Our Winter Is Their Sunrise

As I've mentioned in my previous two posts, we in New York are having the coldest weather we've had in two years.  Everybody's talking about it:  I think we were spoiled by such a mild season last year.

Still, we're getting off pretty easy compared to people in other parts of the world.  Either of the past two days would have been utterly balmy in, say, Duluth, Minnesota.  On an average January day, the high temperature there is 18F(-8C)--about what it was yesterday.  Today it was about five degrees (F) warmer.  And our night temperatures have been nowhere near as cold as the  -1F (-18C) folks in Duluth experience on a typical January night.

Aside from the mild winter we had last year, the cold is affecting people in the Big Apple for another reason:  wind.  The wind has, at times, gusted to nearly 30MPH (50KPH), and has steadily blown at 10-12MPH (16-21KPH).  That, of course, gives the cold a "bite" it wouldn't otherwise have.

However, there is one area in which, barring dramatic climate changes, New York winters will never compare with those in Duluth:  snow.  We should be thankful for small things:  The cold and wind here have been dry, and the skies almost preternaturally clear.  (Somehow, skies seem--to me, anyway-- clearer when it's cold.)  The city by Lake Superior, in contrast, is almost always covered with snow at this time of year, mainly because when snow falls, it tends to stay for longer than it does here in the New York islands.

So, I have to give major "props" to any year-round bike commuter in Duluth--like Doug, the author of MnBicycleCommuter.  When the roads are covered with snow, he rides a Surly Pugsley with the widest tires he can fit. 

Now, if I had to ride in the kind of cold Doug regularly experiences, I wouldn't mind a view like that.  I've pedalled into the sunrise:  It put me in a good mood for work.

Doug definitely deserves such views. So does anyone else who rides in those conditions!

Les Alpes Maritimes Sur Flushing Bay

Last night the temperature dropped below 10F for the first time in two years.  When I left my place, it was 12F, and the wind-chill was below zero.

So I did took the most sensible route for today's commute:  the one that takes me along the water.

For a moment, I actually envisioned myself among the snow-capped peaks of the Alps.  I rode up mountains (Avoriaz, Galibier and Colle d'Agnello/Col d'Agnell) whose roads were banked by snow--and whose peaks were covered them--when the weather was warm enough to ride comfortably in shorts and a cycling jersey. 

Today's weather, of course, was nothing like that.  However, I didn't have to do any climbing.  Along the Cote d'Azur and in Liguria, the mountains tumble all the way to the sea.  People who've spent their entire lives in this part of the world probably cannot imagine such a coastline.

This is probably the closest they'll come to seeing anything like it:

 

Just Vera, The Red Allez And An Old Mountain Bike

Today we had the coldest weather we've had in two years.  Last night it got down to 15F; the weather forecasters say that it may drop to 10F or below tonight.

One way you know we're having a real winter is to look at the bike racks where I work:

The only bikes parked there are Vera, the red Allez that's been there seemingly every day and an old Fuji mountain bike.

Are they ridden by hardy souls or addled minds? Now there's a question for a campus debate!

21 January 2013

They Should've Been Riding Bikes

Yesterday I wrote about the Long Island Motor Parkway, which, in its history, has been one of America's first race courses and one of its first automotive expressways--and would become of the last bike lanes to open in New York for nearly half a century.  Now it's a segment of what is supposed to become the Brooklyn-Queens Greenway.

So, perhaps, there was some weird sort of synchronicity, or whatever you want to call it, at work when I found this image on one of my favorite non-bike blogs, Old Picture of the Day:

20 January 2013

Riding An Early Race Course

Believe it or not, this was once an automobile race course.

It was also one of America's first expressways.  At least, it was one of the first roads to be designed so that drivers wouldn't have to stop for traffic lights, railroad crossings or many of the other things they'd have to contend with on conventional roadways.

Of course, when it was serving the functions I described, it didn't have all of the trees and other vegetation growing on its sides.  That was allowed after the road became a bike/pedestrian path.

Yes, the path in the photo was once part of the Long Island Motor Parkway, which I mentioned in an earlier post.  Now it's a segment of the planned Brooklyn-Queens Greenway.

I don't know whether storm damage has been cleared, or whether there wasn't much of it on the path.  Running through the middle of Queens, it's several miles from either the north or south shores and, I would assume, out of the path of a storm surge.

Here the former Parkway takes a turn underneath the expressway--the Northern State Parkway--that rendered it obsolete for automotive use.

When it carried automobile traffic, the Parkway had  several "toll lodges". (Don't you just love that term?)  One of them now serves as a Parks Department facility in Cunningham Park:

Tosca was clearly enjoying the ride, as I was: