A Short Ride On The Longest Night—And The Day After

Last night, I took my Winter Solstice ride.  Although I didn’t plan anything about it—except for one thing, which I’ll mention—I more or less knew I wouldn’t ride a lot of miles or climb. So I rode Tosca, my Mercian fixed gear bike.

The one planned part of my ride took me to a house about a kilometer from my apartment:

The residents of that house, on 23rd Street near the RFK Bridge, turn their porch into a kind of miniature Christmas village every year. The electric trains actually run on their tracks; the Ferris wheel turns and some of the figures walk, dance and even sing.

A few minutes later, I came upon another display that, while not as dynamic, filled the street with its lights and colors. 

I continued to ride. I’m not sure of which motivated me more: those lights and colors, the crisp cold air or the complete absence of traffic. 

About the latter: It was a proverbial “calm before the storm.” Not surprisingly, the holiday rush began this morning: A seemingly endless stream of cars crawled and honked down my street and, it seemed, everywhere: When I took a ride out to the Malcolm X Promenade today, it seemed like everyone in the world was entering or exiting LaGuardia Airport, the Grand Central Parkway or any street leading to them.

As I rode today, I couldn’t help but to think about last night’s ride—and a man who sold fruits and vegetables from a stand in Jackson Heights. I stopped and bought a bunch of red Swiss chard, a string of tomatoes and a small bag of cherries because they looked good—and out of respect to that man who, like me, was outside on the longest night of the year.

At The End Of The Shortest Day

 This year’s Winter Solstice will come in two hours.

I’m going for a ride to celebrate it—and the end of the semester.

There are organized rides—some in places where the weather’s even colder than it is here. (1C or 33F) Last year, the organizers of such a ride had, I believe, a really good idea.

To Prevent Another Invasion

 Nearly two weeks ago, an alien clad in green, white and red landed in the middle of Paris, bearing artifacts eagerly anticipated by a line of people 1.5 kilometers (almost 1 mile) long who came to greet it.

No, the alien wasn’t Italian and the artifacts weren’t vital links to a distant galaxy. They are, however, prized in the place from which the aliens came.  And the people who so anxiously awaited an encounter with them had seen them, until that moment, only on large, glowing screens in darkened halls.

The alien’s colors were not of a flag or spectrum. Rather, they represented the emblem of the alien’s homeland—something known in the galaxy as a “chain “ or “corporation.”

Those folks in the queue were waiting to try something they’d seen in images from a faraway land—one where Ford F-150s roam.

By now, you might have surmised that the customers in Les Halles were waiting to try something that doesn’t exist in the galaxy of Parisian pâtisseries—a Kree-spee Kréme beignet.

I guess I shouldn’t have been have been surprised. Owing largely to movies, television and music videos, American popular culture is, especially for the young, a kind of yang to the yin of haute culture, couture and cuisine. Les jeunes have grown up watching Americans dig into iconic Krispy Kreme boxes.

The company says it plans to open 500 “access points”—which will include vending machines and kiosks as well as actual stores—all over France in the next year.

I mention this development because I hope that Krispy Kreme isn’t a sign of more, and worse, trends crossing the pond, just as seeing the Shake Shack font is a harbinger of the worst things about gentrification coming to your neighborhood.

Guardian Europe columnist Alexander Hurst describes America as a “hellscape” in which folks go for their fix of glazed donuts—in their SUVs and amped-up pickup trucks.

To be sure, I have seen such vehicles in Europe.  They are, however, smaller than their US counterparts. Also, when I took bike tours in the countrysides of France and other European countries, such vehicles were used by farmers, carpenters and others engaged in work that requires hauling a lot of equipment and cargo.  Even the SUV-like vehicles I saw on recent trips in Paris, Athens and Rome were usually emblazoned with the name of a store or some other business.

Part of that has to do with the higher cost of gasoline in Europe. Another factor might be the narrower streets and roads. But Hurst believes that France and other European countries must do more to prevent this:

Ford F-150 through  the years,
 1970s-2020s.Graphic by Will Chase for Axios

The bloat in American vehicle sizes, he observes, is not only an “environmental disaster.” It’s also a hazard for pedestrians and anyone operating a smaller, less powerful vehicles—including bicycles.

As I have pointed out in earlier posts, SUVs and the pickup-trucks-on-steroids (driven by guys who could use Viagra) give us little or no room to maneuver if the driver turns, swerves or veers. Moreover, their increased height makes cyclists and pedestrians (especially small children) less visible and their higher grilles are more likely to strike someone in the upper body or even head, which is more likely to result in paralysis or death than a blow to the lower extremities.

Mayor Anne Hidalgo has proposed tripling the parking fees for SUVs in central Paris and doubling them in the rest of the city. If her proposal passes, it will be a good start. But more needs to be done—in her city and country, and the rest of Europe—in order to prevent an invasion of alien vehicles grown and fueled by Krispy Kreme’s.