Held To Different Standards

What is your name?  What is today's date?  Who is the President?

I passed the test: I answered all three questions correctly, as much as it pained me to utter Donald Trump's name in response to the third.  

So who administered that exam?  A doctor in Westchester Medical Center, after the worst crash I've suffered in half a century (!) of cycling.  My mishap, which "totaled" Arielle, my first Mercian bike, also included a face-plant.  So that doctor was testing my cognition as a first step to determining whether I'd suffered any brain damage.  

I thought about that after hearing that President Joe Biden fell off his bike while speding the weekend at his family's retreat in Delaware.  According to reports, the President when he came to a stop, his foot got caught in a toe clip, which caused him to tumble.  

President Biden, after falling off his bike.  Photo by Sarah Silbiger, for the New York Times.

He didn't appear to suffer any injuries or require medical attention.  Instead of doctors and nurses, reporters surrounded him as he picked himself up.  So, their "test" was a bit different from the one I "passed."  Before continuing his ride, he answered questions about--are you ready for this?--tariffs on Chinese goods and gun control legislation.

Hmm...If my doctor had asked those questions, I wonder how he would've assessed my condition.

The Ride: A Constant In The City

Yesterday I answered my own question by taking a ride.  As I often do, I zigzagged through some neighborhoods in Queens and Brooklyn before ending up in Coney Island. As the day was warm and sunny, and the wind of the past few days had all but died down, people were out: cycling, walking with themselves, canes, strollers, dogs and their friends, lovers, spouses and children.  And although yesterday was officially a holiday, there was, on some streets, nearly as much traffic as on a normal weekday.  People who didn't have to go to work simply wanted to get out, and I couldn't blame them.

It seemed, somehow, that the bike I chose to ride influenced the ride itself.  Because the wind was nearly calm, in contrast to the previous few days, I felt like taking a spin on Tosca, my Mercian fixed-gear bike.  And, while I didn't plan my route beforehand--in fact, I thought no further ahead than the next traffic light throughout my ride--I think I stuck to a flat route in part because I couldn't shift gears.

My ride--about 70 kilometers in total--was very nice, except for one thing:

At Prospect Park, I took a detour (if you can call anything on a ride like the one I took yesterday a detour) onto some streets I know but hadn't seen in a while. Hal Ruzal, the former partner and mecahnic/wheelbuilder par excellence of Bicycle Habitat--and the one who introduced me to Mercians and a few interesting bands--moved out of the house in the photo two and a half years ago.  I've joked that he "got out of Dodge": the pandemic struck just a couple of months after he left.  He's now living in another part of the country that, while affected by COVID (where wasn't?), didn't suffer from lockdowns or other ravages were we experienced here in New York.

When I texted that photo, and a couple of others, to Hal, he seemed more saddened by the generic townhouse-like building constructed across the street from his old house, and by the fact that the house next door is vacant and up for sale.  "I hope the lady who owned it didn't die," he said.

My message was more evidence, to him, that the city of our youth no longer exists.  I would agree, and sometimes I mourn the loss of it, but there is still much I enjoy--like the bike ride I took yesterday.

Solitude And A Holiday

 The other day I rode to Point Lookout.  I began my ride under bright, sunny skies. As I pedaled through the Rockaways, however, clouds gathered, layer upon layer, shade over shade, blues and grays refracting the light of the sea and sky but posing no real threat of rain.

But, although it was Saturday, the scene along the Rockaway and Long Beach boardwalks bore more resemblance to mid-week—and early April rather than mid-June.  

The high temperature—around 19C or 66F—was indeed more like early Spring than early Summer.  What kept people from taking seaside strolls was, I believe, the wind, which at times gusted to 60KPH (about 38MPH). Some of the folks I saw were clad in fleece parkas!

I’ll admit that I like the relative solitude of rides like the one I took the other day:  I feel my being expanding across the expanse of sea and sky.

After I finish my cup of coffee, I will ride.  This afternoon will be a bit warmer, with less wind.  And it’s the official commemoration of Juneteenth. Government offices and many businesses are closed, so people have the day off.  I wonder whether I’ll see more people—and traffic—than I saw the other day.