The Ice Man Cometh--On A Bike!

Yesterday I managed to slip out for a ride before meeting a friend for dinner and to watch the fireworks.

So what, exactly, did I have to escape from in order to get on my bike?  Well, none other than Max and Marlee.  Who says humans are the only creatures who don't know how to let go?

Anyway, I had no particular destination in mind.  Perhaps the only real intention I had was to avoid beach areas, because I knew that they were crowded.  That turned out to be a good choice:  I had most of the Queens and Brooklyn streets to myself!

I did find myself just up the street (Rockaway Parkway) from the Canarsie Pier. But I didn't go to the pier because it was packed with families and other groups cooking burgers, 'dogs and chicken wings on little grills.  Everything smelled good, even mixed with the aromas of beer and other kinds of alcohol.  

So, I made a U-turn and pedaled through a soundscape of liliting Caribbean music and accents along Canarsie side streets, and along Rockaway Avenue (almost traffic-free) to Brownsville, Ocean Hill and Bedford-Styvesant--areas of Brooklyn hipsters and gentrification still haven't found (though that could change very, very soon!).  Soon, I found myself in the tatoo capital of the Western world--Wilson Avenue in Bushwick.  There, I stopped at a shaved-ice cart, where I asked the man to make me a cone (paper) of ice con citron y cereza--with lemon and cherry syrups.  

I actually wante that cone.  But buying it was also a pretext for talking to the man about his cart.  

He says he made the cart, and attached the bicycle, himself.  It's easier and faster to move that way than it is to push the cart around while on foot.  Also, he doesn't have to worry about parking, as he would if he were driving the cart.

And, yes, that ice hit the spot.

Happy Fourth Of July. Be Safe!

I am going to share a secret with you:  It's my birthday.  Really!  

Oh, yeah, it's also the birthday of the country in which I was born, raised and have spent most of my life.  Whether or not you celebrate--or whether it's just another day wherever you are, I hope you enjoy it.  And, please, don't try this:

From World of Bikes, Iowa City

I mean, maybe I don't do enough night riding. But don't you think that's going just a bit far to get get a good bicycle lighting system--one that will actually allow you to be seen by drivers?  

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"!