The Day After An After-Work Ride

After yesterday's spontaneous after-work adventure, I just did a normal commute today, over one of my normal routes.  But, as the weather was about ten degrees (F) hotter than it was yesterday, and the humidity rose in tandem with the temperature, the normal commute was more of a workout than it usually is.  Plus, Marianela is a considerably heavier than Helene.  She can't help it; she's got heavier tubes in her frame.  At least she doesn't seem to have body image issues.

And I won't, either, even though my students surprised me with this today:

Hmm..,Maybe I should've taken another ride after work!

A Voyage After A Great Labour

This is the story of an excellent after-work adventure.  (Can you believe that twenty-two years have passed since that movie came out?  Can you believe that, just about every year, someone has managed to make a movie even dumber than that one?)

Anyway, about my excellent after-work adventure on an excellent and fair day:  It goes to show how English ladies, after getting a little bit of French culture, lead impressionable young women down all sorts of paths they never planned:

Well, OK, I'm not so young anymore.  As for impressionable....All right.  This lady certainly didn't protest when she whispered, "Let us abscond!"


And abscond we did, first through an exotic land:

West 139th Street, Harlem, NYC

From thence she transported me to a land where the language spoken was not mine:

Union City, NJ:  No es necesario para hablar ingles aqui.

Then, after our journey down a mighty river, we came upon a realm of ships and bridges: 

From the Staten Island Ferry

Thence we boarded a great vessel and countenanced many more bridges:

Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges, seen from the Staten Island Ferry

Finally, we encountered an aged but fine vessel:

And so ended our great voyage: 

(Somehow I get the feeling that this is the image many people have of American History--or of immigration, anyway!)

Yes, twas a sweet voyage.  This young maiden gaped in disbelief upon realizing she had pedaled over 45 miles in her after-work ride.   She was well contented, for I am that maiden.     

So ends this tale of an excellent after-work adventure.               

Showing Their Colors On The Fourth

Hello there!  Today is the Fourth of Joo-lie.  


Yes, it's American Independence Day.  And it's my birthday.  But I can't say I'm a Yankee Doodle Dandy:  I was born in Georgia!  Then again, it was one of the thirteen colonies that declared independence.


(One thing they never teach in American History classes, at least in the US, is that there were really fifteen colonies.  Thirteen seceded.  The other two, Quebec and Nova Scotia, didn't.  The reality is that they couldn't:  Nova Scotia was the North American base for the Royal Navy, and Montreal and Quebec City were essentially garrisons for the Royal Army.  But I digress.)


Anyway, on a day like today, what better theme than red-white-and blue bicycles?

Perhaps it's not surprising that red-white and blue bikes come out in the wake of victories by American riders.  It seemed that during the reign of Lance, every other Trek model had some sort of variation on the flag that poet Bill Knott referred to as "a starry sweatband of cheese."

All right, it's a Do-Rag.  My question is:  Will it fit under my helmet?  


Back when I was training in Prospect Park, I sometimes rode with a guy who wore a yarmulke under his helmet.  And the fringes of his tallit dangled from underneath the hem of his jersey.  I also sometimes rode with an observant Jewish woman who carried a skirt in her jersey pocket.  As soon as she got off the bike, she pulled the skirt on.  Where else but in America, right?


Speaking of Americana:  Like baseball, basketball and snowboarding, mountain biking originated in the USA.  So, of course I had to include a mountain bike here:

And, of course, the Fourth is not complete without parades and such.  And there are always kids on bikes.  This one's for them:

Finally, I would be remiss if I didn't end my homage to red, white and blue bicycles on the Fourth without mentioning the web page of someone who has a red, a white and a blue Cannondale.