Proof That It Ain't So

Every 15 years or so, this rumor circulates:  Cycling causes male infertility.

And, not long after the story circulates, a study disproves it. 

Sometimes I think that there's a conspiracy afoot:  The rumor starts, and scientists (young and trying to get tenure someplace, I imagine) get grants to do those studies that, in fact, cycling does nothing to affect men's ability to spawn progeny.

Let's see...Eddy Mercx, Bernard Hinault, Jacques Anquetil, Fausto Coppi and Laurent Fignon each had two kids. So did Stephen Roche, by his first wife--as Ferdi Kubler did by his second. I suspect that was a choice on their (or their spouse's) part , as it was for many Europeans of their generation.  Or, perhaps, they spent so much time training during their most fertile years that they didn't have the time--or energy--to devote to, uh, extracurricular activities.

Gino Bartali and Greg Lemond each had three.  So did Pedro Delgado. 

So, all right, if I haven't convinced you that cycling doesn't cause male infertility, maybe this will:

or, more precisely, that bike sculpture in Devon, along the route of the Tour of Britain, was re-formed:

Hmm...Maybe the bicycle really can be part of a man's manhood after all.

Me, I don't have to wonder whether or not cycling causes male infertility.  At least, I haven't had to worry about it since I underwent my transition! 

Mind The Gap!

The crazy things we do when we're young are funny when we think about them years later--at least, if no harm was done.

I'm thinking now of the time I raced through the gates of a drawbridge and actually managed to make it across just as the bridge was starting to open.  So I had a slight incline for the last part of that ride.  I was stupid enough to be proud of myself for maneuvering through the gate at whatever speed I was riding at that moment.

Apparently, a woman in Wisconsin thought she could pull the same trick:




I don't know how steep or swift that water is, but falling into it would probably be terrifying enough.  But getting stuck between the plates of that bridge is probably even worse.  

Actually, I was even more scared for the folks who rescued her:  I thought about one of them getting crushed if that bridge were to close up!

Why Was He Targeted?

A 65-year-old immigrant is riding a bicycle in a lane through a gritty working-class neighborhood on the border between Queens and Brooklyn.  

He is pedaling home from his job as a dishwasher.

A group of ATVs and motorcycles approaches from behind.

The lead ATV strikes the cyclist.

The lead ATV flees the scene.

Four days later, the 65-year-old immigrant who was pedaling home from work is taken off life support.

"If they did it to my dad," lamented Angelica Xelo, "they're going to do it to someone else."

Little did she know that the assault--which  at least one news outlet called an "apparent collision"--was captured on about a dozen surveillance videos.  Or that some of them caught that same group of motorized thugs doing the same thing to another cyclist a few minutes later.  

That victim, whose name hasn't been released, wasn't seriously hurt.  But police believe that cyclist, like Eucario Xelo--a 65-year-old immigrant father and grandfather, was targeted.

I would like to know:  on what basis?  In Xelo's case, being an immigrant might be an obvious rationale.  But I have to wonder whether it's also a case of drivers using two tons of metal to express their resentment at people on two wheels "taking" "their" traffic lanes away from them, just as immigrants are "taking" "their" country.

Either way, I can't help but to think that ATV driver and that group feel emboldened by the current political situation.  How much difference is there, really, between white male entitlement and motor vehicle entitlement?

Either way, the result is the same:  a 65-year-old immigrant father and grandfather pedaling home from his job as a dishwasher in a restaurant ended up dead. 

 

That, in a neighborhood a little less than 10 kilometers from my apartment--and which I came to know well in my days of writing for a local newspaper.  

Perhaps that's the reason why, even though I never (to my knowledge, anyway) met Eucario Xelo, I feel as if I've lost someone I know.  Of course, it's much worse for Angelica:  She lost her father.  She is sad and angry: She has a right to both, and much more.