Riding With The Flow

 Today I rode to, and along, a river.

It wasn’t the Hudson or East River—the latter of which isn’t a river.

And I didn’t leave the city.  In fact, I didn’t have to go far from my new neighborhood.

The Bronx River cuts through the New York Botanical Garden, my building’s next door neighbor. Cycling isn’t allowed in the Garden. There are, however, trails along other parts of the only freshwater river in New York City and near its source in Westchester County.

I remember seeing the river decades ago, probably during a trip to the Bronx Zoo. Then, the water was barely visible because of the cars, tires and other refuse that had been tossed into it. Ironically, the building that once housed Lorillard’s snuff factory—one of the river’s first polluters—sits in the Garden, one of the organizations that helped to spur the River’s cleanup about 20 years ago.

I doubt that the water is potable. At least, I wouldn’t drink it. But people enjoy picnics and, I hear, fishing along its banks. And it’s become popular for canoes and kayaks.

Still, there are reminders that it is, after all, in the Bronx.  

I continued to ride for another two hours through unfamiliar streets in somewhat familiar areas. Soon, I hope, I will feel more at home, if for no other reasons that places become a part of me when I pedal them.

Proposal

 Some day—perhaps soon—I’ll believe that I’ve moved to the most wonderful neighborhood in the universe. As much as I love my new apartment (even if it is smaller than my old one), its views and its light, and as friendly as my neighbors have been, there are still things I miss about Astoria.

Those things include, of course, my friends—with whom I’ll try to stay in touch.  Also, it had, if not the best, then some of the best, of New York:  It’s about as close as you can get to Manhattan without being there, but it doesn’t have the self-conscious hipsterism of Williamsburg, Greenpoint or Bushwick.  

Oh, and there was the food. I’m finding good eats here, but I still haven’t come across a bakery, let alone one that makes bread or cookies like Parisi’s or bagels like Lots o’ Bagels. 

And of course, there are the rides.  I could continue to do them, but I would have to ride (or take a train) to get to them.  I’m just starting to discover some good routes here, but I’m still in the “It’s not the Fort Totten ride!” stage.

Finally, there are the characters.  I’m sure I’ll find them here, but I still think of the ones I just left. They include the guy who hung out by the train station and the stores. He approached me and, probably, every other woman in the neighborhood, with this proposal:  “Will you marry me?  I’ve got food stamps!”

I have to admit, there are worse—or at least more bizarre—pickup lines.

Soon I will return to regular posting.  I have been so busy—and tired—that it seems like a miracle that I actually managed to do two rides—about 25 miles each—that had nothing to do with commuting or errands.

On The Right Track In Ghent?

 When I was in high school, I took my first organized charity bike ride. It was in the Spring of 1976: the tide of the 1970s Bike Boom was ebbing and few (at least compared to today) adults rode bikes.  In fact, most had not pedaled since they were kids, if they ever had ridden.

That is what made some of my sponsors hesitant before signing up:  They simply could not imagine anyone riding the distance of that ride: 25 miles.  Little did they know that I had already done rides twice and three times as long and a “century” was not far in my future.

Of course I finished that ride easily and my sponsors paid up. But the reason I am recalling that ride now is because of a near-tragedy. 

The ride crossed railroad tracks. Many riders were inexperienced and almost none wore helmets. (I didn’t!) Someone apparently didn’t realize that cyclists should ride across at a 90 degree angle, preferably while lifting themselves off their seats—or, if the tracks protrude too far off the ground or are wet, simply walk across.

That cyclist’s tire skidded against a rail and when he fell, his head struck the rail. At least that was the story I heard. About a week later, I heard that he’d recovered and was out of the hospital. I wonder, though, whether he suffered any permanent damage that wasn’t detected in those days before CAT scans (as they were called) were widely used.

I got to thinking about that incident, nearly half a century (!) later when I read about how the city of Ghent, Belgium is trying to deal with a similar problem.  Ghent and other European cities have trams—similar to the streetcars that once laced many American cities and “light rail” lines that have recently been built in Jersey City and other places. Those conveyances run on a narrower set of rails that are more likely to be at or near pavement level.  Also, in some places, cyclists and trams share the same spaces.

So while it is easier to traverse them, it is also easier to miss them or simply not to take the necessary precautions. In Ghent, with a population of around 264,000, bike crashes on tram lines send about 500 cyclists to the hospital every year.

The elastic solution would be injected in the area marked by green paint.

The city is testing a possible solution: Lining the cavity in which the track lies with a new elastic compound.  While it won’t sit completely flush with the pavement, there would be enough so that a cyclist could more easily move cross or move out of a tram’s way—and is less likely to get a tire caught between the track and pavement.