This Bridge Is Out

You don't cross it for the scenery:  There are a power plant, trailer park and a container port on one side, and petroleum refineries and a rather rundown section of a gritty city on the other side.  


I used to cross it, though, every month or so.  When my parents were still living in New Jersey, I used to ride over the bridge's pedestrian lane--a ribbon of concrete just wide enough for a bicycle with dropped handlebars, seperated by a rusting iron wall about as high as the top of the average  cyclist's pedal stroke--to an intersection of a couple of highways, where I had to dodge trucks and ten-year-old Buicks driven by people who hated their jobs and put-upon housewives.


Such was the charm of crossing the Goethals Bridge.  Even if you've never been anywhere near it, you've probably seen it:  It's the bridge in the opening credits of The Sopranos. The bridge connects the only two places in the universe where the Sopranos could have lived:  Staten Island and New Jersey.  To be precise, the hulking span--which, even on a clear day, simmers in angry haze of smoke from rusting but still-functioning factories and refineries--links the most stereotypically unappealing parts of New York City's "forgotten borough" and a city that, until recently, basked in the glow of its neighbor:  Residents, in defending their hometown, would say, "Well, at least we're not Newark!"


But the bridge--named for the engineer who supervised the construction of the Panama Canal--was a link to greener pastures, to use a cliche.  Riding south from Elizabeth on Route 27, the industrial landscape would turn into a more-or-less suburban vista that included a rather nice park along the Rahway (as in the state prison) River.


I hadn't intended to ride that far into New Jersey. But I have been contemplating a ride to some of my old stomping grounds along the shore.  So, I decided to take a ride to the bridge, and to go across it.  However, a wrench was thrown into my plans.

Or, more precisely, a fence was erected between me and them.   Behind it, you can see the entrance to the path--when it was there.  Apparently, it's been removed or blocked off.  For all I know, it may have collapsed:  The Goethals is one of those bridges that always seemed in need of repair.  I'd bet that the soot those refineries and factories belch has something to do with it.

Anyway, when I turned around, I saw a Port Authority cop making his rounds.  In response to my question, he said there's no path for pedestrians or bicycles.  "Never has been," he added.


"Really?  I used to cross over it."


"But there never has been a path."


"There used to be something, on the side. It wasn't much, but I used to cross it.  So did other people."


"Well, there never was a path," he said.


Half-joking, I said, "Oh well, I guess I broke the law twenty years ago."


"Maybe you did," he said, suppressing a grin.


He then advised me of how I could go to New Jersey:  across the Bayonne Bridge, over which I have ridden a number of times.  He even gave me directions on how to get there.  The only problem is that Bayonne, while it has its charms (It was, after all, the home of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons!) , is really in the middle of nowhere.  More precisely, it's on a peninsula, and the only way off is through the bridge and a couple of highways.  At least, those are the only ways I know to go to points south in New Jersey.


So, I followed the Port Authority cop's directions past the container port, more decaying industrial buildings and marshland (in Tony Soprano country!) to Richmond Terrace, which snakes under the Bayonne Bridge and the north shore of Staten Island to the eponymous ferry:  the only way on or off the island.


On my way back to Manhattan, I thought about the ride in, when I met and exchanged e-mail addresses with a young(er) man.  More about him, possibly, later.

The Ride Ends With A Light Show

I've long felt that one of the nicest ways to end a long bike ride is with a boat ride.  That's one of the reasons I pedal across the George Washington Bridge, and down the Jersey Palisades, Jersey City and Bayonne to Staten Island, where I hop on the ferry.



When I first started to ride, I was cursing myself for not getting on my bike until well into the afternoon.  But the weather had turned from briskly to pleasantly cool, and rays of sunshine were peeking through clouds that blanketed the sky but didn't really threaten rain.  The last few miles of my bike ride, and the one on the ferry, turned into a light show:

Nina: A Nice Person In A Nice Bike Shop

You've probably seen the following in your favorite bike shop:

• MAMILs
• Fitness buffs who want to try a new sport/activity
• Customers who have more money to spend than riding experience
• People who haven't ridden since they were kids and are intimidated by all of the newfangled bikes and accessories
• Women who are there with their boyfriends/husbands--and, much less frequently, men who are there with their girlfriends/wives
• The ones who've decided to go on the next MS (or other charity) ride, but haven't been on a bike in years.

There are other kinds of people you meet in bike shops.  But, based on my experience in working in shops and having visited many others, the people I've mentioned are the one who seem to be found in just about any shop.

Today, I met someone who doesn't fit any of the above categories.  I stopped in the shop--James Vincent Bicycles of North Bergen, NJ --in the middle of today's ride.  The shop has been in business for 75 years and, even though it carries "serious" racing and mountain bikes from the likes of Cannondale, Trek and Giant, it attracts a lot of people from the immediate neighborhood, sometimes for non-bike-related issues.

The young woman I met today is one of those neighborhood denizens.  Actually, her father was there for a non-bike issue, and she accompanied him.

But she wasn't one of those bored and resentful family members who doesn't share her relative's enthusiasm for cycling.  In fact, she was on the same kind of wheels as her father rode:

Nina could get around perfectly well without that cart.  But her father couldn't:  He had no legs.  He'd gone to the shop to have something in the chasis tightened:  He could feel it coming loose, and it would've taken only a decent-sized hole or crack in the sidewalk or pavement to immobilize him.


I only got to talk with Nina briefly.  She seemed like a very nice and intelligent young woman.  I'm guessing that she rode her cart to the shop so that her father would have it in case he needed to leave his at the shop.  Even if that's the case, she's doing a great thing in helping him and experiencing, however briefly, the world as her father does.


I rode behind them for a few blocks until they turned.  I continued down the Jersey side of the Hudson River to the Bayonne Bridge, and through Staten Island to the Ferry.  I'm not religious, but I can say I felt blessed:  two good legs, a great bike, a beautiful day and an interesting ride.

Crossing Bridges After Work

Today I did something I often did when I was young and unattached:  I took a ride after work.  I'm not just talking about the commute home:  I rode through the rest of the afternoon and into the early evening--fifty miles after work.


The best part is that today's ride, like the ones I used to do, was spontaneous.  I took a route I've ridden a number of times before, but it was unplanned.  I did one part of it; then, feeling good, I simply continued.


From 34th Street in Manhattan, where I've been teaching a Saturday class for a technical college, I pedaled up the greenway that skirts the Hudson River.  Because I'm trying to make this story fit all of those cheesy narratives I've ever heard, I'm going to tell you that I was guided by a light.

If you've ever ridden, walked, run, skateboarded (Is that a verb?) or rollerbladed over the Greenway, you've probably seen The Little Red Lighthouse.  Actually, it's called the Jeffrey's Hook Light, but most people refer to it by the name I used, which is also the title of a children's book inspired by the structure.  It hasn't functioned as a lighthouse in decades:  It stands under the George Washington Bridge, which spurred development on both sides of the river, which in turn lit up that treacherous stretch of the Hudson even better than any lighthouse could.  

It was at the lighthouse that I decided to continue riding. So, naturally, I crossed the bridge and rolled along the edge of the Palisades through Bergen and Hudson counties to the Jersey City waterfront.

From there, I continued down through Jersey City and Bayonne to another bridge, which I took to Staten Island and the Ferry named for it.

After I got off the boat, I cycled past Wall Street, the South Street Seaport and up the East Side to one of those bridges, which took me home. 

When The Best-Laid Plans Lead To A Lane To Reverend Ike

Hopefully, you have all had an experience of not "getting the guy (or girl)" but ending up with The One.  


I'm not going to describe anything quite as momentous as that.  But I am going to relate a tale of things not going according to plan and turning out better than I'd planned.


I didn't work on any of my bikes yesterday.  The rain didn't materialize.  However, I did other things that took more time than I expected.  So I got to spend only half an hour on my bike.


On the other hand, today I didn't have classes due to a scheduling quirk.  And the afternoon turned into the nicest one we've had in months.  The morning fog and clouds burned away in the afternoon sun; within a couple of hours, the temperature rose from the mid-50's to near 80.  After sending off my state tax return and a birthday card for my father, I gulped down some green tea and yogurt with almonds and raisins and took Tosca out for a spin.

The route I followed today was the same as the one I took last year, when I did my first post-surgery ride of more than an hour.  It's also the route that I took for one of my last rides before surgery.  From my place, I took the RFK Bridge to Randall's Island and Manhattan, where I pedaled through upper Manhattan to the George Washington Bridge.  On the New Jersey side of the bridge, I rode atop the Palisades, along the Hudson River, to the edge of Jersey City, where I descended to the Exchange Place waterfront.   Then it was a matter of following, glancing away from, then following again, the waterfront through Jersey City and Bayonne (the hometown of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons) to the bridge bearing the latter city's name to Staten Island, where I took the Ferry.


It's an interesting combination of urban neighborhoods, cookie-cutter suburbs, blue-collar and yuppie havens, and views of the river, skyline, bridges that reflect the color of the morning mist and trestles that put the rust in Rust Belt.


Just before the GW Bridge, there's an interesting or hideous (depending on your point of view) theatre that was probably built during the 1920's.  It now serves as a pulpit for the ex of a famous singer/performer who has done some of her best-known work since splitting up with him.

Said preacher is Reverend Ike.  Yes, that Rev. Ike:  the one who was Mr. Tina Turner.  Of course, he never saw the relationship that way, though sometimes I think that, deep down, he must have known it would come to that.  Quite possibly the worst thing for the long-term prospects of a marriage is a wife who is obviously more talented than the husband.  (Somehow marriages stay together when the man is more talented.  That's a story for another post, or more precisely, another blog, or some sort of study by the NIH.)  At least Sonny Bono admitted as much about Cher; from what I understand, Rev. Ike was very abusive toward Tina.  


Hmm...Are politics and preaching the last refuges of husbands who can't make it on their own and whose wives get sick of them riding on their coattails?


I digress, again.  About half a mile south (downtown, to New Yorkers) of Rev. Ike's temple, I saw something I hadn't seen since I last rode up that way:

It's the shortest bike lane in New York.  Well, maybe I'm exaggerating a bit.  But it does serve a purpose:  It guides cyclists through one of the trickiest intersections in upper Manhattan, if not all of the city.  When St. Nicholas Avenue (on which the lane is located) crosses West 163rd Street, it also intersects with Audubon Avenue which, like St. Nicholas, is one of the main thoroughfares of that part of town.  


If the intersection were a clock and you were riding on St. Nicholas from the six o'clock position, the traffic from Audubon would be coming at you from the two and eight o'clock position, while the 163rd Street traffic would be coming from somewhere between the two and three o'clock position, and somewhere between the eight and nine o'clock positions. So, from St. Nick, you would cross 163rd and Audubon as if they were an eight-lane highway.  


The new path leads to a couple of concrete islands where there are signs, and from which the path continues to 165th Street.

After that and Rev. Ike, the rest of the ride was a piece of cake!

Hello Helene!

Today I took my third and, so far, longest ride on my Miss Mercian.  

I took a route I've pedalled a number of times before on my other two Mercians and on at least a couple of other bicycles.  But this is the first time I did that ride, which is about 45 miles, on a women's/mixte frame.


From my apartment, I rode over the Queensborough/59th Street Bridge to Manhattan.  Then, I rode up the East Side to East Harlem, where I cut across to West Harlem and continued up to Washington Heights and the George Wahsington Bridge.  Then, I rode along the top of the Palisades from Fort Lee to just north of Jersey City, where I pedalled down to the waterfront.  The docks where a young Marlon Brando pouted and glowered are long gone; now tall condominium towers mute the gazes of children in the park at the base of those buildings.  

Still, there is something I rather like about the light there.  Perhaps it is its consistency:  Whether I am playing chicken with the rain or tag with the sun, everything there always seems tinged with shades of metal, in particular the kind of titanium gray that refracts into gunmetal blues that can turn almost anything from lilac to aqua.  I find it oddly comforting, even soothing.

From there, I rode some less picturesque parts of town to Bayonne, where I rode across the bridge that bears the town's name to Staten Island and the Ferry named after it.


I must say, I was surprised at both the comfort and responsiveness of the bike.  I expected both, though more of the former, as Miss Mercian's geometry is slightly less agressive than that of my other two Mercians.  However, the bike doesn't accelerate quite as quickly as either Arielle or Tosca.  Again, that was something I expected, and even wanted. 




Before today's ride, I switched the tires.  I had a pair of Paselas that, I think, were mis-labelled:  They are marked 700 X 32 C, but they seemed slightly narrower than the 700 X 28C Continental Grand Prix Four-Season tires on my other two Mercians.  The rims could not have accounted for the difference:  I have Mavic Open Pros on all three bikes.  Still, I like the response of the Paselas, so I might try them on either of the other two Mercians when the Contis wear out.


Today  I rode another Panaracer tire:  the RiBMo (I hate the acronym!)  700x35.  It weighs about one and a half times as much as the Paselas, which are about 20 grams heavier than the Contis.  I'm sure they added to the stability of the bike if they took away a bit of its responsiveness.  Since the Miss Mercian is not going to be my "speed machine", I don't mind that. Plus, I think they look more appropriate than the skinnier tires on MM.  So, I think I'm going to keep them on the bike, at least for now.


Speaking of looks:  Check out the way the top tube is joined to the seat tube.

This bike is going to be a lot of fun and will look very  stylish doing it.   And, with her fenders, porteur bars and other accessories, she has a bit of a French accent even if she's English. I've decided to name her Helene.