In the middle of the journey of my life, I am--as always--a woman on a bike. Although I do not know where this road will lead, the way is not lost, for I have arrived here. And I am on my bicycle, again.
Today I took a ride to New Jersey, along the Palisades and through Jersey City, Bayonne and Staten Island. From the Island, I took the ferry to Manhattan and cycled up to the 59th Street Bridge, and home. I've done this ride any number of times before. However, along the way, I took a little detour on Randall's Island.
Earlier this year, I'd read that the city planned to build a pedestrian/bicycle bridge from the Island to the Bronx. Right now, it's possible to use the walkways on the Triborough (RFK) Bridge. That's exactly what I did today. However, those walkways have their own perils for cyclists. The Triborough is really three spans that lead into Randall's Island. One such span, which is close to where I live, connects Queens with the Island. This span is the most-photographed (for good reason) of the three, and many people think it is the Triborough. Then there are spans from the Island to Manhattan (at 125th Street) and the Bronx. Actually, the Bronx spur is bookended by walkways on its east and west sides. As those paths approach the Island, they zig and zag like Alpine slalom courses enclosed by concrete walls. Then they converge at a single steep ramp that ends abruptly at a curve in the island's main road. The bridge would eliminate those ramps (as well as the stairs one must ascend in order to access the walkway to and from Queens) and instead would be continuation of one spur of the island's mostly-complete bike path. I am eager to see the bridge completed, not only for making a part of my ride more pleasant. It is seen as a vital link between the paths and fields of Randall's Island and a greenway that's supposed to be built in the South Bronx. Some residents of that neighborhood walk across the Triborough, but many more drive or take buses to play soccer, softball and other sports and games, have picnics and barbecues, or to fish, on the Island. In addition to making a bike ride easier and more pleasant for folks like me, I would hope that the bridge would also entice some Bronx residents to walk or ride bikes to the Island. The South Bronx part of Asthma Alley. Actually, it's the buckle in New York's asthma belt: The neighborhood's 10451,10453, 10454, 10455 and 10474 ZIP codes have the highest juvenile asthma rates in the United States. (They are also part of the nation's poorest Congressional District.) Obesity rates are also high in the area, as they are through much of the Bronx. Ironically, even though much of the fresh produce sold in the NY Metro area goes to the Hunts Point Food Market (located in the heart of the South Bronx), most residents of the surrounding neighborhoods cannot buy fresh fruits or vegetables in their own communities. Anyway, enough about subjects about which I don't know much (apart from having written an article about the asthma rates). I am hoping that the new bridge's construction proceeds quickly but safely. But I have to wonder whether that will happen after seeing the sign on the left.
It says that Con Ed, the local utility, is removing duct work from underneath the scaffolding. I hope this doesn't delay construction!
I'm not much of a game-player. I think I've played computer games maybe twice in my life. The only games about which I ever became passionate were chess and Scrabble. I haven't played either in years. Still, I was fascinated to learn of the existence of bicycle games. Someone sent me this link to She Games, which has a bunch you can play for free. One of the cuter ones is the Panzo Bike Race.
It reminded me of one of my youthful mishaps (though I was, arguably, not quite youthful when it happened): the one and only BMX backflip I ever performed. What made it a mishap was that it was completely unintentional. I was riding the trails (and off the trails--ssh! Don't tell anybody!) of Forest Park when I came to a mound from which pubescent boys launched themselves into flips and spills. I rode up--the wrong way, on the steeper side-- with the momentum I'd built up from a descent. The next thing I knew, my bike turned into the Cyclone without the tracks. My bike looped through the air so quickly that I didn't have time to find out how it felt, or to be scared--even when I returned to earth. I landed on my head, and my bike did a backflip on the ground. I felt that blank numbness you feel when you're in shock and everything seems to stop. But, oddly, I felt no pain--and wouldn't feel any--even though I fell so hard that my helmet broke in half! Somehow I don't envision anything like that resulting from playing a bike game.
"Let me tell you what I think of bicycling. I think it has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world. It gives women a feeling of freedom and self-reliance." Those words were uttered by none other than Susan B. Anthony. What she said was not at all hyperbolic: bicycling almost single-handedly brought women's clothing from the 19th to the 20th Centuries.
In this illustration from an 1895 issue of Punch magazine, the young woman on the left is wearing the then-new "bicycle suit." The woman on the right, in contrast, is wearing the ankle-length skirt and bodice that were more typical of women's attire until that time. I wonder whether the woman in the "bicycle suit" is wearing some sort of girdle or other torture device to cinch her waist. Looking at the woman on the right, and knowing about the fashions of the time, I would guess that she had a corset underneath her outfit. By the end of the decade, that undergarment would become as outmoded as seamed stockings would later become. As women were released from the bondage of whalebone, their skirts got shorter and, sometimes, morped into the then-shocking "bloomers", which resembled, more than anything, old-style Turkish trousers. Even Susan B. Anthony herself probably didn't realize how true her comment was. Even during the "dark ages" of cycling in the US, women wore clothing that allowed much greater freedom of movement than what their grandmothers donned. So, by the time the "bike boom" of the 1970's came along, it was that much easier for us to ride--and to work 18-hour days.
