhood where signs are printed in Mandarin and Korean as well as English and Spanish--and where in-the-know New Yorkers (like yours truly) stop for congee and dumplings during cold-day bike rides.

She Didn't Pass Me! I'm Drafting Her! Really!

Given the life I've lived, it's no surprise that I've seen "both sides" (or all sides) of many issues and situations.  For example,  I have "mansplained" and been "mansplained" to.  And I have "chicked" and been "chicked."

I'm making that last confession for the first time. (If you are chicked and no one is there to see it...) When I was living as a dude named Nick, it's something I never, ever would have wanted anybody to know.

So what does it mean to get "chicked?"

From Bikeyface.

It is perhaps the worst affront to the ego of a cyclist who's running on testosterone.  The truth is, though, that I didn't like being passed by anyone--unless, of course, I was "drafting"* them. 

Believe it or not, in my current life, I've chicked a few male cyclists.  These days, though, when I'm passed by another cyclist, it may have as much to do with an imbalance in age as in a gender difference!

*--or wanted to look at them from behind.  (Pretend you didn't read that! ;-))

Spinning Music Out Of Nowhere

 Artists and sculptors have been turning bicycle parts into objets d'art since, well, bicycles have been around.  Perhaps the most famous examples are the "bull's head" Pablo Picasso fashioned from handlebars and a saddle, and Marcel Duchamp's bicycle wheel.

In those, and other works, the parts are ingredients used, like paint or clay, to create forms or evoke images.  Rarely are bike parts used as the means--think the paintbrush, pen or musical instrument-- rather than the materials or medium, for making a work.

Nicolas Bras is a Paris-based musician and tinkerer who evokes his sounds from homemade instruments.  You can see and hear some of them on his "Musiques de Nulle Part" (Music from Nowhere) series on YouTube.  Among them is this "flute" made from a bicycle wheel.

The "music" is made by blowing through a tube onto the randomly-tuned pan flutes attached to the bicycle wheel.  I put quotes around "music" because not everyone would so categorize the sound coming from it.  Bras, however, says he is working on more melodious and complex sounds from his rotary flute.  I don't doubt he's capable of such a thing:  After all, we don't know what came out when Pan, the Greek god of nature (for whom the flute is named), supposedly exhaled into it for the first time.

Ancient Greek images depict shepherds playing it. Perhaps in the future, we will follow the tunes Nicolas Bras spins on his bicycle wheel flute.