The Season of The Trompe d'Oeil

Here's one way to tell whether or not you have "bikes on the brain."

No bikes were harmed to make this picuture.  Actually, it's a couple of bike racks in front of the Scottish Parliament building.  

The photo reminds me, oddly enough, of this time of year:  You can't always trust some things--especially the weather--to be as they seem. The temperature reached 70F one day last week. It had been 60 the day before.  But the day after, the temperature had fallen to 30 and the wind increased.  

Yesterday, the weather was mild but rainy.  And now it's about to drop again.  

A day or two of mild weather in February seems like summer because of the perspective from which it's seen:  after two months of winter and a few snowstorms.  And those two recent "heat waves" melted most of the accumulated snow. That alone is enough to make it seem warmer than it is, or at least to make the spring seem as if it's closer.  There are still about three more weeks to go, I think.

Double Century

I've just completed a double century.


OK...This is my 200th post on this blog.  Is this an Imperial or Metric double century?


Have you ever done either kind of double century?  What is the most you've ridden in one day?


I'll confess that I've never done a double imperial century, though I've done a couple of metric double centuries (about 125 miles). 


Have you done a century of any kind since the beginning of the new year?  Do you plan to do any this year?

What The Weather Took And Left

Somewhere in my dim dark past I learned that when glaciers recede, they take away pieces of whatever they covered.


That theory would seem to hold up in light of what I saw this morning:

About two weeks ago, this bike was buried under about two feet of snow:

Now, I'd like to think that the bike had a seat (and post!) when it was parked before the snowstorm.  Although I'm a hardened New Yorker, I'd still rather believe that the seat and seatpost were swept away by retreating snow and ice than to know that they were taken by someone.  

And, just as the backtracking snow and ice cut crevasses and tear chasms into the earth, so did the retreating remnants of this winter's storm rend this vessel of urban transport:

Do we pity the bike or simply attribute what it's endured to the march of history?