As I Was Saying...

If you've been reading this blog, you know that I am, in general, not a big fan of bike lanes.  At least, I don't like bike lanes as they're (mis)conceived, designed, constructed, regulated and maintained here in New York, and in too many other US locales.

And I have another peeve about bike lanes--again, mainly about the ones here in the Big Apple.  One of my posts from a few days ago began with it:

One of the reasons I don't like to use bike lanes, at least here in New York, is that motor vehicles frequently pull in and out, and sometimes park, in them.

Well, wouldn't you know it...This is what I encountered while riding to work this morning:

A few weeks ago, a new bike lane opened on the north side of Hoyt Avenue, the wide boulevard that straddles the entrance to the RFK Memorial Bridge.  Traffic is westbound, one-way on the north side, above which the bridge's pedestrian-bike lane arcs.  (Traffic is eastbound one-way on the south side.)  The lane runs eastbound--in the direction opposite the traffic.  There are two rationales for that, I guess:  1.) The lane is intended, at least in part, to provide access to the bridge's pedestrian/bike lane; and 2.) The lane is "protected", meaning that there are pylons separating it from the motorized traffic.

Although the lane hasn't been open for very long, this wasn't the first time I've seen a vehicle parked in it.  Worse, I've seen a truck or van in the lane, and another motorized vehicle on the sidewalk: There are maintenance and storage facilities in the real estate around the bridge pillars. 

Woe betide the cyclist who unwittingly turns on to the lane: If both the lane and the sidewalk are blocked, there is no choice but to ride in the traffic lane--against traffic--or to make a U-turn back on to 26th Street, which is one-way. If the sidewalk is free, a cyclist can use it as long as some highway cop with too much time on his hands isn't looking to meet his ticket quota for the month.

For the time being, I think I will take the route I had been taking most days before the lane opened:  I will ride up 23rd Street to the south side of Hoyt Avenue, turn at 27th Street, cross under the bridge overpass and access the bridge's pedestrian/bike lane from there.

I must say, though, that in spite of the obstacle, I had a pleasant commute.  As you can see in the photo--which I hastily took with my cell phone--it was a beautiful morning.  And, when I stopped to take the photo a nice young lady named Rachel--who probably thought I was looking at a GPS or some other app-- asked whether I was trying to find something.  I explained what I was doing and told her about this blog.  And she told me about some rides that might start soon on Randall's Island, where she works--and through which I ride during my commute!

Why Else Would We Ride?

Today is International Women's Day.

I won't sully this post, or blog--or, for that matter, the digital world--by recounting what Trumplethinskin (a.k.a. TrumplerasPUTIN) tweeted.  I will only say that his missives are the very epitome of condescension or pure-and-simple insincerity, depending on your point of view.   

Instead, I'll repeat something I've included in previous posts.  It comes from the far-more-esteem-able personage of Susan B. Anthony:

Let me tell you what I think of cycling.  It has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world.  It gives women a feeling of freedom and self-reliance.

Surely she would have been happy to see these young women helping another learn how to ride:

Also, she would have been happy to see their outfits:  They were free of the whalebone corsets and voluminous dresses and skirts "proper" ladies were expected to wear.  Instead, they were attired in the far more practical "bloomers", patterned after the pants worn by fashionable ladies in Istanbul--and named for their designer, Anthony's fellow suffragist Amelia Bloomer.

Another fitting quote for this day, in my opinion, comes from Queens homegirl Cyndi Lauper:  

Girls Just Want To Have Fun:  Is there a better reason for us to ride bikes?

Speed Weaponry?

One of the best things about getting older is that the statute of limitations expires.

At least, it's expired for anything I did in my youth.  Now, I wasn't a juvenile crime spree.  Most of my misdeeds, I would say, fall under the category of indiscretions rather than real, hard-core criminality.

Probably the most serious offense I committed was when I crossed the border from Quebec to Vermont more than three decades ago.  I was riding; when the border guard asked where I was going, I said "home".

"Where is that?"

"New York."

He waved me through. Perhaps he thought I was going to ride to Lake Champlain and take the ferry from the Vermont to the Empire State.  Little did he know I was on my way to the Big Apple.

Or what was inside my handlebars.  I'd heard that others had smuggled, uh, medicinal herbs in a similar fashion.  And, in those days, people used to cross the US-Canada border the way people cross the George Washington Bridge on any work day. If anything, I may have been questioned more than the average border-crosser because, not only way I riding a bike, I had long hair and a beard(!).

Of course, that trick wouldn't work today.  But, apparently, that doesn't stop people from trying a new version of it in a place where it has even less chance of working.

Last week, a Transportation Security Administration employee confiscated a disassembled gun someone tried to hide in the tires of a packed bicycle.  I guess the would-be smuggler thought the rubber would somehow render the gun parts and ammo invisible to scanners.   

Or maybe he or she was going to a race and packing heat in the tires is a new form of "mechanical doping".  For all I know, the reaction of the gun firing--even if accidentally--might make the bike go faster.  

Whatever the failed smuggler's motivation, the incident made me think of Zipp, which advertises its carbon fiber wheels, handlebars and other wares as "speed weaponry."