Parking Patrols In Philadelphia

 Yesterday fit almost anybody’s definition of a perfect Spring day: warm (but not too), sunny, with enough wind to toss the hair hanging below my helmet.  I decided to take a ride I hadn’t taken in a while:  across the George Washington Bridge and down the Palisades.

To get to the Bridge, I followed another route I hadn’t pedaled in a while:  up the Park Avenue bike lane that runs alongside the Metro North tracks in the Bronx.

At least, I tried to.  At 170th Street, construction work closed off the path for part of a block.  That meant veering into the single lane of traffic, which consisted mainly of delivery and car service vehicles, all driven by folks tense and angry.  

After that detour, the lane was clear for about half a block—until I encountered a few vehicles parked in the lane.  Another detour, about 50 meters of clear lane, more parked cars.  Rinse and repeat for a couple more blocks until East Tremont Avenue, where an ambulance and fire department truck screamed through the intersection.  Two of the drivers by whom I’d been zigging and zagging shot through just before the emergency vehicles. The ones who couldn’t make it through—who were beside and behind me—honked their horns and cursed in a couple of languages I understand, and a couple I don’t.

Finally, I gave up on that lane and turned left on Tremont, which took me to University Heights and the old aqueduct, commonly known as the “High Bridge” into Upper Manhattan, not far from the GWB.

I thought about writing to or calling the city Department of Transportation but realized that my email probably wouldn’t be opened, or my call answered, unless I sent photos—and I hadn’t taken any.  But, coincidentally, I came across this story from Philadelphia:  The city’s Parking Authority is adding bike patrols specifically to monitor drivers who park illegally in bike lanes.

“Just look around. Parked all the time, makes the bike lanes pretty useless,” said cyclist Nic Reynard.  He explained—as I saw on yesterday’s ride—that having to move out of a blocked lane can be even more dangerous than riding without a bike lane because “I don’t know what the car next to me is going to do.”

The new patrols, therefore, are just one step in making cities safer for cyclists—and pedestrians and drivers. Streets themselves need to be more amenable to everyone, and greater awareness of cyclists and cycling must be fostered in drivers. And law enforcement officials need to take incidents of motorists maiming or killing cyclists—which, with increasing frequency, are deliberate acts—seriously.

Fixie-ing A Ron Kit

 Every once in a while, I'll see another cyclist astride a Mercian.  About as often, I'll encounter somoene riding a Bob Jackson, Ron Cooper, Hetchins or Holdsworth.  While a significant part of those builders' work made its way to the United States, the segment of the cycling world who rides any high-end bike is actually very small. And each of those builders probably made fewer frames in a year than Raleigh or other manufacturers produced in a day.

It never occured to me, however, that one less-known (among cycling enthusisasts, let alone the general public) marque would be even rarer, at least here in the US, simply because I hadn't seen it here--until yesterday.  And I encountered it in a way I hadn't expected--but, upon reflection, makes perfect sense.

For three decades, Ron Kitching's catalogue was a kind of Whole Earth Catalogue for British cyclists.  He was the chief UK importer of well-known manufacturers like Cinelli and Specialites TA, and he introduced English riders to Shimano and SunTour.  The latter reflected part of his philosophy of offering products that offered high quality and good value for the money.  That ethos was also reflected in parts and accessories he imported, mainly from France and Italy and rebranded as "Milremo." 

Unless you've spent time perusing his catalogues, you might not realize (or might have forgotten) that he also sold high quality frames under his own name. The best of them were constructed, like most high-end British frames of the time, of Reynolds 531 tubing  by builders such as Arthur Metcalf and Wes Mason.  In fact, for a time, frames were sold under the "MKM" marque, with the middle initial representing the "silent" partner of Kiching between those of the builders.

I've seen, probably, a couple of MKM frames, as at least one mail-order company (Bike Warehouse, which became Bike Nashbar, comes to mind) offered them. But until yesterday, I hadn't seen one with Ron Kitching's name on it.

Finding it at all was surprising enough. But to see it only a kilometer from my apartmet--on 41st Street in Astoria--was even less anticipated. 

Should I have been surprised that it's in its current state?

It looks like it was intended as a long-distance race or audax bike, given its geometry--a race bike in its time, but more like an all-arounder today--and the lack of rack or fender eyelets on the dropouts.  So it makes sense as a single-speed or fixed-gear bike for the city:  It's probably responsive and maneuvarable, given its geometry and Reynolds 531 double-butted tubing and forks.

Yes, it's made in England.

Given how rare Ron Kitching bikes are in the US, I surmise that someone brought it with them in a move from England.  I'm also guessing that whoever brought it here gave or sold it to whoever is riding it now--who may or may not have any idea of the history behind it.  

Reuniting "Scumbag Currency" With Its Rightful Owners

It was once common knowledge among New York City cyclists that if their bikes were stolen, the first place to look--and their best chance of getting them back--was on St. Mark's Place.  At night, there was an open-air market of pilfered bicycles of just about every kind.

I don't know whether St. Mark's is still the Grand Bazaar of stolen bikes, but from what I'm hearing, the business of stolen bikes still operates in a remarkably covert fashion.  I'm guessing the folks who steal and the ones who sell--who are often, though not always, the same people--know that losing anything without a motor and fewer than four wheels isn't high on the list of law enforcement priorities, whether because police the police don't have the resources or just don't care.  Also, with Craigslist and other online sites, it's a lot easier to sell the fruits of one's illicit labor.  Worse yet, some newer sites, like OfferUp, seem all but tailor-made for criminals.

One would think that with the proliferation of surveillance cameras, would-be crooks would be more reluctant to practice their dark arts.  But, the electronic devices only seem to embolden some perps.  Do they think they're going to become YouTube stars or something?

It seems that the situation is not unique to my hometown.  What's changed, though, is that in Denver metro area and other places, victims or their allies are taking matters into their own hands.  As an example, in nearby Fort Collins, cycling activist Dan Porter (who runs the website Your Group Ride) has "repossessed" two stolen bikes--including an $8000 machine he found leaning against a camper.  He admits "it was a crazy thing to do" but getting the bike to its rightful owner was worth the effort and risk.

Her sentiments were echoed by a woman in the area who prefers anonymnity.  She sets up aliases so she can perform "stings" on would-be sellers of bikes she finds on OfferUp and Facebook Marketplace.   While some might question her and Porter's methods--especially their bypassing of the police, she offers this rationale:  "At least if someone has their property back, I feel half of justice has been served." 

She also has an explanation of one factor that fuels the illegal yet overt business:  "The nice high-end bikes have become the 'scumbag currency' of town."

Cycling In The Mist

Was I in London?

Or San Francisco?

Actually, I rode along the south shore of Queens and Brooklyn yesterday.  From Rockaway Beach to Fort Tilden, the fog was so thick that in some places I could see only three or four bicycle lengths ahead of me.

Still, more people strolled, cycled and scootered (Is that a verb?) along the boardwalks than I'd expected.  It was Sunday, after all, and fairly warm, with a brisk breeze from the southeast.

Perhaps even hardened cycnics were taken by the hazy romantic atmosphere.  You could be alone and feel it.  The odd thing is that I felt as if the dreaminess was making me pedal faster.  Perhaps there was less resistance--to feelings internal as well as things external.  Of course, I had to make myself slow down in a few places.  Nothing like running someone down, or being run down, to ruin the mood, right?

 

The fog started to clear, at least on land, after I started pedaling from Breezy Point to the bridge to Brooklyn.  But it lingered in the horizon, out to sea, which made for some oddly serene light.

There are some folks who will do whatever they do, whatever the weather.  I rather admire them.

The day will be lost to the mists of time.  But not what I, or anyone else, felt or remember.

 

All Dressed Up With Nowhere To Ride

Most schools and workplaces have dress codes.  So do some societies and countries.  Then there are the unwritten rules about what you should or shouldn't wear.  Bike clubs and sometimes even informal groups of riders have them.  Rarely, if ever, is someone barred from a ride that isn't a sanctioned race for not wearing the "proper" attire.  But sometimes the body language and facial expressions of other riders tell you all you need to know:

 

In Any Language: Blame The Bike!

You're riding in a race or event, or with your club or a friend or two.  The hill climb feels more arduous than usual, the wind stiffer than what the weather forecasters promised or that straightaway longer than you remember from the last time you rode it.  You take a bite of your energy bar, gulp down some water (or Gatorade).  They don't help.  Nothing does.  You feel that instead of the scenery, the weather or anything else about the ride itself, everyone is noticing that you're struggling to keep up.

Someone asks, "Are you OK?"  Or maybe they don't have to ask.  Their gaze, their facial expression tells you they know.  Do you deny that anything is wrong?  Or do you say, "I didn't sleep last night," "I'm  not feeling quite right" or offer some other excuse that implies you're normally a stronger, faster rider than the one they're seeing.

Perhaps you blame the bike.

That's what Colombian Fernando Gaviria did after finishing second in a high-RPM sprint in the fifth stage of the Giro d'Italia.  

He bounced his front wheel as he crossed the finish line. Then he got off the bike and pounded the saddle with his fist. He unleashed an exclamation they probably didn't teach you in Italian 101:  "Che bici di merda!"  Translation:  What a shitty bike!

Gaviria and Arnaud Demare at the end of the sprint. (Image from Sprint Cycling Agency)

He couldn't get into specifics about the problem, he said, because he'd "get told off." But a video suggested a shifting problem:  As he spun his pedals faster and faster, his chain seemed stuck on the 14-tooth cog.  For a sprint finish, he would have wanted to change to a higher gear.

Perhaps his complaint is legitimate.  But I must admit that it would be funny to see an overweight chain-smoking desk jockey blame his $12,000 rig when he couldn't get up a bridge ramp without seeing stars. 

 

I Hope 5 Hermanos Will Band Together And Recover

 Sometimes I and other longtime cyclists blame e-bikes, motorized bikes and scooters for "ruining" or "wrecking" cycling.  They have all but taken over some bike lanes in my city, New York, where some of those lanes are just barely wide enough to accomodate two cyclists approaching each other from opposite directions.  And the majority of those e-bikes and motorized bikes are ridden by delivery workers racing to meet ten- or fifteen-minute delivery windows guaranteed by restaurant delivery apps.

Now, an e-bike is to blame for destroying actual bicycles. Well, sort of.  On Monday afternoon, an employee at 5 Hermanos bike shop--less than a mile from my apartment--plugged an e-bike's lithium-ion battery for charging.  That employee and others, as shop owner Jorge Molina Carranza explained, understand how dangerous those batteries can be and therefore don't leave them to charge overnight.  

His and employees' precautions, however, weren't enough to prevent what happened next.  "It was very sudden, like firecrackers," Molina Carranza explained.  "When that battery exploded, all the other batteries started to explode as well."

The result was a two-alarm fireball that destroyed his and his employees' work.  All of the inventory--which included regular pedal bikes, mainly used, as well as parts and accessories (The shop seemed to make much, if not most, of its money from repairs.) burned.  "I lost everything," Molina Carranza said. 

5 Hermanos, after the fire.  Photo by Kerry Burke. (Somehow I didn't feel right about photographing it myelf. )

 Although it wasn't my regular shop, I would sometimes stop at 5 Hermanos for a tube, cable or some other small item, or simply to say, "Hola, como estas?"  The folks in the shop, including Jorge, were friendly and seemed not to mind my gringo accent.

Anyway, I hope he and his employees recover and prosper.  If they re-open the shop, I wonder how they'll deal with e-bikes.  Their mishap is not the first I've heard about batteries catching fire or exploding even as people take proper precautions while charging them.

Sometimes It Takes A Ukrainian To Do What An American Won't

Not many people have to look for reasons to support Ukraine in their battle against Puto's, I mean Putin's, invasion.  Even so, I will offer one more.  

A Ukranian prosecutor has done something law enforcement officials and the justice system in the US rarely, if ever, do.  Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova has filed to indict someone for killing a cyclist.

Of course, the circumstances are a bit different from the all-too-typical DUI hit-and-run or the MAGAt in a pickup truck who plows into an organized bike ride. So far, the victim in this case has been identified only as a 62-year-old Ukranian civilian who was riding his bike home in the Sumy region of the country when Russian militants shot him in February, shortly after Putain's, I mean Putin's, invasion begin.

Veneditkova announced her action Wednesday on social media websites.  Her indictment of one of those soldiers--identified as Vadim Shishimarin--is the first of a soldier for killing a civilian during the conflict.  If convicted, he could face 10 to 15 years or life, depending on the charge. 

A cyclist in Debaltseve, Ukraine, 20 February 2015. Photo by Vadim Ghirda for AP.

It's terrible that someone riding his bike didn't make it home because soldiers shot him.  I feel bad for his loved ones, whoever they are.  But it's good to know that a prosecutor is actually trying to bring his killers to account--even if she's charging one of them for a war crime (at least, as I understand the definition of that term) rather than a crime against a cyclist.  

A Spring Afternoon Reverie

Yesterday marked the last time until mid-August that the sun set before 20h ( 8pm).  Still, I had plenty of time to get in a Point Lookout ride--120 kilometers (75 miles):  I took a couple of detours in Long Beach and near Forest Park-- and get home before dark. even though I didn't start until about 14h (2 pm). During my last mile, along 31st Avenue in Astoria, I was literally pedaling into the sunset. Oh, an I had the wind at my back, as I did on my way back.  That, and the colorful sky, felt like a reward for pedaling into a brisk wind all the way out.  

In short, it was a perfect Spring afternoon ride.  Also, an interesting one, even though I've taken it many times before.  You see, when I started, hardly a cloud veiled the bright blue sky.  The temperature, around 20C (68F) seemed to be on the rise, though the wind, of course, made it feel cooler.  I rode through this seeming diorama of an idyllic spring afternoon until I crossed the Addobo Bridge from Howard Beach to Beach Channel.

Beach Channel, or BC, as its residents and fans like to call it, includes part of the Gateway National Recreation Area. It occupies an isthmus washed by Jamaica Bay.  And I mean washed--Superstorm Sandy really dumped its fury there.  Most of the damaged areas have been repaired or rebuilt, and the residential parts look something like a cross between Sea Bright, a Jersey shore locale where I did a lot of riding during my high school years, and a New England fishing village.  In other words, it's easy to forget you're still in New York City--and many residents rarely seem to, rarely, if ever, going to Manhattan or even Brooklyn or other parts of Queens. 

And the weather, along with that in the Rockaways, often differs dramatically from that on the other side of the Addobo Bridge.  At this time of year, you can feel the temperature drop a few degrees as you cross the bridge, and even further when you cross the Veterans' Memorial Bridge into the Rockaways.  Now, the water temperature is about 10C (50F) in both the bay and Atlantic Ocean.  The wind blowing off those bodies of water--which I rode into on my way out and blew me back home--can also change the skies:

As much as I love a sunny day, I also love the light that seemed to fill with the sea.  As thick as those clouds are, they posed absolutely no threat of rain.  If you've spent a lot of time in a coastal area, you've probably a similar veil of clouds rippling across the face of the sun and sky, especially early and in the middle of Spring.

All of it, while riding, opens my senses.  That alone makes such a ride a treat, almost a guilty pleasure! 

He Had To Watch A Cyclist

As the majority of Americans support equality for LGBTQ people, women, members of racial and ethnic "minorities," the disabled and others who have been marginalized, those on the other side--who see rights they've always enjoyed as "special privileges" when extended to members of the groups of people I've mentioned--become more virulent, vicious and even violent in expressing anger at having to share their privilege.

Among the empowered are motorists who think the roads are theirs, and theirs alone.  They accuse us--cyclists, pedestrians and users of mass transportation--as being subsidized by tax dollars (which, too often, the privileged don't even pay).   Some among them think they have a "right" to express their umbrage in whatever way they choose--even if it endangers or kills the objects of their rage.

While I still interact, thankfully, with many courteous drivers--especially those who drive trucks--I have also had more charged interactions with aggressive drivers than I can recall in some time.  On the return leg of a ride to Connecticut, just as I was crossing the state line at Glenville and King Streets, some guy who looked like his wife hadn't given him any since Obama's first term pulled up alongside me, in his pickup truck, just so he could shout "Fuck you!" 

While the temperature has risen, so to speak, since Trump first ran for President, I can't put all of the blame on him (as tempting as that may be).  Rather, I've noticed that some celebrities--mostly male, all of them privileged by their wealth and fame-- expressing veiled and not-so-veiled hostility toward those who aren't "the cool kids" in their eyes.  A while back, Whoopi Goldberg whined, on The View, about the chauffered drive to her gated community being slowed down by, oh, 7 seconds or so, by a cyclist.  Now it seems that "comedian" Paul Costabile, who seems to sneer with the smugness of a bully who knows that nobody will fight him, took a video of himself taunting a cyclist who was riding as far to the right as he could.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by 🇵🇭Dino /deee•no/ not /dy•no/ (@_deeeno)

The worst part, though, is that Costabile is taking the video while driving.  Now, unless he's employing some trick of which I'm not aware, he's leaning as he's driving with one hand.  So, he's endangering the cyclist even more than he would have had he simply shouted slurs and curses out his window.

In the meantime, Costablile whined about having to watch that rider "work his glutes."  Sounds to me like he's insecure:  He looks like he can use some time with his feet on two pedals rather one foot on one pedal.  

That, of course, is what causes the privileged to pick on those who've just won the same rights they've always enjoyed:  It's scary for those who've enjoyed power and privilege to realize that other people could actually challenge their place in the social, political and economic heirarchy.  We, as cyclists, do that by our presence:  It shows motorists that the roads don't "belong" only to them.

Note:  The video in this post was deleted from Instagram.  However, I was able to post it thanks to a screengrab by @_deeno.