Labor Day: Cycling and the End of a Summer Romance

Today I did something I promised myself I wouldn't do this weekend:  I cycled along some beaches.  


If you've read some of my previous posts in this or my other blog, you know that I love the ocean.  However, I didn't want to deal with the crowds and traffic I expected to find today, which was Labor Day.

However, the South Shore beaches on Long Island and the Rockaways didn't have nearly the crowds I expected.  I'm sure that some people who go to the local beaches on other summer weekends were elsewhere:  out of the area, or at barbecues or other gatherings with families and friends.  But I think that the breezy and  relatively cool weather (The temperature didn't rise much past 70F along the beach areas, and didn't reach 80 in Manhattan.) probably deterred some people.  Even Coney Island, where I ended my ride, had fewer people than I anticipated.

It's hard to go to a beach at the de facto end of summer and not think of another feature of the season:  the summer romance.

I've had a couple of those, and one with whom I shared cycling, including some rides to the beach.   


The time was one summer in the mid-1990's.  That was an interesting time to be in New York:  the city was, in various ways, just beginning to transition out of the '80's. It was still early in Rudy Giuliani's long tenure as Mayor, and Times Square was in its last days before Disneyfication.  Even apart from that, one could sense that much that was familiar in the city would soon disappear and be replaced by edifices that are more glamorous, high-tech or simply tourist-friendly.  And while the city had eradicated graffiti from the subways and other public areas, at least for the time being, it was not hard to see that with all of the hip-hop that was playing, there was and would be other things pour epater la bourgeoisie--precisely because the bourgeoisie were taking over the city in all sorts of ways nobody had previously imagined.


OK, so what does that have to do with cycling and summer romance?  Well, it also seemed that around that time, more and more people were coming to the city, not only as tourists, but to jump-start careers and other parts of their lives.  One such person became my summer romance--and sometime biking partner--that year.


She had come to New York as a visiting faculty member and researcher at the New York College of Podiatric Medicine.  Eileen was a podiatrist who had been practicing in an area of rural Maine far removed from the vacationers of Bar Harbor and other resorts.  The college wanted her for the expertise she'd developed in treating foot problems in juvenile diabetics, if I recall correctly.  


To this day, I wonder what she saw in me back then.  Yes, I was in very good shape:  I was riding everywhere I couldn't fly and lifting weights.  But in New York City, there had to be thousands of men within a few years of my age who also fit that description.  She also said I was "erudite" and "charming."  Again, if that was true, I was only one of many.


During the course of one of our rides, she said she couldn't believe there was so much waterfront in New York City.  I told her that, even after living much of my life in New York, I couldn't believe how little respect New Yorkers--or policymakers, at any rate--seemed to have for it.


I also took her on some of the most strangely bucolic rides she'd ever taken:  the Wall Street area on a Sunday, for one.  And  we went on eating tours in Chinatown, Flushing, Bensonhurst (which still was mainly Italian) and other neighborhoods--on our bikes.


By Labor Day, she was back in Maine.  This is the first time in many years I've thought about her.  I probably wouldn't have thought about her if I hadn't gone off on the tangents you've read (if you've read this far) in this post.  It's not that we had an angry breakup or any other cataclysm:  We simply had the understanding that our relationship, such as it was, would continue only as long as she was in New York.  She was a good biking partner, and good company overall.  But, as far as I can tell, she was a straight woman to the core, although she did once say that one of the things she liked about me--and the very reason why we couldn't be long-term partners--was that, as she believed and I know, I am a woman at my core.


Then again, some things are meant to last only the summer.  Fortunately, cycling is not one of them, at least for me.


Finally, here's proof that one should take summer romances--and, at times, even cycling, only so seriously:

Remembrance of Bikes Past

Funny how, after getting a new bike, I'm having a remembrance of bikes past.  Not that the new bike makes me wish for the old ones.  Rather, I think it has to do with the fact that Helene is my first new bike (and the second bike I've bought) since my surgery.  


Perhaps one day I'll sit down and list, and possibly write remembrances of, other bikes I've owned and ridden. 


While searching for something else on the internet, I came across this photo in ratrodbikes .  

My very first bike (that I can recall, anyway) was the diamond-frame version of this bike:  a Royce Union three-speed.  


The bike was my grandfather's last Christmas gift to me.  I was seven years old, if I recall correctly, and it would be another three years before I could ride the bike!  Being the eldest sibling, and growing up in a time when adults (including my parents) rarely, if ever, rode bicycles, I had no worries about my treasure becoming a hand-me-down.  


I rode the Royce-Union until I got my first ten-speed at age thirteen:  a department-store Murray that I managed to wreck within a year.  Then, with money I saved from delivering newspapers, I bought a Schwinn Continental for the princely sum of 105 dollars, including tax.  The shop in which I bought that Schwinn also sold Peugeots, including a PX 10 for 250 dollars.  Then, I thought it utter decadence to spend that much on a bike.  Three years later, I would pay 350 dollars for the very same bike--used!  


I hope that one day soon,  I will list all of the bicycles I've had--or, at least, the ones I recall.  Until then, consider this the "down payment."  In a sense, that's what my Royce Union three-speed was.

New York: Where Utility Bikes Are Made, Not Born

In Amsterdam and Copenhagen, one is struck by the degree to which bicycles conduct the flow of daily life.  People ride them to go to work, to go shopping, to run errands, visit friends and to do go to all of those meetings, appointments and other events that are part of daily life.  And one thing that's gratifying is that in those cities, many people who ride to work and such could afford to drive a car.  To be sure, ten-dollar-a-gallon gasoline is a strong incentive to forsake automobiles for short trips.  But I think that in those cities, people also see the practicality of cycling:  In those settings, it's often quicker and easier to ride a bike than it is to drive or even to take mass transit.  

It's been a while since I've been to the Dutch or Danish capital, but from what I hear, cycling is still as prevalent a mode of transportation as it was years ago.

What's also striking is the fact that in those cities, no matter what a person's occupation or income, he or she is likely to be riding a bike very similar to whatever someone else might be pedaling to a job, a store or a friend's house. Some might have more elegant paint jobs or a few more creature-comfort accessories, but the basic bike doesn't vary so much.  By now, most Americans have seen at least an image of the prototypical Dutch (or Dutch-style) city bike.  On it, weight is seemingly no object:  Carbon steel bikes with internally-geared hubs are fitted with racks, fenders and other accessories made of the same material.  And, of course, they have full chain cases and the women's bikes often have dress guards.  Convenience for someone who thinks of him or her self, not as a cyclist, but as a waiter, bookkeeper, technician, accountant, artist, writer or any other kind of worker on his or her way to a job on his or her bicycle.  Or, he or she is a shopper, or a grandparent en route to see the grandkids, or can have any number of other identites--and he or she is using a bike as a vehicle (in the original sense of the word) to fulfill tasks, wants, needs, or pleasures.

What I have described is true, if to a lesser degree, in other European cities. And they have their own variations on the "city bike," which have evolved out of decades or even a century or more of cycling as a part of daily life.  A French city bike, as an example, is likely to be a bit lighter than a Dutch bike, and is as likely as not to have derailleur gears rather than an internally-geared hub.  This has to do with the fact that most French cities are at least a bit hillier than Amsterdam or Copenhagen. (Then again, most cities are.)  Plus, even though Paris, Lyon, Toulouse and Bordeaux are relatively compact, given their populations, they are still a bit more spread out than Amsterdam or Copenhagen.  

Even so, they are not as hilly as many cities in the Americas.  (Lyon is an exception; even Toulouse, which is in the foothills of the Pyrenees, is relatively flat.)  And their ideas about how to ride to work are different from those Americans who ride their bikes to their jobs.

Plus...Here's something I've experienced first-hand:  Their streets are, for the most part, better-maintained than those in American cities, or at least the ones in New York.  There, bikes "age" and get "weathered;" here, a bike that's ridden  and parked on the streets every day gets beat up.  And, finally, it seems that there's more bike theft here than in European cities.

So, while shops here have begun to carry bikes that are meant to be utilitarian commuters (like the Pashleys and Abicis), I don't see that they are becoming "consensus" commuters.  I've seen a couple of those bikes hee, and a few more that strive to emulate (or cynically copy the most obvious features of ) them, like the Breezers and the city commuters marketed by Specialized, Giant and Trek.  But I think that if they are going to become standard commuters' fare in this city, that day will be some time in coming.

New York is still a city in which bikes become, rather than are made to be, commuters or utility vehicles.  I realized this when I passed by the Bel Aire Diner, which is three blocks from my apartment.  I often eat there, and I pass it (or at least see it) nearly every day.  There is always a gaggle of bicycles outside

Yes, those really are delivery bikes:  The diner does a lot of deliveries and employs more delivery men (Yes, they're all male.) than the average restaurant. 

They're like a lot of bikes that are ridden to jobs, schools, appointments and stores:  Far from their original owners and purposes.  About ten or fifteen years ago, most bikes parked on streets were bike-boom-era ten-speeds (Some of which had been turned, whether or not by design, into single-speeds.); some were English three-speeds or imitations thereof and some others were lower-end, first-generation (early-to-mid '80's) mountain bikes.

These days, those bikes, like the ones parked by the diner, are likely to be mountain bikes from the early-to-mid '90's or thereabouts.  There are a few road machines, and still a few "classic" bikes from the '70's. Even many of the so-called "hipster fixies" started their lives as multigeared touring or racing bikes from that era.  

But, even with all of the students who ride to Pratt or SVA on "hipster fixies," or all the mountain-bikes-turned-delivery-hacks, there is still no signature commuter or utility bike for this city as there is for its European counterparts.  And, somehow, I don't think there will be, at least not for some time.