On Wheels or Paws

Happy Halloween!

I have had six cats, including Marlee, in my life.   I love Marlee and miss the other five.  Each was beautiful and sweet in his/her own way.  

I must admit, however, that I've never had a black cat.  It's not a matter of fear or superstition:  All of my feline friends, except for the first Charlie, were rescues.  And he was part of a litter of kittens born to the cat of someone with whom I was taking a class.  So, in a sense, he, like the others, found his way into my life.

One of my few regrets is that I've never figured out how to ride with a cat.  Oh, when the first Charlie and Marlee were kittens, I could have carried them in a knapsack or something, but I'm not sure they would have liked it.  In a way, that might have been a good thing:  Having Caterina, Charlie I, Candice, Charlie II, Max or Marlee home while I was out--whether for a spin around the neighborhood, a day trip or a longer trek--gave me something to look forward to at the end of a ride.

Still, I wonder, what would it have been like to have one of them--or a black cat--on a ride with me?

 

Presidents, Pedals And Pets

Here in the US, it's Presidents' Day.  

When I was growing up, we used to have two Presidential holidays in February--Lincoln's Birthday on the 12th and Washington's on th 22nd.  Somewhere along the way, the government decided to consolidate the two observances into one, which would be on the third Monday in February.  At the same time, some other traditional holidays, such as Memorial Day, also became Monday fetes.

Now, if you've been reading my recent posts, you know what I think about the current President, whose name I dare not speak!  I must say, though, that it's ironic that the most anti-bike President we've had in a long time (perhaps in all of history) is also the only one ever to have sponsored a bike race.  That is how, for two years, the Tour DuPont--at that time, the most important race in the US--became the Tour de Trump.

In past posts, I wrote about, and included photos of, presidents (including a couple in other countries) riding bikes.  One of my favorites is of Jimmy Carter three decades after leaving the White House, and looking younger than he did then.  I also liked the one of former French President Nicolas Sarkozy, his politics notwithstanding, and of former candidate Mitt Romney on his bike while doing Mormon missionary work in France.

Back when I was working for American Youth Hostels, I read somewhere--a biography, perhaps?--that Franklin D Roosevelt cycled "all over Europe" during his youth, freqeuently staying in hostels.  As a child and young man, he frequently took trips there, as someone of his social and economic status was wont to do.  If I recall correctly, his early trips were made, not surprisingly, with his parents and other family members, while as a teenager he went with his tutor, who also enjoyed cycling.

I also seem to recall that one or both of them were arrested in Germany for eating cherries they picked on a roadside, and that they committed a few other misdeeds.  I have read, elsewhere, that he was a fun-loving young man who skated along the surface of life.

Anyway, I tried to find a photo of FDR on a bike.  I couldn't, but I found this, by artist Mike Joos:

By the way, today is also National Love Your Pet Day.  This is the first time I've heard of the holiday.  I wonder whether it's held on a fixed date, as nearly all holidays were when I was a kid, or whether it's a "movable feast" and it just happened to fall on President's Day.

I know one thing:  I'd rather spend time with Max or Marlee than just about any President!

Two Different Views Of A Good Day

You know it's summer--or close to it--in this part of the world by the fulsome, verdant foliage:

Those trees stand next to the Veterans' Memorial in Greenwich, Connecticut.  Yes, I took a ride there.  Once the rain stopped, around ten o'clock yesterday morning, the sun appeared as if it were in the next frame of a film.  And, while it brightened the day, it also turned the air soupy in short order.

Still, it was a good day for a ride.  Arielle, my Mercian Audax, was ready for anything:

On the other hand, Marlee and Max were ready for only one thing:

I had a great time.  I'm sure they did, too!

Riding A Heat Wave

This is what I looked like when I rode to work yesterday:

From Simply Bike

I figured you, dear readers,could take a joke.  If I looked like her when I rode to work--better yet, if I showed up for work looking like her after riding--I'd have a book contract or a modeling contract or some kind of contract--though, I presume, not one on me.


Truth is, I didn't go to work--or bike-riding--yesterday.  I woke up late and, as the air was already steamy, I figured I would ride in the evening.  But I got caught up in other things, including reading a book I'd been meaning to read, making pesto, working on my bikes and playing with Max and Marley. Before I knew it, the hour was late and I was falling asleep.  Oh well.  


I'll get in a ride today, even if it's only down to the Williamsburg waterfront and Recycle-A-Bicycle.  Then, at least, I can say that I didn't turn into a complete wimp in the first heat wave of the year.  

Moving Forward: Setting Back A Carradice Bag

A couple of weeks ago, I described one of my rainy-day DYI projects that resulted in an easy-on, easy-off Carradice Nelson bag for my commuter.


Now, I'll describe another project I did the same day I did that one.  It also involved a Carradice bag:  in this case, the Barley.  Actually, it involved two of them.


Some cyclists complain about "thigh slap" when using traditional-style Carradice saddle bags, particularly on racing bikes.  That is because those bags were designed when bikes, even the racing variety, had shallower angles.  That meant that saddles sat further forward on seat posts and seat tubes than they do on modern bikes.  Also, Brooks saddles, for which Carradice saddlebags are designed, sit further forward and have less room on the rails to set them back than most saddles designed at a later date.  


The so-called Bagman is designed, in part, to alleviate this problem.  It looks well-made enough, but it weighs and costs nearly as much as some good racks.  (I own one, which I haven't used yet, for the possibility of using the Nelson longflap on Arielle or Tosca.)  Plus, it's not the easiest thing to install.  Finally, it mounts on the saddle rails and, depending on your saddle and where it's positioned, you may not have enough room on your rails to install it.


So, I adapted someone else's idea and added one of my own to set the bag back.  

Here's the idea I adapted:  I took two short pieces of PVC pipe, which you can find in any hardware store, screwed them together, filed one end to fit on the seat post and wrapped them in black tape. Then, instead of using the strap Carradice provides for attaching the bag to the seat post, I took a cheap strap and threaded one end through the pipe, into the part of the bag designed for the strap, and back into the pipe, which I cinched around the seat post.


After I installed the bags and rode them a couple of times, I discovered something else.  Canvas bags, like leather saddles, become more supple with use.  So the bag "collapsed" around the pipe, and sometimes (depending on whether I slid back on the saddle), my thighs grazed the ends of the bags.  

If you're familiar with these bags, you know that there's a wooden dowel that runs across the top.  When you attach the bag to the slots or loops on a Brooks-style saddle, you loop the straps around that dowel.  Well, I installed another dowel like it across the bottom of the bag, at the point where the pipe meets the bag.  

I fastened the dowels with small wood screws.  That is how Carradice attaches the original dowel, so I figured those screws wouldn't harm the fabric.


A few days after I made the modifications, I got caught in a pretty fair downpour.  (Is that an oxymoron?)  I am happy to report that everything I had in that bag--my camera, notebook, an extra layer and, ironically, a tube of sunblock--remained as dry as Charlie and Max were in my apartment.

Flaneurs, And A Project Or A Patient

Here is what I am greeted with at the end of my rides:

OK, so that's what they're made to do:  taking it easy.  Can't fault their fashion sense, either.  The smug-looking guy on his side is Max; the one with the "You talkin' to me?" pose is Charlie.

Here are Arielle and Tosca resting for the night.


And here is my latest patient, I mean, project:

This is the Schwinn I bought from that charming young couple last week.  As I do whenever I buy a used bike, I'm taking everything apart.  I opened up the headset, which, I believe, has never been cleaned.  What I didn't realize is that it has loose bearings rather than ring-shaped retainers with bearings.  So the bearings scattered to the four corners of the floor.  (How is it that you can completely lose something inside a 12X 12 room?)  I'll find them some day.  But the ones I have look like Ignaz Schwinn installed them himself.  


The only problem is that I don't have any 5/32" bearings in the house.  My other bikes have sealed cartridge bearings, so I haven't used loose ball bearings in a while.  And the shop in which I stopped during my ride didn't have them, either.  


Like the truth in The X Files, they're out there.  I just have to find the right shop.  I'm sure Bicycle Habitat has them.  If I don't find them elsewhere, I'll go to Habitat next time I'm in Soho--which should be soon.


Speaking of which...They got word that my Miss Mercian frame has been built.  Now it has to be painted.  That actually is a fairly long process.  But, hopefully, I'll have it by the end of next month.

A Cyclist's Senses At The End Of The Semester

It's probably just as well that it rained almost nonstop for the past week. I suppose that if I were more religious, or at least more willing to take wonders for signs or signs for wonders, (or, for that matter, was still a college sophomore with a copy of The Waste Land--you know, the old paperback with the grey and black cover--in my hip pocket) I might've thought this week's weather was some sort of prelude to the Apocalypse.  But the rain kept me indoors when I would've been anyway.  


So, not being the superstitious sort, and no longer owning any garments with hip pockets, I just took the weather for what it was and read from that pile of papers that seems to grow no matter how much time I spend reading them.  This is one of those two or three times of year when, if you're a college instructor (especially in any sort of writing or writing-intensive course), you simply have no life beyond those papers.  


But late this afternoon, the weather was so beautiful (or maybe it just seemed so in comparison to what we've had) that I took Tosca out for a ride.  We were out for a bit less than an hour, but it made me feel so much better.  And, of course, I was more productive when I got back to work.  Isn't that the point of recreation--at least in a capitalist economy, anyway?


And I find that even on such a casual ride as I took today, my senses are sharpened.  I'm thinking now of the day last week when, a few blocks from my main job, I passed someone who was selling fresh fruit from a cart on the sidewalk.  Even with a lane of parked cars between me and that cart, I could smell how fresh the fruit was--especially the strawberries. I was going to buy a one-pint carton until the guy offered me two cartons for three dollars.  


Today, when riding near PS 1,  I thought I smelled cat fur.  And I just happen to have a good sense of smell:

As you may be able to tell, Mojo is a shy kitty.  And she's big.  I mean, huge.  People often comment on how big Max is, but Mojo has to be at least half again as big.  


Woodside Animal Rescue was offering her--and a few other cats--for adoption.  I would have taken all of them.  Maybe I really do have to buy a farm some day.


The representative from Woodside said that Mojo had gotten so big because she doesn't get any exercise. That came as no surprise, but the reason the rep--I didn't catch her name--gave me wasn't what I expected.  "She's afraid of the other cats.  So she doesn't play with them; she hides."


Hey, if she came home with me, she could hide behind that pile of papers that just keeps on growing.  That same pile of papers makes me want to take off on my bike and not come back until Memorial Day, at least.

The Ice Man Cometh--On A Bike!

Yesterday I managed to slip out for a ride before meeting a friend for dinner and to watch the fireworks.

So what, exactly, did I have to escape from in order to get on my bike?  Well, none other than Max and Marlee.  Who says humans are the only creatures who don't know how to let go?

Anyway, I had no particular destination in mind.  Perhaps the only real intention I had was to avoid beach areas, because I knew that they were crowded.  That turned out to be a good choice:  I had most of the Queens and Brooklyn streets to myself!

I did find myself just up the street (Rockaway Parkway) from the Canarsie Pier. But I didn't go to the pier because it was packed with families and other groups cooking burgers, 'dogs and chicken wings on little grills.  Everything smelled good, even mixed with the aromas of beer and other kinds of alcohol.  

So, I made a U-turn and pedaled through a soundscape of liliting Caribbean music and accents along Canarsie side streets, and along Rockaway Avenue (almost traffic-free) to Brownsville, Ocean Hill and Bedford-Styvesant--areas of Brooklyn hipsters and gentrification still haven't found (though that could change very, very soon!).  Soon, I found myself in the tatoo capital of the Western world--Wilson Avenue in Bushwick.  There, I stopped at a shaved-ice cart, where I asked the man to make me a cone (paper) of ice con citron y cereza--with lemon and cherry syrups.  

I actually wante that cone.  But buying it was also a pretext for talking to the man about his cart.  

He says he made the cart, and attached the bicycle, himself.  It's easier and faster to move that way than it is to push the cart around while on foot.  Also, he doesn't have to worry about parking, as he would if he were driving the cart.

And, yes, that ice hit the spot.

A Fallen Woman (On Her Bike)

Had a bit of a mishap yesterday.  On my way to work, a driver pulled out of a parking lot and into the street, about twenty feet in front of me.  I made a panic stop. Fortunately, the driver and I didn't collide.  However, I took a tumble.  


Except for a bent Jitensha handlebar, the bike incurred no damage.  However, my left knee hit the pavement.  So, it's swollen and bruised, and I feel pain when I bend it.  I feel it when I bend to sit down, but not once I sit down. However, it's painful to cross my legs.


I've been to the doctor.  He said, "It feels worse than it actually is."  That's good to know.  A few days of staying off it as much as possible should heal it, he says.  


So, if we get the snow, sleet, hail, slush and everything else the meteorolgists have forecast for this weekend, I won't mind, really.  I'll read, write, play with Max and do some cooking.  Maybe I'll make some soup: I haven't done that yet this "winter."


Oh well.  If I get some miles in before the season starts, at least I can be in something like reasonable shape.  Meantime, I'll keep on posting!

Rainy Days, Cyclists and Cats

The sky is darkening; the fine light rain seems to be suspended between streets slickened with streetlight reflections of drizzle.  Earlier today, harder rain plunked against the awning by my window and seemed to drive all reflections in streams down pavement that’s even darker than the sky is becoming now.

For three days, we’ve had weather that’s been one variation or another of the two kinds I’ve just described.  But that’s not the reason I haven’t ridden.  

The other day, I still felt I had the mild case of the flu, or whatever it was, that found me over the weekend.  I felt congested and lethargic:  not the conditions under which most people choose to ride.  Yesterday, I still wasn’t feeling so well, but I had an appointment and only the vaguest notion of where it was, much less of how to get there.  So I took mass transit.  The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) here in New York has Trip Planner, a variation of the Google map on its website.  You can type in the addresses of your starting point and destination—or the names of landmarks—and Trip Planner will show you which buses and/or trains to take and estimate your travel time.  Cyclists need some version of that:  When you use Google or similar systems, they usually show only the routes over main highways.  I once tried to use the bike map feature, but it was worse than useless:  It gives directions like “Proceed down Maple Street.  Turn left.” 

Anyway…Today I was preparing myself, logistically and mentally, for tomorrow, which is the first day of the new semester.  Charlie and Max were content to spend time in my lap or simply curled up next to me.  And I was content, too. 

Is it my imagination, or is there some affinity between cyclists and cats?  It seems that most of the cyclists I’ve known have had cats, or wanted to have them.  On one hand, it doesn’t make sense:  After all, it’s pretty difficult to take your favorite feline with you when you’re riding.  I know that a kitten or a small cat can curl up inside a basket on the front of the bike, and that, with a bit of ingenuity, a kitty carrier can be attached to a bike rack.  But cats don’t seem to take very well to such arrangements. 

Sometimes in parks or other places where there’s little or no traffic, I see cyclists “walking” their dogs.  Those dogs are on leashes and trot a few paces behind the bikes. Of course, the cyclists are ride slowly; sometimes they pedal just enough to keep themselves balanced and moving forward.  Even so, I don’t think it’s possible to take a cat out for a “walk” while riding.  At least, I’ve never seen it.

So why do so many cyclists like cats?  OK, I guess this is where I get to promulgate with another of my crackpot theories.  (Actually, most theories are pretty crackpot.  That’s one thing I’ve learned from being around people who’ve gotten tenure, or made careers in other ways, from them.)  My guess, I mean theory, is that even as cycling has become more popular, it still takes a certain amount of independence to be a cyclist, especially a committed one. 

Even though cycling has become a more socially acceptable activity in the US—at least in certain segments of the community—it’s still not something one does to gain approval from the society at large.  Some people don’t even get approval from those who are closest to them when they start riding, first for recreation, then for transportation, let alone when they decide to take off for weeks, months or even years on a bike trip. 

Also, when we want—or need, for that is what it is for some of us—to ride, friends, lovers, spouses and other family members may feel as if they’re being ignored or snubbed.  Likewise, some people see cats as aloof or simply unaffectionate because they don’t snap to, the way dogs will, when humans summon them.  When a cat slinks off into a corner or sashays to the windowsill rather than to the lap of the person with whom she or he lives, said cat is not shunning or ignoring said human.  Rather, the cat is fulfilling a need, whether or not people can understand it.

Plus, I think that cats simply enjoy their own company.  It’s almost trite to say that you have to enjoy your own company before you can enjoy anyone else’s company because, well, it’s true yet people try to live as if it weren’t.  If you’re going to spend lots of time on the road by yourself, you’d better enjoy your own company.  But even if you ride with others, you need to be able to be Thoreau’s “majority of one” because, even when done in large groups, cycling is still an individual activity in ways that other sports and activities aren’t.

Finally, of course, there is a good logistical reason for cyclists’ affinity with felines:  They can be left alone when we spend all day on our bikes, and if we go on multi-day rides, all they need is for someone to give them food and water—and, if we’re gone more than a couple of days, clean or change their litter boxes.  Dogs and other pets—not to mention some humans—need more.

At least cats understand that we’re coming back.   And the funny thing about independent people is that they usually come back.

Getting Caught Without My Raingear

Last week, I wrote a post in which I asked you, dear readers, how you decide whether or not to ride in the rain--or when the weather looks chancy.  I also asked whether you bring rain gear if there's a chance of rain.


Well, on my way home last night I felt like an utter fool.  You see, I had to Kingsborough Community College for a workshop and because I agreed to proctor an exam.


Both appointments were in the morning.  So, I anticipated leaving some time in the afternoon.  The day started off bright, sunny and a little bit cool.  The air warmed up, but the skies didn't become any less clear, during the ride--parts of which are quite pleasant.  My destination is in a part of Brooklyn called Manhattan Beach, which looks more like a town on coastal Long Island or Connecticut.  


Well, for various reasons, I ended up staying later than I'd planned.  And, by the time I was ready to leave--around 7:30--rain had begun to fall.  No, forget that.  It was as if the sea, which abuts the campus, was pouring itself over the buildings, paths and gardens.


Of course, I didn't have any rain gear with me.


I thought I could wait it out. After about half an hour, the rain let up.  Not even two minutes after I pedaled off the campus, I rode by the eponymous beach.  You can guess what happened next:  Another deluge, even harder than the one I waited out, came raining down.  The only problem was that there was no shelter.  There were no houses on that stretch, no lean-tos or even trees.  Worse, lightning started to flash all around me.


Within seconds, it seemed, my skirt, blouse and sweater were soaked.  My sandals were like completely full sponges under my feet.


I rode another couple of minutes, to a mini-plaza with a pizzeria, a coffee house and a couple of small stores.  I was about to stop there--the thought of a slice of hot pizza (at a place where I'd had good pizza on other rides)appealed to me.  But the idea of sitting someplace, soaked to my skin, did not.  Then I thought about taking the train, about half a mile away. When I got to the station, though, I realized that the train's air-conditioning might be running.  Sitting in it, in my besoaked condition, definitely would not have been a good idea.

From The Guardian (UK) Bike Blog

So, even though I knew it would take me about an hour and fifteen minutes to get home, I continued to ride.  Somewhere around Brooklyn College, in the middle of Brooklyn, the rain started to let up.  It had all but stopped by the time I crossed the Pulaski Bridge from Greenpoint into Queens.  From there, it's only a few minutes to my apartment.  I stopped at a greengrocer:  the boxes of strawberries and the piles of cherries (both red Bings and yellowish Queen Annes, which taste like a cross between a sweet cherry and a nectarine) in their bins were even more appealing than the pizza had been an hour earlier.  So, after filling my Carradice Nelson Longflap with the luscious fruits, I pedaled home.


The most interesting thing--to me, anyway--was that, except for my sandals, I was dry.  And so was everything in that bag.


That fruit sure was good.  So was the concoction I threw together:  chicken, corn kernels, scallions, chili peppers, Italian green peppers, red bell peppers and mushrooms, all stir fried with a little bit of curry powder and soy sauce, and tossed over some Japanese buckwheat noodles.  Max and Marley were all over me:  They liked the chicken, too. (All right, I cooked some without the vegetables and sauce and noodles for them.)

One Person's Trash Is Another Person's...Honjo? LeFol?

I used to know people who never bought furniture or electronic equipment:  They furnished their rooms, apartments or even houses—and made music, phone calls, designs and algorithms—with stuff people left curbside for sanitation workers to pick up.  I still know someone, a musician and bike mechanic (If he’s reading this, he knows who he is!), who has never purchased a power tool or even a vacuum cleaner:  He has refurbished stuff other people discarded.  He even owns a couple of bikes acquired that way. I, too, have had such bikes in my life.

Maybe it’s because most of my acquaintances and I are well into middle age that I no longer hear of people filling their living spaces with beds, couches or even desks or cupboards other people no longer wanted or needed.  Perhaps young people are still doing such things and I just need to make younger friends.  Or it may be that concerns over bedbugs and contagious diseases have stopped people from constructing their living spaces from the flotsam of other people’s lives.

I admit it’s been a while since I’ve done anything like that.  In fact, when I see piles of furniture and books, or bags of clothes or concatenations of toasters, blenders, food processors, microwave ovens, stereo equipment, light fixtures and framed prints relegated to the edge of the gutter at the beginning or end of a month (when people move out), I almost never stop even to take a look.  For now, I don’t want any living being besides Max or Marley to take up residence in my apartment unless he or she is helping me to pay the rent or is a partner in a recreational (not procreational!) activity with me.

The other day, I rode by an apartment full of stuff without the apartment abandoned in front of a recently-built waterfront condo building on Kent Avenue in Williamsburg.  I wouldn’t be writing about it if I hadn’t noticed something from the corner of my eye and checked it out.

It’s not every day that someone leaves behind a pair of hammered aluminum fenders with a randonneur-style rack. It would be serendipitous (Is that an actual word?) enough if they were from Velo Orange.  But I knew, as soon as I picked them up that at least the fenders aren’t.  

The pattern on them consists of hexagons that are more sharply defined than the polygons on the VO fenders:

I doubted then, as I do now, that they’re original LeFol or other vintage French fenders.  But could they be Honjos?  The pattern matches.  And, even more interestingly, they are 43 mm wide, the same as Honjos, whereas my VOs are 45 mm.  (VO also makes 35mm hammered fenders.) 

But I didn’t see any sort of markers to indicate their provenance.  I’ve seen a couple of pairs of Honjos before, but I can’t recall whether they had any decals or emblems on them.  I also don’t know whether some other company is making fenders that look so much like Honjos.  It’s not inconceivable:  After all, how could Honjo claim a patent infringement when its own fenders replicate 50- or 60-year-old French designs?

Anyway, the fenders are in excellent shape.  There’s a little bit of dirt on the underside, which shows they were ridden, but not much.  There are a couple of indentations where the fenders were fitted between fork blades or seat stays.  They were drilled for some frame that had threaded fitments in the fork crown and underneath the seatstay bridge, as Helene (my newer Miss Mercian) has.  The holes don’t seem gouged or otherwise enlarged and have no cracks or other stresses around them. So, if I wanted to use the fenders on Helene, fitting the front should be no problem, but the hole in the rear might not line up with the fitting on the rear bridge. 

Of course, I could plug that hole and use the fender with a bracket—on Helene or Vera.  But the rack is not meant to be used with panniers or loads of more than a couple of kilos—both of which I sometimes carry on Vera.

Before I try anything, I want to ascertain that these fenders are actually from Honjo (or LeFol?!) and not some knock-offs that would be a downgrade, quality-wise, from my Velo Orange fenders.