Riding After Ernesto

 Yesterday’s weather reflected May more than August: a high temperature of 24C (75F) and cumulus clouds drifting across a sun-filled sky. It followed a couple of days with similar conditions:  After the heavy rains of last weekend, could it have been a “gift” from Hurricane Ernesto.

During my ride, I saw other reminders of his visit. I cycled down to Rockaway Beach and east along the south shore of Queens and Nassau County to Point Lookout. Swimming was prohibited in all of the beaches I passed—and the ones I saw on my ride ride back, which I continued along the coast to Jacob Riis Park, Sheepshead Bay, Coney Island and the Verrazano-Narrows promenade before turning “inland” where Bay Ridge meets Sunset Park and pedaling through Brooklyn and Queens back to the Bronx.

One interesting phenomenon about the aftermath of a hurricane is its effect on tides. After a storm passes, the water’s calm surface may hide a strong undercurrent—hence the swimming ban.  It also can lead not only to strong high tides but, almost counterintuitively, cause the tide to recede even further than it normally does, as I saw at Point Lookout.  

Someone—a resident, I believe—remarked that on one of the most beautiful days, weather-wise, he’d experienced, he’d “never seen the tide so far out.”

Oh, and I should mention another reminder that a strong storm had passed:  It seemed that no matter which way I pedaled, a strong wind blew at my back or face.  I didn’t mind:  Even when I fought it, the wind seemed to make the day even more beautiful.

Oh, and by my calculations, I did a bit more than a “century” in miles (about 105, or 169 kilometers). Does that mean I’ve extended my “midlife” just a bit more.

Did Drillium Hit A “Wall?”

 If you are a cyclist in, ahem, late midlife, you remember the “drillium” craze of the 1970s and early 1980s. Some component manufacturers offered “holey” stuff—usually chainrings (which sometimes looked quite nice, especially if they were black and the holes were silver) and other non-weight bearing parts. Most manufacturers, however, advised against customers drilling at home: They claimed that their parts were already as light as they could be without compromising safety.

The “drillium” craze also included fluting and slotting parts like brake levers, stems and seatposts.  Then there is this Zeus crankset, which I recently saw on Craigslist:

During the time this crankset was made, one of the ways Zeus tried to appeal to racers and weight weenies was by offering stuff that was “lighter than Campy.” (They were one of the first manufacturers to use titanium.) To me, this crankset represents the heights or depths, depending on your point of view, of “drillium,” just as some listeners will say that Pink Floyd’s “The Wall,” which came out at around the same time, highlights the best or worst things about progressive rock.

Moonlight Cruise

 Yesterday I combined a daytime ride with “taking care of business.” That meant crossing into Harlem and pedaling—sailing, really, with the wind at my back—down the Hudson River Greenway to the World Trade Center, where I boarded a PATH train to Journal Square, Jersey City.

As I rode the streets of the Bronx, Manhattan and Jersey City,I was surprised at how little traffic I saw. Could it be that the NYC Metro Area is experiencing an “August absence “ like that of Paris and other European cities?

Traffic was so light, in fact, that when I resumed my trip in Jersey City, I rolled down JFK Boulevard—a “stroad” I would not take under other circumstances—all the way to the Bayonne Bridge, where I crossed into Staten Island.

Ironically, I saw the densest crowds on the Ferry’s observation decks. Most of the people were, of course, tourists. But the few who seemed to have ridden the Ferry before couldn’t’ve been blamed for standing in the cool breeze.

Tell me, where else can you go on a moonlight cruise for free?

And my “moonlight cruise” continued on La-Vande, my King of Mercia, up through Manhattan where, I believe, I could’ve navigated by the August blue moon even if all of the neon and street lights—and all of the headlamps on cars, trucks and buses—had gone dark. 

I saw only one other cyclist and one runner as I wound my way up Central Park to Adam Clayton Boulevard *, where people seemed to enjoy the night as much as I did.

*—You can tell someone is native to the neighborhood if they call it “7th Avenue,” just as no New Yorker refers to 6th Avenue as “Avenue of the Americas,” its official name since 1945.