As I rode this evening, I was thinking about what "Velouria" posted yesterday on her Lovely Bicycle! blog. In it, she talks about bicycles with "trusses": an old design that is apparently being revived by a few small builders like A.N.T.
The "truss" frames she showed are indeed lovely, and she mentioned that the bicycles that inspired them were built about 100 years ago and patterned after truss bridges.
You simply can't spend any time in New York without going over some bridge or another. Even the sorts of people who leave Manhattan only to go to Europe pass over stone or girdered spans over streets and roads that were, in some cases, streams or small rivers before they were filled in.
And I can't help but to think of bicycles themselves as bridges. After all, there is something "on the other side" of every bike ride. This evening, it happened to be the wonders of New York--and Nature's-- architecture:
You all know the building in the center: It's the one phoenetically-challenged kids of my generation used to call "the En-tire State Building." I took this admittedly primitive photo from this spot:
The pier in the photo is part of Gantry Plaza State Park in Long Island City. Of course, the opportunity to experience a nautical breeze while taking in one of the best possible views of the Manhattan skyline is reason enough to go there. It also happens to be just a few blocks from the PS 1 Contemporary Art Center.
What's interesting about the park and the museum--and much of the rest of the neighborhood--is that about 15 years ago, they were part of an industrial area, much of which was decaying or derelict. Stolen cars were abandoned there; indeed, the area was, as I understand, the setting for part of the Grand Theft Auto series. In 1885, the Long Island City docks bustled with shipments of Long Island produce headed for Manhattan and points beyond; a hundred years later, those docks were all but abandoned.
However, even in its dilapidated state, the waterfront and some of the buildings on it shared a trait with those classic and classy bicycles that people sometimes find in basements and barns. That trait was perhaps best expressed by Victor Hugo in Les Miserables: "Le beau est aussi utile que l'utile. Plus peut-etre." ("The beautiful is as useful as the useful. Perhaps more so.")
I apologize that my keyboard doesn't have those fancy and pretty markings the French and other speakers of non-English languages like to put on their words. My favorite one in French is the "hat," or accent circumflex. Since I couldn't type one, I'll give you a photograph of one. In fact, this photo has a whole bunch of them:
Even if it's named after an auto company that got bailed out twice, it's still beautiful. In fact, the Chrysler Building is still my favorite skyscraper, and one of my favorite buildings in New York. This one ain't bad, either:
Still, to me, nothing constructed by humans compares to a bridge.
And the bicycle is a bridge for many of us.
Today I rode to, and tonight I rode from, work--in a sundress. When I got to work, I slipped on a cardigan (which is half of a twinset) in a shade of blue like the one in the bands on the dress.
One of the things I'm enjoying about teaching an evening class is the commute home. I'm only doing it twice a week, but it's enough to remind me of an aspect of cycling I've always loved.
Riding at night, even if only for a commute, has its own rhythms and therefore requires its own mindset. What I've always loved, of course, is the calmness that fills the air, and me, from the time the sun sets. I especially like it after teaching a class, which requires an energy entirely the opposite of what I feel on a ride under moonlight. Plus, as it happens, the route I took tonight (I have four different routes to and from work.) takes me through some residential areas that are possibly the most resolutely middle-class in Queens or New York City: They are quieter than, say, the stretch of Broadway around the corner from my apartment.
Ironically, for all that I'm praising night riding, I almost never end up riding at night by design. It's usually been the result of working later in the day, as I am now, or of getting lost or otherwise seeing plans go awry. One of the few times I deliberately went on a late-night ride was when I met up with a Critical Mass rally in Columbus Circle about a dozen or so years ago. I didn't do another CM ride for a number of reasons. For one, I'm not crazy about riding in such large groups. And, for another, I really would prefer not to be arrested or go to jail, even if only for a few minutes. Finally, I'm not quite certain about what organizers are trying to accomplish.
On the other hand, being out at night by choice can be enchanting, if you're in the right areas. That happened to me during my tours in France and other places. In particular, I think of the time I rode in circles (squares?) around Orleans and found myself pedaling ,or seeming to pedal, with the rhythms of moonlight reflected on a Loire that seemed to be just barely rippled by the breeze and in the almost silvery shadows of leaves on the vines and pear trees.
Now, I didn't see vineyards or pear trees, much less chateaux, on my ride home. But I still had the air that was beginning to cool down after another day of 90-plus degree weather.
Today was another beast of a day: ninety-five degrees, with more humidity than we had yesterday. I'm definitely not a hot-weather person, but I wanted to get in a ride, however brief. And I did, until I simply didn't want to deal with the heat anymore.
Time was when I would have soldiered on in even hotter weather than what we had today. But I'm guessing that I'm still not at 50 percent of my normal condition, so I don't want to take unreasonable chances. I know, I could ride more if I hydrate. But I'm not training for any races, and a big tour--if I am going to do another one--is probably two years away. And, being older and presumably wiser--and without testosterone--I'm not trying to prove anything.
Part of my ride took me along the World's Fair Marina. It's just north of the site of the two World's Fairs held in New York City. (1939-40 and 1964-65: I attended the latter as a small child.) Between the Marina and the Fairgrounds (a.k.a. Flushing Meadow Park) stand Citi Field and the US Open Tennis Center, where Arthur Ashe and others had some of their greatest moments. Citi Field replaced Shea Stadium, which opened at about the same time as the second Fair in 1964. Just to the east of everything I've described is everyone's least favorite airport: LaGuardia.
I did a "slalom" here:
It seems that every structure built around the time of the second Fair was either built by Eero Saarinen or was a copy of or parody of something he did. A year or two before the Fair, he designed the TWA terminal of the JFK (Don't you love all of these three-letter abbreviations?) International Airport, which has been closed since TWA was grounded about a decade ago.
I remember being in that terminal for the first time when I was about fifteen years old. One could still feel the romance of flight Antoine Saint Exupery conveyed in books like Vol de Nuit (Night Flight) and Pilote de Guerre. (Why that was translated as Flight to Arras is beyond me. Then again, I still don't understand how Se Questo e Un Uomo became Survival at Auschwitz.) And to think that some French teacher ruined him--and French literature--for you when she force-fed you Le Petit Prince!
Anyway...Arielle is still one of my preferred methods of transportation. She withstood the heat better than I did:
