Riding To Lunch With Rockefeller

I'm really living it up here in Florida.  Today's ride took me to lunch at one of the Rockefeller mansions.

Now, you might be wondering whether the fame and celebrity that's come to me from this blog is the thing that led to an invitation into such exclusive circles.  Well, perhaps such a thing may happen one day (!) even if it wasn't my goal in starting this blog.  You never know where wit, erudition and a unique prose style may lead you.  If you find out, let me know.

Seriously, I took a ride to Ormond Beach, about ten kilometers north of Daytona on the same strip of land that's squeezed between the Halifax River and the Atlantic Ocean.  After making a left from  Route A1A onto East Granada Boulevard, the street with cutesy boutiques and overpriced ice cream shoppes tucked into Victorian buildings, I coasted toward the bridge that spans the river.  Just before the bridge, I hopped off the bike and parked in front of The Casements.

As the name indicates, the house is named for the large hand-cut windows that adorn it and keep its interior cool, even during Florida's notoriously hot and humid summers.  Contrary to popular belief, Rockefeller did not build it.  Rather, he purchased it in 1918, eight years after it was built for Rev. Harwood Huntington as his retirement home.

Rockefeller made The Casements his winter residence.  While there, he hosted such famous guests as Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Harvey Firestone, the Prince of Wales and Will Rogers.  The latter once quipped, "I'm glad you won (at golf) today, Mr. Rockefeller. The last time you lost, the price of gasoline went up!"

Rockefeller hoped that spending his winters in the house would help him achieve one of the few dreams he didn't realize:  living to be 100.  In this home, he died in his sleep on 23 May 1937, just days short of turning 98 years old.

The Rockefellers sold the house two years later.  It became a girls' boarding school and a residence for the elderly before it was abandoned and fell into such a derelict state that it was nearly demolished.  Only its inclusion, in 1972, on the National Register of Historic Places spared The Casements from such an ignominious fate. The following year, the City of Ormond Beach purchased it and renovated it for use as a cultural center.

Fun fact:  J.D. Rockefeller suffered from alopecia, which caused him to lose all of the hair from his head, face, moustache and body when he was in his early 40s.  The hair never grew back, so the tycoon began to wear rotating wigs of varying lengths to give the impression of his mane growing and being shorn.

Another fun fact:  For all of his ruthlessness as a businessman, Rockefeller was an ardent abolitionist.  So was his wife, Laura.  So were her parents, Harvey Buel Spelman and Lucy Henry Spelman.  In 1882, Rockefeller began to donate money to the Atlanta Baptist Female Seminary.  Two years later, the school changed its name to Spelman Seminary, in honor of his wife.  In 1924, it became Spelman College, one of the first black women's liberal arts colleges in the United States.

One more fun fact: I rode 85 kilometers today and got a good bit of sunburn.  OK, this wasn't as important as the others.  But it's fun.  The ride, even more so!

A Rainy-Day Journey

Rain was forecast for today.  So, I made a movie date with Mom and Dad.  Surprisingly, we all picked the same film:  The Revenant.  Dad likes anything with action in it; Mom likes Leonardo di Caprio. I'd heard it was a really good film.

And it was, mostly.  If someone asked me what it was "about", I'd say "revenge".  The same could be said for any number of other films or plays, including Hamlet.  Now, I'm not going to whine that this film isn't as good as Shakespeare's classic.  After all, how many things are?  I am happy that The Revenant features fine acting perfomances as well as some of the most powerful cinematography I've ever seen.  

I haven't read anything the critics have written about it, but I'll venture that at least one has used the word "uncompromising" in his or her review.  It is, in a certain way:  It didn't try to soften the horror of the brutality and carnage that takes place in it.  In that sense, it's rather like Picasso's Guernica which, to me, is a good enough reason to see and recommend the film.  

However, there is another way in which the film didn't go far enough.  Yes, we see the events that motivate the killings, and I could, at least to some degree, empathize with those characters who sought revenge.  On the other hand, I don't think the film probes very deeply into the characters' hearts and minds.  So, instead of a probe into man's inhumanity to man, we're given a portrayal of the sort of masculinity found in a John Wayne or Sylvester Stallone movie.

So...how does all of this relate to cycling, or even this blog?  Well, very few pursuits have taught me as much about myself as cycling has.  Also, whatever perseverance I might have is, in part, a result of pedaling to the tops of mountains or simply not giving up when I'm tired.  More often than not, there is a reward at the end, even if it is as seemingly trivial as my food tasting better.

Speaking of which: We went to dinner at Cracker Barrel this evening.  Their Sunday Chicken dinner--which consists of bird fried in buttermilk batter, along with two sides (I had carrots and friend okra.) and a choice of biscuits or cornbread.  Soo good!

Riding Into--And Out Of--History

During my first trip to France, I walked around the Place de la Concorde.  While encircling the Fountain of River Commerce and Navigation, I admired the elegance of the fountain, the obelisk and the buildings that flank the Rue Royale.

But then a sadness and a sense of terror and grief.  I recalled, at that moment, that the Place had witnessed one of the greatest scenes of savagery.  It was there, of course, that the French monarchy as well as a number of well-known people who were, or merely suspected of being, friends of the executed King Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette and prominent members of the aristocracy.  Although I am no fan of monarchy and aristocracy, I could not help but to feel that it must have been truly appalling to see the Place "covered in blood" and for people like Georges Danton, one of the chief forces in the overthrow of the monarchy, to lose his head to advocates of revolutionary terror who believed that he gave succor to enemies of the revolution.

I was thinking about that today, after cycling to this place:

Why?  Well, this bucolic scene was once part of the Bulow plantation.  My ride today took me there, as well as other places.

Some ruins of the plantation remain nearby.

  
They give little, if any, hint that one scene of this country's two greatest sins (along with the physical as well as mental and spiritual massacre of Native Americans) took place there.  I rode the trail in and ate my lunch; others drove in to fish, paddle canoes or simply spend the day in a green setting.

And, I admit, after spending about an hour there, I continued to ride to places where people tend not to think much about history.  I didn't.  I enjoyed the ride, though.

Rusty Race

During the past seven years, I've come to Palm Coast, Florida a dozen or so times.  On each trip here, I've done a few bike rides.  As a result, I've seen much of this town and its surrounding area.

One of the few places I've never explored is The City Marketplace.  There's a good reason for that: From the road, it's completely nondescript and half of its offices and stores seem to be vacant at any given moment.  Today, after the rains let up and I had lunch with a friend of my mother's, I took a short ride. I passed the Marketplace and took a detour through the parking lot behind it, which I had never before seen.  A surprise awaited me:

 





This is Wes Cackler's "The Race", installed for the Gargiulo Foundation's bike and poetry show in June 2012. (I wish I'd known about that!)  The photo was taken when the show opened.

Of course, no bike--or human--remains in "showroom condition" for very long, especially if left outdoors in Florida rain and humidity:

Part of the reason for that is, as you might expect, the town has practically no arts budget, and ten different organizations share what little money is allocated.  The irony is that the bicycle sculptures are in such a sorry state (and the sign in front of it has faded as well as rusted, rendering it unreadable) in a place with an extensive network of bike lanes.

Does anyone make Gore-Tex bike shoes?

 
Who needs gloves?
 

Looks like the chain needs replacing, though!

Make Sure You Get Back In Time For Dinner!

Ever since I arrived in Palm Coast, we've had weather that is more akin to what one might experience in April or October on Long Island or New Jersey:  cloudy and cool, with no real threat of rain. However, torrential rain is forecast for early tomorrow morning, courtesy of a storm system that's moving across the Gulf of Mexico.  Areas to our south and west might have "severe" weather, which could include a tornado.  The weather forecasters say there's a smaller chance that weather could reach this part of Florida.

In addition, my mother planned to make a particularly rich dinner for tonight:  home-made cream of broccoli soup, roast beef au jus; baked potatoes; mushroom gravy made with some of the juice; and broccoli cooked in the oven with olive oil, garlic and Parmesan cheese and baked potatoes. I would need to burn a few calories, to say the least, in advance!

I woke up about an hour later than I'd planned. (OK, when I'm at my parents' house, I don't plan much of anything!) Although days here are about an hour longer than those in New York, there's still a fairly limited amount of time to ride. (The bike I'm riding doesn't have good lights.)  "Are you going to ride to St. Augustine today?", my father asked.  

It was already nearly 10:30.  In one way, my parents have "gone native":  they, like most people of a certain age in Florida, eat dinner at 5pm or thereabouts.  And you simply do not arrive late for dinner with an Italian (or Italian-American) family!

I would certainly have ample time to ride there and back, even on the rusting beach cruiser I ride whenever I'm here.  But I wouldn't have very much time to spend in the city, let alone to shop or stop for anything that looked interesting.

  

Still, I said, "Yes!"  My mother smiled.  The ride there and back is a "metric century".  She knows that if I'm going to do such a ride, all is normal--or, at least, I'm OK.

 

The ride was pleasant, if uneventful.  From the Hammock Dunes Bridge, I rode along the stretch of Route A1A north of the segment I rode yesterday.  Both parts skirt the Atlantic Ocean.  Yesterday's ride--which took me through Painters Hill, Flagler Beach and Ormond Beach to Daytona--rolled alongside sea oats and other flora and fauna that flickered atop sand dunes; today's trek zigged and zagged along inlets and bays.

On the way to St. Augustine, I pedaled into a steady brisk wind.  That meant, of course, the ride back took about half an hour less than the ride up.  Great, both ways.

Dinner was great!

Another Day: Complaining About The Weather

I heard everyone complaining--again--about the cold.  

Today, though, it was in a different place.  No, I wasn't in Montreal.  Les Quebecois would probably laugh at anyone who complained about the weather I experienced today.  So, for that matter, would any French person who doesn't live in the Alps, Pyrenees or Vosges.  For that matter, anyone who would think of today's weather was "cold" lives well south of here.

So where am I?  Here's one clue:

Water covers 70 percent of the Earth's surface. (It's one of the few things I still remember from my eighth-grade Earth Science class.)  So we've eliminated 30 percent of all possible sites.  It's a start, I guess.

OK, here's another clue:

Pink chairs, eh?  I'm not sure of how much they narrow down the possible choices. There are, however, some places where one simply never would find them.

Colors are often useful clues:

 

This looks like the Southwestern US--or, at least, someone's imaginings of it.  Whether or not it's sagebrush verite, it's incongruent with most seaside locales in the United States or Canada.

Just down the road, we can see similar colors in this building:

 
Believe it or not, public toilets are inside that building.  It's in a state park.

Now, if you need more clues, take a look at these, just a couple of miles apart on a road I cycled today:

The road is Route A1A, specifically the segment that connects Painter's Hill, Beverly Beach and Flagler Beach before continuing to Daytona Beach.

I am indeed in Florida.

A rather brisk wind blew in from the north, which held the temperature to around 15C (60F) and made it seem even cooler.  Still, it's nearly tropical in comparison with today's conditions in New York, where it was -13C (8F) early this morning.  That may not seem very cold to some of you, but last week the Big Apple recorded its first subfreezing temperature since late last March.

Even though the weather is milder than it is in New York, it's not the reason I'm here.  I am visiting my parents--and, of course, I plan to ride some more!


 
 

Who's Complaining About The Weather

So the temperature dropped to subfreezing levels yesterday-- for the second time!

"Oooh!  It's so cold.  I heard that a lot yesterday.  One would think the people who are complaining about the weather had just gotten off the plane from the Caribbean.  Truth is, we should've had a few more subfreezing days by now.  And, after a Christmas Eve on which the temperature climbed to 21C (72F) and nearing that level the following day and week, we were spoiled, really.

So far, we haven't even come close to experiencing anything like this

From TheCityFix

or this

From 360 Niesko

or this

From Sensuous Amberville

What if all of the complainers were Nuvanit instead of New York?

Where Are The Most Skilled Bicycle Mechanics?

Someone once told me, only half in jest, that the best auto mechanics are in Cuba.  "After all," he explained, "anyone who can keep a car running when replacement parts haven't been made for it in fifty years must be very skilled--and creative".

I don't have any way of refuting his assertion, so I'll accept it.  Any mechanic, anywhere in the world, who can keep, say, an Edsel running is almost certainly better than most.

Perhaps a similar principle applies to bike mechanics.  It's really not that difficult to repair or maintain a well-maintained late-model machine that's been used mainly for recreational cycling.  On the other hand, people whose bikes are used for transportation or other utilitarian purposes are more likely to be riding older bikes.  Think of all of those English three-speeds and European city bikes people rode to work every day, and for an occasional weekend jaunt in the park, for decades.  To my knowledge, no one is making replacement parts for Sturmey-Archer three-speed hubs that were made in England or cottered cranksets.  Still, many such bikes are still in use in their home countries and all over the world.

Mechanics in places where the bike is still what one rides because gasoline and car ownership are expensive, I imagine, have developed some interesting work-arounds. Somehow I think mechanics' tricks are even better-developed in places where people depend on bikes, and are poor--say, India, where this photo was taken:

If You're Under 50, You've Probably Never Heard Of It. Why?

Unless you are, um, of a certain age, you've probably never heard of this bike brand.  If you are familiar with the name, you probably know it from another field of endeavor, to which the early history of bicycling is more closely connected than most people might expect.    It also was one of the pioneers in  one of the major technological changes that has transformed bicycles, especially the ones ridden in the peloton.


I have never owned or used a gun, but I would guess that anybody who has would know about the company started in Connecticut by Swedish immigrant Oscar F. Mossberg, who previously worked for bicycle manufacturer Iver-Johnson.  By the time he got his operation going, in 1919, bicycle sales, particularly to adults, were fading.  That is probably the reason he turned his attentions to revolvers and such.

Very little information is available about the bikes.  It seems that some time in the 1950s or '60's, kids' bikes, especially of the "muscle" variety, were being sold under the Mossberg name in department stores.  Like most bikes sold in such outlets at the time, they were made by American manufacturers like AMF and Huffy, but not Schwinn.  Another thing they had in common with such bikes is that they were heavy, with the frames and all of their parts--including one-piece craks--made of mild steel.

Their foray into the adult bicycle market began, not suprisingly, around 1970, early in the Bike Boom .  At first, Mossberg ten-speeds were made by the companies I've mentioned and gradually found their way into bike shops. Later, the company offered lighter Japanese bikes much like other entry- to mid-level ten speeds of the time. Those bikes featured   SunTour and Shimano derailleurs and swaged cotterless cranksets from Sugino, SR and Takagi on carbon steel, or straight gauge Chromoly, frames. 

Mossberg carbon bikes.  From the Fairwheels Bikes site.

In 1972, Mossberg building experimental carbon frames.  One of those would, I imagine, be very collectible, as the special facility built to make it burned down only a year or so into production.  Perhaps the most interesting feature of the company's track frame was adopted by a few bike makers, such as GT, for at least some models:  a third set of rear stays, in addition to the seat and chain stays.  Given the state of carbon bikes at that time, I imagine that those stays would have been necessary to strengthen and stiffen the bikes.

From what little I could find, I surmised that Mossberg ended their venture in the bike business some time around 1980.  Around that time, production of other early carbon fiber frames such as the Graftek also ceased. The then still-primitive state of carbon fiber technology and techniques for using it led to failure of many frames built with the material; bike-builders and manufacturers would not re-discover the material for another decade or so.

Although its presence in the bicycle world was short-lived, it's puzzling that Mossberg bicycles aren't better-known, given the history (however checkered) I've described as well its connection to one of the world's leading firearms manufacturers.

Flying To The Mountain

I know this hasn't much to do with cycling:  the destination and winter haven of  monarch butterflies.

So why am I writing about it?  Well, for one thing, I suppose most of you like the orange-and-black creatures.  Also, one of the most unforgettable sights I encountered on a bike ride was a flock of them lifting off one early fall afternoon at Point Lookout.  If you've ever seen them take off, you know they truly deserve their name.

Forty-one years ago today, western researchers found the "Mountain of Butterflies" in Mexico.  Five years later, it officially became the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve, which was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2008.  The site encompasses 56,000 hectares; however, the butterflies--over a billion of them, by some estimate, live on less than five (yes, five, not 5000) of those hectares.

In the language of the local Purepucha people, the name of the Monarch means, "harvest butterfly" because it always arrived when they harvested maize, which was to their diet as rice is in much of Asia.  When Spaniards arrived early in the 16th Century, they noticed that the butterfly and harvest came around El Dia de los Murtes (Day of the Dead) in late October, so the Monarch came to be associated with that day's festival.

Google "doodle" commemorating the discovery of the "Mountain of Butterlies"

The Monarch is always on a journey.  So are we.  I think the luckiest of us are privileged to make significant parts of ours on our bicycles.

The Dangers We Face In Cities

A common misperception about cycling, especially in cities, is that the hazards cyclists face are self-inflicted.  Some media outlets, such as Faux, I mean Fox, News and the New York Post depict us as surly scofflaws who had it "coming to us" when one of us is injured or killed by a driver who was texting.

According this infographic from Chicago Bicycle Injury Lawyers, the truth is quite a bit different:

 

Firefighter Bicycle

There's a good chance you've seen a police officer patrolling his or her beat on a bicycle.  It's a common sight on college campuses as well as in dense urban areas with heavy traffic.  Bicycles can be ridden between buildings, down alleyways and in all sorts of venues too narrow for cars.  Even when few adults were cycling here in the US, constables on two wheels were not an unusual, if not a common, sight.

There is also a long history of postal delivery on bicycles, mainly for the same reasons officers patrol from the saddle.  Mail carriers on bikes aren't as common as cops pedaling on patrol, at least here in the US, but I understand they still pedal through "rain, snow, sleet and hail" in a few places.  And they are still pretty common in some other countries.

Speaking of history:  I've written a few posts about how bicycles have been used in the military.  As commenter Reese Matthews pointed out, bikes aren't particularly good fighting platforms.  In some situations, however, they are good for transport and reconnaissance, especially in terrain in which motor vehicles can't be used.  And, interestingly, the Vietnamese didn't actually ride their bicycles; rather, they used their two-wheelers "as pack animals" to transport equipment and other goods.

I mention all of these facts because of something I came across:

This firefighter bicycle was made by the Birmingham Small Arms Company in the early part of the 20th Century.  Naturally, the hose caught my eye.    The bike also had special accomodations for an axe and a siren.  And look at that headlight!

While it looks distinctive, I don't know how anybody rode it, especially with the "hump" in the top tube--not to mention what the bike must have weighed!  It's easy to see why bicycles have never had as much of a role in firefighting as they have had in conducting wars, patrolling streets and campuses and delivering mail.  Then again, the bicycle contributes to firefighting in a different way:  Many firefighters ride to keep themselves in shape--especially if they have injuries that prevent them from running--or simply for pleasure.  In particular, I have met many firefighters on charity rides, or other kinds of organized rides. 

They serve. And the bicycle helps them.

A Lot Of Good It Did...

Most of us, if we're working for anyone (or any entity) besides ourselves, are evaluated on our performance.  We're rated on a number of factors, some of which vary from job to job.  There are, however, other factors that seem to be more or less universal in personnel evaluations, such as knowledge, efficiency, communications skills and professionalism.

Another such trait is "effectiveness".  Some have tried to measure it, mainly without success.  For example, since No Child Left Behind began in the early "aughts", students' test scores have been used to determine which teachers are effective.  But things aren't that simple:  a bad teacher almost certainly won't get good results, but sometimes a very good teacher can't overcome other things in a child's life that might impair his or her performance.  On the other hand,  in some occupations, effectiveness is easy to see:  folks like salespeople bring in money, mechanics and plumbers fix things that stay fixed and others meet, or help to meet goals. 

I think that effectiveness is easier to see in things:  Effective things do, well, what they're designed to do.  A derailleur that gives quick and precise shifts is effective; so is a brake that stops quickly or gradually, as needed, with a minimum of fuss.

It's also easy to see ineffectiveness, as I saw while riding across the RFK Memorial Bridge today:

Graffiti is a crime?  Someone obviously didn't get the message.
 

Coming In On His White "Horse"

Today is the twelfth day of Christmas.  So this is my last chance to lament Santa Claus's misuse of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.  But I will refrain.  Poor Rudolph has suffered enough already.  So have you, if you've read my posts on the subject.

Instead of Rudolph, I'm going to talk about a white horse.  If someone were to ride one through the most central part of a city, along its busiest streets, how would people react?

Perhaps they would stop and stare in misbelief the way residents of Bushwick, Brooklyn did when Tammy and I rode down Knickerbocker Avenue one summer Sunday afternoon some time around 2000.  That was a few years before the Williamsburg hipsters started to cross Flushing Avenue because they could no longer afford those Williamsburg apartments they helped to make unaffordable.

But I digress.  Karnchanit Poswat rode his white "horse" through a busy area of Bangkok, his home city.  




Before you watched the video, you had already figured out that the "horse" was really a bicycle made to look like an equine--because you're smart. (Why else would you read this blog?)  Mr. Poswat, who studied film and video in his home country of Thailand,  has also made performace art recordings as well as a video about Buddhism.

So...Knowing what I've just mentioned, I think it's fair to ask:  Does the "horse" video have a deeper meaning?  Or is it a joke?  It just might be neither, or both.

Do other people in Thailand handle horses as well as Poswat handles his? If they do, it might be the reason why Siam (as Thailand was formerly known) was never colonized by Europeans, even though it's between Burma (conquered by the British) and French Indo-China.

Even if those "horses" were bicycles.

Tiagra Is Top-Of-The-Line. Really!

Some of you may be riding bikes equipped with Shimano Tiagra components. In the hierarchy of the world's largest component maker, it is fourth in the six levels of road components--one level below the 105 (which, along with the Deore LX, its mountain-bike counterpart, has long offered Shimano's best value for the money, in my opinion) and one level above Sora.  So. if you have Tiagra, you have good stuff that functions well, though it might not last as long as Shimano's better lines--Ultegra/600 and Dura-Ace for the road and Deore XT and XTR for mountain bikes.

I have long known that, in addition to bike parts, Shimano also makes fishing equipment.  Not being a fisherperson myself, I hardly paid attention.  However, when looking for a diagram of a Shimano derailleur, I came across this:

It's a Tiagra, though obviously not one you're riding.  Actually, there are several different models of Tiagra.  Like the one in the photo, they're made for deep-sea fishing.  None of them are cheap, but from what I understand, they are among the best, if not the best, deep sea fishing reels  available.

And, I must say, they are beautiful, though I have to wonder how they (or any other reel used in deep sea conditions) would keep their looks.  To be fair, I think most fisherpeople aren't as inclined to buy their equipment for aesthetics as some cyclists are. Or, perhaps, they define beauty in a different way.

I think it's interesting that, for one sport, Shimano gives its top-of-the-line models the same model name as the one that appears on mid-level equipment for another sport.

Who Needs The Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, Anyway?

In my youth, someone gave me a subscription to Sports Illustrated.  I don't know how long it was supposed to last, but I think I recieved every issue from the day my first puberty began until I was engaged.  I don't remember why I didn't renew it.  Perhaps, not having a lot of money, I had to choose between it and and something else--was it a Campagnolo part?  Or something my fiancee and I would need for our new household?

Whatever the reason for my cancellation, it had nothing to do with the most popular issue published every year.  Back then, it was released in January, around the second or third week.  By now, you probably know what I'm talking about:  The Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue.

I was not at all interested in the very scantily-clad images of Cheryl Tiegs and and Carol Alt and Elle Macpherson posing in exotic locales.  Really, I wasn't.  I was reading about the NBA and NHL All-Star games, which were usually played around the time The Issue came out.

I swear it's true.... ;-)  

Anyway...I was reminded of the SISI when I saw this:

Can you say, "Ooh-la-la"?  About the bicycle, I mean?

Seriously, Abbey Lee Kershaw looks great on or with--or without--any bike.  But take a look at those fenders. Those reflectors  The bags on the sides of the rack.  They're almost as cool as the tatoo on her ankle. (And I don't even like tatoos, generally.

There's one problem, though, with those photos.  No outfit is complete without a faabulous pair of shoes.  For Abbey Lee, they wouldn't be just a fashion statement.  I mean, would you ride those pedals barefoot?

Really, now.  

Did You Make A New Year's Resolution?

You know all of the most common New Year's Resolutions:  go on a diet, drink less, stop smoking, learn a foreign language, get a better job (or start a new career or business), return to school, be nicer to people-- and never, ever make a New Year's Resolution ever again.  

You've probably made at least one of these at some point or another in your life--or when the clock struck midnight the other night.  ("I will stop drinking," she said while sipping champagne.)  And, if you're typical, it lasted about two weeks.

Somehow I think cycling-related resolutions last longer. Usually, they involve riding more or doing more challenging--or simply different kinds of--rides.  People who make such resolutions are, typically, already cycling (or are motivated to do so) and have riding partners or belong to cycling clubs.  Common sense and basic psychology (Believe it or not, they're not mutually exclusive!) tell us it's easier to stick with something you're already doing than to start it, than it is to start something and keep moving ahead with it when we encounter the first "bump in the road".

From The Bike Cafe

Another reason, I think, cycling-related resolutions made by cyclists are more likely to be kept is that tend to be more specific than something like, "I will be a kinder person".  That doesn't surprise me:  Over the years, I've noticed that students who have a specific or particular goal, whether it's becoming an accountant, auteur or anaesthesiologist, are more likely to stay in school and complete their degrees than those who have some vague sense that they need a degree to get a job that pays well (an increasingly dubious proposition these days) or because their parents, friends or communities want them to become an "educated" person.

Now I'll confess that I didn't make any resolution, cycling- related or otherwise.  In fact, I haven't made one in a long time.  If I recall correctly, I made my last resolution before I discovered this poem:

      For The Coming Year
         --by Peter Everwine

      With the stars
      rising again in my han

      Let my left arm be a rooster
      it will keep the watches of the night

      And let my right arm be an axe
      it will be sleepless in the gate of morning

      When I fold them to me
      they will take things into their circle

      They will sing softly to each other
      softly

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

From NBX/Narragansett Bikes