What This Ride Led To

Last night I did something on a whim.  Actually, some plans I'd made were cancelled by the person with whom I'd made them.  I had mixed feelings about that:  On one hand, I lost some money, though not a fortune.  On the other hand, I would have been doing something that, when I think about it, I realize I didn't particularly want to do:  I would have been working with a high-school kid who is preparing for statewide examinations.  There was a time when I could regard such a test as a "game" to win, even if I opposed the test in principle.  However, I no longer feel that way.  Plus, I have the feeling that the parent would have been more difficult than the kid.


As it happened, I had been riding, and had just stopped at Recycle-A-Bicycle in DUMBO, Brooklyn when I got the message.  I was looking for a part, which they happened to have--and the price was reasonable.  The funny thing was that the young woman who helped me mentioned that volunteers were coming to their shop last night to help with dissassembly of donated bikes.  I asked about some of their programs and volunteering opportunities; after describing them, she asked whether I might be interested.  I said I couldn't help them last night, as I'd had a commitment, but I'd keep them in mind.


After the kid's mother cancelled the tutoring appointment==The kid had an allergy attack--I turned around and offered to help out at Recycle-A-Cycle.


Now, I haven't worked in a bike shop in close to two decades.  Since then, the only bikes on which I've worked have belonged to friends, family members or me.  But everyone seemed so relaxed; most of the people there were just learning how to fix bikes. I worked in a group with a young fellow named Darren, who was giving hands-on instruction to two other volunteers.  


About half an hour in, he said, "You know what you're doing!" and I found myself co-instructing with him.  One of our "pupils" was another young man named, who was about Darren's age; the other was another woman who was somewhere between his age and mine but who grew up working on machines with her father and brother.  


I guess I shouldn't have been surprised that I was taking on the role of instructor as I was helping to strip bikes down.  When the young man was pulling a V-brake arm off a a badly neglected bike and the stud  on which the brake is mounted came off the frame, he thought he'd done something stupid or wrong.  I assured him that he'd done neither, and that he was in a "guilt free zone."  As for the woman:  She has mechanical skills, but she had never worked on a bicycle. I pointed out that she was progressing well, and that she was doing more in her very first attempt at working on a bicycle than I did in mine--which, by the way, is the truth. 


Anyway, I think I''ll continue to volunteer with Recycle=A=Bicycle as long as my schedule allows.  I also want to ride, and work with, WE Bike, a women's cycling group I encountered at the New Amsterdam Bike Show.

Training On Small Wheels?

This bike was parked outside PS 1 this afternoon:

Because I have a weakness for stories, I constructed a few in my mind.  I imagined a four-year-old girl looking at Lara Favretto's pieces.  Wow, I thought, that girl is a much better kid than I was!


Then again, she might have been sneaking away from her parent(s) or whoever else was caring for her.  That would make her more advanced, at least, than I was. Imagine having the wherewithal to be able to rebel in such a way!  Imagine being able to choose, at that age, riding your bike to an art museum as a form of rebellion!


Or, perhaps she (I assumed she was a girl.  I apologize for being so inculcated with patriarchal notions!)  was a midget hipster, or hipster wannabe.  Believe me, I've seen hipsters ride much stranger bikes than this one!


As I was about to take a picture on my cell phone, a woman walked toward the bike.  I explained that I wanted to take a photo for this blog.  I got to glimpse and wave at her daughter, who rode the bike and whose name I didn't get.  But the mother's name is Holly.   Holly, I hope you're reading this!


Anyway, from PS 1, I rode over the Pulaski Bridge into Greenpoint.  On the bridge's bike/pedestrian lane, and into Brooklyn, I found myself riding behind a man on this bike:




It's a Strida.  I snapped the picture--again, with my cell phone--as we were riding.  I was going to approach him at the next light, but he turned.  Oh well.


Perhaps the little girl who rode the bike parked at PS 1 will grow up to ride a Strida--or Brompton or some other small-wheeled bike for grown-ups.  And maybe she'll bring it inside PS 1 or her school or workplace.  


On the other hand, I don't imagine the man I saw on the Strida had ever ridden a bike like hers!

Cycling By A Graveyard

After the rain stopped, and I'd downed a lunch special from Fatima Chinese Restaurant (a Halal Kung Po Chicken with Hot and Sour Soup), I hopped on Tosca.


My late-afternoon ride took me through some areas that are very familiar to me:  the industrial areas that line Newtown Creek from the Queens side of the Koszciusko Bridge.  Even on weekdays, there really isn't as much traffic as one might expect--and, because much of it is truck traffic, it's sporadic.  


Railroad tracks rim the creek on the Queens side.  Next to the tracks are warehouses and small factories that line Review Avenue.  I've been trying to find out how that street got its name:  It doesn't look to me like very many things ever got reviewed there.


Across the Avenue from those factories and warehouses is a cemetery.  Actually, you can't see the cemetery from the street, as it's on higher ground.  So, what you see is a stone wall.


What's interesting about the stone wall is the graffiti:  It's from a more innocuous time, at least in terms of graffiti:

Also, it's much simpler, in composition and color (Do I sound like a pretentious art critic, or what?), than what we see today.

The style and the content of the graffiti tells you that it's older.  Plus, I've seen the graffiti on that wall for the past 25 or so years.  In fact, I even recall seeing some of it, including the piece in the next photo, during my early adolescence, when my family passed through the area on our way to visit relatives.

It makes me wonder where Joe is now.  He's well into middle age, or possibly even an old man, if he's still alive.  I suspect I could say the same things about Al.  As for Marty and Janet:  Did they stay together?  Get married?  Or did one of them go away to college, or war , and never see each other again?

I also wonder whether any of the people (men, mostly) who work in the area have ever noticed the graffiti on the wall. If they haven't, I guess the job fell to a cyclist.  It makes sense:  Cyclists, in my experience, tend to be curious people.  I wonder why that's so.