He Carries Roses. I See…

 Today is, of course, Valentine’s Day. 

Like many holidays that have been co-opted by capitalism, current celebrations seem to have little or no apparent relation to whom the day was originally dedicated. At least, almost no one is thinking of that person while sharing a romantic dinner or buying or giving cuddle toys, chocolates and roses.

(Call me sick or whatever you like, but when I see a dude walking down the street with a bouquet of roses, I can’t help but to think that within an hour and a half, a woman will be flat on her back.)

Anyway, St. Valentine was, according to at least one story, a priest or bishop who secretly married soldiers, in defiance of Emperor Claudius II, and aided persecuted Christians.  While imprisoned, he was said to have restored the sight of his jailer’s daughter and wrote her a letter signed, “From Your Valentine.”

That deed and others were deemed miracles, and were among the reasons why he was beatified. But his continued defiance of the emperor led to his execution in 270 CE, which the church saw as martyrdom and another factor in his canonization.

Now, I can understand making him the patron saint of lovers because he married those soldiers and showed his love (which some have speculated as, umm, not entirely Platonic) for the jailer’s daughter. But what any of that has to do with candy and flowers or candlelight dinners is beyond me.

In case you were wondering, I took a ride today—solo.  It was great.

Riding With Abe

 On this date in 1809, Abraham Lincoln, the 16th US President, was born. Even if biographies portray him as a better President or person than he actually was, I can imagine him spinning in his grave if he could see the current occupant* of the office and residence he graced.

When I was in elementary school, Lincoln’s birthday was a national holiday, as George Washington’s (22 February) was.  Now we have “Presidents’ Day,**” which will be observed on Monday.  

Given that he was assassinated in 1865, it’s unlikely that he mounted anything we would today recognize as a bicycle.  But it’s fun to speculate on what it might’ve looked like if he had:

* —I refuse to put the name of the White House squatter current occupant in the same sentence with Lincoln.  Abe doesn’t deserve that.

**—I hate the term because it implies that we are honoring all of them, including Andrew Jackson, James Buchanan,  James Polk, Millard Fillmore, Andrew Johnson, William McKinley, Warren G. Harding, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush and you-know-who.

Call Tnem What You Will, They Were First

 As I’ve lived deeper into midlife, I care less about genres of cycling. Turns out, I’ve practiced most of them, consciously or not, sometimes even before they were named as such. For example, I rode on trails and other non-paved surfaces years before I heard about “mountain biking” or “gravel riding,” let alone saw bikes made specifically for them.

I say that not to boast, but to say that I’ve simply loved mounting my saddle and spinning my pedals. In a similar vein, I feel fulfilled when I write and have stopped thinking about whether the words I set to a paper or screen are blogging, journalism, poetry or something else. Those labels, like, those for bicycle  journeys (which is what they all are, whether they bring you to the office or someplace “exotic”) are as arbitrary as the distinctions between races and nations.

I mention all of that because of something that reminds how I came to the attitudes I’ve just expressed from looking down on people with bicycles (I didn’t even call them “cyclists!”) who didn’t ride as long, hard or often as I did, on bikes that weren’t as nice as mine. Calling me a “recreational cyclist” (which no one did in those days, at least when I was in earshot 😉)was, to my mind, akin to branding me a dilettante.

These days, I’m simply glad to see people on bikes. I don’t even look down on e-bikes anymore, at least the pedal-assist models, because they keep many older riders (of which, ahem, I am not one ☺️) and people with disabilities on two wheels.

For that reason, I believe there’s an anniversary worth celebrating today.  On this date in 1878, the Boston Bicycle Club—believed to be the first organization in the US, if not the world, devoted to recreational cycling, was founded in the city for which it was named.  

BBC promoted cycling, organized community rides and established some of the first safety standards.  The latter was no small consideration, as cyclists were still on high-wheelers and “ safety” bicycles with two wheels of equal or nearly equal size were several years in the future.

Call them whatever kind of cyclists you will, but they sound like my kind.c