When It's Harder To Get Out Of Bed Than It Is To Get On My Bike

Now, I hope that, having seen the title, you're not sending me copies of self-help books or the names and numbers of therapists, hypnotists or clergy members.  My reluctance to get out of bed this morning had nothing to do with depression or anxiety.  It just looked particularly gloomy and Max and Marlee were curled up with me.

Mind you, I didn't have any reluctance about riding today.  I have bikes with fenders on them.  I also have a rain jacket.  And it wasn't cold, at least for this time of year, or blustery.  It just that everything looked so heavy and gray.  Somehow the colors of the leaves made everything seem even more so.

In some years, in late October and early November, I experience surges of sadness that have to do with three deaths--one a slow decline, another a sudden demise and the third a suicide--that happened at this time of year.  But--for me, anyway--such sadness is not the same as depression.  It might make me a little slower to get out of bed, but it doesn't derail my life.

Anyway, I'll confess something:  I thought about doing the Tour de Bronx today.  I really don't enjoy big organized rides, but every once in a while I'll do one to, I guess, show solidarity with other cyclists.  I've done the TdB a couple of times--the longer version, of course--and enjoyed it.  Everybody, it seems, does the Five Boro Bike Tour, but most who ride it never see any of the Bronx besides the few blocks of it that are part of the ride.   I always liked that the TdB took riders through neighborhoods and to sites that those unfamiliar with the Bronx would not expect to see there.

But I got up after the check-in time for the ride.  Now, if you think I was looking for an excuse not to do the ride...well, maybe subconsciously, I was.  Subconsciously, I tell you.

I did a ride of my own.  It's one I've done before.  It wasn't as hard as getting out of bed.

From Macbeth To Il Campione Del Mondo

I swear, I was looking for films to show my Lit class.  Really, I was trying to decide between Roman Polanski's or Orson Welles' version of Macbeth.  And I was browsing all of the other film and television adaption of the Bard's classic when...

The YouTube browser took me to videos of The Third Ear and other progressive-rock bands.  From Renaissance's Prologue, it led me through recordings of vocal pieces used in videos.  I swear, it's true.

And then browser took me to this:



Honest, I wasn't looking for bike videos.  But I couldn't stop looking at it.

You've seen a million Bianchis before.  If you are of a certain age, you remember when they all came in some version of the color ("Celeste") you see on Fausto's bike.  Something about this video makes it seem as arresting as it was the first time you saw it.

And the bike...Why, it has--gasp--cottered cranks.  And exposed bolts on the stem.  Everything's so low-tech.

But what a thing of beauty!  And Fausto himself, even when he was wearing a plain white polo shirt, just reeked style. Check out 0:43 into the video.  Those people look like they actually know him; they're not just props or backdrops. 

As for the bike--Check out 2:15 to 2:22.  If only today's integrated headsets looked like that! 

Now I'm going back to work.  I swear, I didn't look for that video.  I was brought to it.

Sign Of The Times

Today I walked by my "go-to" takeout (and, sometimes, eat-in) Chinese restaurant.  Fatima hasn't changed much, at least in food (fortunately), decor (such as it is) or personnel (again, fortunately) since I first started patronizing it.  The changes, it seems, are taking place on the outside.

No, they haven't changed their sign, either.  Rather, I am talking about this:

Now, if you live in any large (or, possibly, not-so-large) city, you wouldn't think this scene is remarkable:  Three electric bikes (or scooters) parked outside a Chinese restaurant.  It's no more unusual than what I saw at the Chinese restaurant across the street, which I go to when Fatima is closed:

These days, electric bikes and scooters are found by most restaurants that offer take-out or delivery service.  The most notable exceptions seem to be pizzerias because it's difficult to those wide pizza boxes on an "e-bike".  Also, traditional delivery bikes, like the ones made by Worksman, usually have front carrying boxes big enough for pizzas--and wide baskets or Porteur-style racks can be fitted to other kinds of bicycles. It seems that similar boxes, baskets and racks can't be fitted on, or simply not available for two-wheeled vehicles with electric motors.

Compare the first two photos I posted to a couple from the early days of this blog:

Four years ago, most restaurants--like the Bel Aire Diner, where I took the above images--had ragtag fleets of the sorts of bikes one could lock up without fear:  everything from old three-speeds, bike-boom era ten- and twelve-speeds and mountain bikes from the '80's and '90's.  

Of the bikes parked in front of restaurants, typically, at least one was a "donor" bike, cannibalized for parts that might or not fit on the "receptor" bikes.  But somehow those delivery men (Yes, almost all of them are male), who probably knew no more about bike mechanics than I did the day before I opened the pages of Anybody's Bike Book, would find a way to make the brakes from an old Peugeot ten-speed or Raleigh three-speed "work" on a mountain bike--or fit mountain bike wheels and tires on those old Raleighs and Peugeots.

Some might scoff or gasp in horror at such "Frankenbikes".  But they at least showed attempts--some successful, or at least admirable--of solving problems with the materials at hand and the limited knowledge most of those delivery men had.

I sometimes see e-bikes similarly cannibalized for other e-bikes.  I'll admit I know almost nothing about e-bikes, but I still believe it's safe to assume there isn't nearly as much variation in e-bikes as there is in pedal-powered bikes.  If there isn't, I wonder what "Franken e-bikes" (Doesn't have quite the same ring as "Frankenbikes", does it?) will look like.

Probably the most interesting and disturbing thing about this phenomenon of electric two-wheelers is that they constitute, at least in this city, a kind of modern-day Prohibition.  No, their riders aren't bringing bootleg gin to clubs (though I wouldn't doubt they're toting other kinds of contraband). Rather, the explosion in the number of such bikes--and the shops that service and sell them--continues even though e-bikes are still illegal here in New York City.  

That, ironically, might be a reason why couriers in Manhattan still ride bicycles, most often the fixed-gear variety.  Messengers have, shall we say, a bit of a PR problem and the police target them.  Even though some messengers take pride in their "outlaw" attitude, they don't want something that subjects them to more scrutiny than they already get.

Also, e-bikes aren't as maneuverable in city traffic, or as easy to park along city streets, as regular bicycles.  Thus, whatever advantage in speed e-bikes and scooters might have is negated, especially in heavily congested areas like the Financial District of Manhattan.  

It will be interesting, to say the least, to see whether a proposal to allow electric bikes for businesses will ever pass in the City Council. (It's been introduced several times.)  I suspect that the Council's vote will not have any influence on whether large numbers of bike messengers abandon their "fixies" for e-bikes.