23 January 2013

Les Alpes Maritimes Sur Flushing Bay

Last night the temperature dropped below 10F for the first time in two years.  When I left my place, it was 12F, and the wind-chill was below zero.

So I did took the most sensible route for today's commute:  the one that takes me along the water.





For a moment, I actually envisioned myself among the snow-capped peaks of the Alps.  I rode up mountains (Avoriaz, Galibier and Colle d'Agnello/Col d'Agnell) whose roads were banked by snow--and whose peaks were covered them--when the weather was warm enough to ride comfortably in shorts and a cycling jersey. 

Today's weather, of course, was nothing like that.  However, I didn't have to do any climbing.  Along the Cote d'Azur and in Liguria, the mountains tumble all the way to the sea.  People who've spent their entire lives in this part of the world probably cannot imagine such a coastline.

This is probably the closest they'll come to seeing anything like it:


 

22 January 2013

Just Vera, The Red Allez And An Old Mountain Bike

Today we had the coldest weather we've had in two years.  Last night it got down to 15F; the weather forecasters say that it may drop to 10F or below tonight.

One way you know we're having a real winter is to look at the bike racks where I work:



The only bikes parked there are Vera, the red Allez that's been there seemingly every day and an old Fuji mountain bike.


Are they ridden by hardy souls or addled minds? Now there's a question for a campus debate!

21 January 2013

They Should've Been Riding Bikes

Yesterday I wrote about the Long Island Motor Parkway, which, in its history, has been one of America's first race courses and one of its first automotive expressways--and would become of the last bike lanes to open in New York for nearly half a century.  Now it's a segment of what is supposed to become the Brooklyn-Queens Greenway.

So, perhaps, there was some weird sort of synchronicity, or whatever you want to call it, at work when I found this image on one of my favorite non-bike blogs, Old Picture of the Day: