Turning Back The Calendar

The clock’s been turned back.  Or, more precisely, the calendar:  a month or so, it seems.  At least, one could reach such a conclusion after the kind of weather we’ve been having in this part of the world.

It was as warmer, yesterday, than it was on most days during the past summer.  Perhaps it doesn’t exactly qualify as “Indian summer”:  Autumn began, officially, only four days ago, and the temperature reached 27C (80F).  That says more about how mild the summer was than how much like a momentary heat wave (Is that a contradiction in terms?) the day felt.

At least it was sunny and the sky wore a hue even more turquoise than a pendant I wore when I was in college. (It was actually a lovely piece, if a bit out of fashion at the time.)  Having nothing work-related to do (i.e., I was procrastinating) yesterday afternoon, it was a perfect day to ride.  So what did I do?  I took Arielle for a spin to Point Lookout.

Actually, I had one other motive besides the pure joy of riding Arielle. (What else can you expect from a well-tuned Mercian?). You see, last year or in some previous year, I saw a swarm of monarch butterflies alight from the bushes near the ballfield on the Point.  It was as if a massive cloud of black and gold rose and lifted itself to the heavens and took a right turn just before some pearly gate.

Those monarchs (who really deserve their name, in my opinion) had completed about a quarter or a fifth of their journey, which had begun about a month earlier in Newfoundland or somewhere else in the Great North and would land them in South America in time for Christmas.

As I recall, I saw that great mass of flight right about this time of year:  during the earliest days of Fall.   In purely logical terms, it made sense to hope for such a sight as greeted me on a ride taken on the same spot of a previous year’s calendar. 

Now, some would say that my problem was putting hope and logic in the same sentence, as it were.  By now, you’ve guessed what happened:  I didn’t see my flight of monarchs.  (“My flight of monarchs”:  If that doesn’t betray a sense of entitlement, I don’t know what does.)  I didn’t express my disappointment to the ones who greeted me when I arrived in time for the receding tide:

I guess this avian creature in particular has his/her (Can’t be sexist, can I?) own kind of majesty, or at least imperialness:

All right, I’m not complaining—at least, not much.  Seeing birds colored in the foam the tides leave skipping from rock to rock or resting on a sandbar has its own kind of grandeur, one borne in serenity.  And, of course, I had a great ride on Arielle.

On (Not) Riding In The Rain

As I’ve mentioned in earlier posts, every cyclist has his or her own opinions and/or personal policy about riding in the rain—unless, of course, said cyclist lives in a place where it doesn’t rain.  

Mine goes something like this:  If the rain’s so thick I can’t see out my window, I don’t go.  If there’s a steady rain and I’d planned on riding with someone who’s rarin’ to go, I’ll pedal through the precip.  On the other hand, if it’s very cold and raining, I won’t ride unless I must.

Probably the one other condition—besides zero visibility—that will keep me from riding in the rain is gale-force or near-gale force winds driving the rain.  Such conditions are part of what’s commonly called a nor’easter in this part of the world.  Such a storm is what combined with a Category One hurricane—you know, the kind pensioners in Florida endure like marriages in which they’ve grown miserable (“This is hell, but at least it will be over soon enough!”)—to give us Superstorm Sandy.

It was raining heavily when I woke up yesterday morning, and it continued through the day.  There was some hint of the wind that was forecast; by the middle of the morning it looked as if it would blow leaves off trees before they had a chance to turn color.  Even so, it wasn’t quite as strong as I somehow expected.

Did we have a “nor’easter” yesterday?  The weather forecasters said we did.  Somehow, though, I felt a little cheated: not only was the wind not quite as strong as I expected, but I think—perhaps incorrectly—that it’s too early in the season for a true “nor’easter”, which I associate with mid- to late-fall or winter.  (Sandy came just before Halloween.)  Still, I didn’t ride.  And I feel I kept to my unofficial policy:  At times throughout the day, it was all but impossible to see through the rain.

The Captain's Next Career?

Tonight, Derek Jeter is scheduled to play the last home game of his career.  After he takes off his Yankee uniform for the last time, who knows what's in store for him?

Perhaps he could follow in the footsteps of another Yankee icon and officiate at bicycle races.


Yes, you read that right.  At the old Inwood Velodrome--just a sprint and a long fly ball away from Yankee Stadium, one of the Italian-sounding names wasn't that of one of the racers.

Il Bambino himself fired the starter's pistol that sent legs pumping and wheels spinning up and down the embankment on the the track's opening night, 30 May 1922.

Babe Ruth in 1922, at the Inwood Velodrome

Baseball's first great home run-hitter--and one of its most (in)famous party animals (which was saying something during the "Roaring Twenties") --was playing his third season for the Bronx Bombers, who'd bought him from the Boston Red Sox for $125,000, or half of what it cost to build the Inwood Velodrome.

One thing that's particularly intriguing about this bit of history is that the opening of Yankee Stadium was still a year in the future.  That season--1922--would mark the last in which the Yankees would share the Polo Grounds with the New York (now San Francisco) Giants.

What's perhaps even more interesting is that some of the cyclists who competed that day--including Ray Eaton, Alf Goullet and Orlando Piani--were actually earning more money than The Babe, or any other baseball player (or, for that matter, American athlete).  In spite of its popularity, baseball was only at the beginning of its evolution (some would say devolution) into a big-money sport.  The National Football League had begun only two years earlier, and the National Hockey League--which did not yet have a team based in the USA--three years before the NFL.  The National Basketball Association wouldn't start play for nearly another quarter-century.

Believe it or not, even some soccer (football to the rest of the world) players in the US were making more than baseball players were.  If I had to explain why guys in shorts were making more money than flannel-uniformed ballplayers, I'd guess it had something to do with the international popularity of cycling and soccer.  Baseball's popularity, on the other hand, was almost entirely confined to the United States.

Anyway...I could see Derek Jeter sending the racers off the starting line in Trexlertown, Encino, St -Quentin -en- Yvelines or Vigorelli.   Couldn't you?