Bike Lane Mayhem: Just Don't Yell At The Cops.

I ride the bike lane on Crescent Street in Astoria only because it passes directly in front of my apartment--and I use it only to get home or to a street that will take me wherever I'm going.  

In that sense, the Crescent Street lane is actually better than some:  It not only takes me to my apartment; it also provides a direct connection between two major bridges with bike lanes: the Triborough/RFK and Queensborough/59th Street.  

For a while, I was crossing the Triborough almost every day to work, and often use it for rides to points north, including Connecticut.  But I take the Queensborough/59th Street only if I'm going to someplace within a few blocks of the Manhattan side.  If I'm going to Midtown or downtown Manhattan, I prefer to pedal into Brooklyn and cross the Williamsburg or Manhattan Bridges.  

The reason I like those bridges better is that the bike lanes are relatively wide and accessible.  The Queensborough/59th Street Bridge, on the other hand, is--like the Crescent Street lane--narrow.  How narrow?  Well, I've come within a chain link width of brushing, or being brushed by, cyclists traveling in the opposite direction.  

That problem has been exacerbated by motorized bikes and scooters.  I was under the impression that they're supposed to be limited to a maximum speed of 40 kph (about 25 mph).  But I've seen more than a few that were traveling well above that speed.  And I have seen many more of them than cyclists run red lights, make careless turns and sideswipe cyclists and pedestrians.  

Photo by Scott Gries--Getty Images

I know I'm not the only one who's noticed.  Christopher Ketcham said as much yesterday, in a New York Daily News guest editorial.  He also points out something I've mentioned:  It's illegal to operate those motorized vehicles in bike lanes.  People do it; they endanger others; cops see it and do nothing.

Ketcham described such a scenario of which he had to be a part.  Someone riding a motorized bike nearly knocked him off his bike on the Manhattan Bridge Lane.  When he stopped to complain to the cops sitting on the complain to two cops stationed on the Manhattan side, one of them said, "We're here for the bikes."

So that officer admitted what many of us know:  the police come after us because we're easy prey--and because, as former Transportation Alternatives head Charlie Komanoff said, "Cycling is everything cops are acculturated to despise:  urban, improvisatory and joyous rather than suburban, rulebook and buttoned-up."  I have noticed the hostility he and Ketcham describe even in cops who patrol on bicycles: I suspect that none of them ride when they're off the clock.

Some might say that Ketcham, Komanoff and I are paranoid or "not seeing the whole picture."  Well, if we can't see from the proverbial 30,000 feet, we certainly can look through the wide-angle lens of statistics:  In 2019, the NYPD handed cyclists 35,000 tickets for all sorts of infractions, from not having bells (more about that in a moment) to running red lights (even when, as I have described, crossing at the red light is safer for the cyclist and drivers). Truck drivers received 400 fewer tickets, although there are ten times as many trucks as bicycles on New York City streets.

When Ketcham complained to the cops at the foot of the Manhattan Bridge, they gave him a $98 ticket--for not having a bell and, allegedly, for yelling at the officers, according to the "Description/Narrative" portion of the ticket.  

I wonder how many folks driving motorized bikes were ticketed for riding illegally in bike lanes (or on sidewalks), sideswiping cyclists and pedestrians--or yelling at police officers.

 

If You Like This Blog, Thank bell hooks

If you've been following this blog for a while, you may have noticed that every once in a while I invoke what I'll call herein the Howard Cosell Rule. I am so naming it for the sportscaster who interrupted his play-by-play and commentary of an NFL game to announce the murder of John Lennon.  About a dozen years earlier, he deviated from the format of his radio program to talk about the assassinations of Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr.

He received a lot of hate mail--which included slurs against his Jewishness and questioning of his manhood--for reminding viewers that, indeed, some things are more important than what your favorite football or baseball team is doing on the field.  That, of course, is what some fans didn't want to hear:  When it wasn't impugning his heritage, actual or perceived sexual orientation or political leanings, the angry responses said, in essence, that he should stick to sports because that's what they tuned in to hear.

Of course, these days, you'd have to be comatose to think that politics, economics, history, gender identity and expression and sexual orientation can be separated from games, matches or tournaments. (Simone Biles and Colin Kaepernick, anyone?) And I am always conscious of the fact that I started this blog because I am a middle-aged (depending on your definition of it!) transgender woman who has cycling in one form or another for longer than she’s been living as the person she is.

That said, I am writing today about someone who, to my knowledge, didn't do much cycling. And I have not previously mentioned her on this blog.  But she has as much to do with the person I am, and why I have continued to ride, as anyone has.

bell hooks, from the bell hooks institute

Yesterday Gloria Jean Watkins--better known as bell hooks*--died at age 69 from renal failure.  As I understand, she'd been in failing health for some time.  Physically, that is. I can't get inside her mind, any more than anyone else can, but I feel confident in saying that until her last moment, it worked better than that of most people (including me) at their cognitive best.

So what does she have to do with me, or this blog? Well, first of all, any transgender person owes at least something to her.  Laverne Cox said as much.  hooks, a black feminist scholar who described her sexuality as "queer-pas-gay,"  sowed the seeds of what Kimberle Crenshaw would later call "intersectionality" in feminism and the studies of race, class and culture.  For those of you who didn't take a graduate seminar in gender studies (no shame there, really!), intersectionality explores, as its name implies, the connections between social categories such as race, gender and class--though hooks (and Crenshaw) were careful to point out that while sexism, racism, class bias and homo- and trans-phobia are related, they are not identical.  Thus, while hooks took pains to respect the differences between, say, a white cisgender woman from an upper middle class background trying to break the "glass ceiling" of an organization or profession and an Afro-Latina transgender trying to get medical treatment, she could also see the parallels between, and empathise with, their struggles.

Most important, she challenged her readers to empathise, and to embrace, the ways in which their identities, whatever they are, express themselves.  That is not to say she believed that "anything goes:" her critique of Beyonce says as much.  Rather, she wanted people to free themselves from the mostly-unspoken dictates (many of which she identified as patriarchical) about gender and race into which people are immersed from an early age.

So how did that lead to this blog?  Well, when I was starting my gender affirmation process, I struggled with the question of what, exactly, it would mean to live as a woman.  It changed, it seemed, almost from one day to the next.  In part, that had to do with the time in which I started my process:  In 2003, books like Jennifer Boylan's She's Not There had just come out.  In a recent interview, Boylan said that in re-reading it, she realizes that much of it had an apologetic tone.  She, who started her process about a decade before mine, was trying to conform to some of the very same notions I was--and which bell hooks didn't denounce as much as she said were outmoded and, in some cases, crippling.  

I think that most people who experience gender identity as I have, until recently, realized that they weren't the sex by which they were identified from birth before they understood what living by the gender by which they identify themselves would mean.  That meant, for some of us, things that we look back on with embarrassment: I realize now that, at times, I was performing an exaggerated version of femininity.  Young trans and queer people have the advantage, in part because of people like bell hooks, of realizing that they don't have to accept those notions of gender (I include the ones to which some trans men conform) that were formed by notions of the superiority of a particular gender, race, class or religious group.

For me, figuring out what kind of woman I would be included answering the question of whether I would continue cycling.  At the time I started my affirmation process, I didn't see many female cyclists. I take that back:  I didn't see many who rode as much, as long, as hard, as I was riding in those days.  So I wondered just how much (if any) cycling I could do and still be the woman I was envisioning at the time. 

Then, I realized that I had bought into a frankly hyper-masculine idea about cycling, modeled after the wannabe Eddy Mercxes, Bernard Hinaults and Russian sprinters I saw and sometimes rode with. Over time, my ideas about cycling--and womanhood--changed.  

These days, I am a woman who rides because I love being a woman and I love riding.  The forms each take have changed, and will change, in part because age inevitably changes our minds as well as our bodies.  It took time, but I think I've come to a place where I live and ride as I see fit, whether or not it fits into someone else's ideas about what a woman, a person in mid-life, or a cyclist should be.  For that, I have bell hooks, among others to thank.  She is as good a reason as any for me to invoke the Howard Cosell rule today. 

*--bell hooks always spelled her nom de plume with lower case letters. It's her grandmother's name, which she took in honor of her fighting spirit.  But bell hooks wouldn't capitalize the first letters of her name, she said, because she didn't want to draw attention to herself at the expense of her works.  I hope I don't seem cynical when I say someone as intelligent and perceptive as she was must have known that, for some people, it's exactly what drew attention to her.  I confess:  I am one of them.  I knew nothing about her when I first saw her name and started reading her works out of curiosity because of how she spelled her name.

Stolen Elections And Traffic Lanes

There is nothing so demonstrably false that, if repeated often enough, large numbers of people will take as fact.  

This is especially true today, with social media as such a powerful tool for amplifying misinformation or outright lies.  (I know, you're reading this over social media.  What can I say?) If the election of Donald Trump--and the notion that he had re-election "stolen" from him--hasn't taught us as much, I don't know what will.

One problem, I think, is that people who are in a position to question such stories---a polite way of saying "folks who ought to have well-tuned bullshit detectors"--accept, wittingly or not, misinformation at face value.  They don't question the sources of such stories, let alone how anyone came to the conclusions that are spread as lies or disinformation.

A recent example came in the form of a questionable study that morphed into an urban legend via the British media.  To be fair, such a scenario could have--and probably has--played out in other countries and cities.  It's one thing when the Daily Mail (which, as best as I can tell, seems like England's equivalent of the New York Post) spreads, as we would say in the academic argot, narratives with a tenuous relationship with verities. It's another when outlets as august as the BBC spread such nonsense.  The Daily Mail's headline proclaimed, "Cycle lanes installed at start of COVID pandemic help make London most congested city in the world."  BBC London made it sound more reasonable, or simply toned it down:  "Cycle lanes blamed as city named most congested."

The story could have gotten even more traction had Peter Walker, a reporter on transportation and environmental issues for the Guardian, spoken about it  on a national radio program.  At least, more people would have taken the narrative as an article of faith if he’d spoken about it as the program’s producers might have expected. 

He had been contacted to do that, he says.  As he checked the story, the program's producers decided to bring on somebody else.  From what Walker says, I can't help but to wonder whether the person they chose parroted the lines from the Daily Mail and BBC London items.

Turns out, the business about London being the most congested city came from a report called the "Global Traffic Scorecard."  Its title makes it seem plausible enough--until you realize that it was issued by a company called Inrix, which sells traffic data.

Photo by Dominika Zarzycka, from the Guardian

Now, I haven't been to London in a long time, so I can't offer even anecdotal evidence to confirm or refute the report's conclusion.  For all I know, London might be more congested than Paris or Athens, two large cities in which I've cycled during the past couple of years.  And it may well be more choked with traffic than cities like Luang Prbang or Siem Reap, which I've also recently ridden.  

One problem is that whoever compiled the Inrix report couldn't tell us whether the British capital is more congested than any Asian, African or Latin American city because no such places were included in the study.  

Another is that their determination of London as the most congested city is based on--again I'll revert to academic argot--flawed methodology.  It seems to be based on the premise that traffic is like water:  its flow is determined by the width of the pipe, or road.  Decades of research have refuted this idea (commonly called "induced demand" or, for laypeople, "build it and they will come") about traffic, but it seems to be a foundation for the report--and an Inrix employee who embellished and amplified it.

Peter Lees' official Inrix title is "Director of Operations--Media."  In other words, he's a publicist (which, I blush to admit, I was for a (thankfully) brief time). Such people tend not to be "traffic wonks," Walker says, or a wonks of any kind.   Now whether Lees is a bald-faced liar, or simply someone who doesn't actually read the stuff he represents to the media, I won't say. I will, however mention this:  He linked London's congestion to bike lanes--which are not mentioned anywhere in the 21-page report.

Now, I have all sorts of issues with bike lanes, at least as they exist in too many places.  I've ridden too many, especially here in New York, that are poorly conceived, designed, constructed and maintained.  They don't provide practical or safe routes for transportation cycling:  Few link to other bike (or bikeable) routes or to places where significant numbers or would-be cycle commuters study, work or shop.  But any traffic congestion--including that of Crescent Street in Astoria, where I live--existed before bike lanes were built.

Misinformation, whether or not it's intended as such, can cause people to believe things that are demonstrably false and act in irrational ways, especially when it's amplified by folks with actual or metaphorical microphones.  So, in that sense, what leads folks to think that bike lanes cause traffic congestion is basically the same as what causes them to believe their candidate had an election "stolen" from him.

  

The Girl Puzzle

Yesterday I managed to sneak in a ride before sunset.  It wasn't long, but it took me to familiar haunts I hadn't ridden in a while:  a few loops around Roosevelt Island.

It's probably been a couple, maybe a few, months since I last took a spin on the island.  However long it was, enough time had passed to see something new:

 

Actually, it's been under wraps for a while.  It was supposed to be unveiled last year, but the COVID pandemic delayed that, and other things.  

The "Girl Puzzle" installation is an homage to Nellie Bly, a pioneering journalist.  Next year will mark the centennial of her death:  two years after she, and other American women, won the right to vote. 

In a way, it's appropriate that the installation stands before the lighthouse, as she shed light on all sorts of terrible, scandalous and interesting situations.  One of them prevailed at the other end of the island, in its now-closed sanitorium.  As flimsy as this country's mental health care system is, it was much worse in her day.

She was able to write an expose of it--which morphed from a series of articles into a book (Ten Days In A Mad House)--and much of her other work by going under cover.  That, of course, makes it ironic that the installation is by the lighthouse.  Perhaps equally ironic is that she was able to go undercover at a time when she was conspicuous simply by being a woman doing paid work, let alone journalism.  Then again, her first published work, in the Pittsburgh Dispatch, was a response to a previously-published misogynistic complaint about female wage-earners.

The title of that piece was..."The Girl Puzzle." While it garnered complaints and other negative reactions, the editor realized her potential and had her write more pieces.  Soon after, he hired her as a full-time reporter.

Although women in professions like journalism have become the norm, we still have to solve "The Girl Puzzle":  How do we--whatever our gender identities, however we express them--realize our potential and our dreams while remaining true to ourselves and dealing with those who try to enforce their notions of what men or women, boys or girls, should be?  

As I looked at "The Girl Puzzle," I couldn't help but to think about Simone Biles and the other female gymnasts who, yesterday, reached a settlement against their sport's governing bodies in their case against their coach--and abuser.  It sounds like a story Nellie Bly would have covered--and been appalled that she had to at this late date.

A Turn: A Curtain Lifts

Why do I take the same rides again and again?

Sometimes I just want to ride on "autopilot":  I don't want to think about navigating.  Or, conversely, I might want to lose myself in the rhythm of pedaling and navigating, especially if I'm weaving through traffic.

But, oddly enough, sometimes I'll ride a route I've pedaled dozens or even hundreds of times before because I somehow know that within the familiarity, I'll see something new:  a turn might reveal a new view of something I've seen for years.

That is what happened the other day, late in the afternoon.  I took Tosca, my Mercian fixie, for a spin along the Flushing Bay Promenade, which starts by LaGuardia Airport and passes the World's Fair Marina and Citi Field on its way to Flushing.

On my way back, I saw a Midtown Manhattan sunset through a scrim of winter branches:

A second or two, a few pedal strokes and a left turn later, the curtain lifted, so to speak:

There is always a show, a spectacle, even on the most quotidian ride.  Maybe that's what's kept me on my bike for all of these years!

  

Imagine A Bike....

 Is he riding a "concept" bike?

An Oxymoron Ride

Peter White is an original.   He has been helpful when I've  consulted him, whether or not I bought anything.  His sense of humor, though, is, shall we say, quirky.  I like it, but it may not be for everybody.

An example is his attitude about downhill riders.  His shop doesn't carry parts for bikes ridden by "those poor unfortunate people with green or pink hair who have to be carried up the mountain on a ski lift so they can ride down yelling "Yo Dude!" He calls their machines "invalid bikes" which, he claims, is a play on what he regards as "valid" bikes.  Naturally, some  folks believe he's denigrating folks with disabilities and send him nasty e-mails, or worse.

I'd love to hear what he'd say about a "downhill bike tour."  I never knew such things exist until someone sent me an article about people who want to regulate them in Hawaii. Apparently, tour groups meet their guide and support vehicle at the top of a mountain, where they watch the sunrise before barreling down into the town.  

Photo by Matthew Thayer, for the Maui News

Me, I don't know how you can call something a "bike tour" if it's only downhill.  I can understand a ride that's flat.  But whatever anyone wants to say about the speed at which I currently ride, I can say that on every tour--or even every transportation ride--I've taken, if I've ridden down something, I've ridden up it, or something else.  Well, OK, once I went on a downhill mountain bike ride back in the 90s when that first became a "thing."  Yes, I went up on a lift, as everyone else in my group did.  But I did it on a hardtail bike, albeit with a Rock Shox front fork.

Now some folks in Maui want to impose tighter regulations on those downhill tours.  They complain that even the guided tours show little regard for the safety of children and pedestrians.  Not surprisingly, they believe the "wildcat" riders are even worse.

Not only have I never taken a "downhill tour;" I've also never been to Hawaii.  So I have to take their word about those tours. I, though, would want to regulate them in another way:  They shouldn't be allowed to call themselves "tours."  I'd bet that at least half of the people on those rides don't pedal even a single stroke.  To me, if all you do is coast down a hill--as much fun as it is--you don't have the right to say you did a "tour."

In other words, I believe the phrase "downhill tour" is an oxymoron.

If A Police Officer Rolls A Bike Over Your Head....

If someone rolls a bicycle over someone else's head, could that be construed as excessive use of force?

Hmm...I must admit I'd never pondered that question.  Most likely, there aren't very many people who have. One who had to is Andrew Myerberg.

He is the director of Seattle's Office of Police Accountability (OPA).  The poor fellow who got tire tracks on his forehead was Camillo Massagli, who was known for showing up at street protests and playing his trumpet.  At one of those events last year, held in the wake of a grand jury's decision not to indict Louisville police officers in the killing of Breonna Taylor, Seattle PD Officer Eric D. Walter rolled his Department-issued bike--with two flat tires--over a supine Massagli's head.

Massagli, for his part, declined to pursue charges because, he explained, "I cannot use a penal system I reject for revenge, not in good conscience," though he added that Walter's and other officers' actions showed "disregard for human life."

King County Sheriff's Detective Mike Mellis investigated Walter for assault but did not find probable cause.  He reasoned that Walter and other officers had a right to "peacefully" remove protesters from the street.  Although he conceded that Walter "purposely rolled his bike over" Massagli's head, as recounted in an OPA summary, he said that such an action "would not necessarily be expected to cause someone pain."

Okay...I'll try that if I ever roll a bicycle over someone's head:  "Officer, I really meant no harm!"

At least Mellis, Walter and the officers who worked with him weren't the only ones who had input on the OPA summary.  It didn't dispute Walter's claim that that he "needed to stay on his line and could not move as it might confuse the officers following behind him."  It, however, averred that a review of video from that day found "no indication that he ever lifted the bicycle while walking over" Massagli.  

So what was the result of this investigation?  Walter got a seven-day unpaid suspension. (It's unclear as to whether or not he's served it.) Walter and the union are, of course, appealing it.  As a 14-year veteran of the force, Walter had a base salary of $130,471 in 2020 and made another $20,544. (I wonder whether working that protest was part of his regular salary or overtime.)  So the suspension, should or has he served it, would cost him about $2509 of his base pay. One wonders whether Massagli will pay in some other way--whether through physical pain or emotional trauma, now or in the future, whether or not Officer Walter meant to hurt him.

Screen grab from a video at the protest. (Courtesy of C.J Halliburton and Joey Weiser, for the Seattle Times.

More Bikes, More Parts, More Help Needed

 The COVID-19 pandemic has affected the cycling world in all sorts of ways.  You've probably noticed more people on bikes during the past year and a half.  And, if you wanted to buy or fix a bike, you probably found it more difficult, or even impossible, to find the bikes, parts or accessories you need--and that, if you can find them, they're more expensive.

That last factor--scarcity and expense--has been particularly difficult for programs that distribute bikes during the holidays.  Some, such as the Boise Bicycle Project, have, in years past, relied on bikes refurbished in local jails and prisons.  Those programs, which typically trained volunteer detainees, have been suspended or stopped altogether due to distancing requirements.  Also, the businesses--whether bike shops or big-box stores like Wal-Mart--that donated bikes or sold them at significant discounts (sometimes at wholesale prices or not much more) just don't have bikes or even helmets or other accessories to donate.  And, individuals who donate bikes often do so after buying new bikes for themselves or their kids:  the old bike is the one that gets donated.

That last fact relates to another of the problems I mentioned.  Donated bikes are usually fixed by volunteers in the distribution programs before being passed on to a needy kid or adult.   Just as the Idaho prison program mentioned in the article has been put on hold, so have other programs in which volunteers refurbish bikes, such as those in Recycle-a-Bicycle type operations, local bike clubs, schools or other organizations.  It's pretty hard to show someone how to true wheels or replace brake cables while maintaining social distance.

And, while some volunteers in distribution programs have the skills and tools to fix the bikes, they may not have the necessary parts, or any way of getting them.

So, the program in the article--and, I am sure, others--are urging people not only to donate bikes, but also to fix them, if necessary, before giving them.

If you donate or fix bikes in a program like BBP, you deserve special kudos this year.  And, whether or not we receive one of those bikes, we should be grateful for the extra effort they're surely expending this year!

Imagine There's A White Bicycle

In a terrible irony, John Lennon was murdered the day after Pearl Harbor Day.

That was 41 years ago today.  I don't think it's hyperbolic to say that it shook some of us in the way that the "surprise" attack roused Americans and the world. 

In another terrible irony, the man responsible for "Imagine" and other songs calling for peace and unity was cut down by a lone gunman who claimed to be inspired by a fictional character who probably would have listened to Lennon's (and the Beatles') music and probably wouldn't have committed violence simply because he turned all of his anger inward.

(Of course, Lennon's murder points up to one of the ways in which the US gets things backwards.  In other countries, everyone has access to health care--which includes mental health services-- but very few people who aren't police officers or military personnel have access to firearms.)

Anyway, apart from his music and being married to the woman blamed for the breakup of the Beatles (I think she was a catalyst, not a cause), he and she were known for their "bed-ins" for peace.  At their second, in Amsterdam, they were given a white bike that was part of the Provo plan. 

 

Think of Provo as a kind of Dutch proto-Occupy Wall Street:  It began as a counter-culture movement during the mid-1960s.  It had a cultural wing,  which staged "happenings" and an activist wing that provoked (hence the name) the police through non-violent means. 

There was also a political faction that actually won a seat on Amsterdam's city council and had a number of goals to make their city and country more liveable and what we would now call "green." Those goals included the closing of central Amsterdam to motorized traffic.  That, of course, is probably Provo's most recognizable and lasting legacy:  One could say that the "White Bicycle" plan set the Dutch capital on its path to becoming the cycling haven it is today.

That, I believe, is something of which John Lennon would have approved.

It Wasn’t His Fault

 When I was a Manhattan bike messenger, I sluiced through taxis, delivery trucks, buses and pedestrians with craned necks. 

But I had nothing on this courier:

The photo is fabricated, but it symbolizes a real story:  A Japanese-American bicycle messenger pedaled through the attack on Pearl Harbor with a message for General Walter Short, who was in charge of defending it.

The message?  A warning of an attack.

Japan had intended to issue a declaration of war half an hour before the attack.  The US Army had already decrypted the message the evening before, and had dispatched alerts to all Pacific-area commands. But communication problems delayed receipt of the warning in Honolulu.

Meanwhile, bureaucrats in the Japanese embassy were slow in decoding, typing and delivering the formal message to Secretary of State Cordell Hull.

The result is, of course, the “surprise “ attack.  And the bike messenger, who was sent out some time after 7:30 local time, when the warning arrived, was caught in the rain of bombs and bullets at 7:55 am.  Two hours later, he arrived, with the message.

Richard Masoner wryly wonders whether that messenger received a tip for his troubles. He certainly deserved it:  I got tips for much less!

P.S. Today is the 80th anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack. There are very few remaining survivors. This may well be their last opportunity to collectively commemorate the event.

(Photo from Richard Masoner’s blog, Cyclelicious.)

The Fall

 When you ride for more than a couple of decades you realize that there's no idea so ridiculous, no "innovation" so pointless or "improvement" so useless that someone won't revive it, oh, about every decade or so.

Also, you hear the same alarms about the terrible things cycling will do to you.  The only difference between now and the 1970s, when I first became a dedicated rider, is that those rumors and urban legends, and all of that junk science, can now be found on the Internet, whereas back in the day, we got it through word-of-mouth or from questionable publications. 

One of those stories is about all of the male cyclists who've become infertile, or simply have lower sperm counts, supposedly because of cycling.  Germaine Greer once repeated that bit of nonsense in one of her screeds.  Now, I've known more than a few male cyclists, including current and former riding partners, who have had multiple children.  So have many members of the pro peloton.

What about cycling could render a man incapable of replicating himself?  Usually, the saddles are blamed; a few have even cited the motion of cycling.  I think a more likely cause in low population growth in some countries might be those massive shift levers mounted on the top tubes of "muscle" bikes like the 1960s-1970s Schwinn Krate  or on the stems of many Bike Boom-era ten-speeds.  Even those, however, might have played an extremely minor role in less-than-replacement birth rates. 

Could this be the cause?

Now, I know that fall must have been painful for the young man. But I have to wonder which pain was worse:  that of the impact or of having his accident broadcast all over his nation.  

"Like Herding Cats"

 You've heard the expression that something is "like herding cats."

Well, have you ever tried to teach a cat to ride a bike?

You'd think that with all of my experience as a cyclist, teacher and professor, I could teach anyone anything when it comes to cycling.  Well, some things tax even my wealth of experience!

I'm going to try visualization.  Maybe if she sees enough images like this one, she'll accompany me on a ride:

There's still time!

A Bike Lane Or A Parking Spot

 If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you know that one of my pet peeves is bike lanes that put cyclists in more danger than they’d experience in riding on the streets.

Bike lanes can be hazardous in all sorts of ways:  They can be poorly constructed or maintained.  They can be poorly conceived and designed. (How many lanes begin or end “out of the blue” or lead cyclists straight into the path of trucks or buses turning right in intersections?) Or they can be marked (or not) in ways that confuse motorists and pedestrians as well as cyclists.

The latter situation confronts drivers and cyclists along Lake Avenue on Cleveland’s West Side. Recently, the city installed a bike lane there.  What they neglected to do, however, was to remove 30- and 60-minute parking signs.  

Not only is it inconvenient for cyclists when motor vehicles pull in and out, or park in bike lanes: it’s also hazardous. “It creates a situation where motorists don’t expect cyclists to veer out into the roadway because there is a bike lane,” explained Jacob VanSickle of Bike Cleveland.

He says BC has contacted the city about removing the signs.  The city said it’s the duty of a contractor for the Ohio Department of Transportation to remove the signs.  According to Isaac Hunt, the lane is expected to be completed by mid-December and the signs will be gone “in a few weeks.”

“Those are bike lanes now,” Hunt says and cars are therefore not permitted to park in them. But, many drivers are understandably confused by the signs: perhaps they don’t see the bike lane markings or realize they aren’t supposed to park in a bike lane.  

Then, of course, there are motorists who resent having “their” road space taken from them, or just don’t care about rules. For them, the rules have to be enforced.  For everyone else, those rules—and the very existence of the bike lane—need to be clarified.

Where Are The Bikes—And Docks?

 I’ve ridden Citibikes a few times, always for the same reasons:  I could ride there, but not back (like the time I pedaled to a procedure that involved anaesthesia) or I went to pick up one of my own bikes.

Photo by Christopher Lee for the New York Times

On the whole, it’s a good system, given its inherent limitations.  The main non-inherent limitation is that it still isn’t available to about half of this city’s residents:  Nearly all of the bikes and docks are in Manhattan or nearby neighborhoods (like mine) in western Queens and northern Brooklyn. 

Of the inherent limitations, perhaps the most significant is the mismatch between the availability of bikes and ports at any given moment.  As an example, on one of my trips, I had to go to three different docking station before I found an empty port where I could leave the bike.  That left me about half a kilometer from my destination.  The nearest docking station was only a block from where I needed to go.

Sometimes people encounter the opposite problem:  no bikes at the docking station. This typically happens at times and in areas where many people are leaving, or leaving for, their jobs or schools.

As much as I liked Curtis Sliwa’s position on animal rights, I voted for Eric Adams to become our next mayor because of just about everything else—including his mention of expanding Citibike to areas not yet served by it—and, too often, un- and under-served in so many other ways.

How Not To Sell A Stolen Bike

When I wrote for a newspaper, I talked with a man who was (or at least claimed to have been) a "professional thief."  In other words, he said, stealing--jewels, mainly-- was his metier. And, as such, he and others like him had a set of guidelines--a code of professional conduct, if you will.  They included such gems as "Never kill unless there is no other alternative" and "Never steal from anyone poorer than yourself."

One thing that separates professionals, like the one he claimed to be, and others is that he stole strictly to "get paid," he said.  "You steal, you sell, you spend," he explained, unlike amateurs who might, say, steal out of poverty and desperation or to support a drug habit.

By implication, that meant "you shouldn't steal to support your stealing"  and "you shouldn't use something stolen to steal." In other words, a professional thief never  should do what two men in Oregon seem to have done.

A bicycle was stolen in Eugene, the state's capital.  The victim found it for sale on Facebook Marketplace and arranged to meet the sellers at the Walmart in nearby Springfield.  He apprised the cops of what he was doing.

Just before the gendarmes arrived, one of the sellers, who drove the car used to transport the bike, went into the store.  The officers, seeing the bike in the back seat, took the passenger--35-year-old Guy Devault--into custody on a warrant.  Shortly afterward, they caught the driver--Juan Sanchez, also 35 years old--in the store.

An investigation concluded that Devault was responsible for the stolen bike. But, as it turned out, the car was also stolen.  So, in addition to his outstanding warrant on for kidnapping, Sanchez now also faces a charge of being in possession of a stolen vehicle:  the car used to transport the bike.

The fellow I talked to when I was writing for a newspaper would have known better than that.

  

Unparliamentary?

 Virtue signaling has been around forever.   Corporations and other major institutions, as well as mainstream politicians and celebrities, have long tried to show one audience or another that they are in agreement on some issue. A current example might be companies that make their products in overseas sweatshops running commercials in which models wear T-shirts or accessories emblazoned with a Black Lives Matter logo.

There is a subgenre of this called greenwashing.  In it, some organization or person tries to convince people that it really, really cares about climate change and other environmental issues by offering "green" versions of its products.  As often as not, the item doesn't actually cause less environmental impact than its "dirty" counterpart, just as so-called "healthy" snacks are sometimes just as hazardous to our waistlines as what they're supposed to replace.  

Now, it seems that some folks are being accused of a sub-subgenre of greenwashing. I'll call it "bikewashing."  Some accused Pete Buttigeg of it when he rode a bike.  Granted, he didn't look like he had much practice, but reliable sources say that he didn't get out of his car and ride a few feet to show the world that the new Transportation Secretary indeed cares about alternatives to fossil-fueled vehicles.

Now a Conservative member of the Canadian parliament has accused the country's Minister of the Environment of using a bike as an "unparliamentary prop" in a Zoom call.  First of all, calling a bike an "unparliamentary prop" is as ignorant as you-know-who taunting John Kerry for breaking his leg in a "bike race."

Can someone tell me what, exactly, is "unparliamentary" about a bicycle?  I like it myself, not in the least a purple Marioni.  My only quibble is that it seems to have a single gear but a pair of downtube shifters.  I guess someone was in the middle of converting it from a derailleur-equipped to a fixed-gear or single-freewheel bike.

To be fair, whether or not Steven Guilbeault actually rides the bike, that it's there is understandable:  He probably was in his home and the bike happens to be wherever his computer or other device was set up.  Nobody has complained about seeing my bikes--or, for that matter, Marlee-- during Zoom meetings.  

If anything, the bike makes me think of the bike that was always hanging in Seinfeld's apartment. (Trivia question: What kind of bike was it?) Did he, or anyone actually ride it?

And Ed Fast's reaction to seeing a bike behind Guilbeault makes me wonder whether members of parliament, conservative or otherwise, have other things to think about--you know, like the latest variant of COVID-19.

She Rides To Work--And Through Labor

 The next time you don't feel like pedaling to work or school because you're tired, have a headache or worried about the weather, think about Julie Anne Genter.

She's a member of New Zealand's Green Party and Parliament--and perhaps not surprisingly, a cycling advocate.  On Sunday, she did something she'd planned on doing:  She gave birth to her second child after arriving at the hospital by bicycle.

The way she got there, however, wasn't quite as she'd anticipated.  Her original plan was for her partner, Peter Nunn, to pedal a cargo bike with her in the front.  But when her contractions started, she realized that she and her hospital bag would add up too much weight. So she "just got out and rode," she explained.

Fortunately for her, the ride to the hospital took only ten minutes. Her daughter, whom she described as "happy and healthy," was born at 3:04 am local time.

The daughter is her second child.  She also pedaled to the hospital for the birth of her first child, which resulted from induced labor.  That same year, New Zealand's Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, gave birth while in office and brought her three-month-old baby to the United Nations assembly hall.

So, if you're trying to decide whether to ride to work, remember that Julie Anne Genter "wasn't planning to cycle in labor," but did.  

What's The Wright Thing To Do?

 Two months ago, I wrote about a Dayton, Ohio building that once housed a bicycle shop.  Over decades, after the bicycle boom that straddled the 19th and 20th Centuries faded, the building came to serve other purposes, including the headquarters of an ice cream company.  

Now that building is in severe disrepair and, according to one city official, "could fall down at any moment." Moreover, the city's Director of Planning says that if the owners of the bicycle shop come back, "they would not recognize the building," as a new façade was added when the ice cream company moved in and other changes were made.

 Others argue, though, that the city--which has owned the building since 1998--allowed it to deteriorate and therefore should be responsible for repairing it and making it the historic and cultural landmark they believe it should be.

Last Tuesday, the city's zoning appeals board voted to approve the city's request to demolish it. Part of the rationale for the vote is that it's all but impossible to return the building to what it was. Even if such a thing is possible, the pro-demolition people say, the city can't afford it:  De-industrialization and the 2008 financial crisis ravaged the city in ways from which it still has not recovered.

I have never been to Dayton, but from what I've read and heard, it suffered a similar fate to cities like Camden, New Jersey (where I have been) after jobs were lost and people moved to the suburbs.  But, interestingly, Dayton also played a role in two significant historical events.  One of them involved the owners of the bike shop; the other led to the creation of a nation.

In 1995, the parties in a conflict involving the former Yugoslavia negotiated a peace accord that resulted in the founding of Bosnia-Herzegovina. (Say that three times fast!)  The treaty was signed in an Air Force base just outside the city, but the agreement is known by the name of this city.  And the bike shop owners became two of the most famous people in the history of the world.

The settlement I've mentioned is known today as the Dayton Accord.  So, if you ever go to B-H, remember that it's there because of a city in Ohio.  And those bike shop owners...perhaps you've heard of the Wright Brothers.

Yes, the building I mentioned was home to their business.  Almost everyone agrees that they learned the principles (including aerodynamics, via experimentation with riding positions) of creating a vehicle designed for flight from building, assembling and riding bicycles.

Photo by Ty Greenlees for the Dayton Daily News 

Now, I must say that as a cyclist and someone who cares about history, my heart is in the preservationists' camp, even though I understand the pro-demolitionists' arguments. As I am not a structural engineer and have never been to the building site, I am in no position to say whether the edifice can be saved.  I would aver, however,  that struggling cities have used their cultural and historic heritage as keys that opened the door to revitalization.  For two decades or so after World War II, even "the Hub"--Boston--was on the ropes.  Of course, it had many things going for it:  an attractive location, world-class universities, hospitals and museums and diversity in its population, in addition to an historic and cultural heritage few other American cities can rival.  The same can be said for Pittsburgh, which later underwent a renaissance similar to Boston's. 

I realize that Dayton is a smaller city in a different part of the nation, but I should think that embracing its historic and cultural heritage couldn't hurt. I mean, how many other places can claim to be "the birthplace of aviation?"  The Wright Brothers might not recognize the building that housed their bicycle shop, but I think the world recognizes their contribution--which was made possible by their work with bicycles.

Clothes Make The---Cyclist?

While I disagree with Grant Petersen, the force behind Rivendell Bikes (and, before that, Bridgestone bikes) on matters of bike fit and, sometimes, design, I wholeheartedly agree with him on other things.  Among them is cycling attire:  Reading his blog convinced me that I didn't have to wear team kit--or anything else made of lycra--in order to ride and, more important, enjoy riding.

So I think he would appreciate this: