In The Sun, With Arielle

Until the other day, June had been rather gloomy:  mostly gray, chilly and damp.  I did a little bit of riding, mostly for some other purpose or another.  The other day, however, seemed like a "breakout" day.

And Arielle, my Mercian Audax, knew it:

I had ridden her a bit this year, but Friday was her first long ride:  up to Connecticut, where she frolicked in the fauna and took me up and down hills. I somehow managed to make wrong turns wherever I could (Perhaps I could blame her: I think she was feeling as adventurous as I was) and entered Connecticut by way of "The Ridge" on the north side of Greenwich.  That is where you find all of those houses and horse farms you see in Architectural Digest and Vanity Fair spreads. 

None of the climbs are long, but a few are steeper than you expect if you're not familiar with the area.  And they are endless:  No matter which way you turn, you have to go up a hill. And I was riding into the wind most of the way up from my place.

One nice thing about all of that climbing is that when I got to downtown Greenwich and did a little people-watching at the Veterans Memorial (where Arielle ensconsed herself among the flowers), the pear I brought with me tasted exceptionally sweet, and the bottle of water I bought (something Italian, with essences of cherry and dragonfruit) felt like a spring coursing through my body.

However, if I thought I'd taken all the wrong turns I was going to take that day, I was wrong.  Instead of turning on to Glenville Road, I turned on to Lake Drive, where I saw the back end of all of those estates I saw from the front on my way in, and the front of all of the places I saw from the rear earlier in the day. Or so it seemed.  Buclolic it is.  And hilly.  

When I came to an intersection that kind of-sort of looked familiar, I turned in the direction I thought was home.  Instead, I found myself climbing more hills an by the time I finally realized where I was, I saw that I'd pedaled about the same distance (75 km) from the Ridge to my place--but in the opposite direction.  I was just north of Mount Kisco.

So I rode until I came to railroad tracks and followed them until I ran out of sunscreen.  By then, I think I'd gotten more sunlight than I'd seen all month!  When I find myself tiring out on such sunny day, it usually is a result of the sun.

Then I hopped a train from Hawthorne back to Grand Central, without guilt:  After all I'd ridden about 110 miles (170 km), against hills and wind.

That seemed to whet Arielle's appetite--and mine.  So, yesterday, we took a "recovery" ride--120 mostly flat kilometers to Point Lookout, with a bit of a ramble along the South Shore.  

I got more sun.  And Arielle got to work on her tan.

An Apple A Day

You go for a ride on a hot day.  Then, at your destination--or simply a stop along the way--you sit under a tree, even if only for a couple of minutes.

Now, who wouldn't like that?  And what would make it better?  How about picking something from that tree and eating it?

I've been fortunate enough to do that. You probably know that even the best apple, grape, cherry or pear from your favorite farmer's market--let alone anything on which you can spend half of your paycheck at Whole Foods--tastes quite as good.

Needless to say, whenever I've had the chance to stop for the freshest possible snack,  I wasn't riding in my hometown.  Nor was I in any big city or suburban area.  On those days, my ride took me into the countryside--whether in Vermont, the southwest of France or upstate.  If you find a fruit tree in a city, chances are their bounty isn't edible:  That tree is, more than likely, ornamental.  Or they are grown for other purposes--like the orange trees I saw in towns along the Turkish Aegean coast, whose bitter fruit is used to make marmelade.  

Imagine what it would be like to take a city ride and pick your snack off a tree.  Better yet, imagine what it would be like for some kid in a urban ghetto to get a healthy snack or lunch from a tree in the schoolyard.

That is what Brett Lehner and Sonali Rodrigues have in mind.

They are medical students at the University of Connecticut who believe that access to fruit, and all other healthy food, is "a human right" that "should be available to everyone", in Lehner's words.

So, he and Rodrigues are about to embark on an "Apple A Day" bike ride.  But it won't be just any old bike ride:  They're going to pedal the 3500 miles (5500 kilometers) along the northern tier route from the Pacific coast of Washington State to Connecticut. 

Of course, the purpose of this ride is to raise funds--"seed money", if you will--to start their project.  Their goal--apart from getting back to Connecticut for the start of the school year--is for their idea to spread to as many schools as possible.  They are collaborating with the Northwest Conservation District, which will receive their funds and applications (presented by students themselves) for trees to be planted at their schools.  Those with the greatest need will receive first priority, according to Lehner and Rodrigues.

Riding bikes and planting fruit trees:  Those sound like good practices to me!

P.S.  I rode to Connecticut yesterday. More about that later.

Picasso Can Park His Bike Here--And Have A Beer

If you go to 5, rue Thorigny in the Le Marais section of Paris, you won't find this:

While this piece looks as if it's inspired by Picasso's famous "found object" sculpture, if you want to see it in person, you'll have to go to 1519 West Main Street in Boise, Idaho.

The reason why I say "you'll have to" is that the establishment where you'll go to see it hasn't opened yet. Its owner says, however, that the HandleBar will be up and running by the end of this month.

And while you can't see "Guernica" or "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon" in the Boise bar, it does offer two things la Musee Picasso doesn't:  beer, for one.  But more important (at least to the audience of this blog), you can park your bike inside the premises.  In fact, they'll even let you leave it overnight.

Be careful, though: It might just end up becoming part of the decor.  All right, I'm exaggerating a bit:  The HandleBar, as the name indicates, will be bike-themed.  Not only will bikes and art inspired by them adorn the walls, different fixtures will be made from, or accessorized with, bike parts.  For examples, the handles of the beer taps will be wrapped with bicycle chains.

Owner Ezra Jackson is, not surprisingly, a cyclist.  And his brother was a racer.  He says the idea for HandleBar came to him when he was fixing his bike and "hanging out" with his buddies.  They were drinking beer, naturally, and as he says, "having a good time".  So, he thought, "Why not make it a little bigger?"

And, yes, customers can work on their bikes in the bar--even if the work stands, um, won't always be used for their intended purposes.

Last time I checked, they didn't have anything like that at Les Deux Magots!