Don't Look Now!

I took an Art History course that  included a final exam with this essay question: "Explain the Mona Lisa smile."

I don't remember what I wrote. I am sure, however, that it wasn't profound, brilliant or original in spite of my belief that it, like everything I wrote in those days, embodied all of those qualities.  So it wouldn't surprise you to know that the grade I got--a B, if I remember correctly-- aroused my indignation. (It didn't take much, did it?)

So, being older and wiser, I won't venture an opinion about why the young woman has her hands over her eyes:

I simply thought the image is light and funny--just right for a Sunday morning.

If I Were A Museum Director...

 Every museum should have bicycle parking facilities--preferably indoors, with a valet.

The Metropolitan Museum in New York offered it briefly, thanks to a collaboration with Transportation Alternatives, when it re-opened after its pandemic-induced closure.  I was reminded of that during my latest Paris trip, when I went museum-hopping on the bikes I borrowed and rented.

In nine days, I visited the Rodin, Picasso, Modern Art (twice), Jacquemart-Andre and Orsay Museums. Sidewalk or curbside bike racks stood just outside all of them, secluded from the traffic.  Also, there were Velib ports near all of them.  So, in Paris it is easier than it is in New York to bike from museum to museum, without having to worry about whether your bike will be where you parked it after spending a couple or a few hours looking at paintings and sculptures.  Still, I would love to see indoor facilities--and even more encouragement of, not only cycling in general (which Paris' current mayor seems to be doing plenty of) but of riding to museums and other cultural sites.

"The Scream" isn't Edvard Munch's only painting.

I mean, for me, there is nothing like taking in the colors and forms, and the ideas and feelings they convey, after a ride along city streets.  The people, buildings and streets I see, almost kaleidoscopically, put me in a mind and mood about how artists see the subjects of their work and transform them into transmissible visions. 

Perhaps it has to do with the blood that pumps into my brain as much as the sensory stimuli I experience while riding.  That might also be the reason why I can go into "old favorite" museums like the Rodin or New York's Guggenheim, or newer favorites like the Jacquemart-Andre,  and feel as if I am, not only re-connecting, but re-discovering.

Lady Macbeth, by Fussli

Now, in the Jacquemart- Andre, I sauntered through a special exhibit of Johan Heinrich Fussli, an artist I knew peripherally through his connections with the London literary and theatre worlds of the 18th Century.  But its permanent exhibit, like the one in the Rodin, also felt fresh. So did seeing the more as well as the less famous Edvard Munch works in a special exhibit at the Orsay:  Even the "Scream" resonated for me, as did the works of Oskar Kokoschka in a Modern Art special exhibit.

Oskar Kokoschka, self-portrait

If I were a museum director, I would make bike riding a requirement for entrance.  Or, at least, I would offer a discounted admission price. (I can't exclude people who can't ride, after all!)  On second thought, if I had my way, all museums would be free.  It would be the only policy that would be fair to everybody, wouldn't it? 

That I think that way is probably one reason why I never could be a museum director:  They have to raise money somehow.  But perhaps one will listen to me when I say that cyclists make the best museum visitors.  Really, we do.

Riding To A Light Show

More about my Paris trip--including the bike I rented and one I saw on the street--are on the way, I promise.  I'm still under the weather, just as the new semester is beginning.

In the meantime, I'll show you a treat that awaited me during one of my rides in the City of Light.

You were expecting a crepe or some such thing?  Actually, I did enjoy one with creme de marron (chestnut paste--much better than Nutella!) at a nearby stand. The fellow who made it was, in his own right, an artist.  So was the person (or were the persons) responsible for that riot of light and color.

No, a rabid painter or eccentric designer didn't storm his or her way into the abbey of Saint Germain des Pres.  The artist or artists in question did their work long ago and, perhaps unwittingly, made another kind of art--something we might call an "installation"--possible.

Ironically, the abbey stands across the eponymous Place from a cafe--Deux Magots--renowned as a haven for artists, writers, composers and other creative people during the first half of the twentieth century. Most who make the pilgrimage to the cafe and the surrounding area for its literary and artistic heritage do not, I suspect, visit the church for which the Place is named.  Likewise, I don't think most who enter the church are much interested in the walking in the footsteps or imbibing the  nectar that nourished the talents of Sartre, de Beauvoir, Hemingway and their contemporaries.

Me Revoila!

You haven't heard a day-by-day description because I really filled my days there and wasn't getting back to my hotel room until the wee hours of morning.  By then, between all of the bike riding, museum and cathedral visits and socializing, I was tired, though in good ways.

Perhaps, in reading the previous sentence, you might think I shouldn't be calling this blog "Midlife Cycling" anymore.  But I'll continue to do so because, well, what else am I going to call it?  Anything with "Old" or "Senior" in the title just wouldn't have the same ring. Besides, I want to stick to "Midlife Cycling" as an act of defiance, just as I continue to speak French for as long as I can get away with it after getting home from a trip.

But I digress...and now I'll confess:  I simply wanted to spend a few days un-tethered to my electronic devices.  I didn't turn on my laptop and or answer e-mails on my smartphone unless they came from my friends in Paris or anything else related to my trip. 

I mean, when the spire of the Eiffel Tower is peering from behind l'Ecole Militaire, across the street from my hotel (the Derby Eiffel), the Seine is a five-minute walk away, and art, great food, friends and new bike lanes--real ones!--beckon, why would I want to spend time with my face in front of a screen? 

During the next few days, I'll tell you more about my trip...including, of course, where and what I rode!

The Clues Lead To This

Yesterday's post contained clues to today's.

Here's another clue:

Now, that bike might tell you something else about this post.  Is its subject a bike

or a place where you might find it?

No, I'm not in Hell.  I was always very quick to remind my students that they weren't, either, when I assigned a paper on the image in question--or the literary work on which it's based.

I have, however, visited one cathedral

and another:

and  didn't have to hear "I am beautiful" from Christina Aguilera. Instead, I saw it from one of my favorite artists*:

OK, so you've probably figured out that this post isn't about a bike--or any thing.  It's also not about any person--except, perhaps, me. 

So now you know you're reading about a place.  I saw this last night, when I stepped out of where I'm staying

and this, on my way back in this evening:

Yes, I am indeed in Paris.  The weather has been remarkably Spring-like, minus the sun:  Daytime temperatures have been in the 10-12C (50-55F) range.  Of course, over the next few days, they could drop so, perhaps, bringing warm clothes won't have been in vain.

It may seem odd that I could take a ten-day vacation here for less than most trips in the US. Then again, I'm travelling after the holiday, and I'm not here during the Summer, which is the normal "peak season." That meant that in September, I got a really good price on  a package that included non-stop flights between JFK and Charles de Gaulle (CDG) and a hotel just a couple of blocks from..wait for it...the Eiffel Tower.    Also, I know this city well enough not to make the mistakes, money-wise, that first-time visitors make.  And, of course, I have friends here, whom I'll see.

I didn't arrange to rent a bike, as I normally do.  For one thing, some of the rental services, which also do tours of the city, are closed for the winter. (When I came four years ago and rented a bike, the owner of the service actually made a special trip in to town to rent the bike.  Had I known that, I might not have arranged the rental.)  So, I am going to try the Velib. It will be interesting mainly because it will be my first experience with a municipal bike-share system.

However it is, I'm still in a city I love--where friends end e-mails, not with "sincerely," or "best,' but "bises."

*--Je suis belle, my favorite Rodin work and one of my favorite works of art.

They Didn't Try This At Home

When I came across this image, I thought it was a joke or someone's attempt to create "art." 

Turns out, it had an illustrative purpose.  Apparently, in Baldwin Park, California, it is illegal to ride a bicycle in a swimming pool.

Note that I used the present tense: "it is illegal."  Yes, that law is on the books, though it's (thankfully) not enforced and no one is sure of whether it ever has been.

From what info I've gleaned, the law against riding on or in was passed in the 1970s, when BMX cycling and skateboarding were popular, mainly among adolescent and young adult males.  The real purpose of the law, I think, was not to keep kids from pedaling in their families' backyard swimming pools.  No self-respecting teenaged boy in California (or most other places) would have done such a thing.  Rather, I suspect that the law was passed in response to complaints after those young rebels broke or cut into fences surrounding larger pools.  

But the young and restless weren't looking to turn their bikes into amphibious vehicles or their skateboards into water-skis. Instead, they broke in during the fall and winter, when those pools were drained and became, in effect, rinks. So, as often as not, the owners of the properties didn't discover the "crime" until weeks, or even months, after it was committed.

I strongly suspect that at least some of California's current law-makers and -enforcers broke that law at some time in their youth.  And that is the reason why the law hasn't been repealed:  Part of the fun of being an adolescent is rebelling against something (or, at least, feeling as if you are) and getting away with it.  So, while living in such a mindset, what could be better than breaking a law and knowing that you most likely will get away with it.  And what loving parent wants to deny their kid that pleasure?

Should The Pedaling Picasso Become A Planner?

Who is an artist?

More specifically, what makes an artist an artist?

OK, I know that you (some of you, anyway) don't come to this blog for answers to questions like those.  Greater minds than mine can't come up with them, so I won't try to formulate any on this blog, let alone in this post.

There are, however, cyclists who make, if not objets d'art, then at least conceptual creations when they ride.  

Anthony Hoyte, a.k.a. The Pedaling Picasso, created this Strava image of Pere Noel in and around Paris.  While pedaling 109.7 miles over 13 hours and 19 minutes does not yield an impressive average speed, you have to remember that works of art, great or not, take time.  In Hoyte's case, he probably spent much of that time simply navigating his route.

Likewise, his GPS must have worked overtime as he pedaled sketches of Frosty the Snowman, a reindeer, Santa's head and the words "Merry Christmas in and around London and Birmingham.

If he could make street-level route maps of those images, they would be more useful than some of the "bicycle infrastructure" built lately:

I mean, what is the point of a "roundabout" in a bike lane? An intersection with signal lights synchronized so that cyclists cross before the traffic would be infinitely  more practical--and safer. 

A true artist would know better, I think.

Voyage En Rose

 In  2000, I did a bike tour through the Pyrenees, from France into Spain and back.  I started in Toulouse, where I spent four days.  To this day, it's one of my favorite large cities.  The people are friendly and it has all of the other things to love about French cities and towns:  great food, beautiful public spaces and interesting art.  But the thing that leaves me with a warm glow (please indulge me in this analogy/pun) is the light at the end of the day.  So much of the city softly blazes as the sun sets among brick buildings.  For that, Toulouse is often called la ville rose.

So why did I think about that while riding yesterday?  (Well, why wouldn't I?)  As we near the winter solstice, the days are growing shorter.  So any given ride has a greater chance of ending, or even continuing, into the sunset, under twilight.  After riding to the Rockaways and Coney Island, I passed through Clinton Hill--a neighborhood just east of the Brooklyn Academy of Music and Atlantic Center.  

The area is probably best known for its old stone churches, brownstones and the Pratt Institute.  Nestled among them is a smaller but well-respected university:  St. Joseph's.  As a longtime presence, it--not surprisingly--shares the neighborhood's architectural and other visual delights.  

Those buildings, on Clinton Avenue, are adjacent to St. Joseph's and share many characteristics with its other buildings.  They are not, however, part of the university.  The exteriors have been almost unchanged since they were built in 1905, in part because the block is one of the city's first designated historic districts.

Whoever lives in those buildings comes home to a maison rose at the end of the day.  That might be reason enough to live in them, as so many other parts of this city have less rose and look more and more like they're built with neutral-tone Lego blocks. 

Bike Banks: A Solution To A "Hidden Poverty?"

I haven't been to the Netherlands in a while.  So my firsthand memories of it aren't as clear as they are of countries I've seen more recently. But an impression I formed during my time there has been reinforced in all sorts of ways:  It is a country of contradictions and paradoxes.  You can see it in the art:  Few countries can claim as many renowned artists, in proportion to its population. Those artists include Rembrandt and Mondrian; Vermeer and Van Gogh (though the French love to claim Vincent as their own, as he lived and did his best work in Arles).  

Another paradox is that it's the country that, some historians and economists argue, created modern capitalism--or, at any rate, exported it to the world. Yet it was one of the first nations to institute a comprehensive--or, if you like, socialist-- safety net for all of its citizens.  

That system, which includes single-payer healthcare, is one reason why Dutch society isn't as socially stratified as the US.  While there are some very rich people, few (if any) approach the level of affluence seen in the wealthiest Americans, Russians or the economic elite in other countries.  Yet, there is still a stigma attached to a particular kind of poverty or hardship: the kind in which parents have difficulty providing for their children.  Even in a time or near-record inflation, including energy costs that have doubled, people are expected to "just shut up and get a job and don't complain," as one person put it. 

Some Dutch people and families, like their counterparts in other countries, have to make difficult choices.  So one of the things that might be sacrificed is--even in nation where it's said, only half-jokingly, kids learn how to pedal before they learn how to talk--a bike for a kid. Not having a bike, for a young person, can result in taunts and bullying--and make a commute to school even longer and more arduous.

That is where Dutch "bike banks" come in. Think of them as a cross between a program like Recycle-A-Bicycle and a food bank.  They Royal Dutch Touring Club ANWB has created a scheme in which volunteers train people, including teenagers who have dropped out of schools, to make second-hand and discarded bikes ride-worthy.  Those bikes are then distributed to kids in need.  

The biggest problem is that even in the Netherlands, where bikes outnumber humans at roughly the same ratio that guns outnumber people in the USA, there aren't enough bikes to meet the demand. One bike bank in Amsterdam has received 1200 applications for 400 bikes.

The "bike banks," some of which are found in low-income neighborhoods of cities like Amsterdam and the Hague, not only spare kids from taunting and parents from shame.  Bicycles are ingrained in Dutch life in ways that few Americans can understand. "In Holland, you need a bicycle to join in," said Inge Veliscek of ANWB.  A bicycle is necessary "to go to your football, or to your friends or the school of your choice," she explained.  

Photo by Anna Holligan for the BBC.

As an example, a girl named Sanna picked up a sky-blue cruiser. "It's pretty," she exclaimed.  But even more important, according to her mother, it will allow her to ride to a better school in a better neighborhood. Knowing that, it's easy to imagine that having a reliable bicycle can result in a better job or living situation--or to have a job at all if paying transit fares every day is too much of a strain on the budget.

A bike "makes your world bigger," Ms. Veliscek said.  Not having one is a "hidden poverty."

Perhaps understanding that last phrase is key to creating, not only a bike culture that does more than fetishize accessories, but a transportation system in which bicycles are a key component.  Such an endeavor seems anathematic to "law and order" American politicians, but completely logical  to the Dutch, who prize order as much as anyone in the world.

Combining Her Passions For Pedaling And Painting

Perhaps it's because I've lived in New York most of my life: For me, bicycling and public art have become more and more intertwined.

These days, however, one doesn't have to go to biketopias like Portland or Amsterdam or art havens like Paris or New York to experience murals, large sculptures or installations during a ride.  It seems that smaller 'burgs are getting in on the idea of combining the two.  I think it has to do with increasing numbers of artists living and working outside of the traditional creative capitals for any number of reasons (not the least of which is the cost of studio space, supplies, or simply feeding and housing one's self) and cycling becoming a transportation option and recreation choice for many more people.

Among the communities that are bringing cycling and art together are the city of Kalamazoo and its eponymous Michigan county.  To that end, Bike Friendly Kalamazoo commissioned a mural that is going up along Lovers Lane, a popular cycling route in the city of Portage.

Photo by Dan Nichols for WWMT

The very colorful 17-by-58 foot image is being painted by local artists and is slated to be finished by the 15th of this month.  On that day, a public engagement will be held for the families that helped to paint it.

For the creator of the mural, Ellen VanderMyde, working on this project combines her passions for pedaling and painting.  She grew up in Portage and "grew up cycling this path" and hopes that people will ride to the mural to see it in person.

"We wanted to express the joys of cycling," explained Bicycle Friendly Kalamazoo President Paul Selden.  He hopes that "everybody who sees it would maybe want to get on a bicycle and if not maybe give those who are on bicycles a little more space on the road."

He also hopes to have another mural completed this year and that it, along with the work in progress, will be the beginning of more such installations. 

As far as I am concerned, public works of art readily visible to cyclists--whether or not those works are bicycle-themed--are  part of a city's cycling infrastructure.  If nothing else, I'd rather see a mural or a sculpture while I'm riding than risk my bike or my self on a poorly-conceived, -built or -maintained bike lane.

  

Securing Your Bike Without Weighing It Down

One of the biggest "arms races" in cycling doesn't involve technological innovations in the equipment Tour de France riders use.

Rather, it has to do with what transportation and recreational cyclists use to keep their bikes.  Ever since Kryptonite and Citadel introduced U-locks (or, as some call them, D-locks) in the mid-1970s, nearly every bike security system is a variation on the design.  The changes have mainly been in the locking mechanisms themselves, as thieves typically found ways to pick them.  

Lock-makers found ways to stay one step ahead of the perps until another kind of technological development--in batteries--made power tools lighter and more portable.  So, now a professional or habitual bike thief's weapon if choice is more likely to be an angle axle grinder, which he or she uses to erode the lock's shank.

In response, U- and D- lock makers beefed up them up, using harder steel and more of it. One unfortunate consequence, which you might be familiar with, is that such locks have become very heavy.

Knowing that, a British company has created a new line--the Litelok X series--of D locks (their terminology).  They are fashioned from something called Baronium, a composite material that is fused to a hardened high-grain, high-tensile steel core. The makers of these locks claim that their products will resist grinders better than any others on the market at about half the weight of conventional D locks.

 

Litelok's makers say the locks are rattle-free, owing to the tight clearances of the shackle and the dual-locking design.   Each come with the company's new Twist + Go mounting system, which they claim will fit any bike.  The firm has also partnered with British bag maker Restrap to make a belt-fitting holster that will allow you to carry the Litelok on your person.

Two different models of the lock, the X-1 and the X-3, will be available.  The X-3, the more expensive one, is slightly smaller and heavier, but has an Abloy Sentry lock--currently considered the "gold standard'--while the X-1 has an ART 4-accredited cylinder.  Both items exceed the new Sold Standard bicycle lock ratings.

 

She's Recovering, And I'm Glad

One way I know an artist is really good is that I look at, listen to or read their work even if it's in a genre I don't particularly like.  One example is Hank Williams.  I don't categorically dislike country music, but I can't say I'm a fan of it generally.  I do, however, own CDs of Hank's work because he had an expressive voice and did work that, to me, is clearly art.

Musically, I would also put Amy Grant in the same category.  I'm definitely not a fan of Christian rock, but I appreciate her skill as a songwriter and singer.  

That is not the only reason, though, that I am happy that she has, seemingly, recovered so quickly and well from her recent bike crash--and is scaling back her touring and recording schedule.  As someone who has had two crashes (in half a century of dedicated cycling) that landed me in emergency rooms--both within four months, two years ago--I wish anyone who's been sideswiped, doored or otherwise swept into a crash or other mishap that resulted in injury.

I know that some Christians will say she's "gone secular" and that others categorically reject anything with a message of religion, or even belief.  I do, however, appreciate her skills as a songwriter and vocalist.  

As a cyclist, though, I am glad she is doing well--and hope that her accident doesn't deter her from getting back on her bike.

 

Change And Reconnection

Early yesterday morning I rode Tosca, my Mercian fixed-gear bike, along the waterfronts of Astoria, Long Island City, Greenpoint and Williamsburg.  Another heat wave, like the one we had last week, was on its way.  But that was just one reason why I took an early ride.

After showering and a cup of coffee, I pedaled my "beater" to Court Square, near the much-missed (by me, anyway) Five Pointz building.  Riding there allowed me to take a more direct subway ride to Montrose Avenue in Brooklyn.

There, I met two old (OK, longtime) friends:

On previous trips to France, I've spent time with Jay and Isabelle who, I now realize, are my longest-standing friends. They came to town because their son has just begun to live and work in New Jersey, for an American branch of a company for whom he'd been working in France.

 

Meeting in Bushwick was Jay's idea.  This wasn't his or Isabelle's first time in New York--Jay actually lived here for a time--but he was looking through the Guide Routard (a sort of French counterpart of the Lonely Planet guide) for something "different."  So, as per the guide's suggestion, we started at the Montrose Street subway station, crossed Bushwick Avenue (the bane of Brooklyn cyclists) and wended our way through the back streets of a Bushwick industrial zone.

I have cycled through those streets, sometimes as a destination, other times en route to or from other places.  While I've seen buildings torn down and built up, spaces opened and closed, people and organizations coming and going, I don't think there's any neighborhood or district that shows me how much this city changes over time.  For one thing, some of the murals themselves change.  Also, I remember when the graffiti on the buildings wasn't of the kind that people like Jay and Isabelle would take a subway ride, or people like me would take a bike ride, to see. About twenty years ago, people--mostly men--worked in the warehouses and workshops during the day.  Anyone who stayed after business hours was too poor to live anyplace else.  Young people didn't move to the neighborhood; they looked for ways out of it.  And whenever I rode through it, I was the only adult cyclist for blocks, or even miles, around.

Of course, people change, too.  After a morning of wandering through one of the most expansive displays of truly public art in this city, we went to Christina's (Was our choice influenced by the mural? ;-)) in Greenpoint. It's a sort of cross between a New York/New Jersey diner--complete with Frank Sinatra and '70's pop tunes playing in the background--and a working-class eatery one might find in Cracow. I think we were the only non-Polish people in the place. Over pierogis and blintzes, we talked about their son, Jules, and how he wants to "voyager a travers  le monde"--see the world--just as we did when we were young. Actually, there are still places I want to see, and to re-visit.  But the pandemic has postponed travel plans for the past two years.  And, although I am fully vaccinated and take precautions, Jay reminded me of why I want to wait.  He and Isabelle didn't plan on coming here until a week or so before they arrived, which meant that their flights were expensive.  But, more to the point, he said that if, by some chance, he or Isabelle were to test positive and had to quarantine, or new restrictions were imposed--or a flight were abruptly cancelled--it could cost thousands of euros or dollars.

I told them that, if everything works out, I hope to return to France in January.  Seeing them gave me hope for that.  If nothing else, I felt as if I'd reconnected with what and whom I have known and loved, in all of changes and the ways they haven't changed.  

After I send this post, I will take another early ride and get home in time for brunch.

In Place

Yesterday I was torn between taking a familiar or a new ride.  So I did a bit of both:  I pedaled through areas of Westchester County I hadn’t seen in a while, on roads I’d never ridden.

While riding, I couldn’t help but to think about how two affluent towns, so close, could feel so different. Scarsdale, New York, like Greenwich, Connecticut, is one of the most affluent towns in the United States.  Both have quaint downtowns full of shops that offer goods and services you don’t find in big-box stores.  But while some Greenwich establishments have the intimacy of places where generations of people have congregated, others are like the ones in Scarsdale and other wealthy parts of Westchester County:  more self-conscious—you can see it in the names, some of which show merely that whoever came up with the name took French or Italian—and more trendy while trying not to seem trendy.  

Also, the mansions of Greenwich are set further from the roadway than those in Scarsdale.  I suspect that has to do with the differences between the towns’ zoning codes—which has to do with the philosophies of the people who made them.  Also, part of Greenwich includes farms where horses are bred and herbs are grown.

In other words, they reflect the difference between New England and suburban New York wealth (though Greenwich is certainly part of the New York Metro area). 

While both towns have public art and sculpture, I don’t think I’ve seen anything like this in Greenwich:

Simone Kestelman, the creator of “Pearls of Wisdom,” says she was inspired by what pearls mean: something to wear for special occasions, purity, spiritual transformation, dignity, charity honesty, integrity—and, of course, wisdom acquired over time.

One might expect to see something like this in Greenwich:

Indeed, the town has public horlogues like that one,  But I encountered it in the Bronx, across the street from Montefiore Hospital!

Title IX, Fifty Years Later

 On this date in 1972–fifty years ago—Title IX became law in the United States.

It’s commonly associated with its most visible manifestation:  women’s sports in educational institutions.  It is, however, a broad piece of legislation (Do I sound like a lawyer or politician?) stating that no educational institution that receives Federal funding—as most, even private colleges and schools do—can discriminate on the basis of sex.

The title of this blog is “Midlife Cycling.”  I am, however, old enough to have grown up with a girl much smarter than I am and possessing talents I can only wish for but whose parents did everything they could to keep her from going to college (or art school, her dream) because “she’ll get married, stop working and it will all be wasted.”

That rationale was used to impose strict quotas on—or ban outright—women in graduate schools, medical and law schools and even undergraduate programs like engineering. Those schools and programs just happened to offer access to some of the highest-paying jobs which, in the minds of decision-makers (nearly all men) “men need more” because they were going to support those women who were denied access to those programs and jobs—and the children those men and women would have.

Such attitudes were also used to discourage or bar girls and women from participating in sports. It was a kind of circular argument:  Girls’ and women’s participation in sports was pointless because once they graduated from school or aged out of whatever program they were in, there were no more opportunities for them, professionally or otherwise. That women and girls didn’t participate in sports was the rationale for not creating such opportunities! 

In addition to being circular, such an argument was hypocritical and nakedly sexist:  To my knowledge, no boy or man (including me, in my previous life) was ever discouraged from participating in sports because he had little or no chance of getting a scholarship or making a living from it.

One irony of Title IX is that sports is not mentioned anywhere in it.  Only subsequent revelations that women’s and girls’ sports budgets were as little as 1% of those for men’s and boy’s teams caused the law to be applied to sports programs.

While female participation in sports is undoubtedly much greater than it was half a century ago, it—and, perhaps more importantly, the budgets for it—are still much lower than those for males, and not nearly in proportion to student enrollment. Women make up nearly 60 percent of college and university enrollments but only 44 percent of varsity athletes.

What’s even more revealing is that budgets for women’s sports teams are not even in proportion to their level of participation.

Much of that has to do with priorities. In most colleges and universities, most of the revenue comes from football (American-style) and basketball.  While there are many women’s basketball programs, they, with few exceptions, don’t garner the attention devoted to men’s teams.

I think the reason for that is also the reason why, even sports in which women’s participation is greater, men’s abilities are prized over women’s.  Because, on average, they are taller and stronger, men can jump higher, hit harder and run faster.  Those abilities translate into dunks, tackles and sprints:  the sorts of things used to promote football, men’s basketball and other men’s sports.

If there were as much respect accorded to the qualities of female athletes—such as flexibility, resilience and endurance—there would be more respect for, and professional opportunities in, not only women’s basketball, but also in other sports like volleyball, gymnastics and, yes, cycling.

Speaking of which:  About 200 post-secondary educational institutions sponsor club-level cycling teams, which compete against other schools but are usually funded by the students themselves.  As of 2020,  21 colleges and universities have what are known as “varsity” cycling teams.  They are funded by the schools, just like (but not at the level of) football, basketball and other “major” teams.  All 21 of those schools have both men’s and women’s teams. In a few, the dollar value of the average woman’s scholarship is greater than the average men’s; in others, it’s less or equal.

So, while intercollegiate cycling might be doing a little better in gender equity than other intercollegiate sports are doing, as researchers might say, the sample size is small.  But, given what I’ve said about the differences between male and female athletes, and the fact that some overall cycling records have been held by women, I think the potential of women’s cycling, whether collegiate, Olympic or professional, has yet to be realized.

A Joycean Parade of Cyclists

 Today is, of course, St. Patrick’s Day.

Since I am not Irish (at least, not to my knowledge!), I will not tell you whether or how to celebrate this day.  I will say, however, that so much of what we’ll see today is what I’ll call Celtic Kitsch. (Confession:  I was in college before I knew that the “C” at the beginning of “Celtic” is pronounced like a “k.”  Until then, I’d been pronouncing the word as “sell-tick,” like the basketball team in Boston.) The truth is, few can agree on what is “authentically” Irish. Although schools teach the Gaelic language, nearly everyone speaks (beautifully) the language of their colonizers.  And, apart from Roman Catholicism with a strong monastic tradition—which the young are largely abandoning—we actually know little about pre-Anglo Irish culture and history.

James Joyce understood as much.  Although all of his writing is set in his native country—which he lived away from for most of his adult life—he is not part of a “Celtic revival.” Instead, he used Ireland—Dublin, mainly—as a lens through which he could explore how people move through life, and how it moves through them—and, perhaps most important, our minds re-assemble it all, whether in images or language—or simply deal live with it as the chaos it is.  

Some have said that Joyce’s works—specifically Dubliners and Ulysses—are therefore to literature what Picasso’s Cubist paintings are to art.  Others have called him the first “cinematic” writer.  I agree with both, and would add that his narrative style is like a bicycle ride:  Whenever I take a ride, even one I’ve done hundreds of times, I see not only people and things I haven’t seen before, but a building, a city block, a tree or a seashore from an angle or in a different kind of light (or darkness) from what I saw on that same ride on a different day.

Martina Devlin, Darina Gallagher and Donna Cooney seem to understand as much.  On Sunday, they participated in a Dublin St. Patrick’s Day parade that includes a procession of 100 cyclists dressed in Ulysses-themed Edwardian clothes. They took spectators on a journey through places in the book.

Martina Devlin, Darina Gallagher and Donna Cooney (Photo by Norma Burke)

Cooney, the artistic director of the Dublin Cycling Campaign (now there’s a job I wouldn’t mind having!) said this year’s bicycle procession and St.Patrick’s Day parade are particularly special because February was the 100-year anniversary of Ulysses’ publication.  But the essence of the event might have been best summed up by Devlin, a writer whose speech included an excerpt from the novel and began with this:  “One of the landmark days in my life was when I learned how to ride a bike.”

“I felt as if I were on the road to somewhere.”

As were the cyclists and marchers in the Dublin parade, 100 years after Ulysses came into the world.