Keeping Hermine At Bay

Sometimes I think meteorologists give us dire weather forecast for long holiday weekends out of resentment. After all, while the rest of us are having fun, they have to stare at computer screens or whatever else they have to look at to tell us The World As We Know It is about to end.

So it was for the weekend that just passed.  First Hurricane/Tropical Storm Hermine was supposed to land on our shores late Saturday afternoon. I figured I could do a ride to Point Lookout before then.

 For much of the day, that prediction seemed accurate:  Ominously dark clouds darkened the sky as the sea churned.  But--wonder of wonders--the clouds broke somewhat and the sun shone through.  So, instead of heading home from Rockaway Beach, I continued along the boardwalk and boulevard to Riis Park and Coney Island, and along the Verrazano Narrows promenade toward my apartment.

We got more or less the same forecast on Sunday:  Hermine in the afternoon.  So I thought I could sneak in a pre-lunch ride, say, to the Rockaways and back.

The weather belied the forecast:  With each mile I rode, the skies brightened, even as  the sea grew choppier and the wind stiffened.  I decided to "play chicken" with Hermine:  I would ride as if I could keep the rain at bay simply by riding.   After a while, I actually started to believe that I could!

Once again, I rode a good bit longer than I originally planned.  I was happy for that:  I did two good days of riding when, according to the weather forecasts, I should have had only one.

But Hermine was still rearing her head.   When I got home, I heard more dire predictions of her paying us a visit some time Monday, Labor Day.  Once again, I took a ride, hoping to get in a few kilometers (or miles) before the storm struck.  But I didn't "play chicken": I stuck with my plan to ride along the North Shore to Fort Totten, a two-hour round trip with a stop to enjoy the view at the Fort.

The rest of the day, though windier, was even brighter than the morning or the day before.  I had a few things to do, so I didn't go back out to ride.  Still, I was happy to have done three rides:  one long , one of medium length and a shorter one.  

Finally, the rain came this morning, just as I was about to go to work.  I lingered just long enough for another cup of tea, and to stroke my cats a few more times.  The rain passed, and I--almost without effort--more than made up for the time I procrastinated and arrived at work a few minutes earlier than I'd planned.

 


The next time someone asks you about the benefits of cycling, tell them that one cyclist (yours truly) "saved" Labor Day weekend:  She kept a hurricane away simply by riding! ;-)   

And to think we all can change so much more by cycling!

They Busted Their Unions And Broke Their Brands

Two years ago, on Labor Day, I wrote about the strike metal platers, polishers and buffers waged against Schwinn and Excelsior-Henderson (two motorcycle manufacturers Schwinn owned) in 1919.  

Although the Bike Boom that spanned the last decade of the 19th Century and the first of the 20th had gone bust, Schwinn continued to prosper because it was one of the first bicycle manufacturers to market bicycles as children's' toys as it continued to make bikes for adults.  Also, Schwinn acquired other bike manufacturers as well as the aforementioned makers of motorcycles, which were ascending in popularity.  

The metalworkers knew that Herr Schwinn could, shall we say, afford to buy the products his company made, in whatever quantity he desired. The same could not be said for his workers.  They rode his bikes to work, but often had to purchase them on installment plans.

They made demands that Schwinn found outrageous:  a 44-hour workweek and wages of 85 cents an hour.  He could not believe their audacity, not to mention their ingratitude, and did what any good industrialist who saw his financial life flashing before his eyes would do:  He got injunctions against the unions whose members were canceling orders, or not placing them in the first place, in sympathy with the strikers.  He also had strikers arrested on trumped-up charges, hired thugs to use "friendly persuasion" to convince strikers to cross picket lines--and made his foremen  use said workers for target practice.  After all, a strike is stressful and, as a friend of mine pointed out, going to the shooting range is "relaxing".

Anyway, all of the labor journals of the day urged readers to support the strikers in any way they could, whether by standing with them physically or participating in the boycotts--not only against Schwinn, but against the companies that did business with the bike-maker.

Well, it turns out that wasn't the last instance of Schwinn trying to subvert labor organization in its plants, at least according to more than one source.  In the early 1980s, Schwinn began to manufacture in a new Mississippi facility.  Now, to be fair, the old Chicago complex was outdated and would have needed extensive reworking to make the kinds of bikes for which demand was developing. But, it also just so happened that workers in that facility organized (affiliating themselves with the United Auto Workers) and struck in 1980.  Mississippi, like other southern states, has a long history of hostility to unions. 

Anyway, during the first few years of production, the quality of those bikes from the Magnolia State left something to be desired.  Again, to be fair, so did the quality of the bikes Schwinn would import from Hungary a few years later.  And, while the company had already shifted some of its production overseas, it was late to develop working relationships with their Japanese--and, later, Taiwanese and Chinese--subcontractors.  It also was slow to identify trends such as mountain bikes.

The result, of course, was bankruptcy, and its acquisition by a conglomerate that owns an number of other bike brands.  Like bikes bearing those names,  "Schwinn Brand" bikes are made in China and sold in big-box stores. (The "Schwinn Signature" series, which consists of higher-quality bikes and accessories, is sold only in bike shops.)  So have the mighty fallen.

Again, to be fair, Schwinn is not the only, or even the first, bike manufacturer to break its workers' union and, in doing so, sow some of the seeds of its destruction.

Some you may have owned or ridden a "Roadmaster" bicycle.  The brand first saw the light of day in 1936, when Cleveland Welding Company (CWC)--which made bicycles for a number of other companies--introduced it.   American Machine and Foundry (AMF) purchased the Roadmaster children's and youth bicycle lines in 1950.  I couldn't find much information about the transaction, but my uninformed guess is that CWC went out of businesses, or was simply divesting itself out of unprofitable enterprises.

1937 Cleveland Welding Company "Roadmaster" Bicycle

AMF then formed a wheel goods division, which made tricycles, pedal cars and tractors, and wagons in addition to bicycles.  Like the Chicago Schwinn plant of the 1970s, the CWC facilities AMF inherited were antiquated and AMF executives looked into replacing them.

And, in an eerie parallel with Schwinn in 1980, AMF workers in Cleveland--who were organized by (you guessed it) the United Auto Workers--struck in 1953.  The labor stoppage was, like Schwinn's in 1919 and 1980, long and acrimonious.  And AMF resolved it the way Schwinn did their second strike:  by opening up a new factory in a state where unions were (and are) all but non-existent.  In AMF's case, the new locale was Arkansas--in the capital, Little Rock, to be exact.

1964 AMF Roadmaster "Skyrider"

Now, no one ever equated the quality of AMF/Roadmaster bikes with those of Schwinn, not even the ones made in Mississippi or Hungary.  But the company, again like Schwinn, enjoyed prosperity during the Baby Boom-fueled population growth of the 1960s and 70s--and, of course, one of its offsprings, the '70's Bike Boom.  Then the Little Rock factory, like Schwinn's Chicago facility, became outdated and--even though Arkansas AMF workers didn't unionize--the company's management whined about labor costs. So, off to the mystic East they went.

Now Roadmaster is owned by Pacific--ironically, the same company that now owns Schwinn.  I'm not saying that avoiding and busting unions or outsourcing alone led to the subsumation of Schwinn and Roadmaster.  But I think that the "race to the bottom" in production costs helped, along with other bad management decisions, to debase the quality of what each company was selling and, subsequently, its reputation (more so in the case of Schwinn).  Now Schwinn bikes, once the dream of so many American kids--and the mount of Olympians--are indistinguishable from other brands sold alongside it in Wal Mart.  Like Roadmaster.

Riding Until The Storm Comes

Many years ago, I read a tale--Japanese, if I recall correctly--about a young boy who is infected with terrible disease that will eventually kill him.  The really cruel part of his fate, however, is that he will grow more beautiful--and seem healthier--the closer he comes to his death.  So, of course, his parents cannot revel in the radiance of his youth, and nobody can understand why they are so sad.

Why was I thinking about that story today?  Well, Hurricane/Tropical Storm/Tropical Cyclone Hermine was supposed to strike some time  this afternoon.  So, after gulping down some green tea, Greek yogurt (from Kesso's , of course) with bananas and almonds, I got out for a ride this morning.  I figured I could get in a couple of hours of spinning, which would be a sort of wind-down from yesterday's ride.

The morning started off partly cloudy/partly sunny, just as the forecast promised.  The temperature was quite agreeable--19C (66F) when I started.  And the wind, while more brisk than what I encountered yesterday, was not an impediment to riding, even though I pedaled into it as I started down my street.

Anyway, I pedaled in the direction of Rockaway Beach, even though the ride I took yesterday included it.  I chose the ride because it's a good, safe bet for two to three hour round trip, depending on what conditions I encounter and how long I want to linger at the beach.  Also, I figured I could see the tides swelling, churned by the storm off the coast.

Well, the tides did grow--or at least seemed to--from yesterday, and during the time I was there today.  Still, some surfers and a few swimmers dared them, the Mayor's warning against rip tides and other dangerous conditions be damned.  I must admit, I was tempted to run into the water,  if only for a moment.  

It was easy to understand why people were in the water, on the beach and strolling, cycling and skating along the boardwalk:  The sun threw off its shackles (some of them, anyway) and shone ever more brightly through the morning.  Even as the sea grew more turbulent, it reflected the luminosity of the orb that seemed to fill more and more of the sky.

So, I continued along the boardwalk and Rockaway Boulevard to Riis Park and Fort Tilden, the tides rising higher and the sun shining brighter along the way.  I could even forget that at this spot

a dune once stood, until Superstorm Sandy swept it away four years ago.

After crossing the Gil Hodges/Veterans Memorial Bridge, I took a turn I didn't take yesterday, through Floyd Bennett Field and onto the path to Canarsie Pier. I wasn't at all surprised to see it ringed with men, most of them from the Caribbean, fishing.  I haven't cast a line in years, but I recall that some of the best fishing comes right before a storm.

Then I retraced my steps (tire tracks?) along that path back to Flatbush Avenue, where I crossed and continued along the Greenway that winds along the South Shore of Brooklyn to Sheepshead Bay, then to Coney Island.

And the day grew brighter and more beautiful.  I kept on riding but couldn't help but to wonder about the storm. Maybe it won't come this way after all, I thought. Or maybe it will strike later.  If it does, will it unleash even more power and fury than it otherwise would have?

By the time I wheeled my bike into my apartment, the sky was completely blue--or, at least, as clear as we can see it in New York. The sun glinted off my windows.  I turned on the radio, just in time for another weather forecast:  Hermine will come tomorrow.  Maybe.  Until then, we can expect clear skies.