A Chopper Or A Riser?

When I was mountain biking, bikes were often equipped with quick-release seat post clamps.  This allowed seat height changes for different parts of the ride.  On a technical section, you might  lower your saddle.  Then you could raise it when riding a flat, straight section of a trail.

Now, I admit that I didn't change my saddle height very often--or, at least, not as often as I was led to believe I would.  Still, I didn't mind having the quick release on my seatpost clamp.  I just had to remember to remove my seat and post when I parked my bike on the street.

I guess some people feel they need easily variable seat heights on all of their rides--even their commutes.  At least, that's what this rider seems to like:

Confessions

I have a confession.

I took a ride the other day--to Connecticut.

You're probably wondering why that's a "confession".  Well, you see, it's like this...um...well...

All right, I took a "mental health day" from work.

You know that's just another way of saying I played hooky.  But I rationalized it to myself because I had to go into work on a day when I normally wouldn't have.  Also, I suspected that my students are tired.

(When you were a kid, did your parents send you to bed when they were tired?  I was operating on the same sort of logic, or at least rationale.)

The ride to Connecticut was great.  Arielle, my Mercian Audax, knows it well.  And, for a change, it actually looked like Spring:

except that it felt more like summer when I started home.  The temperature had reached 34C (92F) and, after I crossed the state line, I could swear I was pedaling into a wind I didn't feel at my back on my way up.  

In addition to the wind, I was pedaling in continuous sunlight.  And, for the first time this year, I rode in shorts and a short-sleeved top.  So, while I was probably getting a month's worth of Vitamin D, I probably got as much in ultra-violet rays, even though I was re-applying sunscreen hourly. Also, even after drinking a full bottle each of plain water, Poland Spring and Gatorade, I didn't have to pee.  That meant, of course, that the sun, wind and heat were drawing the moisture out of me almost as soon as I replaced it.

In most years, by the time I did my first ride in such heat, I had done several others in gradually-increasing temperatures.  But on Sunday, when I rode with Bill and Cindy, the mercury barely reached 10C (50F).  Also, most of that ride was under partly cloudy skies, and just about all of the riding I've done so far this year has been under varying amounts of cloud cover.

After a cold, wet April, May opened with the kind of weather we might see in late July or early August.  That has people in this part of the world wondering, aloud, "Where did Spring go?"

My skin was probably wondering the same thing.  Even though this is the sixth ride I've taken to Connecticut this year, this one was the most difficult.  It was so difficult, in fact, that...I bailed with about 20km (12 miles) left in a 140 km (85 mile) ride.  Just after I crossed the bridge from the Pelham Bay Park trail to Co-op City, I started to feel lightheaded. At Pelham Parkway in the Bronx, I saw a hot dog stand by the station for the #5 subway.  I bought another bottle of Poland Spring and got on the train.

So...Which is the bigger confession:  that I played hooky or I bailed out on a ride?

Why Was I Doing My Commute On Sunday?

Sometimes I joke about "going through the Gate of Hell to get to work every day."  The truth is, I ride over Hell Gate and by the Hell Gate Bridge when I cross the RFK Memorial (a.k.a. Triborough) Bridge every morning.

On Sunday I took Bill and Cindy by it.  If that was supposed to scare them into living on the straight and narrow, it wasn't very effective.  Then again, how could I scare, or persuade, anybody or anything into being straight?  


But I digress.  We were riding to Van Cortland Park.  They wanted to take the Greenway along the Hudson River (and the West Side Highway.)  While I like the views and that it's so close to the water, I knew that on a sunny Sunday, half of the cyclists, 70 percent of the skateboarders and 99 percent of the people with dogs or baby strollers would be on that path.  Pedaling through the Port Morris industrial area--deserted on Sunday--and Bronx side streets would be bucolic by comparison.

So, after taking Bill and Cindy through, or by, the Gates of Hell, we descended (literally) to Randall's Island where we rode underneath the Amtrak viaduct.  After the Gate, these arches were rather impressive.  Funny thing is, I don't normally see them that way:  They are, after all, part of my commute.

So are these houses on Alexander Avenue in the Bronx:

Not far away are these houses.   Save for the graffiti next to the "fish" building, almost nobody expects to see them in the South Bronx:

They're diagonally across from each other on the Grand Concourse.  The mansion is the Freedman House, built in the 1920s for formerly-wealthy people who had fallen on hard times. Now it contains an event space, art studio and bed-and-breakfast. It's almost jarring to see such a classically Florentine house across the Concourse from the Art Deco building with its mosaic. 

Anyway, Cindy had an appointment and had to leave us before we reached Van Cortlandt Park. Back when I lived on the Upper West Side and in Washington Heights, I used to take quick spins to the park, where I would check out whatever was on display in the Manor or watch the Irish rugby and soccer players. Time marches on, and now there are different folks playing a different game.

The clouds thickened, but never threatened rain.  But they didn't portend anything like Spring, either.  Rolling across the hills of Riverdale, they broke against the shore of Spuyten Duyvil, another place almost nobody expects to find in the Bronx: