Leaders On Two Wheels

Last month, French President Nicolas Sarkozy promoted Eddy Mercx to a Commander the Legion d'Honneur.


Can you imagine any American President giving Lance or Greg LeMond the Presidential Medal of Freedom?  As far as I know, the only Armstrong to win the medal was Neil.  And he got it from Nixon!  That's something like being given an ethics award by Bernie Madoff.


Anyway...I think Sarkozy making Eddy a Legionnaire begs the question of what kind of country we'd have with a President who was a cyclist, or who was at least cycling-conscious.


Monsieur Sarkozy is known to be something of a velo aficionado, and has been seen riding on holidays.  I'm guessing that other French, and European, leaders liked to tour on two wheels.


During his campaign, Bill Clinton was seen astride his Merlin titanium bike (They were all the rage during the '90's.) but apparently he lost his time or appetite (or both) for riding once he was in office.  Jimmy Carter became an avid rider and is often seen astride his Rivendell.  However, I somehow can't imagine either of the Bushes, Reagan or Nixon in the saddle.  Of course, FDR couldn't have ridden.  But somehow I don't think it's much of a stretch to envision Teddy Roosevelt, or even Harry Truman or Eisenhower on two wheels, at least before they became President.


To my knowledge, none of the current Republican candidates for the Presidency is a cyclist.  Nor, for that matter, is Obama.




Quite possibly the most famous thing any head of state did with or on a bicycle was when the King of Denmark abandoned his in Tivoli Square when the Nazis decreed that no Jew could own or ride one.


Would this, or any country be better off with a leader who rides a bicycle?  I'd like to believe so.

The Little Man On The Little Bike That Didn't Fold

In Brooklyn, there's a bike/pedestrian separated from the Belt Parkway only by guardrails (and, on two bridges, not even that) and Jamaica Bay by thin strips of sand and, in places, by small dunes, shrubs and, believe it or not, a few cacti.


About twenty-five years ago, when I first started riding there, I saw a little man on a bike that, to my eyes, seemed too small even for him. He'd stopped to pick some prickly pears and other fruits I didn't even know could be picked from plants that grew so close to cars and urban sprawl.  He motioned for me to stop and share one of those culinary treasures.  It was surprisingly sweet and tasty.


He didn't say much. He never did--not even when, even more to my amazement, he showed up on some organized ride or another that started at Grand Army Plaza.


I haven't seen him in a long time.  However, I still recall his small stature, silence and his bike: a small-wheeled, non-folding bike.


Probably the closest such bikes ever came to the mainstream market in the US was when they were marketed as "polo bikes."  I think that was during the early 1960's, or possibly even earlier; I know that it predated my active cycling life.  In any event, a few years later, in the middle of my childhood, bikes with similar dimensions appeared with "banana" seats and all manner of scaled-down race-car accessories.


But that man's bike looked like a grown-up's utility bike built for a dog or cat.  It even had a rear rack built into its frame, fenders and a rather sober paint job. As I recall, the rack even had pegs for a pump. I used to see bikes like it strapped to the bumpers of RVs in Europe 30, or even 20, years ago.  


I'm not sure of the wheel size:  It looked something like the size that was sold as 20 inches in this country, but with somewhat narrower, lower-profile tires.  However, the tires seemed more like smaller versions of the old French demi-ballon tires than what came on the Raleigh Twenty and Peugeot folding bikes.


Not long after I first met that man, I found a bike like his in some curbside trash.  After rescuing it, I gave it to one of my riding buddies who was something of a tinkerer and liked novel machines.  (If I remember correctly, he owned some version of the MG car that was never sold in the US.) I don't know what he did with it:  Not long afterward, he moved to Idaho or some such place.


Somehow I imagine him the way I always imagined that little man on the little bike I met so many years ago:  in his own world, making his own way on his own little bike that doesn't fold.

Ride On Ice

Lakythia and I had planned on going for a ride today.  But the temperature didn't rise much higher than my (American) shoe size and the wind gusted to speeds not much lower than my age.  So we opted for brunch--dim sum in Chinatown, to be exact--instead.


Now I am going to reveal one of the mysteries o the human race.  Or, perhaps, I'm simply going to tell you something you'd always suspected.  You've probably noticed that it's usually the men who think it's too warm and the women who think it's too cold.  Well, I've noticed that my sensitivity to cold, while still not as acute as that of other women I know, has certainly increased since I started taking estrogen, and intensified after my surgery.  Before I underwent my transformation, I was one of those guys who, it seemed. always felt too hot.


It's definitely hormonal.  I've read that estrogen increases sensitivity to cold and testosterone to heat.  I noticed that my sensitivity to cold increased after my estrogen dosage was increased about three months after I started taking it.  And, since my surgery, the level of estrogen in my body at any given time has increased, and most of the testosterone is gone.  


At least I know that neither training nor diets, nor anything else, will return me to being someone who cycled in shorts on all but the coldest days.  However, I'm hoping that increasing my mileage will bring back some of the strength I lost.  I've been told that I would have lost some of the hill-climbing ability I once had simply from age. but I don't want to use that--or the hormones--as an excuse.  


Then again, I enjoy my rides more than I did.  Perhaps that has to do with the changes, too.


Anyway, if the wind dies down, I think I'll go for a ride tomorrow:  It's a holiday.  Perhaps I can make it a memorial to Charlie.