Reaching For The Skies On Our Bikes

Twice I have pedaled through clouds and once, when looking into the horizon, I saw a jet cruising at an altitude a few hundred feet lower than the peak I had just ascended on my bike.


So, as you can imagine, I have respect for Avi and Jesse:

They were riding down a side street near the boardwalk in Long Beach, on the South Shore of Nassau County.  They had just ridden on that boardwalk, as I would soon afterward.  

Avi, who's in this photo, and Jesse are members of a hardcore-punkish-funkish band called White Goblin.  As if that isn't enough to make realize how middle-aged and bourgeois I am, they said they've been to nearly every Critical Mass ride for the past ten years or so.  


They--especially Avi--are very engaging, and that is almost reason enough to go to their next performance.  I wonder whether they'll go to it on the bikes they rode today:

They built their two-story bikes from a variety of frames and parts.  They even did their own welding.  It's not the most elegant work, but I give them "props" for it. After all, I've never welded anything.  


And, yes, Jesse was riding in his bare feet.


Perhaps that's not as shocking as the three-high bike he told me he built, or the double-decker tandem (made from two tandems) Avi says he made.

For these guys, a Pedersen would be a "comfort" bike.


They expressed as much admiration for Arielle as I did for their bikes.  


Then it was off to Point Lookout, for my first ride there this year. 

And Arielle soaked up the rays:

Motorists With Spring Fever

Today was one of those spring days when the wind, brisk as it was, felt like a form of light and the mild, almost warm, air held nary a hint that there could be strife in this world.


We, as cyclists, live for days like this.  Actually, I can't think of anyone who wouldn't look forward to such a day.

But every year, on the first definitively Spring day (as opposed to the first day with spring-like weather), some people lose their grip on themselves, especially when they're driving.  Some might be young and have just fallen in love; others simply are intoxicated, perhaps. 


So, along with the lovely weather came some absolutely crazy drivers.  You know the kind I mean: the ones who cut across lanes and make turns without signalling, or simply don't pay attention to the road ahead or beside them.  Or the ones that drive close enough to you to scrape the crochet backing off your gloves and let their dogs bark, drool or chomp out of the back windows. "Awww...isn't he the cutest thing you ever saw..."


I think that such weather, and the beginning of spring,  coming later than usual affets people, including me, in all sorts  of ways.  Sometimes it's fun, but when someone cuts across the lanes, not so much


Oh well.  I made it home from work.  And tomorrow we  will have more l

Kneecapped by Walmart?

It's a conspiracy, I tell ya.  The other night, my flight from Atlanta was delayed by almost three hours.  So I got home late Monday night and didn't feel like doing much of anything. (When I go to my parents', I usually fly to Atlanta, then to one of the NY Metro area airports.)  

Then, last night, I didn't have any internet connection.


Ya no, I got to thinkin' that Sam Wall himself was behind everything.  Mr. Wall, I'm sorry about all of those terrible things I said about your fine retail establishment.  I will never, ever use the name "Wal-Mart" in the perjorative, ever again.  Yes, I promise (as I use Catholic school birth control, a.k.a., I cross my fingers).


So now you think I'm a conspiracy theorist.  Well, not really.  I haven't said anything bad about Obama since he showed his birth certificate.  (All right, I never was a "birther.")  But sometimes I think certain people-- e.g., certain retail plutocrats--have it in for me.  Or could it be that the gods of something are angry--or crazy?


And I haven't done any cycling since I got home.  Something's afoot, and it ain't my old Detto Pietro shoes with TA Anquetil cleats (the kind that nailed onto the sole).  

I know.  I'll get to ride again.  At my age, I should know that.  Still, I worry that I'll lose this spring, the way I lost most of last spring.  Well, not quite:  Last spring, I had infections and other illnesses.  At least this year, my excuses are Life and the weather.  (For a few moments just after noon, the sky grew ominously dark and  I thought we might see another tornado here in NYC.)


At least for the last couple of days I had memories of a couple of pleasant, if short, rides from my parents' house.


  

Buying A Tire at Wal-Mart

I promise:  This won't be merely a rant against a corporate monolith.  However, I am warning you that this post will contain one.  So proceed at your own peril.

Yesterday, as I mentioned, I got a flat.  Since Mom and Dad don't ride, and the bike was borrowed, there was no spare tire or tube in the house.  So Dad took me to Wal-Mart, which was the only store open, to get them.

I bought a mountain bike tire and two tubes.  The total cost, with tax, was $25.88.  That doesn't sound bad, except that I know that I could have gotten something of better quality online, or even from my local bike shops, for less money.  And these tires and tubes were the only ones offered in the store.

The tire and tubes were from Bell, which seems to have become a generic brand of bike parts and accessories without being, or admitting to being, generic.  I've used Bell helmets, which were fine. But I see, at best, a tenuous connection between whoever is making the tires and tubes and whoever is making the helmets. 

So, it seems, Wal-Mart is now taking advantage of the apparent lack of competition in the area by offering a limited selection and inferior quality at whatever prices they can get away with charging.  

And don't get me started on the way the company treats its employees.  That they were working on a holiday, for minimum wage,  was bad enough.  But the workers--even the young floor manager--didn't seem very healthy.  And the cashier--one of those wonderful Southern women of a certain age who calls everyone "hon" and "darlin'"--was missing nearly all of her teeth.

She probably couldn't have afforded the tires and tubes I'd just bought.

Not A Swamper

I've never pretended, even for a moment, that I could be a "swamper."  Even though I was born in Georgia, which has more than its share of swampland, I spent only the first few months of my life there.  And I know that, as much as I love Sweet Home Alabama, I will never have the same feeling for the places figure into that song as the ones who wrote and performed it.

However, spending a few days in Florida, especially when I have the opportunity to ride, allows me to appreciate the beauty of the wetlands I see here.  For one thing, they're full of flora and fauna one simply doesn't find on drier lands, or any lands north of the Potomac.  And, for another, these swamps glisten in the sunlight in ways that no other kind of landscape can.  I suppose that if I spent more time in and with it, I could describe it better.  For now, all I can say is that their perpetual greenness somehow makes the water seem bluer, and gives everything a feeling that is pristine and ancient at the same time.  It's as if those lands, and the water and plants that cover them, could neither reflect nor belie the ways in which the human race has or hasn't touched it.

But when you're out in the middle of one of these swamps--or even riding a bike lane that cuts through it--in the middle of a bright summer today, like the one I experienced today, it's just plain hot.  And it's even hotter when you get a flat and there's no shade to cover you when you're fixing it.

Now, having fixed it and eaten an Easter dinner (ham, baked sweet potatoes, Italian-style asparagus and tomato and mozzerella slices drizzled with olive oil, among other things), I can sit here and celebrate the beauty of what I saw.