In the middle of the journey of my life, I am--as always--a woman on a bike. Although I do not know where this road will lead, the way is not lost, for I have arrived here. And I am on my bicycle, again.
Bigger is better. Height makes right. Size matters. You've heard all of those ridiculous notions before. Of course I don't believe any of them: If I did, I never could have undergone a certain medical procedure that has allowed me to become, completely, the person I am. There was, however, a time when I believed "bigger is better", "height makes right" and "size matters". When I was a kid, I wanted to "graduate" to bigger bikes. That meant going from a bike with 20 inch wheels--like most "choppers" and other kids' bikes of the time--to one with 26 inch wheels, like the kind found on three-speed bikes. Later, I would believe--as many other people did--that 27 inch wheels were one of the things that made ten-speed bikes "better" than other kinds of bikes. Now we have "29ers"--which are really just 700C wheels with wider rims and tires. That size is used mainly for mountain bikes, though I have heard of a few other kinds of bikes made with it. Not to be outdone, Patrick Ng has designed a "39er":
Yes, that bike has 39 inch wheels. Of course, such a bike cannot have the same frame dimensions as a 29er, let alone a 26 inch mountain bike or 700C road bike.
As an example, the chainstays measure 637 mm and the total wheelbase is 1487mm. To put that into perspective, a typical 29er has chainstays of about 440 to 465 mm and wheelbase of 1160 to 1220 mm. Touring bikes with 700 C wheels have similar dimensions, while racing bikes are shorter.
Perhaps the wildest part of this bike's design is its steering: The handlebars are nestled inside the main triangle and control the fork by a pair of cogs linked with a chain. The handlebars are so placed to give a riding position roughly similar to that of a 29er bike and to prevent massive toe overlap with the front wheel. Perhaps you are scared or appalled by this bike. Or you might want to be the first kid on your block to have it. If you're of the latter category, you're out of luck: This bike is no more than an artist's rendering of Patrick Ng's whimsical design, and there are no plans to produce it. This bike, however, is not the first far-fetched machine Mr. Ng has designed. Check out his Ridiculous Bikes--Roost Carbon: Only the 28 inch wheels bear any semblance to current standards. Its 188 mm rear axle spacing (vs. 130 on current road bikes and 135 on mountain bikes) is needed to accomodate the 13-speed cassette with a range of 11 to 53 teeth. And, with its 1500 mm wheelbase, I can only imagine (as if I want to!) how it handles. Patrick Ng may have designed these bikes tongue-in-cheek, and we can laugh at them. But one thing we should have learned in recent years is that no idea is so ridiculous that it won't become an industry standard. If anyone decides to produce 39ers, the marketing campaign could include one of my favorite Queen songs:
Now, if someone wants to outdo Mr. Ng, he or she would have to design a "49er". That person could get rich by linking it to a certain San Francisco sports team. Of course, it would have to be painted red and gold!
Maybe, even after all of these years, I'm not a real New Yorker after all: I still enjoy the views when I'm crossing some of this city's bridges. This morning, as I wheeled across the Queens span of the RFK Memorial/Triborough Bridge, a woman who I thought was out for her morning run stopped mid-span to take photos of the skyline. I didn't mutter "tourist" or any of the other epithets a jaded resident of the Big Apple might hurl at such a person. In fact, I stopped to snap a picture. But I didn't take one of those photos that includes silhouettes of the UN Towers and the Empire State and Chrysler Buildings. Instead, I turned my camera (my cell phone, actually--the woman was using a real camera) in the opposite direction:
The Hell Gate Bridge, which carries Amtrak trains to and from New Haven, Providence and Boston, winds through the Bronx and upper Manhattan. They are to the west (and north) of Astoria, where I live and begin my commute. You can see the skies turning gray to the west. That meant, of course, that the clear skies I was enjoying as I crossed the bridge would, more than likely, move across the river. And, depending on what time of day I went home, I could contend with rain while crossing the bridge or on the other side. Most of the commutes I've done to jobs I've had in the past have taken me along streets in residential, commercial or industrial areas. I get to sample all three during my current commute. However, riding to my current job also involves riding over the Queens span of the RFK/Triborough Bridge which, at mid-point, is separated from the East River by about 90 meters (145 feet). It's a bit like riding in a helicopter: It allows me views I never had on previous commutes. It also allows me to see incoming weather in ways I never could before. I still listen to the weather report before I leave and prepare myself accordingly. As useful as that is, there's still nothing like seeing a real-time video of the day's conditions unfolding. The raingear is in my pannier, but literally seeing what's on the horizon prepares me in a unique way for a ride home that could be very different from my ride to work.
In earlier posts, I've written about "playing chicken with the rain". On days when precipitation the clouds look ready to drop buckets, I might for a ride, all the while daring the sky to deal me a deluge. I feel I've "won" the "game", if you will, when I arrive home (or wherever I'm going) just as the first drops plop against my skin. Today there was absolutely no risk of rain. It was one of those perfect fall days, with the kind of sunlight that feels as if it's trickling through leaves even though the sky is blue. And the wind and the waves echo a softly crackling flame. At least, they seem as if they should. The waves...Yes, I took an afternoon ride to the Rockaways. Although the water is still warm enough (at least for someone like me) to swim, the air was cool enough that nobody tried. In fact, the only people in the water were a few surfers.
But I was playing chicken. You see, I started in the middle of the afternoon and lingered on the boardwalk (actually, it's concrete now) at Rockaway Park. A month or two ago, I could have lingered--or ridden--even longer than I did. Well, actually, I could have done that today, too. But I was also thinking about the time of day--or, more precisely, the time at which the day would end.
After lingering, I rode some more along the boardwalk and, after crossing the Veterans Memorial Bridge into Beach Channel and Howard Beach, took a circuitous route through streets of wood-frame houses--some with boats in their driveways--away from the ocean and bay and up the gradual climb to Forest Park, right in the middle of Queens. From Forest, I rode streets I've ridden dozens, if not hundreds of times before as the sun began its descent just beyond the railroad tracks and the East River. Yes, I got back to my apartment just as the twilight began to deepen into evening and the street lamps were lighting. I had lights with me-- I always keep them in my under-seat bag--but I didn't have to use them.
In other words, I played chicken with the sunset. And "won"!
Every city's mass transit system has its own rules about bringing bicycles onto trains, buses and other vehicles within the system. Here in the New York Metropolitan area, each part of the system seems to have its own regulations. For example, on PATH trains, bikes are allowed only in certain cars on the train, while on Long Island Rail Road and Metro North and New Jersey Transit trains, bikes are allowed during certain hours and in certain areas of each car. On the other hand, in New York City subways, there don't seem to be any rules at all. At least, I haven't found any, aside from a prohibition against locking a bicycle to any part of a station, such as a gate. But there is a certain unwritten etiquette which, from what I've seen, nearly every cyclist follows. Mostly, it's common courtesy: Don't block doorways or get in people's way, and try to keep your grimy bike away from passengers' clean clothes. And try not to bring your bike on the train during rush hours! I try not to bring my bike onto the subway at all, not out of fear, but mostly out of pride. I prefer to ride the entire length of my route whenever I can; I'd rather be riding my bike on even the busiest streets than wheeling or holding it in a crowded subway car. If I've had a mechanical breakdown or some other problem (thankfully, these things have been rare for me) and have no other way of getting to a bike shop, home, work or wherever else I have to be, I'll get on the train. Also, if I stay out later than I'd planned and I don't have lights with me, or if it's a cold day and it starts to rain heavily, I'll get on the train for safety and health reasons. But I try, at all costs, to avoid "bailing out" because of tiredness. That, to me, is an admission of defeat. I can't remember the last time I did that, but I can recall one or two occasions when I got on the train because I just didn't feel like riding anymore. I wonder what this guy was thinking and feeling when he got on the train:
Some have called last night's debate "depressing". I was too much in shock to be depressed. The last time I felt that way about an event in which I was not personally involved was on 11 September 2001. Like many other people here in New York, I was stunned for days, for weeks, afterward. Then came grief, a sense of loss: Even though I didn't lose anyone I knew in the events of that day, I felt a sense of loss. When a complete stranger cried on my shoulder, I held her until she got off the bus we were riding. We didn't speak and I never saw her again. Each of us understood, I believe, and gave each other what we needed in that moment. I had not thought about that encounter in years, until now. Some have seen that time as a kind of Fall, when this country lost its collective innocence. The days and weeks that followed--which, as I recall, were unusually warm for the time of year--did not feel autumnal. The holidays, like the days that preceded and followed them, passed through a kind of gray storm in which needles of ice rained down even on the clearest of days. Those first glacial spears stung; the ones that followed stunned; after that, I was too numb to feel the rest, for a long time. There may have been a Fall that year. But the season that followed did not feel Autumnal: that October and November felt just like the following January and February, in no small part because those months were--up to that time--the warmest winter months this city had experienced. Today, in contrast, felt exactly the way some of us might have, at some time in our lives, expected a day from this time of year to feel. Today began overcast but turned, rather quickly, into an afternoon with a blue sky lit by intense sunlight that hinted at the sunset that would tinge the horizon a few hours later. The morning's chill had, by that time, turned into a nip. In other words, it felt like the Fall day it is. It was that day when one realizes that the season is well underway: It's no longer possible to say that summer has just passed, but winter, though everyone knows it will come, does not yet seem imminent. Fewer cars and taxis and buses plied the street on which I live, or the avenue around the corner or the other streets that branched from it, than one sees on a typical Monday. The reason, of course, is that today is a holiday (as I like to say, for a guy who got lost): the one that always seems, to me, the one that signals that it is indeed Fall.
On this holiday last year, I was in Montreal, where--ironically--it was warmer, more like a September day here in New York and the leaves of the iconic maple trees that line the city's streets blazed in the sun. Montrealers, like other Canadians, don't celebrate Columbus Day. Rather, the second Monday of October is, for them, Thanksgiving Day. I certainly was thankful for having such a wonderful day to ride and interesting places to explore. I had those things, today, too. So of course I went for a ride. I didn't plan anything, not even which of my bikes I rode. As it turned out, I took Tosca, my fixed gear Mercian, for a spin. Perhaps I chose her because, somehow, I knew--my body knew--that I needed to keep my feet spinning. But I was not riding for escape: In fact, it was quite the opposite. Where did I go? I know I pedaled through various parts of Brooklyn and Queens; I think I even popped into Nassau County, briefly, and back again into the borough I now call home, into the one I called home The Day The Towers Fell, and back home. That ride gave me exactly what I needed, for I did what I needed to do. And I am satisfied now. (Note: I didn't take any photos during my ride. The image you see was made by Matt Hyde.)
