Riding To Work

"How do you do it?"

You've probably heard that from at least one colleague if you bike to work.

You suggest that co-worker could do the same.  You'll most likely hear one of these objections:

"It's too far!"

"What about the cars?  Trucks?  Buses?"

"It looks like a lot of hassle."

"How can I wear these clothes and ride?"

"What if it rains?"

"What if I get a flat tire?"

"I'll be too tired when I come in!"

The funny thing is that even after people see that you ride every day, that you haven't missed a day of work and you're refreshed, in a good mood and productive, they're still convinced cycling to work won't work for them.

Now, if someone's  commute is a two-hour drive or train ride one-way, it may well be "too far" to bike.  However, if such a commuter lives a couple of miles from a railroad station, he or she could benefit from pedaling there.  Said commuter could lock up a "clunker" at the station or ride a folding bike and bring it aboard the train, which would provide easy and quick transport from the train to the office.

From FunCheapSF

Someone who's not accustomed to riding in traffic does, of course, need grow accustomed to it.  That happens pretty quickly:  The key the is to remember that the bicycle is a vehicle, with the privileges and responsibilities that attach to it. Of course, one shouldn't pedal in an interstate, or even on the shoulder of one.  Which leads me to my next point:  Bike lanes are not, in any way, safer than streets (especially given how poorly-designed and -constructed some lanes are).  The best way to ride is to take a lane, keep to a line and remain as visible as possible to drivers. Do that, and cars, trucks and other motor vehicles will just seem like bigger fish in the sea you're swimming.

All of the other objections noncyclists raise are about issues that can be planned for or around.  Use good tires, and flats are less frequent than expected.  When they happen, they can be fixed or a tube replaced, and everyone should to make such a repair (or ride in the vicinity of bike shops that will be open during your commute).  As far as weather goes:  A new bike commuter can decide whether to ride "rain or shine".  For some, it might be a good idea not to ride in bad weather, at least in the beginning.  

And, when it comes to work attire, people have all sorts of ways of dealing with it. Some can ride in the clothes they wear on the job.  Others can duck into a bathroom and change.  (If you work in a college or school, you might have access to locker rooms and showers).  Still others keep changes of clothes at work. 

I think that the real objection that underlies the ones people usually express is that they'll "stand out" if they ride to work.  They might be seen as "weird", eccentric or vaguely subversive. I can understand that:  I have worked in offices and for organizations in which I was the only one riding to work.  I'm sure some co-workers laughed at me, and in at least one school in which I taught, students had less respect for me than they would have had I driven in to teach them.  Now there are many more bike commuters here in New York, as well as in other cities, than there were in my youth.  However, if you are living in working in a suburban area (or a city that feels more suburban than, say, San Francisco or Boston), you may have to "educate" your co-workers--not to mention the drivers you encounter on your way, who may not realize that you have as much right to (and have probably paid more for) the road. 

In one way, bicycle commuting is like a lot of other things:  Do it long enough, and it will seem absolutely normal--to you and, later, to those who try to dissuade or discourage you from it.  And you'll wonder how you didn't do it! 

The Curtain

Yesterday, for Mother's Day, I did the things one should do. In other words, I called my mother and all of the other people in my life who are mothers.

I probably could have gone to brunch with some straight women and gay men I know. Really.  Here in New York, there are restaurants and diners and cafes where you see exactly that:  divorced or otherwise single mothers within a decade or two of my age who may or may not have, or have had children, and men who--depending on when they "came out"--might have been married to such women.  Or, perhaps, they never were married, or they are married now to men and have kids.  Whatever the case, they take Mother's Day as seriously as anyone else.

I wouldn't have minded spending a quiet Sunday morning and/or afternoon with any of them.  But a mist sashayed across the higher windows of the taller buildings near my apartment and across the East River in Manhattan. But there was no threat of rain and, even though the sky was mostly overcast, it somehow hinted that the sun would come through.  And the air was pleasantly cool.

So, of course, I hopped on my bike--Arielle, my Mercian Audax,to be exact--and pedaled toward Forest Park, then the Rockaways.  As Woodhaven Boulevard turned to Beach Channel Boulevard, the mist fluttered like a scrim over treetops in front of low brick and shingle houses, and turned to a lazy ripple over the elevated train tracks of Liberty Avenue.  

After riding through Howard Beach, I glided--yes, I was feeling really good--across the bridge to a narrow strip of land that was nearly obliterated during Superstorm Sandy.  On either side of me, the mist hemmed the waves of Jamaica Bay.  Then, after I crossed another bridge into the Rockaways, I rode along the ocean.   The sun peeked out and gave the illusion of dissipating the clouds and fog.  Instead, the mist draped itself over houses and trees and the Atlantic Beach bridge, all just ahead of me.

That drape would not turn itself into a curtain of clouds or a shroud of rain.  Instead, it hung in the air--always about fifteen minutes ahead of me, it seemed--all the way to Point Lookout.

Then I rode with the mist behind me--and a veil of swirled clouds, again with no hint of rain, ahead of me all the way to the bridge from the Rockaways to Beach Channel.  On that strip of land almost lost to Sandy, the clouds broke.  I looked behind me:  The mist dissipated.  And sunlight filled the streets lined with patches of lawns and gardens that drank what fizzled and hissed from sprinklers.

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day!

I suspect that many of gave your mothers flowers, candy or any of the other gifts we associate with this day.  I'll bet that none of you gifted your mother one of these:

In case you want to buy one for Mom, look here.

If you did, you must have even more of a cycling family than the Simeses or Herses ever were!

Many years ago, I gave my mother a Peugeot mixte for Mother's Day.  As far as I know, she never rode it.  It's probably the one and only thing for which I've ever had to forgive her! ;-)

But there have been so many other things she's done to make it possible for me to ride and do many of the other things that have made my life interesting and fulfilling.  And, while she never accompanied me on any of my bike trips, she has been with me on the journey of my life--and in the particular the part that brought me from being her son to being her daughter.  

Thank you, Mom. Happy Mother's Day to you!

Il Giro Inizia Oggi

Probably the one race everyone's heard of is the Tour de France.  It's one of the oldest and most-promoted multi-day stage races and winning--or even competing in--it is regarded as one of the greatest accomplishments in all of sports.

Today, this year's edition of what is probably the second-best known race--The Giro d'Italia--begins in the Riviera city of San Lorenzo with a Team Time Trial that will end in San Remo.  Alberto Contador, winner of the 2007 and 2009 Tours, is an early favorite to win the Giro.  So is Tasmanian cyclist Richie Porte.




Contador says he is not motivated by the Tour alone--a marked contrast to other cyclists, including, ahem, a certain American--but wants to accomplish something last accompllished by Marco Pantani in 1998:  win both the Giro and the Tour.  He is motivated in part, he claims, by the crash that probably cost him a chance at winning last year's Tour.

Winning both races no mean feat because, like the Tour, the Giro encompasses three weeks of near-daily cycling over widely varying terrain in a number of different riding disciplines:  individual time trials, team time trials, sprints and long road stages, some up and down mountains.  As long as he doesn't crash again or have some other sort of bad luck, he'll complete the Giro and have about a month to recuperate before starting the Tour.  (Of course, "recuperating" for racers at such a high level involves riding more miles than most of us do on our "big ride" days!)  At the starting line in Utrecht on 4 July, he'll be up against cyclists--including some of his own teammates--who haven't ridden the Giro will therefore be fresher.

Contador sandwiched a 2008 Giro win between his Tour victories.  In that same year, he won the Vuelta a Espana--commonly considered the third great stage race of cycling--and reprised those victories in 2012 and 2014.  To date, no one has won all three races in the same year, though several of the sport's greats--including Fausto Coppi, Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Mercx, Bernard Hinault and Miguel Indurain--won two of the three in the same year.  

To state the obvious, if he takes both la maglia rosa and  le maillot jaune this year obvious, Contador  will be in elite company!
 

Jobst Brandt R.I.P.

Late yesterday, I learned about the passing of Jobst Brandt.

As “The Retrogrouch” and others have pointed out, he had a rare combination of skills and talents:  vast and deep technical knowledge, and the ability to communicate it clearly in everyday English that those of us who are less technically-oriented can understand.  He’s one of those people who didn’t let all of his theoretical knowledge get in the way of pure and simple common sense. 

 

Because of his qualities, he—whether or not it was his intention—helped to create, along with the late Sheldon Brown and a few others—something I’ll call, for lack of any other term, a communal wisdom base for cyclists.

For generations, cyclists in Europe (especially England and France), Japan and other places learned about places and ways to ride, and which equipment was and wasn’t worth buying, from their local clubs or other experienced cyclists they’d meet.  In the US, that infrastructure, if you will, was all but lost during the decades between World War I and the 1970’s Bike Boom.  There were a few who kept the flame flickering.  But if you wanted to find out what Fred (!) DeLong had to say about tires or gearing, Dick Swann’s ideas about frame structure and geometry or John Forester’s wisdom about cycling and traffic safety, you had to be near a bike shop or newsstand that had copies of the magazines in which they were published, or a library that had their books.

In other words, cycling in the US was basically a sea full of ships passing in the night.   As often as not, you learned what you learned by having the fortune to chance upon the right people (or publications) at the right time.  Such was the world I entered when I first became a dedicated cyclist during the Bike Boom.

What made this situation difficult for new cyclists was something I didn’t understand at the time, or for many years afterward:  While the advice and wisdom your fellow riders shared with you was, usually sound, as it was based on experience, it didn’t come with a cogent explanation of why it was so.  Either the cyclist who gave it to you couldn’t analyze it technically, or he (the type I’m about to describe was usually male) was a “techie” who was on the frontiers of the autism spectrum.  I’m thinking now of a cyclist in my first club, a brilliant engineer who was the first person I saw riding a fixed gear outside of a track.  He proselytized for his setup but couldn’t explain the benefits of it in a way that made sense.

Jobst Brandt

When someone like Jobst Brandt discussed, for example, wheelbuilding or particular wheel components, you’d come away understanding wheels and their components better than you did before.  And the knowledge he imparted helped you to understand, among other things, why that newest boutique wheelset was probably a waste of money for you and just about anyone else who has to pay for his or her own equipment.  

Although he tended to favor the best classic equipment over the latest thing, I think “The Retrogrouch” is correct in saying that he’d bristle at being labeled a “retrogrouch”.  He didn’t praise vintage stuff just because it was vintage.  (If you don’t believe me, read what he says about Sturmey-Archer three-speed hubs.  And he was talking about the ones that were made before Sun Race took over SA!) Moreover, he wasn’t averse to trying to improve what was already available:  After all, he designed Avocet Fas-Grip tires, still some of the best road rubber many of us have ever ridden.  

In brief, the man knew the difference between real technological innovation and the mere appearance of it.  In making that difference clear to us, he allowed us to see how rare true technological innovation actually is (something he, as an engineer, no doubt understood better than most other people) and how the appearance of it is turned into marketing hype.

Arthur Godfrey was an avid hunter who later became an ardent conservationist in an era when such a conversion was all but unheard-of.  A reporter once asked him why he still displayed the animals’ heads and other hunting trophies.  “To remind me of how stupid I once was,” he replied. 

Likewise, I save my mangled Rev-Xs, Kysriums, carbon forks and other techno-junk to remind myself of how ignorant I was before I encountered Jobst Brandt.  I’ll miss him. So will countless other cyclists.