A Chain Of Neglect

Police barricade tapes are bright yellow.  Construction-site cones are orange.  The bollards used to separate bike lanes from the street are finished in similar hues, or white.

Those color choices are not just fashion statements:  They are made for visibility.  It's pretty difficult for most people to claim they didn't see those tapes, cones or bollards.  

On the other hand, you don't have to be color-blind to miss chains--which are almost always dull gray-- drawn across roadways or bike lanes.  This is especially true in low-light conditions, such as night, the beginning or end of day, inclement weather, and under aqueducts, railroad trestles and highway overpasses. 

Such  chains are used to temporarily block off streets or paths for events like street fairs or for construction.  Unfortunately, cities and other jurisdictions that place them often forget to remove them when the event is done or construction work is finished.  Worse, an unsuspecting cyclist or scooter-rider who is paying attention to other road hazards can easily miss them.

The chain that entangled a cyclist--and his bike after the crash. Photo sent by reader of Bike Portland. 

That is what happened to one unfortunate cyclist in Portland, Oregon.  He was riding along North Holladay Street when he passed under the Interstate-5 overpass when he was suddenly entangled in a chain and thrown over his handlebars. He suffered significant injuries to his arm and both wrists.  He also incurred a minor impact to his head that, probably, could have been worse had he not been wearing his helmet.  

The street where he had his mishap, while not as popular for cycling as another nearby street, is nonetheless part of a designated bicycle route. The intersection is adjacent to the Oregon Convention Center. So, according to Bike Portland editor Jonathan Maus, the chain may have been installed to cordon off the street for an event. But, as he points out, that event was long over by the time the unlucky cyclist crashed.

I think that the neglect that led to the cyclist's injuries may have been a result of the auto-centric mentality of city planners.  A chain, debris or some other obstruction--like a sewer grate with wide slats that parallel the curb or divider-- might be mere inconveniences to cars, trucks or buses, but can snag bike tires--or cyclists themselves

I hope that cyclist has a swift and thorough recovery--and, as Maus recommends, city or other government agencies in charge of roadways, bike lanes and other infrastructure pay more attention to seemingly-small details--and basic maintenance.

Survivors

Yesterday and the day before, I continued my recent pattern of riding early to beat the heat.  There wasn't quite as much heat yesterday, though, so I rode a bit longer than I'd been riding during the past week.

Once again, I zigged and zagged through Queens and Brooklyn, albeit through different neighborhoods, along different streets.  If you grew up in the same Brooklyn neighborhoods where I spent my childhood, you think of the borough as a working-class enclave full of brick rowhouses and tenements inhabited by families of your ethnic group.  If you lived in some of the neighborhoods in which I rode yesterday, it was a much tougher place.  But if your acquaintance with the "Borough of Churches" or "Borough of Homes" is more recent--or if you are simply younger, whiter or more affluent--your image of Brooklyn could include brownstones or self-consciously trendy cafes where the tatooed, the bearded, the pink-haired and the Doc Maartens-wearing spend $40 to wash down a slice of advocado toast with a craft cocktail.

But another, older Brooklyn sometimes makes a surprise appearance. I hadn't ridden or walked by the intersection of Bushwick Avenue and Kossuth Place in a while and I'd all but forgotten about the church that graces it:

In a borough of brick and brownstone--and, increasingly, glass and steel-- only a few wooden buildings of any kind remain.  They were more common before Brooklyn became part of New York City and much of the borough beyond the waterfront was still rural.  At that time, the Dutch influence was still strong--hence the Reformed church.

It will be interesting to see what the building looks like when it's restored.  I love "survivor" buildings:  the ones that remain after everything else around it has been destroyed and replaced.  They look different, but not out-of-place because survivors are never out of place. At least that's what I tell myself:  I might be slower than I was, but I am still cycling and have no plans to stop.

The Tour de France Femmes

The Tour de France Femmes started the other day. Some news reports claimed the race was the first of its kind.  Others said the "only" previous women's Tour de France was the one held from 1984 through 1989.  While it is the best-known version of the women's tour, it's hardly the only one:  In 1955, French journalist and race director staged the original Tour de France Feminin.  In spite of his efforts, the five-day race, which 41 female cyclists finished, would be a one-off event:  Other members of the press treated it as a joke and some photographers stalked the women to their dormitories.  And, in spite of the fact that the race was organized and staged by a journalist, there was little press coverage and, thus, financial support. 

For a time, it seemed that the 1980s event--and the excitement surrounding the 1984 and 1988 Olympic races--would show that women's cycling had become a sport with its own identity and audience, somewhat like women's tennis.  During that time, however, men's cycling, like other sports, shifted from local network coverage sponsored by mom-and-pop businesses to the more lucrative cable and satellite networks with corporate mega-sponsors like Nike and Coca-Cola.  Decision-makers at those companies and networks--and Tour organizers--seemed to think that women's racing wasn't worth those resources.  

After the Tour severed its connection to the Tour Feminin, the latter continued, under different names, into the 1990s.  But without that Tour imprimatur, the media and corporate sponsors hardly noticed it at all. Thus, coverage was practically non-existent and almost no one who wasn't a dedicated fan knew that the races were running.

But all of those versions of the Tour Feminin had yet another fatal flaw:  They were "curtain-raisers" (or, as some would say, "appetizers") for the men's ride.  During the 1980s editions, the women rode the same routes, mostly, as the men, but finished before the men started.  So, while the women's race originally benefited from its Tour association, it didn't develop its own identity as, say, the Women's football World Cup or women's tennis has.  

This year's Tour Feminin began after the men's race ended.  Could it be the arrangement that allows the women's race to, not only survive, but to become a major sporting event in its own right?