Looking For A Part, Finding A Memory

 Really, I wasn't looking for this:

Really!  I'd forgotten about it until I came across it on eBay.  I typed "SunTour 25"--I was looking for a 25 tooth SunTour freewheel cog--into the search bar and well, waddaya no, this image came up.

Seeing it again made me woozy with deja vu, as Kurt Vonnegut liked to say.  If I recall correctly, that Bicycle Guide was published in 1985, when Americans (some, anyway) started to pay attention to bike racing. The year before, in Los Angeles, Olympic cyclists from the United States took home more medals than any other country--or, probably, than in all of the Olympiads since 1912.  Those medals included golds by Alexi Grewal in the road race, Mark Gorski in the track sprint and Steve Hegg in the individual pursuit. 

Women's cycling events were included for the first time, and American female riders didn't disappoint. Connie Carpenter won the gold in the road race.  But the silver medalist--who was no less a rider than Connie--got the most attention.  Rebecca Twigg's image, captured by Annie Liebowitz and other high-profile photographers, would be splashed, not only on cycling and sports publications, but in Vanity Fair and other fashion magazines.

Therein lay both the bait and the poison, if you will. The first edition of the women's Tour de France ran in 1984. It lasted a few years before succumbing to, among other things, a lack of sponsorships.  Sometimes I think the organizers of Tour and other women's racers were trying to appeal to men, who were (and are) the vast majority of cycling fans.  So, while some fans got a "sugar high," if you will, from looking at Rebecca and other female cyclists in tights or shorts, the "buzz" wore off when those fans--again, mainly male--wanted to see "real" cycling, as they still think of the NBA, and not the WNBA, as "real" basketball.  

The lesson, perhaps, is this:  Sex sells.  But it doesn't guarantee repeat customers.  

OK, I'll stop moralizing.  I admit that I enjoyed the poster as much as anyone did (I mean, why not?), and not only because I was living as a presumably heterosexual male because I think almost no one (including myself) could conceive of a "man who wanted to be a woman" (which, at the time, was the accepted definition of a transgender) who was attracted to women, let alone bisexual.  For that matter, it was difficult to square being a male cyclist with such feelings, which is one reason why, early in my gender-affirmation process, I thought briefly about giving up cycling.

Of course, I'm glad I didn't. (What would you do with 10 minutes of your day if you didn't have this blog to read?) Becoming a different sort of cyclist from the one I was in 1985 was all but inevitable, if for no other reason than aging.  It has allowed me to savor the memories of rides I did, of mountains I climbed and cities and countrysides I crossed, as I find new ones, even on familiar rides.

Oh, and I have to admit, I grin conspiratorially to myself when I remember how I liked that poster.

I just hope that one day Rebecca Twigg will make new memories for herself on a bicycle.  She hasn't ridden in years and, from what I understand, is still homeless. That's just not fair, for anyone, but especially someone who gave the pleasure and thrills to those of us who saw her race--and people like me who were fortunate enough to meet her, however briefly.

And, I admit, I wonder what Carol Addy--the woman in the poster--is doing these days.

Explaining This Blog's Title

Some of you may wonder just how long I'm going to continue calling this blog "Midlife Cycling."

As I've said in other posts, as long as I don't know when I'm going to die, I consider myself to be in the middle of my life.

This T-shirt offers another explanation of this blog's title:

 

A Ride Of Ripples

 High, wispy cirrus clouds.  The ocean barely waving, let alone tiding.  A breeze against my face on the way out and my back on the way home.

 

 

 

Everything felt like a ripple today.  It may have had to do with doing another Point Lookout ride.  I made that choice, in part, because of the direction of that breeze, as gentle as it was.  Had I gone to Connecticut, Westchester, Alpine or Nyack, I would have been pedaling against the wind on my way home.  Also, yesterday was warmer than it had been earlier in the week, and I started to ride later in the morning than I'd planned.  If the warmest part of the day was going to be warmer than the past few days, I wanted to ride by the ocean rather than inland.

 

So, when I say that the ride was a ripple, I'm not complaining.  Rather, I felt rather privileged, as if I could see the brush strokes of those ripples in the sky and on the water, as I felt them against my skin.  Also, it's a treat to ride any of my bikes--in this case, Dee-Lilah, my Mercian Vincitore Special, lived up to her name.

 

Our ride ended, not with the rain, but a ripple.  All right, T.S. Eliot didn't end " The Hollow Men" that way.  I'm not sure that he could have, any more than I could have written his poem. I am happy to write my own poems--and take my rides, whether they begin or end with ripples, or anything else.

What Will It Take To Stop Her?

What do you call someone who

• has 9 unpaid parking tickets
• argued her way out of getting her car towed over unpaid parking tickets
• didn't pay a $3000 veterinary bill until a collection agency came calling
• lives in housing designated for families with incomes a third of what she, as a single woman, makes
• oh, and strikes a cyclist with her SUV and, after he and his bike tumble over her hood and onto the street, drives away--and doesn't report the incident for six hours?

Answer:  a Jersey City Council member.  At least, for now.

This isn't some grim joke among cynical New York-area political reporters.  This is the story of Amy De Gise, daughter of Hudson County Executive Tom De Gise, one of northern New Jersey's most powerful politicians.

As I reported in an earlier post, she didn't even slow down, let alone stop, to see whether the cyclist, Andrew Black, was OK.  Rather, she hid in her cozy lair until the other night, when nearly everyone at a Jersey City Council meeting called for her resignation.  To date, she hasn't so much as apologized to Black, let alone offer to reimburse him for whatever the crash may have cost him. (Thankfully, he suffered only minor injuries although his bike was trashed.) And her father is, in essence, telling people to stop "picking on" his daughter.

Her case has been moved to a neighboring county, Essex (which includes Newark) out of fears that she won't get a "fair" trial.  So far, it seems that the only people, inside or outside Jersey City or Hudson County, who don't think she should resign are her father and a few other local politicians.  That isn't surprising when you consider that Jersey City's corruption has long stood out in a state noted for its political corruption--and that Ms. De Gise is, at least for now, the heir apparent to her father, who is retiring.

The Roman poet Juvenal could have had someone like Amy DeGise in mind when he wrote, "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?"--Who will guard the guardians?

A Model For Bike Policy?

 For years, a rumor or urban legend--what's the difference between them?--said that bicycles were illegal in the People's Republic of Korea (PRK), a.k.a. North Korea.  Given the country's reputation as one of the most totalarian states, and the fact that almost no one in the West could be sure of what was happening in the country, the story seemed plausible.

Turns out, bicycles weren't officially banned.  But they were frowned upon as a primitive means of transport for a country whose leader saw it as a modern socialist utopia--until 1992.  That year,  cycling gained official acceptance, though the country's leader, Kim Jong-Il, officially banned it women because he thought the sight of a woman striking a "seductive" pose on the saddle would corrupt public morals.

Now, I must say that it still surprises me that anyone  has ever found  me "seductive," "sexy" or even cute in any position, whether as the woman in, ahem, late middle age that I am now or the dude I once was.  And, to my knowledge, the only ways in which I've ever "corrupted" anyone was to have them read essays, poems or books that provoke "subversive" thinking--or to have those people write what they were really thinking or feeling at that moment.

Anyway, for someone who thought he was turning his country into a socialist paradise--which, one presumes, is for the benefit of common people and not based on religious orthodoxy--Kim Jong-Il's attitudes, at least when it came to women and bicycles, weren't much different from those of the leaders of Saudi Arabia or other extreme theocracies.  His son, King Jong-Un, from what I understand, hasn't been enforcing that ban, in part because in a country where few people have cars and mass transportation isn't widely available, especially in rural areas, much of what's grown in that country--by women--would never get to market if women couldn't port it on bikes.

Kim Jong-Un has been pictured on amusement park rides and horses, but not on bicycles.  But, ironically, his non-enforcement of the ban on women riding bikes isn't the only thing that makes his country's capital city, Pyongyang, 'bicycle friendly."  Bicycles are not just socially acceptable; they dominate the streets as they did in Chinese cities a generation ago, for the same reason:  There are few cars.

Interestingly, while some cite bicycles outnumbering people in Dutch and Danish cities as reasons why cycling and cyclists are respected to a greater degree than they are in the US, bicycles aren't fetishized, the fact that they are a, if not the, major means of transportation in Pyongang and other PRK cities is the reason why they are status symbols, in more or less the same way as cars in other places.  Japanese-made bicycles are the most-after (Hmm...Perhaps I should have saved my Miyatas just in case I ever take a trip there!), followed by locally-made bikes that are rumored to be made by prisoners.  Chinese-made bikes are at the bottom of the heap, just as they were in the US about a generation ago.

Could it be that UK Transport Secretary Grant Shapps was looking to the PRK rather than the Netherlands, Denmark or France in proposing a new bike-related policy?

No, he's not looking to get more cars off the road or women on bikes, or to build more bike lanes.  Rather, he wants to adopt one of the PRK's more controversial policies:  registration plates, like those on automobiles, prominently displayed on the front of every bike.  

Oh, but he's looking to go even further than King Jon pere ou fils:  He wants to require insurance and impose speed limits for bicycles.  Moreover, he wants to impose a system of penalty points similar to the ones for motorists who violate the speed limit or other regulations. 

Now, to be fair, he's not the first British public official to propose such regulations.  But I think more citizens, whether they favor or oppose such rules, are paying attention because of the increasing numbers of people who are cycling for fun or to get to work, school or the store.

Whatever happens, it is ironic that an official of a Western country that is often seen as "liberal" would take one of the world's most illiberal states as its model for policies related to a form of transportation and recreation that can do more than almost anything else to liberate women--and men and children.

Riding By A Canvas

The past few days have showcased, for me, some of the ways I choose my rides, especially familiar ones.

On Saturday, I pedaled to Connecticut because the conditions seemed perfect: a not-too-warm day with not-too-high humidity and a moderate breeze that I pedaled into on my way up--which meant, of course, that it blew at my back on my way home.

On Sunday, I felt really good and not in need of "recovery" from the previous day's ride. Still, I wanted to do something slightly less challenging, but still fairly long.  So I pedaled out to Point Lookout.

I also rode to PL yesterday, into a stronger wind than I'd experienced during my two previous rides.  Also, I was starting a bit later than on my weekend rides, and I knew I could ride at a reasonable pace and still get home well before the end of the day.  But the other day, Monday, I did a shorter ride, in part because I had to do a few other things.  But, also, I wanted to explore some nearby nooks and crannies I don't often see, their proximity to my apartment notwithstanding.

One of those enclaves is part of what we half-jokingly call "Astoria's San Francisco."  The streets in that area, north of Astoria Boulevard and west of 21st Street, are indeed hills, though not as steep as, say, Lombard Street.  They are also, like so many San Fran streets, narrow.

Another thing that makes that part of Astoria interesting is the mix of buildings.  Most are residential. Some are landmarked, including mansions which, as I understand, are still owned or even lived in by descendants of the families who built them.  But, a block or two away from such edifices, one can find a seemingly-typical New York bodega that was once a cafe which, as rumor has it, served as the major Mafia gathering place in the area.  Also in proximity to the grand old buildings, which ranging from the stately to almost derangedly rococo, are some old storefronts and warehouses that serve as canvases for local talent.

Through the decades, I've cycled for fun and health, physical and mental.  I've toured cities and countryside, in the United States and other nations.  I also raced, albeit briefly. And, of course, I have commuted to work and school on my bike. Sometimes I think that one of the things that keeps me riding are the sensory surprises and stimulations I encounter along the way.

In 1962, It Was Superior

It was what Sheldon Brown called "the Dark Ages of American Cycling."  Or it was the "dark before the dawn" of the North American Bike Boom that began, depending on whom you ask, around 1969.

I am talking about 1962: 60 years ago. At the end of Bob Seger’s "Night Moves," the reminiscing narrator is "humming a song" from that year: the Ronette's "Be My Baby,” according to Seger. 

That year, Algeria won its independence--at least, in name--from France as Jamaica did from England.  A certain English band was playing at the Star-Club in Hamburg, West (yes, it was West) Germany. And--what I am about to reveal might cause some of you to never read this blog again--my favorite baseball team, the New York Mets, made their lovably, comically inept debut. (Their manager, Casey Stengel, lamented, "Can't anybody here play this game?")

And, although there were custom builders who made frames for the small but enthusiastic cycling communities of New York, Boston, Detroit, Chicago and a few other American locales, the name most Americans associated with quality bicycles was Schwinn.

Their company's top model, the Paramount, was built by hand in a separate area from the other bikes.  I have heard, from more than one source, that Schwinn actually lost money on Paramounts.  That sounds plausible:  Similar British, French and other European bikes with Reynolds tubing and Campagnolo components cost less (1962 Paramount price:  $175.00), mainly because the labor was less expensive.  Supposedly, Schwinn continued to build Paramounts because they were the official bike of the U.S. Olympic team and Arnold Schwinn saw equipping the riders who represented his country as an act of patriotism.  It also helped to support Schwinn's reputation as the only American bike-maker of that time with even a pretense of quality.

In 1962, Schwinn's second-line bike was the Superior.  Its frame was similar to the model of the same name Schwinn introduced in 1976:  chrome-molybdenum tubing filet-brazed without lugs into smooth joints and forged rear dropouts.  Both bikes also had Weinmann centerpull brakes (the cool engraved version on the 1962 bike) and rims with Schwinn-approved large-flange hubs made in France, probably by Normandy.

Oh, and I love the stem and handlebars--made for Schwinn by Gerry Burgess (GB) of England.  I can't get over that "lugged" sleeve on the handlebar:

 

 

Beyond those features, though, the 1960s and 1970s versions were very different. While both had Huret rear dropouts, the older version was equipped with the Huret Allvit derailleur:  standard touring gear of that time.  

The later Superiors came with Schwinn-branded Shimano or SunTour rear derailleurs--with, interestingly, Huret front derailleurs and shifters.  While the Shimano and SunTour mechanisms shifted much better in almost any condition, they seemed to have an almost unfair advantage on the 1970s bike, a ten-speed with the Nervar crankset that used the Specialites TA Pro Vis 5/Stronglight 49D bolt pattern and a wide-range rear freewheel.  On the other hand, the Allvit had to wrap up the yards and yards (OK, that's just a slight exaggeration) of chain necessitated by this:

The 1962 Superior certainly had 15 speeds--exotic for that time.  To achieve it, Schwinn used something I've seen maybe a couple of times in all of my years of cycling and working in bike shops:  a triple (with three chainrings)  Ashtabula (one-piece) crankset. Made from solid forged steel, it probably weighed as much as the frame!

To be fair, there weren't as many cotterless cranks, or triples,  available as there are now.  Schwinn used three-piece cottered cranks only on their early Paramounts.  Even the heaviest cottered cranks were lighter than any Ashtabula cranks, and some companies like Chater Lea, Stronglight and Duprat made cranks with pencil-thin arms.  But, once Stronglight and Campagnolo came out with durable alloy cotterless cranksets, cottered cranks disappeared from high-end road bikes (though they would continue to be used on the track until around 1960).  

Still, even in light of what I've just mentioned, that Ashtabula crank seems so incongruous with the rest of the bike.  But, for most Americans in 1962, the Superior would have seemed as other-worldly as a spaceship.

By the way:  the Superior cost $132 in 1962.  That model was made for only another year and, interestingly, the price dropped to $126.50.  From 1964 until 1970, the Super Sport--basically, a ten-speed version of the Superior--was Schwinn's #2 bike behind the Paramount.  In 1971, the Sports Tourer would knock the Super Sport to #3 and become the new Superior in 1976.

How A Perfect Weekend Of Riding Began

 Yesterday I spun to Point Lookout on La-Vande, my Mercian Vincitore Special.  The day before--Saturday--I pedaled her "sister" LaVande--my Mercian King of Mercia--to Greenwich, Connecticut.  The riding was wonderful: For one thing, the weather was perfect:  dry air, clear skies and high temperatures of 27-28C (81 to 83F).  But I got my best photos from the "appetizer" ride I did Friday evening on Tosca, my Mercian fixed-gear.

On an all-but-perfect summer evening, the waterfront promenades of Williamsburg were full of picnickers, dog-walkers, families and people simply hanging out and enjoying the weather and light.  But somehow the spaces didn't seem so crowded.  Perhaps it had something to do with the nearly-clear skies, the expanse of river and the kind of sunset the cynic in me associated only with postcard images:

I'll Drink To That!

In my youth, one of the few midlife (!) cyclists I knew gave me this bit of advice:  "The three most important things to do while riding are to hydrate, hydrate and hydrate, in that order."

My memory might be a bit fuzzy, but I believe his cupboard looked something like this:

 

Good For What Ails You!

Most people associate doctors' prescriptions with pharmaceutical concoctions.  But now physicians in a Houston clinic are prescribing, in addition to medications, something else for patients with prehypertension, hypertension, diabetes and prediabetes.

What is the new "wonder drug?"  A one-year membership in Houston BCycle, the city's bike-share program. Thanks to a collaboration between Houston Bicycle, the American Heart Association and Legacy Community Health in the city's Fifth Ward, patients can take a traditional or electric bicycle for 90 minutes at any BCycle location.

Photo by Lucio Vasquez

Those organizations began to work on the collaboration more than two years ago. Then the pandemic struck.  The director of Legacy continued to talk with the AHA and Houston Bicycle and the collaboration, called Bike Rx, finally started in February.  

The collaboration also helps to fulfill a goal articulated by Houston BCycle communications manager Mary De Bauche:  improving transportation options as well as the health and well-being of people in underserved communities.   Most residents of Legacy's Fifth Ward locale are Black or Hispanic, many of whom live below the official poverty level. In such communities, hypertension and diabetes are more common than in more affluent areas, in part because of the limited transportation and recreation options, which compound the stresses of being poor and experiencing racial and ethnic bigotry.

While the "bike prescription" program is, for the moment, available only at Legacy, De Bauche and officials of the other participating organizations hope that it will expand to other sites in the city.

  

They Are Supposed To Protect Us. Who Will Protect Us From Them?

They park their work--and personal--vehicles in bike lanes while munching on Big Macs.  They tail you at intersections, just as the light is changing, and force you to choose between going through the intersection or stopping and getting rammed from behind. Or they jump out from behind bushes in a park and make cyclists speed up--above the speed limit--to avoid them.

Oh, and sometimes they don't bother with those tactics and cut to the chase:  They assault, in some cases sexually, cyclists.

By now, you've probably guessed that I'm talking about police officers.  I have witnessed or experienced everything I've experienced from "men in blue" here in New York.  But, perhaps not surprisingly, none of those things are unique to my hometown.

According to Molly Hurford, Toronto police have turned that city's High Park into a "battleground" in which cyclists have been spuriously ticketed for "speeding" and "trespassing."  

 

Oh, but it gets worse.  Last Tuesday, an officer--one who has been ticketing cyclists, no less--drove his SUV into the park.  Just outside the park, a cyclist who was riding in the bike lane stopped at a four-way stop, with the officer to his left.  The officer turned his vehicle directly into him. The cyclist wasn't injured, but his bike sustained over $2000 in damage.  

The officer claimed that the sun was in his eyes.  Lawyer and cycling advocate David Shelnutt, who has taken up the cyclist's case pro bono, said, "In no other incident would 'the sun being in his eyes' be an acceptable excuse for any traffic violation."  At the very least, he says, that officer ran a red light; the sun shouldn't have made a cyclist invisible only four feet from the officer.  The city's Traffic Services says it's continuing its investigation.

The Roman poet Juvenal could have had the incident in mind when he wrote, "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?"--Who will guard the guardians?  Who protect cyclists (or anyone else) from those who are supposed to protect them?

Why They Left Out Bicycles

On Sunday, the US Senate passed the Inflation Reduction Act. Perhaps not surprisingly, the vote split along party lines, with the 50 Democrats voting for it and 50 Republicans rejecting it.  Vice President Kamala Harris, a Democrat, broke the tie.

As I understand it, the Inflation Reduction Act is a shrink-wrapped, rebranded version of what Biden and other Democrats actually wanted. The fact that some things that were included in the Build Back Better Act, which passed in the House of Representatives, were omitted from the IRA is no more an oversight than calling it the "Inflation Reduction Act" was not an attempt to make the energy- and environmentally-related aspects of it more palatable to the Senate's two most right-leaning Democrats, Kirsten Sinema and Joe Manchin.

One key omission were tax breaks and other subsidies for bicycles and other two-wheeled vehicles that are powered wholly or in part by human energy. The original Build Back Better proposal included a $900 tax credit for the purchase of an electric bicycle and a pre-tax benefit to help commuters with the costs of bicycling to work.  

That tax credit was available to cyclists before 2017, when Republicans repealed it as part of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.  The Build Back Better Act would have essentially restored it but I think Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader of the Senate, who worked with Manchin on the IRA, realized that he had to take out some of its "greener" parts to get Manchin and Sinema to agree to it.

I say that it's unfortunate, not only because I am a cyclist.  As Harvard Kennedy Center visiting  fellow David Zipper told Alex Dougherty of POLITICO, "We need not just to shift people from gasoline to electric cars. We need people to shift from cars, period." But, as he points out, there's nothing in IRA that "makes that process easier or faster or more likely to happen."

Any piece of legislation that ostensibly has anything to do with the environment or energy but omits bicycles is a bit like a bouillabaisse without fish or a caponata without eggplant. 

"You Rode All The Way Here?"

We're in the grip of another heat wave.  According to the weather forecasters, yesterday was the hottest day so far:  96F, or 35.6C.  The humidity, though, is what makes it so oppressive:  As soon as you step out, you feel as if you're wearing the air.

So, once again, I'm taking early rides on Tosca, my Mercian fixed gear.  Yesterday I rode out to Red Hook, where an almost preternaturally blue (for that area, anyway) sea and sky provided a visual, if not visceral, relief. 

And they allowed me to fantasize about traveling to exotic, faraway places--even if I know, thanks to family members who worked the docks, how un-romantic it actually is to travel the world by working on ships.

Anyway, today's ride had an interesting twist:  I crossed a pedestrian bridge over Hamilton Avenue, which is more like a highway than a city street.  A construction crew was installing new guardrails.  The foreman or supervisor, a fellow named Wallace who's a few years older than me, had to fill out some sort of report or form but didn't have a pen.  I overheard him, stopped and said, "I'm pretty sure I have one."  Which I did, and he was grateful.  We talked for a while; he asked where I was coming from. "Astoria."  

"Really?  All the way from there?"

I nodded.  

"You have a nice bike."  He picked it up and accidentally kicked the pedal.  "You rode a fixed gear all the way from Astoria?"

I said that, for me, it's not a really long ride and if he started riding, he probably could do it after a couple of months or so.  He demurred.  We got to talking about a lot of things--music, what life was like when we were teens, the state of the city and favorite foods.  But he just couldn't get over the fact that I'd ridden from my place--about 17 kilometers--on my fixie, and that I would continue to the Red Hook waterfront and head home--about 40 kilometers, in all, before the worst of the day's heat and humidity.

A Motorist Strikes--And Shoots--A Cyclist In Florida

It's bad enough when any motorist's vehicle strikes any cyclist.  It's even worse, at least in some ways, when said motorist does so intentionally.

What can be worse than that? 

An account that came my way provided an answer.  On Saturday, in Florida (surprise, surprise), on the Gulf Coast specifically, two men were cycling when they heard a car behind them. Before they could react, a driver them and knocked them to the ground.

Tire marks where a motorist struck--and shot--a cyclist.  (From WINK news.)

What makes this incident especially galling is that, according to investigations, the driver deliberately left the road to hit them.  Both cyclists saw that driver pilot the SUV past them, in the opposite direction, before circling around to approach them from behind, at a high rate of speed.

Oh, but it gets even worse. After driver struck them, the cyclists leapt and tried to flee.  The driver then got out of the SUV and shot one of the cyclists before getting back in and driving off.

Luckily for the cyclist who was shot, his injuries are non-life threatening.  

The Collier County Sheriff's Office says it has a "person of interest" but did not mention any suspects or a description of the shooter.

Generating Electricity At Newport

Perhaps the Newport Folk Festival's most famous or infamous (depending on your point of view) came in 1963, when Bob Dylan plugged in his guitar. 

That moment's fame might be eclipsed by something that electrified the audience at this year's Festival--and folks like me who saw it only on video.  Joni Mitchell, who performed at the 1969 edition, appeared for the first time, in any venue, with guitar in hand, since her 55th birthday--23 years ago.  Since then, she has suffered a number of health problems, including a brain aneurism in 2015 that left her unable to speak or walk, much less play a guitar.

What may not be as well-remembered as Bob Dylan's electric guitar or the electricity Joni Mitchell generated by, well, simply showing up is the way one stage's electricity was powered.  You guessed it:  Some festival-goers pedaled stationary bicycles for the Bicycle Stage, a brainchild of the environmentally-conscious Virginia indie rock duo Illiterate Light.  

Mardi Diaz, right, performs on a stage powered by festival-goers on bicycles. (Photo by Pat Eaton-Robb for the AP) 

Jeff Gorman, the band's front man, said that the Bike Stage in Newport marked the first time the idea has been tried at a festival.  The idea came to him at the 2019 edition of the festival, when about 1300 of the 10,000 or so attendees pedaled to the Rhode Island festival.  Festival-goers take turns pedaling the bike for about five minutes of a twenty-minute set.  For their efforts, they get spritzes of water from a spray bottle, a free can of iced tea and a front-row view of the performance.

Who Leads The Way?

Susan B. Anthony remarked that the bicycle did more than anything else to liberate women.

Sometimes I wonder what she would have made of couples on tandems.  Almost any time I've seen a male-female riding duo, the male is in the front, or "captain's" position and the female is in the rear.  That means the man/boy is steering and, depending on how much input he gets or takes from his partner, is determining the course of the ride. 

Is there any way to correct that imbalance?

If Not The Bike

Another heat wave has this city, and area, in its grip.  That means, as in the previous stretch of serial "scorchers," I'm taking early morning rides.  Also, I needed to get back in time for a lunchtime conference call.

Although my situation precluded a long ride, I was happy to be awake and on the road before the rush hour traffic.  I rode early enough, in fact, that on my way back--which took me along the Malcolm X Promenade--I didn't see very much traffic entering or exiting LaGuardia Airport.  

Also, I rode early enough to avoid an afternoon storm that was forecast, but never arrived.  The seeming imminence of the storm was accented by two skeletal trees on the bay:

It's strange to see them in the middle of summer.  I think they were just planted, along with other vegetation, to shore up a shoreline ravaged by Sandy and other storms.  Or those trees might've been damaged during, and pruned after, one of those storms.

Those trees framed a grimly dreamlike skyline of tall buildings blotted by clouds behind masts of boats belying the seemingly-imminent storm.

That I can find, without even trying, a new view or other sensual experience on a ride I've done dozens, or even hundreds, of times is a reason why I take those rides time and time again.  Some folks--friends--think it has to do with my innate "sensitivity."  I say it's, if not the bike, then cycling.

 

Change And Reconnection

Early yesterday morning I rode Tosca, my Mercian fixed-gear bike, along the waterfronts of Astoria, Long Island City, Greenpoint and Williamsburg.  Another heat wave, like the one we had last week, was on its way.  But that was just one reason why I took an early ride.

After showering and a cup of coffee, I pedaled my "beater" to Court Square, near the much-missed (by me, anyway) Five Pointz building.  Riding there allowed me to take a more direct subway ride to Montrose Avenue in Brooklyn.

There, I met two old (OK, longtime) friends:

On previous trips to France, I've spent time with Jay and Isabelle who, I now realize, are my longest-standing friends. They came to town because their son has just begun to live and work in New Jersey, for an American branch of a company for whom he'd been working in France.

 

Meeting in Bushwick was Jay's idea.  This wasn't his or Isabelle's first time in New York--Jay actually lived here for a time--but he was looking through the Guide Routard (a sort of French counterpart of the Lonely Planet guide) for something "different."  So, as per the guide's suggestion, we started at the Montrose Street subway station, crossed Bushwick Avenue (the bane of Brooklyn cyclists) and wended our way through the back streets of a Bushwick industrial zone.

I have cycled through those streets, sometimes as a destination, other times en route to or from other places.  While I've seen buildings torn down and built up, spaces opened and closed, people and organizations coming and going, I don't think there's any neighborhood or district that shows me how much this city changes over time.  For one thing, some of the murals themselves change.  Also, I remember when the graffiti on the buildings wasn't of the kind that people like Jay and Isabelle would take a subway ride, or people like me would take a bike ride, to see. About twenty years ago, people--mostly men--worked in the warehouses and workshops during the day.  Anyone who stayed after business hours was too poor to live anyplace else.  Young people didn't move to the neighborhood; they looked for ways out of it.  And whenever I rode through it, I was the only adult cyclist for blocks, or even miles, around.

Of course, people change, too.  After a morning of wandering through one of the most expansive displays of truly public art in this city, we went to Christina's (Was our choice influenced by the mural? ;-)) in Greenpoint. It's a sort of cross between a New York/New Jersey diner--complete with Frank Sinatra and '70's pop tunes playing in the background--and a working-class eatery one might find in Cracow. I think we were the only non-Polish people in the place. Over pierogis and blintzes, we talked about their son, Jules, and how he wants to "voyager a travers  le monde"--see the world--just as we did when we were young. Actually, there are still places I want to see, and to re-visit.  But the pandemic has postponed travel plans for the past two years.  And, although I am fully vaccinated and take precautions, Jay reminded me of why I want to wait.  He and Isabelle didn't plan on coming here until a week or so before they arrived, which meant that their flights were expensive.  But, more to the point, he said that if, by some chance, he or Isabelle were to test positive and had to quarantine, or new restrictions were imposed--or a flight were abruptly cancelled--it could cost thousands of euros or dollars.

I told them that, if everything works out, I hope to return to France in January.  Seeing them gave me hope for that.  If nothing else, I felt as if I'd reconnected with what and whom I have known and loved, in all of changes and the ways they haven't changed.  

After I send this post, I will take another early ride and get home in time for brunch.

We Need To Be Counted Because We Count

One of the reasons why underserved communities are underserved is that the folks who decide, for example, where to build schools or run bus lines don't know how many people are in those communities--or even that those communities exist.  Some of that has to do with members of those communities not making themselves know--for example, by not filling out census forms, for whatever reasons.  There is also a matter of the biases of the data-gatherers:  Some don't want to recognize members of such communities, but more often, they simply don't know where to look for them or how to count them.

So it is with cyclists.  While many American cities have found effective ways to gauge motor vehicle traffic, whether through "car counters" or other means, almost none have done even a rudimentary, let alone an accurate, count of bicyclists.  Worse yet, when we are counted, those tallies don't reflect where, when or for what purposes we ride. As an example, counts taken on bike lanes in central areas of cities will find commuters, while tallies taken on bike lanes leading out of those neighborhoods will find more recreational cyclists.  And if a bike census, if you will, depends on counts from bike share docking stations, yet another type of rider will be found.

A subtle bike counter. Photo by Christopher Porter,.

The problem is that jurisdictions that bother to count cyclists tend to use only one method to record riders.  The most common is volunteers stationed, with a clipboard and pen, in places where significant numbers of people ride.  I once was such a volunteer, for a day,  with Transportation Alternatives:  I stood on the Manhattan side of the Queensborough-59th Street Bridge and counted the cyclists and pedestrians (this was before motor scooters became popular)  descending from its ramp to First Avenue.  As diligent as I was, I am sure I missed riders or pedestrians.  Even if my count were completely accurate, I had to wonder how useful it would have been for anything but deciding whether to widen the bike lane--which would never happen.

As Kea Wilson points out in a recent Streetsblog article, cities need not only to start counting cyclists; they also need to employ a number of methods, including devices like the "car counters" many already employ and data from sources like Strava and even cell phone data. Although they, together, won't count 100 percent of riders --sometimes mechanical and electronic counters stop working or, if they're programmed to detect a certain level of speed, miss a cyclist who's riding faster than a bus-- they will do much to make us less under-countednand, more important, mis-counted, than we are now.  

Perhaps even more important, though, is a thoughtful analysis of the data collected.  Why are cyclists riding (or not)  where they're riding (or not)? Are they riding on one street rather than another, or instead of a nearby bike lane?  What are some of our common destinations?  Also, if a "census" is to be useful in improving bike safety, it needs to help in determining where crashes and injuries are most likely to occur.

Until cities and other jurisdictions start to make accurate counts of cyclists and assesments of how, where and why people ride (or don't), they won't build bicycle infrastructure or will continue to build more of the  poorly-designed, -constructed and -maintained bike lanes we too often see.