Today I rode to the Village to meet a friend. Along the way, I saw this:
A couple of posts ago, I wrote about the "New York Pretzel." Most of the time, it's a rear wheel that's so mangled. Sometimes one finds a front wheel in similar condition, and some unfortunate cyclists find new meaning in the term "wishbone stays."
But this is the first time I saw a rack so twisted. Actually, now that I think about it, I'm surprised that more racks aren't even more wrecked. After all, a rack is usually not as strong as a wheel. If yours is, Goddess help you!
Speaking of things the Goddess helped, check out what I saw in front of the former United States Appraiser Store:
I can't think of any bike ride I've taken, at any time in my life, that didn't leave me in a better state, in some way or another, than I was in before the ride.
Sometimes it's the exhiliaration of riding a particular distance, up a mountain or across some other type of difficult terrain. Other times, the euphoria can come from having braved rough weather conditions--or enjoying favorable ones. Or we can be happy about something we've seen, someone we've met or a meal or snack we've eaten (or drunk!) along the way.
I was happy I took my ride to Somerville on Memorial Day because, as I mentioned, I got to see a race and I pedaled my first (non-metric) century in three years. But, ironically enough, some of the happiness I felt from doing, and having done, the ride came from the moments of melancholy I experienced along the way.
You see, along the way, I rode along roads, through places, I hadn't seen in a very long time. But I once rode them routinely, especially when I was a student at Rutgers and during the time I lived in the area after returning from living in France.
Sometimes I rode with the Central Jersey Bicycle Club, back when long-distance (or almost any adult) cyclists were still geeks of a sort. In those days, most people who didn't live within a town or two also didn't know about the race, let alone the Tour de France or the Giro d'Italia. And most motorists had no idea of what to do when a cyclist was on the road. (Many still don't.)
Much of what I saw, and experienced was familiar to me. Road surfaces on Route 28 in and around Plainfield and Bound Brook were just as bad as I remembered them. Of course, that added to the charm of Monday's ride. Also, the towns I saw along the way hadn't changed nearly as much as I expected. Sure, there were some new houses and office buildings, and the complexions of some towns' residents had darkened or lightened, but they--and everything around them--were unmistakably Central New Jersey. In other words, they're close enough to New York that many commute to it, but far enough not to seem like a suburb of the Big Apple. Also, even in an affluent town like Westfield--whose downtown has stores that rival those of other high-income enclaves--there is still the down-to-earth quality one finds in more working-class towns like Bound Brook and Plainfield, a quality I don't find, say, on Long Island.
Also, I found myself re-connecting with a rhythm of riding I didn't realize I followed through all of those years I lived and rode in the area. New Jersey, of course, doesn't have the kind of mountains that Colorado or Vermont have. But, when you ride in New Jersey, you can count on this general principle: If you are riding north or west, you're going to higher ground. So, you can expect to do some climbing. Because many extant roads in the Garden State were created by simply paving over older roads (or even trails)--some of which date to the Revolution or even earlier--climbs tend to come more suddenly. You climb mostly in short bursts because there's often very little to lead up to it. More modern roads have more gradual (if longer) inclines and longer straightways leading to them mainly because modern road-building techniques made such things possible.
Also, if you pedal south or west, there's a good chance you'll be riding into the wind (if indeed there is any). In thinking back to the days when I rode almost daily in that area, I realize that I often, unconsciously, rode in accordance with the terrain and wind patterns I noticed on Monday.
I guess some rides--especially if we begin them when we're young--never end.
By now, I'm sure you've heard that Michele Bachmann is not running for re-election.
I'm going to miss her. After all, how many other people can make Sarah Palin seem--if only momentarily--sane and, at times, relatively coherent?
I mean, it's not just anybody about whom we can say that her assertion that gays can be "cured" is one of the less wacky things she says. After all, she consulted the most impeccable authority on the subject: her husband, who runs an "ex-gay clinic".
Now, why am I mentioning that crazy couple on this blog?
Well, one reason is, of course, that this blog may be the only one in the world written by a onetime boy racer who became a lady rider. But, in reading about so-called "conversion therapies" intended to make gay people straight, I learned that this sort of thing has been going on for even longer than I'd realized. As you may know, people have tried to "cure" lesbians and gay men with electroshock treatments, lobotomies, cold baths, physical torture and even attempts to nudge benighted boys and girls to form loving non-sexual relationships with peers of the same gender.
And, for centuries, doctors, athletes and others have claimed that they could "cure" homosexuality through lots of intensive outdoor activity and vigorous exercise. And, as you know, bicycling falls into both categories.
So, as you've probably guessed, a physician who was once a respected authority in his field saw bicycling as a way of exorcising same-sex desires.
Graeme M. Hammond was a New York City-based neurologist and competitive fencer. (He appeared, at age 54, in individual fencing events of the 1912 Olympics.) Given that he was an athlete of one sort or another for nearly his entire life, it's not surprising that he would think that exercise is "good for what ails ya'." Nor is it unusual to find that he believed homosexuality to be a neurological disorder, as nearly every physician and scientist who thought about the matter--including Dr. Harry Benjamin--believed the same thing.
However, what's really interesting about Dr. Hammond's work is the reason why he proposed cycling as a "cure" for homosexuality: He believed it to be a result of "nervous exhaustion." Cycling, he said, would help to "restore health and heterosexuality" and to cure other nervous conditions.
He also advocated bicycling and other exercise for women because--to his credit--he believed we are the "fighting sex." The good doctor/fencer thought we would make better soldiers than men 'if only they could "acquire the physical strength and mental discipline" which, he believed, had been denied us through a culture that "mollycoddled" us and promoted "overindulgent lifestyles in regard to diet and exercise."
I like to think he was right about women. Now, about cycling: I'm all for just about anything that will get more people to ride bikes. But now I know one place where I draw the line. Plus, if you're reading this blog, you have some idea of just how effective cycling is at changing a person's sexual desires--or gender identity!
.jpg)
