Burn

Yesterday was the warmest day of the year.  And the sun shone brightly.  I took an afternoon ride down to the Rockaways, by the sea.

It's a ride I've taken many times before.   I was feeling really good until I pedaled into Howard Beach--about 45 minutes' ride from my apartment.  Then, suddenly, I felt as tired as I might feel after a ride to Connecticut or Bear Mountain in which I've spent a good part of the time pedaling into the wind.

When I got home, I realized why:  My arms and face were red!  

Every year, around this time of year, I have a ride like the one I had yesterday, on a day like yesterday:  a premature summer day in the middle of spring.  The temperature reaches 30C or so, as it did yesterday, and I ride with less clothing than I'd been wearing through the previous few months.  So, more of my skin, which hasn't yet grown accustomed to the sun, is exposed.  Moreover, the sea (or any body of water) seems to magnify the solar refulgence.

I used sunscreen but, apparently, not enough.  At least, I didn't apply it as often as I, with my melanin deficiency, should have.  When my skin absorbs more sun than it's used to, I get tired.  

At least I can get away--I think--with not blaming yesterday's fatigue on aging.  I am still in midlife, after all!

If More Women Ride...

There are things I never would have understood were I not a lifelong cyclist.

And there things I never would have understood were I not a transgender woman who, in middle age, decided to live her life by her true gender identity.

Sometimes they intersect.

To wit:  Contrary to what some believe, laws and policies against discrimination and harassment--or that allow people to marry whomever they please--don't give "special privileges" to women, members of racial and ethnic "minorities," disabled people and those who aren't heterosexual or don't idenitfy with the gender binary.  Rather, those laws and policies are made so that the people I've mentioned have the same rights, protections and guarantees that men, cisgender people, heterosexuals and members of the "majority" race, culture and religion (white Christians in the US) take for granted.

When I was living as a male who was presumed to be cisgender and heteorsexual, I never had to think about such rights and guarantees.  In fact, I didn't even know that I didn't have to think about them.  There probably are still privileges I have and never think about because well, I'm still White.

Likewise, while they complain about the price of gas or highway tolls, most American motorists have no idea of how much their driving is subsidized, and how much of the landscape has been re-formed for them.  Many also don't realize how much of a sense of entitlement they've developed about "their" roads and public spaces.  That is why they are upset when a lane is "taken" from them and "given" to cyclists and pedestrians.

And, while I laud any attempt to promote cycling and decrease dependence on anything that burns fossil fuels, I have come to realize that, too often, planners have their own unquestioned assumptions about who rides, and how and why.

Is it coincidence that as I have been thinking about such issues and how to articulate them, I should chance upon an article that discusses them?  That article--which appeared first in Streetsblog and was reprinted in Greater Greater Washington--cites a study, published in Transport Reviews, that indicates the best way to cast the bicycle as a viable mode of transportation, and not merely as a toy for kids or the trust-fund crowd--and simply to get more people on bicycles--is to get more women to cycle.

Photo by Joe Flood, licensed under Creative Commons

And how do we get more female-identified* folk on two wheels?  Understand how and why we ride--which, of course, will lead to a greater understanding of why some won't ride.

Perhaps it will come as no surprise that countries where cycling is really a part of people's everyday lives--in other words, where it's seen as much a part of the transportation system as driving or taking buses, trains or planes--are also the countries with the largest proportions of female cyclists.  As you might have guessed, those countries include the Netherlands, Switzerland, Finland--and Japan.

The reason I call particular attention to Japan is that, unlike the other countries, it has few segregated bike lanes and relatively little cycling-specific infrastructure, at least in comparison to Northern European countries.  But there is a culture of cycling--and, more important, a recognition of how and why women ride, and how it's different from men's riding.

The study shows that women who cycle are doing so for transportation at roughly the same rate as men.  But in most places, "transportation" for men means, mainly, going to and from the job.  On the other hand, women are more likely to combine errands on a bike trip--say, to drop off their kids at daycare and go to the store.  This is particularly true in Japan, where women are still likely to leave the paid workforce after giving birth.  

So how does that affect bike infrastructure planning?  Well, I think that if a useful bike lane were to be built, it should connect residential areas, not only with office buildings, schools or factories, but also with shopping areas, whether they're "Main Streets," malls or farmer's markets.  And, bike lanes should run, not only to or through parks, but also to museums and other venues.

Another finding of the study is something that doesn't surprise me:  Women are less willing to ride in traffic or in non-protected bike lanes.  I don't think we have a greater fear of traffic. (Perhaps we're just smarter ;-)) Rather, women--and children-- are less vulnerable to harassment and intimidation in a protected bike lane.  

While we're on the subject of infrastructure:  One thing that, I believe, would make cycling safer and more convenient for women is more safe and clean public toilets and washrooms.  I used to joke that rest stops on bike rides are the only occasions when the lines to use the men's room are longer than those for the women's room.  Then again, I have discovered--as a result of my gender-affirmation process--that there are also fewer women's or gender-neutral bathrooms.

Anyway, I found it interesting that the study in question shows how the world of cycling can be a mirror for society:  If more women cycle, more people cycle.  What equality means is that everyone wins, or at least no one loses.

*--The study stuck to traditional definitions of men and women.  I think it would be interesting, and useful, to look at the reasons why non-binary people ride, or don't, ride bicycles--and whether their patterns of riding align with those of their chosen or given gender identity.

A Chorus Of Purple Echoes A Spring Ride

 How do I reward myself on a gorgeous mid-Spring afternoon after a busy morning?

With a bike ride, of course!

I did another one of my aimless wanders along Queens and Brooklyn streets.  I felt no need to ride to any particular place; I simply wanted to fill myself with the light and air of this season, and to stimulate my senses in as many ways as I could in a couple of hours.

Early in my ride, I wended along the paths by the Long Island City piers, a.k.a. Gantry State Park.  I don't know who does the gardening there, but whoever they are, they're outdoing themselves every season, every year.

OK, if you've been reading this blog for a while--or if you just look at the pictures of my bikes--you know what colors I like best.  I could look at any and all purple flowers--lilacs, wisteria blooms, asters--all day.  But I really like the way the gardeners used the different shapes and heights of the blooms to make a chorus of purple.

Ah, the rewards of cycling!

Sold!

I gathered up the change from my sofa cushions.  I begged friends and relatives who hadn't heard from me in years for their penny jugs and spare change. I even started to put together a GoFundMe page to "preserve a piece of history."

That GoFundMe page never went online.  No one surrendered their loose or jugged coins to me and the money I found in my sofa, alas, wouldn't buy me a spare inner tube. So I tried use my charm, wit, erudition and looks as currency to bid on the bicycle Lady Diana rode to work before she became a Princess.  You can guess how well that worked.

Anyway, somoene bought the 1970s Raleigh Traveler she pedaled to the nursery school where she worked until she was told that bicycling to work was unbecoming for a would-be royal. 

The bike, dubbed the "shame bicycle" by the British tabloids, was expected to sell for 20,000 GBP.  It fetched more than double that: 44,000 GBP, or about 62,000 USD at current exchange rates.  Burstow and Hewett auctioned the bike on 28 April; the identity of the buyer was not disclosed.

Given the recent revelations of the Royal Family's and British tabloids' mistreatment of Meghan Markle, comparisons between her and the difficulty shy Diana had in living in the royal fishbowl were inevitable--and probably piqued interest in the bike.  So...while I didn't get it, I wish its new owner well.

If nothing else, Diana was safer on it than in at least one other vehicle she rode.  Riding it tarnished the repuatation of the Royal Family, at least in their imaginations.  A ride she took one night in a Mercedes-Benz W 140 had far worse consequences.

(I'm not a conspiracy theorist, so I won't say that the Royal Family was behind it. But the thought has crossed my mind.)

Say It Won't Close!

Many years ago (Can I still say I'm in "midlife" if I can use a phrase like that?), I worked at Buck's Rock Creative Work Camp.  Aside from having one of the strangest names of any place in which I've ever worked, that place taught me things I probably wouldn't have learned any other way.

About the name:  Until someone encouraged me to apply to work there, I thought a "work camp" was a place where wayward youth were sent--a stop between reform school and "juvie."  So how could a "work camp" be creative?

Well, Buck's Rock was a camp for creative work:  Kids could spend their time in art, sculpture or dance studios, at the radio station, practicing and playing musical instruments or engaged in crafts like woodworking, batik or weaving.  A farm bordered on the camp; campers could attend to chickens, goats or other animals if they didn't want to indulge in their artistic impulses (or if they didn't have such urges:  some campers were rich kids whose parents' involvement with them was inversely proportional to how much money they had).  

So what was I doing there?  Well, there was also a creative writing workshop.  I was a "counselor" there:  I worked one-on-one with young poets, fiction writers and other scribes.  Two other writers worked with me to conduct group activities and the occasional class, which we tried to make as little like the classes to which they were accustomed as we could.

As you might guess, it was an important experience for me because it was the first time I was paid for working with people on their writing and, if you want to use the term loosely, teaching.  I also met two people who are friends to this day.  In addition, I  came to understand, a little, a world completely apart from the blue-collar Brooklyn and New Jersey enclaves in which I grew up.  Most of the kids came from neighborhoods like the Upper East and West Sides.  Some went to boarding schools, and came home only at Christmastime and for a week or two between the end of the school year and the beginning of camp.  During that time, they didn't see their parents:  Nannies, au pairs or housekeepers tended to them.  More than one kid told me they talked to me than they talked to their parents!

That is one reason I chose not to return for a second summer.  I really liked working with the kids--aged 12 to 18--with their poems and stories, and sometimes playing chess or softball, or simply talking, with them.  But that last part was sometimes heartbreaking:  I came to the realization that they needed an adult they could trust and confide in more than they needed that camp.  Then, perhaps, they would have been healthier:  Even when I worked in a children's hospital and as a writer-in-residence in schools located in some of New York's poorest neighborhoods, I never saw kids who were sick, whether physically or emotionally, as I did at that camp.

Another reason I didn't want to go back is that I did almost no cycling that summer.  You see, I was on site around the clock; I got one day (literally:  24 hours) off every two weeks.  That was the only time I could leave the premises.  So, while I learned more about some of my passions, the experience took me away from another--and I learned that I don't want to live and work in the same place.  (Many people have come to that realization during the past year!)

Our time off really didn't leave much time except to go from one place to another and back, as the camp was in a pretty remote location.  Also, I was on camp with someone with whom I would elope and, a few years later, break up. (Is it a divorce when you break up an elopement?  Is "elopement" even a word in English?) She was about as far from being a cyclist as anyone I've ever met: In fact, she was all but allergic to any form of physical exercise except one, if you know what I mean. We did manage to get the same days off and went to some nearby hotel or cottage where she could get her exercise, which she didn't like to do alone.

On our way to wherever we went to work out, we'd stop in the town.  I would leave her for an hour or so--our only time apart--to look in a gift shop or some other place while I browsed and chatted with the folks in Bike Express.  It was frustrating to look at and talk about bikes when I couldn't ride; they understood and indulged my browsing.  I think I bought a couple of things I wouldn't use, of course, until the summer ended.  

What brought back those memories is a news item that came my way:  Bike Express is closing. 

The reason?  Its owner, John Gallagher says, "I want to go out and ride my bike for fun."  He's 67 years old and has owned it since he and his brother bought it in 1985.  The lease is up in October; he hopes to sell the shop by then because he doesn't want to leave New Milford without a bike shop.

John Gallagher, in his Bike Express shop. (Photo by H. John Voorhees III)

The past year, he says, has been a paradox. "Last year was our best year ever," he says.  This year, however "will be our worst" because "there is an unavailability of bicycles to sell our customers."  That actually could help to sell the shop, he explains, because as with any such enterprise, a buyer pays for the business as well as the inventory.  He still has 200 bikes on order from the last eight months and a waiting list of between 60 and 70 customers--but has received only 15 bikes in that time.  That means his inventory could be "at its lowest level ever" so if someone wants to buy, "they won't have to put up a huge chunk of money" for the inventory as well as the business.

I hope this all ends with New Milford keeping its bike shop--which, according to its "tech expert" John Lynch caters to the "regular person"--and John Gallagher having his days to ride for fun.