A Great Ride, "In Spite Of"

Sometimes we say that a ride was good or great "in spite of"...the rain...the wind...the cloud cover...the traffic...the flat or mechanical malfunction...the fill-in-the-blank.

Yesterday's ride was one of those rides.   I didn't experience any disasters or mishaps.  And while the temperature reached 28C (82F) in the middle of the afternoon, it never seemed that warm.  Heavy rains the other night dissipated the humidity, and the bright sunshine forecast for the day was muted, at various times, by a scrim--sometimes a curtain--of clouds.  As much as I love sunshine, I appreciate such movements of clouds, especially when they don't bring any threat of rain with them.   After all, one thing cycling--or anything else--will never cure is my, ahem, melanin deficiency!

Image by John Hart.  From the Centre for Sports Engineering Research at Sheffield Hallam University (UK).

Anyway...the one complaint I could have made was the wind.  In that regard, this year has been very strange:  March, supposedly the windiest month, didn't seem particularly so, but every month since then has brought us more steady streams, and even gusts, than the one before.

And so it was yesterday.  I decided to take, intead of an "out and back" ride, one in which the route away from home would be different from the one that brought me back.  It wasn't quite a circular ride:  If anything, if I were to draw it on a map, it would probably be shaped more like an almond or an eye socket.

That was interesting and rewarding.  And, for most of the way out, I pedaled against the wind, sometimes gusting to 50 KPH (30 MPH).  Normally, I don't mind that, for it means--in most circumstances--that I would have the wind at my back on the way home.

Except that it didn't happen that way.  You guessed it:  I spent most of the trip home pedaling into wind just as strong as what I encountered on the way out.  I know that sometimes the wind shifts direction during the course of the day.  I also know that in particular locations, even ones only an hour's bike ride apart, the wind can blow in a different direction.  (Believe it or not, in the NYC Metro area, we have micro-climates, even within Manhattan!)  So, the plan of riding into the wind so you can let it carry you home works, except when it doesn't.

Arielle

But I didn't mind.  All told, I rode about 130 kilometers (80 miles) on Arielle, my Mercian Audax.  With a name like that, you know she rides like the wind!  Now you know why I had a great ride, "in spite of"!

Elie Wiesel R.I.P.

I took a wonderful bike ride today. But I can't write about it. Instead, I must discuss someone I don't merely admire or idolize.  Instead, he is someone of whom I am completely sure that the world is better--or, at least, not as bad as it could have been--because he was in it. 

Thirty years ago, on the Third of July--the day before US Independence Day--I was in a San Francisco hotel room.  A  Thursday, it was--in essence, if not in fact-- the beginning of a holiday weekend.  It also marked one of the strangest--almost to the point of being surreal--coming-togethers of people who, perhaps, should not have been on the same planet, let alone the same podium.  I watched it on television.

That day, the opening ceremonies of the Statue of Liberty's centenary began.  At the foot of the Statue, President Reagan awarded  something that no one ever received before, or has received since:  the Medal of Liberty.  Twelve naturalized (born in other countries) American citizens received it.  

I must admit that I learned something that day:  Bob Hope, one of the medal's recipients, was born in England.  It wasn't so strange to see him with the President.  It also wasn't so unusual to see another recipient--Henry Kissinger (born in Germany)--on the same stage with them.  I didn't even find it so odd that Irving Berlin (Russia) also received the medal:  As great a songwriter as the man was, his ouevre includes stuff like "God Bless America" and "White Christmas".

Now, when the award went to Itzhak Perlman (Israel), Albert Sabin (Russia) and I.M. Pei (China), I thought it was venturing into another sub-species of the human race.  I admire all of them, and have no quibble with any award they might ever have received.  We've all benefited from Sabin's work; I have listened to Perlman (live as well as on recording) and think that Pei's "Glass Pyramid" actually makes the Louvre courtyard look better. (Yes, I've seen it without.)

When things got really weird, though, was when Elie Wiesel (Romania) got the award.  Again, I have no issue with his receiving it, or anything else he's been awarded in his life.  To merely say that he is a great writer is an insult--almost libel, really--against the man.  His work is nothing like the sort that is celebrated by fashionable people for whom whatever they reading is like one of this season's "must-have" accessories.  People like them don't think you're hip or witty if you quote him at their parties.  (Then again, if you are reading his work, you're probably not going to such parties.)  Reading him also doesn't make you feel better about yourself:  It just makes you more of a human being.

And what did he write about?  Mostly, about people's inhumanity to each other. Perhaps that's not surprising when you realize that at age 15, he and his family ended up in Auschwitz.  Later, he was moved to the Buchenwald concentration camp, from which he was freed.  Of his family, only two of his sisters survived.

Elie Wiesel speaking at a Tribute to Holocaust Survivors in 2003.  From the US Holocaust Memorial Museum.

But his message was not one of depression or despair.  Nor was it a "We Shall Overcome" kind of optimism.  Instead, it was one of simple honesty, about what he experienced as well as his role--and limitations--as a survivor and witness:

"Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed. Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the little faces of the children, whose bodies I saw turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky. Never shall I forget those flames which consumed my faith forever. Never shall I forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity, of the desire to live. Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God himself. Never."

There is, to my eye, not an iota of self-pity in those words.  Rather, it is a statement of his job, his mission, as it were:  one that he never could have chosen.  And, as I read in some of his other writings, the mission that found him is also gave him an almost overwhelming humility--borne of survivor's guilt, perhaps--about his work.  He said there was no language for the horrors he witnessed, but he did his best to describe them.  And those who perished--whether in the Holocaust or unjustly in any and all kinds of other tragedies--cannot speak for themselves.  He wondered whether he had any right, let alone the language, to give voice (rather than speak for) them, but he had no other choice.

Even though he was given the tablet, the torch or whatever you want to call it, his writings are never preachy, sanctimonious or self-important.  They were, as he said, testimony. Sometimes he called for nothig ore than simple decency from one human being to another. What a concept, eh?

Whatever I drank the night before (I don't remember exactly what, but I drank more than enough) couldn't have induced, in me, a hallucination anywhere near as bizarre as seeing Elie Wiesel on the same stage, getting the same award, as Henry Kissinger.

Then again, it wouldn't be the only time something so strange happened.  Later that year, Wiesel won the Nobel Peace Prize.  Thirteen years earlier, Henry Kissinger--who orchestrated the illegal bombing of Cambodia, the assasination of Salvador Allende and the invasion of Cyprus--also won the Prize.  (To think that Hilary Clinton cited him as her role-model when she was Secretary of State!)  And, of course, Barack Obama--who, barring something miraculous, will become the first US President to lead the country through two terms of continuous war and, by the way, ordered air strikes on Syria--also won the Prize in 2008.

Kissinger, at age 93, is still getting awards and accolades and fat speaking fees.  Barack is, of course, still in office.  But Wiesel died today, at age 87.  I don't know what comes after this life, but it can't be justice if he is going to the same place as Ronald Reagan or wherever Henry Kissinger will end up.

Interesting Fact:  Weisel did all of his writing in French, the language in which he did most of his reading.  After being rescued, he was taken to a French orphanage and attended a French school--where, he said, he received his first secular education.  (Everything he read before his internment, he said, had to do with his religion.)  Some of the English translations were done by his wife.

To Ryer Hesjedal And Michelle Dumaresq On Canada Day

It looks like I have a pretty fair number of readers in Canada.  So, dulce et decorum est...Sorry, wrong country.  I mean, it is sweet and proper to point out that today is Dominion Day, a.k.a. Canada Day.

We here in the US tend to compare other countries' greatest national holidays--like Bastille Day in France--to our Independence Day.  Truth is, Canada Day is as different from our 4th of July holiday as it is from the French grande fete.  

I am no expert in these matters, but as I understand, Canada did not fight a war to gain "independence" from Britain.  Rather, Canada--which then consisted only of Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick--gained autonomy under the auspices of the British Crown.  It sounds to me like Queen Victoria was saying, "Well, they're still a colony, kinda sorta"--if Her Majesty would have ever spoken in such a manner.  (Tsk, tsk!)

Canada's de facto national flag until 1965, when the familiar maple leaf banner was adopted.

Actually, "independence" happened gradually, over more than a century, rather than with an American-style revolution.  The Westminster Act of 1931 gave Canada autonomy over most of its affairs.  But it wasn't until 17 April 1982, when Queen Elizabeth II signed the Canada Act, that the country become fully autonomous.  Until that time, there were still actions, such as signing UN resolutions, that Canada could not do unilaterally.

(Interestingly, the Canada Act might have deepened the rift between the country's Anglophones and Francophones, as it was recorded as a statutory instrument in both French and English, cementing Canada's status as a bilingual country.  Some scholars have argued that if the Canada Act had not been ratified in both languages, it might not have been possible, for example, for Quebec to pass its language laws.)

Anyway...Canada is interesting, to say the least.  So are Canadians: They're not just Americans who live in a colder climate.  So, it's no surprise that the country has its own distinctive cycling history and, while a few, like Steve Bauer, rode for US-sponsored teams, they forged their own way in the racing world.

One example is Ryder Hesjedal, the first Canadian to win one of the major European Grand Tours:  the 2012 Giro d'Italia.  Two years earlier, he placed fifth overall int he Tour de France.

Ryder Hesjedal

An interesting--and, to me, somehow Canadian--aspect of his story is that he started off as a mountain bike racer and turned to road racing.  I say that it sounds Canadian to me because, among American cyclists, the trend has been the other way.  That may be a result of history:  the first professional mountain bikers from the US, and most of them started off as road riders because, well, that's what most racers were in those days.  On the other hand, Canada produced an impressive list of riders who started off--and, in some cases, remained--mountain bikers.  This is particularly true of female Canadian cyclists such as Michelle Dumaresq, of whom I've written in an earlier post.

Michelle Dumaresq

So, I am dedicating this post to her and Hesjedal, who are emblematic of their country's cycling history--and, I believe, its history, period.