Taking A Stand

In my youth, bicycles were scarcely mentioned at all in daily newspapers.  Editors, it seemed, reflected the attitude most Americans held: Bikes were for kids, and not worthy of "serious" consideration.

Bikes appeared in daily newspapers only in public service announcements about bike safety (some actually told kids to get off their bikes at every intersection and walk their bikes across) buried deep in the paper.  Or, perhaps, a bike shop would take out an ad for a sale or the holidays.

Never did I imagine that any paper would ever post reviews of bicycles--or of bike accessories.  So imagine my surprise when I saw a review of double-leg kickstands in the Chicago Tribune's online edition.

From The Chicago Tribune

I think the review's author, Kevin Luna, did a good job.  He evaluated kickstands on a number of factors, including ease of installation, crispness of the mechanism and whether or not the length of the legs can be adjusted.  He thought the best overall came from Luminitrail, BV offered the "best bang for the buck" and that Velo Orange's offering (the Copenhagen) merited an "honorable mention."

Mind you, I'm not in the market for a double-leg kickstand, but I can understand why someone would want them for a cargo bike or any loaded machine.  If nothing else, they make more sense than single-leg kickstands. 

Using Bicycles To Break A Cycle

Community-minded cyclists have started organizations like New York's Recycle-a-Bicycle all over the US.  Their stated goals usually include, keeping old but serviceable bicycles out of landfills, providing good bicycles that are affordable (many such organizations sell bikes to finance, among  other things, giving bikes to the poor) and helping people learn bicycle-related skills.

That last goal often has another positive side effect:  It engages young people.  Kids who are misfits or outcasts become confident when they ride with cyclists who want to share their love of cycling, or when they learn how to fix or even build bikes.  

Any time a kid is involved with an activity that takes dedication--whether it's cycling, chess, a school magazine, dance or something else--he or she is less likely to be involved with gangs, drugs or other things that can adversely affect their lives and futures.

From Remember Us Urban Scouts' Facebook page

Now it seems that organizations that serve young people are seeing the value of cycling.  One such organization is Remember Us Urban Scouts of Columbus, Ohio. It has partnered with the city's Parks and Recreation Department to create a mobile bike shop that will be sent into low-income communities.

"One thing that impacts people that live in low-income areas is mobility," obsereves Ayriq Sims.  The RUUS Program Director explained that in such communities, people lack transportation because they family may not have a car, the kid doesn't have a bike and nobody in the family can afford bus fare.  

The result is that kids can't, for example, get to the activities that build social skills and positive memories for young people.  They thus feel alienated and are easy to recruit into gangs, or are otherwise vulnerable to getting sucked into get involved in the worst the streets have to offer.  If it doesn't lead to jail or death, Sims says, it can lead to "lifelong trauma."

So, Remember Us Urban Scouts is extending work that urban bicycle recycling programs and bike clubs are already doing:  Using a bicycle to break a cycle--of youth violence.

What Was He Riding?

Today is Palm Sunday.

I haven't been part of any religion or faith tradition in a long time.  I did, however, attend Catholic school and was an altar boy. (That sounds so odd to me after more than a decade and a half of living as female.) One thing I recall is that while we had an hour of religious instruction every day and were brought to confession after our Friday classes, we were not encouraged to read the Bible. 

Later on, I did read the book on my own and, in fact, was even part of a couple of study groups.  I came to the conclusion that while the Roman church might have had its own reasons to discourage Bible reading, it probably saved me, if unintentionally, from falling down the rabbit hole of all rabbit holes:  Biblical interpretation.

Since I can't read the Biblical languages, I can't say which translations are the most accurate, or which interpretations are closest to, as Constituional fundamentalists would say, the original intent.  (Constitutional scholarship might be the second-deepest rabbit hole.)  Was God male, or did God become so because of translations?  Did Jesus turn water into an alcoholic beverage rather than wine, and should Matthew 6:11 read "Give us this day our daily nourishment"?

Palm Sunday commemorates Jesus' entry into Jerusalem on, as recounted in Matthew 21.  Traditionally, this account has him riding a donkey.  But at least one Biblical scholar that someone was exercising poetic license, if you will, and argues that the story should have him astride a "pack animal" or "vehicle."

Hmm...How far can we take such an interpretation?

Inventing One Kind Of Superhighway, Getting Another

Folks in that part of the world invented one kind of superhighway.  Now they might get another.

San Jose is the largest city and seat of Santa Clara County, California.  Just south of San Francisco, the county is part of "Silicon Valley," where the technology that brought this blog to your screen--often called the "information superhighway" was developed.

Now it might see a "superhighway" that's more closely associated with parts of Europe than any place in the United States.  It would run 10 miles  through San Jose and Santa Clara. What would differentiate it from the county's  800 miles of bikeways and 200 miles of dedicated bike trails is continuity.  Local activists and commuters, like their counterparts in other US locales (including my hometown), complain that too many lanes and trails go from "nowhere to nowhere," beginning and ending in seemingly-arbitrary spots, and are thus not useful as transportation conduits.

From San Jose Spotlight

This "superhighway" was recently proposed as part of the Santa Clara Countywide Bike Plan.  Three different routes have been suggested.  Information about the progress of this project can be found on the Valley Transportation Authority's website--which you will access, of course, by the other kind of superhighway.

Where Hipsters And Millenials Dare Not Tread

 Yesterday afternoon, I took another ride into the heart of Brooklyn.  What, exactly does that mean?  Well, the way I'm using the term, I mean a place where no hipster or white milennial dares to tread.  Or, you might say that it's anyplace along the 2,3,4 or 5 subway lines past the Eastern Parkway-Brooklyn Museum stop, or the L (a.k.a. the Hipster Express) beyond the Aberdeen-Bushwick stop.

No, I didn't ride up those tracks!  They carry the L train along Van Sinderen Avenue, widely seen as the border between the two toughest neighborhoods in Brooklyn, if not the whole city:  Brownsville and East New York.  I was on the Brownsville side, where Riddick Bowe and Mike Tyson were born and raised.  Meyer Lansky was raised the and started Murder Inc there.  Interestingly, Larry King and Alfred Kazin also hail from there.

People often talk about being "on the wrong side of the tracks."  That phrase has no meaning here.  Perhaps it will come as no surprise that the two neighborhoods have turned out, per capita, more hip-hop artists than anyplace else in the world.

I must say, though, that the drivers I encountered were careful.  And a few people waved to me.

Maybe it has something to do with the atmosphere that once prevailed at the other end of the neighborhood:

The East 105th Street station is the penultimate stop on the L line. Until the mid-1980s, it held an interesting distinction:  It was the only New York City subway station with a street-level grade crossing.  Yes, it had a gate that dropped, bells that rang and lights that flashed when a train pulled into, or out of, the station.

That, of course, meant people couldn't be in as much of a hurry as they are in other places.  Could it be that calm driving practices are passed on--genetically?

Oh, by the way, a guy was selling sweet and salty snack foods, and knockoff accessories, from a table.  I bought a few snacks, which I gave to homeless people I saw on my way home. The man seemed genuinely happy for the couple of dollars I spent at his table.