When Will World Bicycle Day Be For Everyone Who Cycles?

 Today is World Bicycle Day.

The United Nations designated this "holiday" was in 2018.  Whether it has contributed to the growth in cycling is debatable.  But I won't argue with having such a day.

Interestingly, it's also National Free Donut Day.  We have to get our carbs one way or another, right?

Anyway, while one sees bike lanes winding through urban neighborhoods and bike-share programs and bikes, parts and accessories have been in short supply, the attention to such things has focused on the ways they affect young, upwardly mobile people in trendy urban neighborhoods--where, to be fair, the growth in the number of cyclists seems to be greatest.

An article in today's Forbes magazine illustrates, if unintentionally, a possible cause and effect of the phenomena I've mentioned.  In it, Jeffrey Steele lists, as his title says, "buildings supporting pedal power."  The office and residential towers he mentions feature dedicated bicycle parking rooms, some with security cameras and other amenities.  Some of those buildings also include lockers where cyclists can stow their bike-related stuff.  The commercial buildings he mentions also have washrooms or even showers and changing rooms and, in one instance, a cafe.

The bike room at 45 Main Street in DUMBO, Brooklyn (Photo from Two Trees Management)

It all sounds really good.   I know this city well enough, however, to see that all of those buildings are places where the residents or workers are the sort of young and affluent (or, at least, upwardly mobile) folks I mentioned at the beginning of this post.  Now, I don't have anything against young afflueint people--OK, I get a bit envious of people making more in their first job out of college than I've ever made (I shouldn't have graduated into a recession with a liberal arts degree, right?). My issue is this:  Bicycling and cyclists will never get the respect, or at least escape the scorn and hostility, of greater society until, well, all segments of greater society start cycling for transportation and recreation.  Also, I think cycling won't become a "people's choice" in the United States or other nations that don't have the cycling culture of some European countries until people who ride to low-wage jobs on handed-down, salvaged or bought-for-cheap bikes are given the same attention and respect as the Instagram images one sees rolling down bike lanes in Williamsburg or other havens of the young, rich and hip.

So, I hope that, if nothing else, World Bicycle Day becomes a way to give all cyclists--rich, poor, male, female, genderqueer and ahem, white, black, brown, yellow, red or whatever color--the respect we deserve for getting to where we want and need to go in a socially and environmentally conscious--and fun!--way.

Oh, and  remember that you can "fuel" your ride for free at your nearest Dunkin' Donuts, Krispy Kreme or Tim Horton’s!

How Is It Aging?

Aged 12 years.

When I saw that phrase--on a bottle of Scotch whiskey--I wasn't 12 years old.  I couldn't quite fathom that grown-ups drank something older than I was.

Now I am at an age when I don't think of something as having occurred 12 years ago.  Now I'm more likely to round it up or down to 15 or ten years.  Someone, I forget whom, told me that it happens when "you get to a certain age":  According to that person, you start to see your life, and the world, "in five- or ten-year increments."

There are, of course, some things I can pinpoint in time.  One of them is the subject of today's post.  

Exactly twelve years ago today, this blog was born. At least, that is the day on which I wrote and published my first post.  For two years before that, I'd been writing another blog, Transwoman Times, which I continued for a few years into the life of this blog and, in a way, this blog is an extension, continuation or simply a relative--I'm still not sure of which--of that one.

Now, some might say that I've reached an age when I can no longer say I'm in "mid-life."  To them, I'll repeast something I've said in this blog, and elsewehere:  If I don't know how long I'm going to live, I can't know whether or not I'm in the middle of my life.  Given the typical and even the longest lifespans of humans, I can't plausibly say I'm at the beginning or even early in my life.  But as long as I don't know where I end, I'm in the middle--just as I can't know whether a ride I take will be the last, or one of the last--or even whether it's the last time I'll take a particular ride, such as the one to Greenwich or Point Lookout.

Whether you've been reading this blog from its beginning, or found it yesterday, I thank you for taking the time to read it.  And however long this blog--and I--last, I hope you're with me for the journey.  We're only in the middle of it, after all!

He Didn't Have A Phantom Condition. He Was Assaulted.

When I wrote for newspapers, a few things frustrated me.  Among them were politicians and other officials who'd talk around my questions.  Another was the constraints one editor put on me and other writers.  So, as I complained to another writer, "I can write about cops and robbers but I can't write about the real crimes."

But nothing twisted my panties or chamois bike short liners (remember those?) more than headline writers.  They'd come up with phrasings that, sometimes said something different from, or even the exact opposite of, what my article described.  Or sometimes what they wrote things that someone, especially if they came from a different generation, culture or other life experience might hear differently from what was intended.

I saw an example of this today:  "Boy Beaten and Bruised in Bicycle Face Attack at LI School Parking Lot:  Cops."  

Now, perhaps I'm a bit of a geek, at least in this sense:  I can say, without boasting, that I probably know more about the history of bicycles and bicycling than anyone who's not a specialist in that field.  So when I saw "Bicycle Face," I immediately thought of the rationale conservatives during the 1885-1905 Bike Boom gave for keeping women off bicycles.  They believed that the rigors of being out in public, in rain and wind and sun, and of simply being on a bicycle, twisted their pretty little heads into what they called "Bicycle Face."

Now, of course, with all due respect to Long Island law enforcement officials, I doubt that their training includes ways of recognizing Bicycle Face--or that most of them have even heard of the term, even if they are cyclists.  And I think it's even less likely that some random thug (the victim is a 13-year-old boy; the perp is believed to be a good bit older and six feet tall) would attack someone for having "Bicycle Face," though, perhaps I can imagine using the phrase as a schoolyard taunt.

Now, I don't mean to make light of a boy being bashed in the face with a bicycle.  No one should have to endure that, and it upsets me that something that can be such a force for good and a source of so much pleasure can be used to commit violence against another living being.  My heart goes out to that boy and his loved ones.

But, as a writer, I also abhor crimes against journalism and the English language.  A much more accurate--and, if I do say so myself, snappier--headline might've been: LI Man Slams Bike Against Boy's Face.