May Day!

 Today, the first of May, is commonly known as “May Day.”  In some countries, it’s the equivalent of Labor Day (which is celebrated on the first Monday of September in the US).  In others, it’s a celebration of Spring, marked by gifts and displays of flowers.

So how did the name of this day—“May Day”—become a distress call?  Apparently, in the early days of aviation, French was the lingua Franca, so the call for help was “M’aide!,” which was anglicized into the cry we hear today.

After a weekend of nonstop rain, it’s a beautiful morning here in New York. If I believed that the weather were decided by an all-seeing being, I’d say that the blue skies are a response to our “May Day!” cries.  Whatever the cause of today’s conditions, I’m  going to take a long route on my ride to work.

Across The Bay

One of my more memorable one-day bike rides took me across the Golden Gate Bridge.

From Cyclelicio.us

Although, if I recall correctly, there is an ample guard rail on the side of the bike lane, I don't recommend the ride (or, for that matter, a walk across the bridge) to agoraphobics. The span itself is about 2.7 km long, and in the middle of it, you can see only the water beneath and on either side of you, and distant land in front of you.  

I haven't crossed the span in a long time.  But the memory of my ride was still fresh on 17 October 1989, when the Loma Prieta earthquake struck California.  If you were watching the World Series between the Oakland Athletics and San Francisco Giants--the two Major League Baseball teams on either side of the Bay--you saw the quake strike as the two teams were warming up for a game scheduled that day.   

If you weren't paying attention to fall baseball, you saw later images of the quake, including those of the San Francsico-Oakland Bay Bridge, on which a portion of the upper deck collapsed.  The bridge later reopened, but questions were raised.

Thankfully, the Golden Gate Bridge wasn't damaged.  Still, I couldn't help but to visualize myself on it at the moment of the quake. I've been on drawbridges when they opened; I knew that the vibrations from an earthquake would be many orders of magnitude stronger than anything I experienced.  And, of course, had the quake moved in a slightly different direction, a part of the Golden Gate could have fallen out.

I recalled my ride, the day of the 'quake and my reaction when I saw an announcement someone sent me.  The eastern span of the new Bay Bridge will open on Tuesday, the day after Labor Day, at 5 am.  The adjacent bike lane will open at the same time. The eastern span of the old bridge will be torn down as the western span of the new bridge is completed.

East Span of new San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge

I want to bike the Golden Gate again some day. And I'd like to cycle the new Bay Bridge to compare the rides--and, of course, the views.  

(I must say, I feel kind of sorry for both the old and new Bay Bridges.  The new structure looks like it will be lovely, and the old one wasn't bad. But they both have to compete aesthetically with the Golden Gate.  That's not a fair fight for any bridge!)

They Busted Their Unions And Broke Their Brands

Two years ago, on Labor Day, I wrote about the strike metal platers, polishers and buffers waged against Schwinn and Excelsior-Henderson (two motorcycle manufacturers Schwinn owned) in 1919.  

Although the Bike Boom that spanned the last decade of the 19th Century and the first of the 20th had gone bust, Schwinn continued to prosper because it was one of the first bicycle manufacturers to market bicycles as children's' toys as it continued to make bikes for adults.  Also, Schwinn acquired other bike manufacturers as well as the aforementioned makers of motorcycles, which were ascending in popularity.  

The metalworkers knew that Herr Schwinn could, shall we say, afford to buy the products his company made, in whatever quantity he desired. The same could not be said for his workers.  They rode his bikes to work, but often had to purchase them on installment plans.

They made demands that Schwinn found outrageous:  a 44-hour workweek and wages of 85 cents an hour.  He could not believe their audacity, not to mention their ingratitude, and did what any good industrialist who saw his financial life flashing before his eyes would do:  He got injunctions against the unions whose members were canceling orders, or not placing them in the first place, in sympathy with the strikers.  He also had strikers arrested on trumped-up charges, hired thugs to use "friendly persuasion" to convince strikers to cross picket lines--and made his foremen  use said workers for target practice.  After all, a strike is stressful and, as a friend of mine pointed out, going to the shooting range is "relaxing".

Anyway, all of the labor journals of the day urged readers to support the strikers in any way they could, whether by standing with them physically or participating in the boycotts--not only against Schwinn, but against the companies that did business with the bike-maker.

Well, it turns out that wasn't the last instance of Schwinn trying to subvert labor organization in its plants, at least according to more than one source.  In the early 1980s, Schwinn began to manufacture in a new Mississippi facility.  Now, to be fair, the old Chicago complex was outdated and would have needed extensive reworking to make the kinds of bikes for which demand was developing. But, it also just so happened that workers in that facility organized (affiliating themselves with the United Auto Workers) and struck in 1980.  Mississippi, like other southern states, has a long history of hostility to unions. 

Anyway, during the first few years of production, the quality of those bikes from the Magnolia State left something to be desired.  Again, to be fair, so did the quality of the bikes Schwinn would import from Hungary a few years later.  And, while the company had already shifted some of its production overseas, it was late to develop working relationships with their Japanese--and, later, Taiwanese and Chinese--subcontractors.  It also was slow to identify trends such as mountain bikes.

The result, of course, was bankruptcy, and its acquisition by a conglomerate that owns an number of other bike brands.  Like bikes bearing those names,  "Schwinn Brand" bikes are made in China and sold in big-box stores. (The "Schwinn Signature" series, which consists of higher-quality bikes and accessories, is sold only in bike shops.)  So have the mighty fallen.

Again, to be fair, Schwinn is not the only, or even the first, bike manufacturer to break its workers' union and, in doing so, sow some of the seeds of its destruction.

Some you may have owned or ridden a "Roadmaster" bicycle.  The brand first saw the light of day in 1936, when Cleveland Welding Company (CWC)--which made bicycles for a number of other companies--introduced it.   American Machine and Foundry (AMF) purchased the Roadmaster children's and youth bicycle lines in 1950.  I couldn't find much information about the transaction, but my uninformed guess is that CWC went out of businesses, or was simply divesting itself out of unprofitable enterprises.

1937 Cleveland Welding Company "Roadmaster" Bicycle

AMF then formed a wheel goods division, which made tricycles, pedal cars and tractors, and wagons in addition to bicycles.  Like the Chicago Schwinn plant of the 1970s, the CWC facilities AMF inherited were antiquated and AMF executives looked into replacing them.

And, in an eerie parallel with Schwinn in 1980, AMF workers in Cleveland--who were organized by (you guessed it) the United Auto Workers--struck in 1953.  The labor stoppage was, like Schwinn's in 1919 and 1980, long and acrimonious.  And AMF resolved it the way Schwinn did their second strike:  by opening up a new factory in a state where unions were (and are) all but non-existent.  In AMF's case, the new locale was Arkansas--in the capital, Little Rock, to be exact.

1964 AMF Roadmaster "Skyrider"

Now, no one ever equated the quality of AMF/Roadmaster bikes with those of Schwinn, not even the ones made in Mississippi or Hungary.  But the company, again like Schwinn, enjoyed prosperity during the Baby Boom-fueled population growth of the 1960s and 70s--and, of course, one of its offsprings, the '70's Bike Boom.  Then the Little Rock factory, like Schwinn's Chicago facility, became outdated and--even though Arkansas AMF workers didn't unionize--the company's management whined about labor costs. So, off to the mystic East they went.

Now Roadmaster is owned by Pacific--ironically, the same company that now owns Schwinn.  I'm not saying that avoiding and busting unions or outsourcing alone led to the subsumation of Schwinn and Roadmaster.  But I think that the "race to the bottom" in production costs helped, along with other bad management decisions, to debase the quality of what each company was selling and, subsequently, its reputation (more so in the case of Schwinn).  Now Schwinn bikes, once the dream of so many American kids--and the mount of Olympians--are indistinguishable from other brands sold alongside it in Wal Mart.  Like Roadmaster.

More Fruits Of The "Harvest", After Work

Today brought more of what we've had for the past couple of days--and what meteorologists are forecasting for the next couple of days:  summer warmth and early autumn light.

All right, they didn't forecast the light, except to tell us what time the sun will set.  But the sun is taking on an early twilight glow and, as I mentioned yesterday, I am seeing a few trees start their color changes.  It's quite lovely:  the first signs of autumn hues haven't yet brought the melancholy that comes later in the season (which, by the way, I often enjoy). 

Another day in the cusp of two seasons gave me another opportunity to relish my harvest, so to speak: I took an after-work ride to Coney Island.  While I enjoyed the ride, I did notice it more when I pedaled into the wind today than I did yesterday or on Monday, when I rode to Connecticut.  Perhaps it was a result of riding late in the day, after work.  Or it may have just been a matter of riding my  Schwinn LeTour instead of one of my Mercians.

Whatever the case, I had an easy ride back.  And it was interesting, to say the least, to see how much difference a week and a half makes on the number of people who go to the beach:

Some folks, like the ones in the photo, will go to the beach on any day the weather is remotely summer-like--and sometimes not-so-summery.  They are the ones who have decided it's still summer (which, of course, it still is--at least officially).  They are not like the ones who don't ever go to the beach after Labor Day or before Memorial Day, whatever the weather.

I guess we have equivalents to both kinds of people in the cycling world.  Some hang up their bikes as the days grow shorter, while others take any opportunity, at whatever time of year, to ride.

As for me, I will continue to enjoy the "harvest" for as long as I can--and continue to ride as long as the streets aren't covered with ice.

Day Of The Dead, On Two Wheels

In Mexico, today is celebrated as el Dia de Muertos, or the day of the dead.  The holiday originated with indigenous people, and current ways of celebrating it can be traced back to the Aztec beginning-of-summer festival honoring the goddess Mictecacihuatl  (If anyone has an Aztec spell-check, let me know!)  After los conquistadores arrived in the 16th Century, the holiday was moved to the beginning of November to coincide with the Roman Catholic feast of All Saints' Day.

In France and some other countries, families leave crysanthemums on the graves of deceased relatives on Toussaint.  (During my childhood, many Italian-American families did the same thing.)  In one of her essays, Marguerite Yourcenar observed that autumn rites are among the oldest and most universal, and are held after the last harvests, when "the barren earth is thought to give passage to the souls lying beneath it".

Anyway, I actually found a Day of the Dead bike jersey:

and some artwork, including this tandem bicycle hearse, if you will

 Take the motors away from Hell's Angels, and you get this:

Believe it or not, some people actually get married on this day:

Now, if any of you gear freaks are looking for the ultimate bike part, check out this seat:

Finally, if you want something that expresses the spirit of this day better than this blog post, check out this poem from--who else?--Emily Dickinson:

Because I could not stop for Death

He kindly stopped for me – 

The Carriage held but just Ourselves – 

And Immortality.

We slowly drove – He knew no haste

And I had put away

My labor and my leisure too,

For His Civility –

We passed the School, where Children strove

At Recess – in the Ring – 

We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain – 

We passed the Setting Sun –

Or rather – He passed us –

The Dews drew quivering and chill –

For only Gossamer, my Gown –

My Tippet – only Tulle –

We paused before a House that seemed

A Swelling of the Ground –

The Roof was scarcely visible –

The Cornice – in the Ground –

Since then – ‘tis Centuries – and yet

Feels shorter than the Day

I first surmised the Horses’ Heads

Were toward Eternity –

This Labor Day Ride?

Today is Labor Day in the US.

This year, the holiday is different:  Most large gatherings, including parades, have been cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.  So have many organized bicycle rides.

I have to wonder whether these riders would have been sanctioned for not keeping their "social distance":

Perhaps they're all related?  After all, your family can't make you sick, right?

Climbing Away From My Fear Of White Plains

Today I took another ride into Connecticut.  I figured--correctly--that I wouldn't encounter heavy traffic even along Boston Post Road, as Route 1 is known in Westchester County.  Most likely, folks from the Nutmeg State already took off for the weekend yesterday, or even the day before.  Also, riding to Connecticut means riding away from most of the beaches in this area, which is where most travelers are going or have gone this weekend, which includes the Monday holiday of Labor Day.

I thought about taking off for some place or another this weekend.  Now I'm glad I didn't:  The ride I took today is more emotionally relaxing and satisfying than just about any trip I could have taken on a crowded train, plane or bus.  Also, Greenwich, Mianus and Byram aren't full of tourists, and the people who stayed in town are relaxed and friendly.

This weekend, I also plan to ride again and meet a friend or two here in the city, which is strangely idyllic.  Perhaps we'll go to a museum or show, or just "do lunch."

But I digress.  I took slightly different routes through the Bronx and lower Westchester County than I had on previous rides.  I also wandered through an area of Greenwich--up a hill--I hadn't seen before.  There are houses built on stretches of land that could serve as game preserves.  ("Deer crossing" signs were everywhere.)  I stopped in a park where I was reminded that this is indeed the unofficial last weekend of summer, and the fall--the actual season as well as the autumn that includes the march of time across people's lives:

All right, I'm making more of this photo than is really there.  The park itself is a well-kept spread of lawn with a single picnic table.  I didn't want or need anything else.

Behind me, this tree stood authoritatively.  It seemed such an indignity for it to share the same ground, from which it's grown for decades (if not centuries) with a fence and a garbage can.

That tree seems like a New England tree:  It belongs where it is. Trees I see in the city, as lovely as they are, so often seem like they are where they are only at the pleasure of some land owner or agency that can evict or "retire" (I've heard the word used in that way) it to make way for something more profitable or convenient.

The ride back took me up and down more hills, past more palatial estates.  Nowhere did I find a sign one normally finds when leaving or entering a state.  I knew I had crossed back into New York State only because of a sign from the local police department--in Rye Brook--asking people to report drivers who text. 


A few miles up the road, I passed through a city I had always avoided: White Plains.  Somehow the name terrified me:  I always imagined folks even paler than I am chasing away....someone like me?  OK, maybe not me, but certainly most of the students I've had.

(For years, New Hampshire was one of two states that didn't observe Martin Luther King Day.  I actually wondered whether it had something to do with having the White Mountains.  Then I realized Arizona, the other state that didn't recognize MLK Day, had no such excuse!)




White Plains was a bit bland, though not terrible.  It has a road--Mamaroneck Road--that actually becomes rather quaint, in spite of the chain stores on it, after it passes under the highway and continues toward the town for which it's named.

The rest of the ride was as pleasant as the warm afternoon with few clouds and little humidity. Even though I pedaled about 140 kilometers, I barely broke a sweat.  But the relatively pleasant surprise of White Plains was balanced by a signal of The End of the World As We Know It:

The South Bronx is becoming SoBro?  Oh, no! 
 

Cat's Cradle On May Day

Today is May Day.

In much of the world, this day commemorates labor movements.   In the United States, too many people believe--as I did, before I learned otherwise--that it was celebrated mainly in countries that are or were Communist, like Cuba and the former Soviet Union.  And, when I used to hold such mistaken beliefs, "Communist" was one of the most pejorative terms one could apply to any person, place or thing.

The funny thing is that the origins of May Day are as American as, well, Schwinn used to be.  So, for that matter, is socialism, which has its roots in workers' struggles to obtain an 8-hour work day (10 to 16 was the norm) and safer working conditions.  In fact, socialist movements in Europe and Latin America took much of their inspiration from movements in the US.

Unfortunately, workers in the bicycle industry--a major employer at that time (late 19th Century)--were not exempt from exploitation by their employers, as so many workers were and are.  As an example, Schwinn's metal platers and polishers struck for a 44-hour workweek and 85 cents an hour in 1919; the company retaliated against striking workers as well members of other unions and dealers who cancelled, or didn't place, orders.  In 1980, workers in Schwinn's Chicago factory, who had recently affiliated themselves with the United Auto Workers Union, went on a strike that would last four months.  In the meantime, the company accelerated its overseas sourcing and built a new factory in Mississippi, where labor was less expensive and unions all but non-existent.  Within a year, the Chicago plant ended more than eight decades of operation.

Schwinn' Peoria machine shop, 1895

In 1963, Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle was published. In the novel, the narrator--an everyman named John who calls himself Jonah--travels to the fictional Caribbean island of San Lorenzo.   On his way there, he meets "another fellow American,  H.Lowe Crosby of Evanston, Illinois, and his wife, Hazel," whom he describes as "heavy people, in their fifties" who "spoke twangingly."  

Mr. Crosby says he owns a bicycle factory in Chicago and gets "nothing but ingratitude from his employees."  Therefore, he plans to move his business to "grateful" San Lorenzo.  

The narrator asks Crosby whether he knows San Lorenzo well.  Crosby admits that he'll be seeing it for the first time but that he likes everything he's heard about it. "They've got discipline," he explains.  In Chicago, he says, "we don't make bicycles anymore.  It's all about human relations."  He proceeds to bemoan, basically, having to treat his workers like people.  Jonah asks him whether he thinks things will be better in San Lorenzo.

"I know damn well they will be.  The people down there are poor enough and scared enough and ignorant enough to have some common sense!"

Hmm...San Lorenzo sounds like a few not-so-fictional countries I can think of.  And Crosby sounds like a few not-so-fictional capitalists I can think of.

One Ride, Two Trees

 Saturday brought near-record warmth: When I reached Greenwich, Connecticut—the destination or turnaround point, depending on your point of view—early in the afternoon, the temperature had risen to 81F (27C).  That is more or less normal for a day in June, or perhaps just after Labor Day.

Even if I hadn’t known it was near the end of October, the day’s warmth would have seemed incongruous with parents chaperoning their costumed kids to tables representing everything from the fire department to the local Democratic Party where volunteers gave them miniature candy bars. Tomorrow is Halloween, so the past weekend became the setting for Trick or Treaters, parades and parties.

Even stranger was seeing mid-to-late Fall foliage simmering in such heat.  On my way back, a tree in New Rochelle blazed, it seemed, as much from the summer-like air as the season itself.

How red can a tree be?

Now I wonder what it looks like today.  Some time around midnight, a storm pushed its way in.  The temperature plummeted and the rain and wind that soaked and strafed Sunday’s sky—and denuded the golden tree that greeted me early Thursday morning.

Nothing To Lose But Our Chains

Today is Labor Day in the US.  Some leftist historians and economists invoke the spectre of Karl Marx, although he had nothing to do with creating the holiday.  He died a decade before it was first observed, and several years before the first International Workers' Day, a.k.a. May Day.

Still, his name is invoked by some, mainly on the left, who see the erosion of workers' and unions' power in the globalized economy.  And, one of his most famous rallying cries is used to promote all sorts of events that have little, if anything, to do with honoring the contributions of working people:

From the Reno Bike Project

There's No College There, But There's An Education

This weekend included a change of seasons and cultures--and rides.

While, officially, we're deep into Fall, from Thursday through the middle of Saturday, it felt more like early summer.  I took Friday's ride, to Connecticut, in what I might wear around Memorial Day or Labor Day--a pair of shorts and a fluorescent green T-shirt.  The breeze took some of the edge off the humidity.

Saturday morning, I pedaled out to Kesso's for some fresh Greek yogurt.  Alas, they were closed.  I hope everything is OK there: Perhaps they, like so many other shops--and people--couldn't get some thing or another they needed because of the interrupted supply chains that have emptied store shelves.  Later in the day, wind drove hard rain against leaves, windows and faces.

Yesterday, the wind let up--for a little while--and temperatures were more fall-like.  I took a spin along the North Shore of Queens and western Nassau County, which took me into a neighborhood frequented by almost nobody who doesn't live there--in spite of its proximity to a mecca for in-the-know food enthusiasts.

On a map, College Point is next to Flushing.  But the two neighborhoods could just as well be on diffeent planets.  The latter neighborhood, one of the city's most crowded, has been known as the "Queens Chinatown" for the past three decades or so.  There are dozens of places where one can sample a variety of regional cuisines, and have everything from a formal dining experience to chow on the run.  Those places are centered around Roosevelt Avenue and Main Street, at the end of the 7 line of the New York subway system--and one stop away from Citi Field, the home of the New York Mets, and the US Tennis Center, site of the US Open and other events.

College Point is "off the grid," if you will--away from the city's transit systems and accessible only by winding, narrow streets that dead-end in inconvenient places or truck-trodden throughfares that, at times, resemble a moonscape, that weave through industrial parks, insular blue-collar communities and views of LaGuardia Airport and the Manhattan skyline one doesn't see in guidebooks.

Until recently, College Point--which, pervesely, includes no college--was populated mostly by the children and  Irish, German and Italian construction workers and city employees who were the children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of Irish, German and Italian construction workers and city employees.  Their houses were smaller versions of the nearby factories and warehouses: squat brick structures framed by latticeworks of steel or wooden trellises, cornices  and fences.

In that sense, this place fits right in:

The New York Hua Lian Tsu Hui Temple is--you guessed it--a square brick building framed with wooden cornices and a steel fence.  The cornices,  though, are different:  They signal the purpose of the building, and signify other things.  Apparently, Chinese and Korean people who needed more space to raise their kids--or simply wanted to escape the crowding of Flushing--have "discovered" the neighborhood.  

Some have families and pets:

Marlee, though, was not impressed!  All she knows is that when I'm on my bike (or doing anything outside the apartment), I'm not there for her to curl up on.

R.I.P. Mom

For the past couple of days, I've been in denial.  Yesterday, I took a ride to Connecticut on a beautiful late-summer Sunday.  Today it has rained.   I spent time with Mildred and did some work that engaged my hands and, occasionally, my mind. (It's somehow appropriate to Labor Day, isn't it?)  Among other things, I built a wheel and did some maintenance on Arielle, my Mercian Audax, and the Fuji.

There are other things I could do.  But I can't use them to escape because, at the moment, escape doesn't seem possible.

On Saturday night, just before midnight--and the change from August to September--my mother passed away.  

She had health problems, mainly stemming from her diabetes, for a number of years.  Last Tuesday night, however, she woke, her skin clammy and her breathing labored.  My father brought her to the hospital and after diagnosing her, installed a pacemaker with a battery would be "good for ten years."

I talked to her on Thursday night.  She complained about one thing and another in the hospital.  Based on my admittedly--and thankfully-- limited experience with such facilities, I can't say I blamed her. (Hospitals really do have the worst beds!)  But she seemed in rather good spirits, given what she was experiencing.  

On Friday, I called her cell phone.  She didn't answer, I thought that she might've gone home.  So I tried the landline.  Still no answer.  I tried each number again, later in the day and that night.  No response.

Finally, on Saturday morning, I heard from my brother in California.  Mom was heaving deep, guttural snores that seemed to come from deep within her body and, when my father tried to wake her, she didn't respond.  

She was hooked to some machines.  The doctor and my father watched intently.  After what must have seemed like an eternity, the doctor said there was nothing more that could be done.

My mother had a DNR on file. (So do I.)  Still, my father said, giving consent to remove life support was the hardest decision he ever had to make.  I tried to reassure him that he was following Mom's wishes.  Most important, he probably spared her a lot of suffering:  Within minutes, she had no brain activity.

Dear readers, I am sorry if I am burdening you with onerous details.  What I had been trying to avoid is happening:  I am replaying the conversation and exchanges of texts about something I was absolutely powerless to change.  My father, my brother, Millie and others I've talked to have reassured me that the fact I wasn't in that hospital was not a reason why she passed just before midnight on Saturday.  Even with her medical issues, none of us could have known how close she was to the end of her life.  Perhaps she knew; if she did, she didn't let on.

Anyway, I am writing this because I have posted every day for the past five years and most days for about four years before that.  I might not post for a while, but I am not abandoning this blog.  If nothing else, though she saw only a few posts (She never learned how to use a computer; she saw things online only when my father showed them to her), I think she'd want me to continue:  She knew how important cycling and writing are to me.  They've helped me, as she did, through some difficult times in my life.  I don't think that will change.

Sneaking Off To The Boardwalk In The Fall

The weather warmed up a bit today, but it was still pretty blustery.  Still, this day felt very October-like, in contrast to the last three days,  which felt more like Thanksgiving weekend.  Not that I mind cool or chilly weather; it just seemed to follow me from Canada after the mild weather this part of the world was experiencing as I embarked.

Anyway, this afternoon I had some time to sneak out for a Coney Island ride, and to return home via the path that passes under the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge--about 65 kilometers all told.

One sign that it's really Fall is that the boardwalk was not full of the strollers, sunbathers and such one sees even on weekdays for a few weeks after Labor Day.  But, more important, the light and air take on different hues and feels around the time of the Equinox.

Is it my imagination, but has the Parachute Jump taken on the color of fallen leaves?  A few weeks ago, it seemed more like a reddish-orange.  Hmm...Could I be imposing my ideas of the season on things I see?  Is life imitating the season?

Whatever, Tosca seemed to be enjoying it as much as I did.  Even though I didn't have a lower gear to shift into when I was pedaling into the wind, I didn't feel as if I had been straining.  In fact, riding today seemed like a shorter version of my ride the other day, albeit with different scenery.  Maybe it has something to do with the way I respond to the light and air of this time of year.

On the Coney Island Boardwalk, this sign has a way of popping up where you've never seen it before, after you haven't seen it for a long time.  

I would have expected to see it during the height of the summer season.  As a matter of fact, a couple of times when I rode on the boardwalk during the summer, police officers motioned for me to get off my bike.  But today there were no cops in sight.

Still, I didn't ride along the boarwalk:  I had just a bit more than enough time to ride to Coney and back.  But it was plenty.

Impressionist Camouflage?

When you get to a certain age, you become more honest with yourself because, really, you have no other choice.  I think that it was the Spanish philosopher Jose Ortega y Gasset who said that at age 45, a person can no longer live in fictions.

One thing I've finally admitted to myself is that when I talk about what I "should" or "am supposed to" do, I'm actually just forestalling, even if only for a second, doing what I actually want to do.

And so it is that on days like today, I can tell you there were things I "should have" done--which, of course, I didn't do.  At least I managed, pretty early, to admit to myself that I wasn't going to do them.

It just took one look out my window--which was wide open (save for the screen, of course).  The morning was delightfully cool in a way it hasn't been in a long time.  Breezes were light and skies blue, full of sunshine.  

Well, it wasn't just any old mild, sunny day--with low humidity, to boot.  The qualities of that day seemed all the more vivid because it followed a long heat wave.  Something else made it truly unusual, though.

You see, the morning felt like early autumn and the early afternoon felt like one of those late-summer days we experience a week or so after Labor Day.  That made for delightful cycling weather.  The relatively cool air, however, was accompanied by the sort of refulgent summer light one sees in Impressionist paintings of picnics or other outings in the country.  Even the concrete canyons and brick-lined boulevards seemed to be bathed in the deep greens of the rippling leaves and the deep yellow sunlight.

I took a ride to--where else--Connecticut--where even the War Memorial in Greenwich seemed to camouflage itself in that light.

And the bike I rode--Arielle, my Mercian Audax. (Sorry about the poor quality of my cell-phone photos!) 

For The First Time, Again

It seems that every year I take at least one ride like the one I took today.

I didn't ride to or through anyplace I'd never seen before today.  Conditions were not at all challenging:  rather humid, but not oppressively so.  Probably the worst (or best, depending on which way I was riding) was the wind, but even that wasn't so bad.

Certainly, I didn't cover a lot of ground, at least compared to some other rides I've done.  I stayed within the confines of three New York City boroughs:  Queens (where I live), Manhattan and Brooklyn.  Then again, I hadn't really planned on doing a century--metric, imperial or otherwise--or a brevet, or any sort of ride with a name.  In fact, I didn't have any sort of plan at all.

I spun up and down major avenues, sprinted from traffic light to traffic light on 57th Street, made furtive turns into alleys and weaved among riders of Citibikes, skaters toting yoga mats and the self-consciously a la mode pushing strollers with the names of designers or athletic-wear companies emblazoned on them.  All of this was pleasant enough, even exhilarating at times.

One thing that seemed strange, even for a Sunday at this time of year, was that some of the streets were all but clear of traffic, whether of the motorized, foot or pedal variety, even though said streets weren't closed.  In fact, I could ride longer and faster in a straight line along those thoroughfares than I could on the bike and pedestrian lanes.

It seemed that almost all of the people--whether on foot, bike or skate--were in the places where one expects to find tourists:  around the Intrepid Air and Space Museum, the South Street Seaport, at the terminals for the ferries to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, on the Brooklyn Bridge. (I like to think that one of the signs I'm a "real" New Yorker is that I don't ride across the BB:  when I cross the East River, I take the Queensborough/59th Street, Williamsburgh or Manhattan Bridges, depending on where I'm going.)  In contrast, the shopping areas along 14th Street and Sixth Avenue (No New Yorker calls it "Avenue of the Americas"!) were all but deserted even though most of the stores were open.

As I cycled up First Avenue near the United Nations, I realized that everything I'd seen was a sign that it's almost the end of summer.  I realized that I take a ride like this one around this time every year:  a week or two before Labor Day.  This is the "last chance" for a lot of New Yorkers to leave town and for many tourists to come here.  And, of course, New Yorkers with lots of money and vacation time have been out of town for weeks already.  It'll be a week or two before they, and other vacationers, start trickling back in--and before the tide of tourists becomes a trickle.

It's at this time of year that I feel most like a "fly on the wall" in my own city.  I am not a tourist, but at the same time, I feel as if I am looking at familiar streets and buildings from the other side of a two-way mirror.  Although I live here, I feel as if I am not entirely here.

I don't mean any of what I've said as a complaint.  If anything, I find it interesting.  In a way, I am privileged:  Although I am far from rich (by the standards of this city and country, anyway), I was able to take a vacation of my own choosing, to a place of my own choosing and do it on my own terms.  And I have had little to worry about since I came back.

In fact, I realize now that since coming back from Paris--three weeks ago, already--I've spent a fair amount of time outside the city, with the bike rides I've taken to Connecticut and the more bucolic parts of New Jersey and Long Island.  So, in a way, I haven't been living like a resident of this city.  But I haven't been a tourist, either, because at the end of the day, wherever I've ridden, I've come back to my own bed and cats--and, as often as not, prepared my own meals.   

Could it be that this time of year--the latter part of August and the first few days of September--is a season unto itself?   Is this the season of The Outsider--and was today's ride my annual Outsider Ride?  

Perhaps no matter how often we've ridden a street or trail, seen a building or field, swum in a sea or opened a particular door--whether for the first time or the last, for a moment or a lifetime-- we are visiting:  We are coming in from the outside.  But we are coming in, and we can stay as long as our time, resources and imaginations allow us.  And one day we can come back.

And we can do the same rides, again, for the first time, from the outside.  At least, that's what I feel I did today.