It's A Great Ride, But It's Even Better If You Don't Crash

By now, you’ve probably heard about John Kerry’s bike crash near Geneva.

Monsieur Kerry

Without getting into politics (All right:  I’m with him on most issues!), I just want to wish him a thorough recovery.

I have long known about, in addition to his politics, his love of French culture.  However, I didn’t know that he brings his bicycle with him on his many trips as Secretary of State.  So now I like him even more.

Although I winced when I heard that he might have broken his leg, I found myself riding, vicariously, on the roads he might have been riding.  I was reliving a ride I took in that area.

If you’ve been there (or even if you’ve looked at a good map), you realize that Geneva is about as close as you can get to France without being in it.  OK, that might be a slight exaggeration.  But only a slight one.  It’s the pendant, if you will, in a necklace of towns that rings Lac Leman, the “official” name of what’s more commonly called Lac de Geneve, or Lake Geneva.

The lake washes up on French as well as Swiss shores to its south and west.  It’s really an inland freshwater sea: Imagine one of the Great Lakes set in the Alps.  I pedaled along a beautiful road within sight of the lake—and, of course, the mountains—from Lausanne to Geneva as part of a ride I took from Paris to Switzerland and back in 1997.  It seemed ironic to me that I was rolling along a flatter road in Switzerland than I was a day earlier, when I rode from Besancon into Pontarlier and crossed the border at Yverdon.   On the other hand, I didn’t have to pedal very far from the lake to do some pretty serious climbing.

That ride from Besancon (one of my favorite cities in France) to Geneva is one of the most beautiful, and most satisfying, I ever took.  It offered just about anything one could want:  arduous climbs and thrilling descents, straightaways on which you feel lighter than air even if you’re riding with full panniers and handlebar bag, beautiful natural scenery, picturesque towns, history and culture, friendly and helpful people (They understand cyclists!) and, of course, great food.

One day I will devote a post, maybe more, to that ride.  I still have to sort through my pictures and have them scanned. (Remember:  We were still using film back then!)  I will also need to look at the journal I kept and cull some of the more interesting, or at least relevant, passages.  That tour gave me so much material!

In a way, I feel bad for John Kerry that he got hurt in such a place:  I wouldn’t want anything to spoil the pleasures of it, even for my worst enemy.  On the other hand, I am sure he is being well cared-for and will be back on his bike sooner than he (or anyone) can say allez!

Comic Bikes

Geeky as I was, I was never much of a comic book fan, though many of my junior-high and high-school peers were.  However, they missed--by a decade or less--what many consider to be the "golden age" of animated magazines.

That period, it seems, began during the 1930's and continued until the early or mid 1960's. (Interestingly, that period is sometimes referred to as "the Golden Age of Radio".) Kids--boys, mostly--spent their allowance or money made from delivering newspapers or selling lemonade on cartoon-filled booklets that parents, teachers and other authority figures hoped the kids would "grow out of" in a hurry.

Around the same time, many a young lad saved his money for something that was much more socially acceptable--and which he "grew out of", usually without any prodding from said authority figures.

The thing typically lured a boy away from that second obsession was driver's permit.  As soon as he got it, the object of his former obsession was passed onto a younger sibling, tossed in the trash or left to rust in a basement or barn.

That object is, of course, a bicycle.  And many a boy's dream--at least here in the US--was a two-wheeler from Schwinn, which was sometimes referred to as "the Cadillac of bicycles." 

Not surprisingly, during the "golden age" of comic books, Schwinn very effectively used that medium to promote their products.  (They also used such publications as Boys' Life magazine, which every Boy Scout received.)  Not surprisingly, those magazines and comic books carried advertisements from the Chicago cycle colossus.  But more than a few had "product placements" not unlike the ones seen in movies or TV shows:  You know, where you can see--if only for a second--the Schwinn badge on the bike some character is riding.

 

Given everything I've just said, it shouldn't come as a shock to learn, as I recently did, that Schwinn issued its own comic book in 1949: the very middle of the Golden Age of comics.    Schwinn touted them as "educational", which indeed they were:  Included were segments about safe riding, locking up the bike and Alfred Letourner's speed record--accomplished, naturally, on an early Schwinn Paramount. 

Including Alfred Letourner's ride (and the bike he rode) exemplifies what I have long known about most "educational" publications:  They are teaching the consumer to buy a specific product, or to influence said consumer's parents to buy it for him or her.  And, indeed, most of what was in Schwinn's comic book--even the parts that showed the development of the bicycle during the century or so before Ignaz Schwinn started making bikes--had the purpose of showing that Schwinn bikes were at the top or end (depending on your metaphor of choice) of the evolutionary chain, in much the same way that the "history" we're taught as kids is meant to show us that all historical events were props that help to set the stage for our country's greatness--or, at least, the dominance of the group of people to whom the writers of the history belong. 

 

Still, I have to admit, I had fun looking at the Schwinn comic book.  Sure, it's schlocky, but it does offer a window into the almost-adolescent exuberance of the United States just after World War II.

Another Misty Morning Starts Off, And Turns, Sunny

Got out nice and early today.  How early?  Well, it was so early that…

I didn’t know what the weather was, or would be during the first hour of my ride.

Usually, weather reports on the radio tell you what the current temperature and conditions are at some central stations.  And they tell you what will be at that station, and in a generalized area around it, for the rest of the day, and possibly for the next three days. 

 

When I left my place, it was a bit cooler and breezier than I expected.  I didn’t mind that, but I had to remind myself that even in the four or five kilometers between the Central Park weather station and my apartment, conditions can change.  

What that means, of course, is that the weather could be even more different as you go further away—especially if the terrain is different, there is greater or lesser density of buildings, or some other factor affects the speed and direction of the wind.

Although it was about 15C (60F) when I left my apartment—vs 17C (65F) at Central Park—it was as sunny here as the weather report said. However, when I pedaled over the Veterans Memorial Bridge, 27km (about 15 miles) from my place, this is what Rockaway Beach looked like from the Jamaica Bay side:

 The weather report didn’t mention the low-lying fog.  I wasn’t upset to see it; instead, I was looking forward to riding through it as droplets of the cool sea mist clung to my skin.  Best of all, that fog had spread itself all through the Rockaways, as far as I could see in either direction—left to Atlantic Beach, Long Beach and Point Lookout, right to Fort Tilden, Breezy Point and Brooklyn.

I turned right only because I rode to Point Lookout yesterday.   The ride did not disappoint:

Light like that makes me wish I were a painter!  As a cyclist, I let and fill and lift me.  At least, that’s how I feel when I allow it to direct my ride.  Arielle was game: