Riding The Penny Bridge To The Market

"Penny Bridge."  It sounds like a song from Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club doesn't it?

But its location is less quaint, if oddly bucolic.  Actually, I should say "was":  That bridge, so named because it cost a penny to cross (It was privately built and operated), stood at a spot I reached on my afternoon ride.

I'd ridden into the area-- possibly the last part of Williamsburg not claimed by hipsters, trust fund kids or Hasidim--before.  I had not, however, stopped at that particular spot, on Newtown Creek, until yesterday.

It's only a few hundred meters upstream from the new Kosciuszko Bridge, which has a nice pedestrian and bike lane.  But that spot, on the edge of an industrial area, is out of reach of the trucks, cars and buses and, it seems, rarely visited by anyone.  So, in spite of the hustle and bustle, the soot and grime all around it, it's rather peaceful.  

The Penny Bridge, built over 200 years ago, was the first crossing over Newtown Creek and helped to spur industries that continues to this day.  According to a marker at the site, the Creek, being a navigable waterway that empties into the East River (which is really a bay of the Atlantic Ocean), once carried more nautical traffic and freight than the Mississippi River!

I meandered along side streets, from one Brooklyn neighborhood to another, and after about 20 kilometers of pedaling, I found myself in another interesting spot about 5 kilometers from Penny Bridge:

Before today, I think I'd read or heard about the Moore Street Retail Market.  Opened in 1941, it's one of the later Works Progress Administration structures built in New York City.  Architecturally, it's hardly unique but certainly identifiable as a WPA structure.  One reason it's interesting and important is that it's one of a series of Retail Market Places built by the WPA. (Others include the Arthur Avenue Market in the Bronx, Essex Street in Manhattan and 39th Street in Brooklyn.)  While other WPA projects include everything from schools and courthouses to roadways and waterworks, the marketplaces may have been unique in their conception and purpose.  

Fiorello LaGuardia's tenure as Mayor of New York City almost exactly coincided with the Presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt, who signed the WPA into being.  Though they were of opposing parties, they were allies on many issues. (Funny how crises like the Great Depression had a way of making that happen!)  They both wanted to put people back to work, and LaGuardia was trying to clean up the city, literally.  He was able to get the WPA to build those market places, which contain stalls of everything from fresh produce and homemade specialties from the ethnic groups living in the neighborhood to housewares and children's clothing, were meant to replace horse-drawn vending carts, which he believed to be un-hygenic and unsightly.

I'd wanted to go inside the marketplace, but the "no bikes" policy was being enforced.  I propped Tosca, my Mercian fixed gear, against a pole.

 

"Don't leave that bike here!"  Of course I wouldn't; even if I'd brought a lock with me, I wasn't about to leave Tosca, or any of my Mercians, on the street.  But I think the wiry Hispanic man knew that. "That's one nice bike you've got."  I thanked him. "Do you want to see mine?"  Of course I did, and he pulled out his i-phone to show me images of a Throne track bike and a Trek road bike with a Creamsicle finish (which I actually liked) and, I think, Shimano 600 components.  I mention that last detail because I couldn't tell which model it was, but my guess it was one of the better ones in the Trek lineup.

Another man, a friend of his, stopped to greet him and look at my bike.  He, too, pulled out his phone to show me his Bianchi road bike--carbon fiber, but still in that trademark Celeste green.

So, while I didn't get to shop in the marketplace, I did pick up a few moments of cameraderie with a couple of cyclists.  Perhaps I'll bump into them again.

Fantasies On Speed, Not Steroids

The other day, and the day before that, I wrote about vintage bike parts that were (and, in some cases, still are) elite, if not sublime.

Now I have to balance it out with the thoroughly ridiculous.  Also, I feel an obligation to show that not all crazy, impractical ideas are being conceived and carried out (of what?) today.

Specifically, I am going to write about a totally ridiculous shift lever.  Having been a cyclist for four decades, and having worked in bike shops, I've seen some doozies, including ones longer and wider than railroad spikes--mounted on top tubes, no less.  (Could that be a cause of the decrease in fertility?)  They are in the category of, "They don't make them like that anymore--thank Goddess!"

So is this shifter I found on eBay:

I mean, in what universe is a shifter shaped like that?  Or, for that matter, in what reality does one combine it with a speedometer.

I'll tell you what milieu I'm talking about, because I spent part of my childhood in it.  It's the decade or so--roughly from the mid-1960s until the mid- or late 1970s--when bikes were designed for boys who, from atop their banana seats and behind their "ape hanger" bars, dreamed of driving "muscle cars" on the Daytona flats.   

Said bikes were designed by like-minded boys, some of them in the bodies of 40-something men.  And the boys of that time are now the 40-, 50- and even 60-something men who still are driven (pun intended) by such fantasies.

I'll bet that someone like that will buy the shift lever/speedometer I found on eBay.  I mean, who else would?

Communication Minister Delivers Meals

Photo by Hannibal Hanschke, for Reuters

 For the second time in a week, I’ll mention an early post, “What I Carried In The Original Messenger Bag.” Why?  This post will tell a man’s story that, in at least one way, parallels mine.

Some family members and others who knew me were bewildered or furious (or both) when I started dodging cabs and trucks to deliver papers, pizza and more mysterious packets in Manhattan and, occasionally, beyond.  After all, I had a degree from a respected university, did a couple of things that made use of it and lived abroad.  

But I’d had other, less salubrious, experiences.  And I was bearing what a doctor I saw years later would describe as “persistent’ depression and PTSD—as a result of some of those experiences, including trying to deal, or not deal, with my gender identity.

I don’t know anyoabout Sayed Sadaat’s personal history beyond what I read in an article. It’s not hard to imagine that he has some manifestation of PTSD—after all, he is an Afghani who left his country.

Also, he had lived outside of his native country before his current sojourn as a refugee. In fact, he holds dual Afghan-British citizenship and could have chosen to stay there.  But the 49-year-old moved to Germany late last year, just before Brexit “closed the door.”  He chose Germany, he said, because he expects it to be a leader in the IT and telecom sectors, areas in which he holds university degrees.

Oh, and when he left Afghanistan in 2018, he was the government’s communications minister.

Germany was taking in many Afghan refugees before the current Taliban takeover.  It seems that with his education, skills and experience, he would stand out among his fellow immigrants—and even natives of his current home country.  But there was one problem:  He arrived not knowing a word of German.

He concedes that “the language is the most important part” of making a new life for himself and the family he hopes to bring over. So, every day, he spends four hours at a language school before starting a six- hour shift on his bicycle, delivering meals for Lieferando in the eastern city of Liepzig.

One difference between his story and mine, though, is that he is about twice as old as I was when I was a messenger. Another, more important one is, of course, language.  However, once he gains a functional command of German, he should have other employment options.  I had them, too, but in my emotional state, I couldn’t have done anything else.

That leads me to wonder whether another part of our stories will continue to mirror each other:  I didn’t stop cycling.  Will he?

Where Were You When You Broke The Law?

 I broke a law.

Well, it may not have been a law where I committed the evil deed.  But a man did the same thing in another locale and was arrested.

To be fair, there was a warrant for his capture.  And the violation was just one charged to him when he was apprehended.

The cops who effected the bust were based in barracks in a town with one of the most quirkily beautiful toponyms I’ve heard:  Shickshinny, Pennsylvania. Imagine answering the query, “Where are you from?” with that.

Anyway, the benighted soul they ensnared, 51-year-old David Thomas Totten of Wilkes-Barre, was riding a bicycle eastbound in the westbound traffic lane of West End Road in Hanover Township.  It was just after midnight on 4 September 2023 and Totten didn’t have any lights on his bike.

Now, some officers might ignore such breaches of bicycle safety protocols. And unless the officers on duty had been involved with whatever led to Totten’s warrant—or there’s some tagging technology we don’t know about—they couldn’t have known about that warrant . So the question remains of what prompted the ones on duty to stop Totten and conduct a search that yielded a cigarette pack hiding suspected methamphetamine and a syringe.

Now, I’ve never smoked, owned or used a syringe or anything that could be construed as methamphetamine  or had warrant for my arrest (that I know of!). I’ll concede that I’ve ridden in the dark without lights or reflectors, though not within the past few decades. So what, exactly have both Mr. Totten and I done that resulted in an arrest for him, but not me.

He was carrying a table when he was stopped. I’ve done it, too, on more than one occasion. I’ve also carried chairs and bookcases—and a framed art pieces, including one that measured at least 2 feet by 3 feet (61 by 91 cm.).

The latter was a delivery I made, as a Manhattan bike messenger, from a Soho gallery to Judy Collins (yes, that one) on the Upper Wear Side. I made similar runs with oversized objets d’art and home furnishings in the steel and concrete canyons. I also hauled them as part of a move from one neighborhoods to another.

Of course, the prints, tables and such didn’t fit into my messenger bag, backpack, panniers or whatever I was using to haul stuff on my bike.  So, of course, I had to carry the item in one hand and navigate the bike with the other.

Such practices, it turns out, are transgressions against Chapter 35, Subchapter A, Section 3506 of the Pennsylvania vehicle code:

“ No person operating a pedal cycle shall carry any package, bundle, or article which prevents the driver from keeping at least one hand upon the handlebars.”

I guess it’s a good thing I was in New York and New Jersey when I committed my foul deeds—unless, of course, the Empire and Garden States have statutes like the one in the Keystone State.  Then again, if said laws exist, I would guess that the statute of limitations has run out. (Is that one of the benefits of getting older?)

Industrial Idylls

Where is this house?  Park Slope?  The Upper West Side?  Carroll Gardens?


Would you believe the South Bronx?


To be precise, it's on Beck Street.  It's about two and a half miles from Yankee Stadium.  Colin Powell (who, as far as I am concerned, gave the US one of the saddest days in its history) grew up a few blocks away.


In fact, the block on which that house stands is full of handsome brownstone and Victorian houses.  So are some of the nearby streets.  Somehow they survived the fires and other disasters that befell the Bronx during the 1970's and '80's.


As you can imagine, those streets make for some pleasant cycling, especially on a Sunday.


So, interestingly enough, do the nearby industrial areas of Point Morris and Hunt's Point.  

See that?  No worries about having or taking a lane here!


The weather was milder than we've had through most of this winter.  The temperature reached 55F and the thinnest wisps of clouds streaked the sky.  And, even though I was near the East River or Long Island Sound through most of my ride, the slight breezes carried only the faintest hint of chill from the water, which will be cold well into the spring.


I took Marianela because I thought there might still be some clumps of snow or slush, as well as potholes.  About the latter I was right, though the streets weren't as bad as I'd expected them to be.  


Speaking of streets: 

In almost every street name I've seen in the English-speaking world, the "Street," "Avenue," "Boulevard" or other designation came after the name.  I associate the practice of the designation preceding the name with French, Italian and Spanish cities.  


I wondered why I found a street named in the Latinate manner in the South Bronx, of all places.  I thought it might have to do with some French community that lived there at one time.  Gallic immigrants indeed settled in the Bronx, which was mainly rural, during the 19th Century, and opened spinning and weaving mills. And there is a parish of St. John (Jean) Vianney just steps away from that sign.


However, I found out that the street is actually named for a George St. John, who was one of the early English landowners of the area.  Still, I could find no explanation of why "Avenue" precedes rather than follows his name.  I guess he wasn't anticiapting curious cyclists riding by.

Over The Hills (of San Francisco)

A few days ago, I was bragging about some of the things I've carried on my bicycle.  In one of my earliest posts on this blog, I talked about other kinds of cargo--and baggage--I've hauled while pedaling two wheels.

I must admit, though, that I've never tried to schlep what a San Francisco residents Matt and Dorie Apollonio carted a few days ago:  two kids and a Christmas tree.  I have never had kids and the times I bought Christmas trees, I didn't have to lug them more than a few blocks.  Frankly, it probably would have taken me more time and effort to attach the tree to my bike, cart or shoulder than it took for me to walk with it.

From Hum of The City

 And, of course, I didn't have to negotiate San Francisco's topography or even that of the hilliest parts of the Bronx or Staten Island.  I didn't even have to go up the slope of Park Slope on occasions when I bought Christmas trees while I was living there.


 

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?

 

Waffles And Mud

If you are a cyclocross racer living in Belgium, today is your day.

Now, you might be thiking that if I could write that previous sentence, I must have waaay too much time on my hands.  Well, that is a matter of debate, I guess.  But l swear, I wasn't web-surfing when I came up with the information that allowed me to come up with such a statement.

You see, this morning, I turned on a local community-radio station. The host of one of those crazy programs one finds on such stations mentioned that today is International Mud Day.  I didn't catch his name, but I did hear him add, a few minutes later, that today is Waffle Iron Day.

Thus, in writing the opening sentence of this post, I have performed a creative act and a public service.  Just imagine:  If those two bits of information hadn't found my way, perhaps no one ever would have connected them.  The world would be this much (she holds her forefinger and thumb a hair's breadth apart) poorer.

(How's that for grandiosity?)

Anyway, I found out tht neither holiday was created by, well, people with too much time on their hands and possibly-legal (or not) intoxicating substances.  Turns out, Mud Day originated in Nepal, in an attempt to enrich the lives of orphans by getting them to spend more time outdoors. 

It's therapy!  Really!  From Cyclocross magazine

Someone noticed that kids' attitudes and moods improved after spending time wallowing around in the mud.  Like so many things "primitive" people in places like Nepal have observed for centuries, Western science has discovered this fact and confirmed it with empirical data.  Actually, even some beauticians have beaten those scientists to their discovery: Why do you think salons offer mud treatments for the face and other areas of skin?

As for waffle irons:  A while back, I read that waffles evolved, if you will, from the making of communion wafers. In those days, they were made individually by pressing the batter between--you guessed it--two heated irons.  Patterns, and sometimes even images, were engraved into the irons, so the wafers came out embossed with with grid patterns (like most current waffles) or, perhaps, the seal of a particular saint or church.

Wouldn't you love to see this first thing in the morning?

Later, someone got the idea of adding wine, beer and other things with yeast to leaven the batter and make it rise. Then , people discovered that those patterns--especially the grid--trapped air inside, making a treat that's crispy on the outside but fluffy on the inside.

Anyway...I'm sure that plenty of cyclo-cross riders have consumed waffles before and after (and during:  they fit well in jersey pockets!) races or training ride. I've carried waffles with me on all sorts of rides--except when I was in Belgium because, there, they could be found in just about any store or stand.

So...Happy Mud Day and Happy Waffle Iron Day.  Belgium and the world should celebrate!

Bananas?

When I was very young--which, believe it or not, I once was--bicycles with small-diameter (usually 20 inches) wheels and "banana" seats were popular.

The models oriented for girls were usually white or pink or lavender and had flowers, rainbows and such painted on them. But the ones for boys sported racing stripes and other things meant to evoke racing. 

One example of a girls' bike was the Schwinn Lil' Chik.  For boys, Schwinn made the "Krate" series (apple, orange and pea picker) while Raleigh offered the "Chopper".

Schwinn, Raleigh and other companies seem to have stopped making those bikes some time in the late 1970's.  If I recall correctly, the Consumer Products Safety Commission published a warning about them, or banned them outright.  I also heard that Schwinn, Raleigh and other companies that made such bikes were facing lawsuits from the families of kids who were injured when the bike toppled or, more commonly, when the struts of the banana seat broke.

It seems that nobody was even making those bikes or seats until a few years ago.  I don't know whether the government changed its regulations or whether the struts are better-designed or made with stronger materials than the old ones.  But, somehow, they are recapturing a part of the market and showing up in what would have been the most unlikely places:

I'm guessing that the banana seat on the back of this Trek hybrid is intended for a passenger.  I've ridden bikes with 15 to 25 kilos--about the weight of a young child-- loaded on the rear.  However, my loads--which usually consisted of clothing, camping and hiking equipment, notebooks and such--were packed into pannier bags attached to the sides of a rear rack.  Weight carried in that position is more stable than the same amount of weight fastened to the top of a rack--or on a banana seat.

I wonder what the safety record is for today's "banana" seats, especially given that increasing numbers of them are being attached to bicycles like the one in the photo.

On Diet Floats And Hauling Trees

I used to know...all right, I dated...well, umm I...

Well, whatever my relationship to this person (I'll leave it up to your imagination), I remember her mainly for the way she kept her shape.  Or, more precisely,  she claimed that a dietary practice (along with consensual aerobic activity) maintained her fine form. 

So, what was her culinary custom?  Well, she drank Coke floats.  With supper.  With lunch.  Sometimes with breakfast.  And almost every time in between.

Now, you might be wondering how she kept her fine form with a regimen like that--especially when you consider that she made them with Haagen-Dazs, the richest, fattiest and most calorie-laden ice cream available at that time.   Her secret, she claimed, was that she used Tab--the "diet" version of Coke before there was Diet Coke.

She said that she was "making up" for all of the calories in the ice cream plopping scoops of it into a drink that had no nutritional value--not even empty calories--whatsoever.

To be fair, I should also point out that she really didn't eat a lot of sweets.  Perhaps she could have maintained her sinuous silhouette even if she'd made her floats from regular Coke.  At least she didn't follow another practice of "dieters" at that time:  ingesting "salads" made from pieces of canned fruit encased in Jell-O, sometimes topped with Kool-Whip or Reddi-Whip.  I am not a religious person, but I think a good working definition of "sin" is taking a natural food, stripping it of its nutritional value and fresh taste, and encasing it in something that looks and tastes like half-cooled plastic in much the same way animals were stripped of whatever made them alive when they were encased in amber.

I must say that I at least had respect for that old, er, acquaintance of mine for not letting one of those abominations pass through her lips.  In comparison, her "diet" floats were at least more palatable.  And the logic behind them made more sense, even if they didn't make sense in an absolute sense. (What did I just say?)

So why am I talking about a beverage (or dessert, depending on your point of view) preference of someone I haven't seen or talked to in decades?

Well, some of you, I am sure, are more diet-conscious than I am. (Actually, most of you probably are.) But, more to the point, something I saw today reminded me of the "logic" behind her "diet" float.

Here it is:

The photo accompanied an article on Canadian Cycling's website.  Said article opens with this:

Transporting a Christmas tree isn't the most straightforward endeavour.  With a car, it often involves ropes, bungee cords and a lot of pine needles to clean up.  Then, when you start moving, the fear that it may fall off the roof.  While there's still some creativity and preparation required to transport a conifer by bike, there's no doubt it's more fun and fulfilling.

Now, I don't doubt that "creativity" and "preparation" are needed to haul a Christmas tree on your bike. I've carried pieces of furniture while riding, so I understand.  I also wouldn't disagree that it's more "fun" and "fulfilling".  Even if I win a Nobel Prize for my writing (or anything), I don't think it would give me the same satisfaction as knowing that I once moved myself and everything I owned from one apartment to another, in another part of town, by bicycle.  

People have all sorts of reasons for doing things by bike, without a car.  For some, poverty is one. But others do it by choice--whether for exercise, or to save money or do something that's socially and environmentally responsible.  Actually, I think that most people who cycle by choice to work or school, or on errands, count environmental and social consciousness as one of their most important reasons for doing so.  

That said, I can think of few things less conscious, and simply more wasteful, than chopping down a tree that will be tossed away in a few weeks.  That is, of course, the fate of most Christmas trees.  Even if, at the end of the holiday season, the tree is cut or shredded for other uses, I have to wonder whether there wasn't a way the tree could have been more beneficial to the planet.  

Hmm...I wonder whether those folks who bring home their Christmas trees on their bikes are also drinking Coke floats made with diet soda--or fat-free ice cream.

An Oxymoron Ride

Peter White is an original.   He has been helpful when I've  consulted him, whether or not I bought anything.  His sense of humor, though, is, shall we say, quirky.  I like it, but it may not be for everybody.

An example is his attitude about downhill riders.  His shop doesn't carry parts for bikes ridden by "those poor unfortunate people with green or pink hair who have to be carried up the mountain on a ski lift so they can ride down yelling "Yo Dude!" He calls their machines "invalid bikes" which, he claims, is a play on what he regards as "valid" bikes.  Naturally, some  folks believe he's denigrating folks with disabilities and send him nasty e-mails, or worse.

I'd love to hear what he'd say about a "downhill bike tour."  I never knew such things exist until someone sent me an article about people who want to regulate them in Hawaii. Apparently, tour groups meet their guide and support vehicle at the top of a mountain, where they watch the sunrise before barreling down into the town.  

Photo by Matthew Thayer, for the Maui News

Me, I don't know how you can call something a "bike tour" if it's only downhill.  I can understand a ride that's flat.  But whatever anyone wants to say about the speed at which I currently ride, I can say that on every tour--or even every transportation ride--I've taken, if I've ridden down something, I've ridden up it, or something else.  Well, OK, once I went on a downhill mountain bike ride back in the 90s when that first became a "thing."  Yes, I went up on a lift, as everyone else in my group did.  But I did it on a hardtail bike, albeit with a Rock Shox front fork.

Now some folks in Maui want to impose tighter regulations on those downhill tours.  They complain that even the guided tours show little regard for the safety of children and pedestrians.  Not surprisingly, they believe the "wildcat" riders are even worse.

Not only have I never taken a "downhill tour;" I've also never been to Hawaii.  So I have to take their word about those tours. I, though, would want to regulate them in another way:  They shouldn't be allowed to call themselves "tours."  I'd bet that at least half of the people on those rides don't pedal even a single stroke.  To me, if all you do is coast down a hill--as much fun as it is--you don't have the right to say you did a "tour."

In other words, I believe the phrase "downhill tour" is an oxymoron.

Bike Thieves and Squeegee Men

Just before I got home, I stopped at Tony's Bicycle Shop in Astoria.  Even before I moved into the neighborhood, I used to go there whenever I happened to be riding that way because I liked the old proprietor and they had all sorts of then-unfashionable parts that would soon come to be known as "old school."


Anyway, I didn't have my camera with me, so you will be spared from one of the more hideous sights I've seen in Tony's shop.  A Pinarello racing bike was clamped into one of the repair stands.  It had one of those awful 1980's fade paint job.  Strangely, it was tricolore, but in (from the rear) blue, white and red.  


To tell you the truth, I've seen worse fade jobs, and, ironically, the addition of another color--yellow--in the saddle and the bands of the tire treads made it almost tolerable.  However, one of the mechanics was in the process of turning the bike into a real aesthetic monstrosity:  He was wrapping the handlebars with Cinelli "Italian flag" cork tape.  I know, the bike is Italian, and some guys just want to flaunt the Italian-ness of their bikes.  But, please, have some respect for a country that produced Michelangelo, Leonardo Da Vinci, Botticelli and Titian!


However, I noticed something even more disturbing while at Tony's.  It had nothing to do with anything any of the shop employees did.  Rather, it echoed and confirmed an impression I've had lately:  Bicycle theft is on the rise.

Another customer came in looking for something she could use to keep her wheels and seat from being stolen.  Several of her friends had already lost those items on their bikes, one of them in the hallway of the building in which she lives.  She also mentioned that a friend of hers caught a thief in the act; when the friend confronted the thief, he cursed the guy out and went about his business.

I found the above image on "A Short Introduction to Cycling,"  a British cycling blog.  As the author points out, it's unusual to get such a good shot of the perps in action.  Most of the time, as he points out, we have only grainy images from security cameras.  And, the thieves in those images are usually of hooded young men, and the graininess of the images renders them even more non-descript.  


Lots of people would say something like, "Those guys don't look like bike thieves."  What I find even more remarkable, though,is that they did it in an open public area of London, not on some shady venue.  Seeing that photo reminded me that bike theft, and crime generally, is becoming more brazen as well as more frequent than they have been in a long time.


The image also brought to mind something from around 1990--around the time bike theft and all sorts of other crime were at their peak here in New York.  I had gone to the Paris Theatre, which is right across West 58th Street from the Plaza Hotel, to see a film--I forget which, exactly.  


I think I was upset about something or another that day.  That was when I was living in my previous identity:  I was, of course, Nick.  I was two decades younger and riding my bike much more than I do now, and I was lifting weights every day.  Plus, even if I weren't upset about something specific that day, I carried the sort of anger--Some people who knew me said they could see it in my shoulders--that caused complete strangers to cross the street when they saw me approaching.  


Anyway, I left the theatre and turned left on 58th Street.  In front of one of the buildings was a bicycle rack.  A guy who was built about the same way I was lifted a Motobecane and began twisting it, expecting to break the lock.  I approached him from behind and tapped my finger on his shoulder.  He turned, took one look at me and bolted.


He wasn't trying to steal my bike.  But the fact that he was trying to take anybody's bike--possibly someone's transportation or simply someone's pride and joy--did nothing to quell whatever rage I was feeling.  


I would love to have a photo of that, though I hope not to see anything like it again.  And I still hope that we won't have anything like the tide of theft we had in those days.  However, things haven't been looking good:  The squeegee men are back.

How Many Bananas?

Last week, while out for a ride, I stopped at a Halal cart for a falafel.  It got me to thinking about how much the definition of "street food" has changed here in New York.  

In addition to falafel, hummus and those tasty chicken-and rice or lamb-and-rice dishes the Middle Eastern street cooks/vendors offer, it's possible to buy tacos, pizza, curries, waffles, sushi, various kinds of sandwiches, fried chicken, lobster rolls, crepes, salads, meat-on-a-stick and cupcakes as well as familiar fare like ice cream and almost anything based on coffee or tea from various trucks and carts all over the city.

It wasn't so long ago that "street food" in the Big Apple meant "dirty water" hot dogs (with mustard and barbecued onions), knishes and pretzels that were baked dry, then burnt on the hot plates the vendors used to warm them up.

Ruminating about such urban delicacies (as if I don't have better uses for my brain cells!) led me to recall the days when "energy bars" hadn't been invented.  Back then, we carried "trail mix" or other combinations of dried fruits, nuts (and, for some of us, chocolate) as well as other fruits--especially bananas.

In fact, when I was co-editing a club newsletter, we had a five-banana rating system for rides.  The most difficult rides, of course, got five while the easiest rides were marked with only one.

That system would have been entirely useless had someone shown up to ride in this:

From Extreme Mobility

Shoppers

During the 1960's and 1970's, the "shopper" was a popular genre of bicycle in England.

Usually, it was a small-wheeled bike with a longish wheelbase.  This designed allowed it to be wheeled in and around marketplaces easily, and made it more stable than other small-wheeled bicycles when loads were carried on it.

People often mistook them for folding bikes as, to the untrained eye, they looked somewhat similar.  However, a shopper typically could not be folded.  More important, even when they are unfolded, "folders" are typically more compact than "shoppers."

Bobbin seems to be trying to revive the genre in Albion and introduce it to Americans.  I wonder how many Yanks, upon hearing the term "shopper", expect a bike like this:

 

When Nobody Wanted Our Flags

If you are here in the US, you know that it is Flag Day.

Even if you aren't here, you've probably seen bikes--or, at least, bike parts and accessories--adorned with the Stars and Stripes.  Back in the days when CNC-machined aftermarket parts were all the rage, it seemed that they all had an image of Old Glory painted or emblazoned on them.  And one of SRAM's early mountain bike derailleurs was called the Betsy, in honor of the flag's creator:

And most of us, at one time or another, have had bikes, parts or accessories with an image of some flag or another on it.  I've owned Italian and French bikes that had little likenesses of their respective country's tricolore on them, and of course I've had handlebar plugs and such with those flags and others on them.  Interestingly, I can't find a Union Jack anywhere on my Mercians.  And I don't recall seeing a Rising Sun on my Miyata.  Oh well.

But there is another kind of flag I associate with bicycles.  When I first became a dedicated rider--late in the '70's Bike Boom, one could buy a triangular "safety flag", usually in bright orange, perched atop a plastic pole that attached to the rear axle or some other part of the bike.

I think they may have sold when they were first offered. But I never saw very many of them--and, usually, they were on recumbents, tandems or bike trailers.  It's hard to imagine a racer riding with one.

Someone, however, thought they were going to become the hot new bike accessory.  At least, that's what I thought when I went to work at American Youth Hostels.  Among my responsibilities was buying and inventorying bike equipment in the outdoor shop and mail-order service AYH ran from its headquarters, then located on Spring Street, near Sullivan Street.  Mostly, we sold panniers, handlebar bags and other bike luggage, racks, a few accessories (like pumps and fenders) and some commonly-replaced parts such as tires, tubes, chains, brake pads and cables.  We had a few components--mainly SunTour derailleurs and freewheels, which people often bought to replace their sick or broken Simplexes or Hurets, as well as a few high-end pieces such as SunTour Superbe brakes and Sugino triple cranksets.

Among the stock of bicycle equipment were boxes full of bike safety flags.  Turns out, there were about 1000 of those pennants, all told, all of them in the same corners of the store and stockroom where they'd been residing since the day they were delivered, nearly a decade earlier.

"Can you think of a way to sell them?"  That was one of the first questions David Reenburd, the manager, asked me.

"Sell them?".  I could just barely suppress a chuckle--and the impulse to say that my degree was in liberal arts, not marketing.

He explained that his boss wanted them sold.  Everyone else wanted to simply get rid of them, as they were taking up space. 

"Why don't we just give them away?", I wondered.

"He", meaning his boss, "said to sell."

"Did he say for how much?"  

I noticed that they had price tags of $7.95:  what they would have sold for (if indeed they had sold) a decade earlier.  David agreed we'd never get a price like that, but his boss wanted to get "as much as we can" for them.

"How about if we sell them for $1.00 with the purchase of anything else in the store?"

His eyes lit up.  And I thought that sooner or later they'd be running up the flag for me.

One week later, we had no takers.  So I came up with an idea that couldn't be carried out today.

In those days, bar codes for store merchandise weren't yet in use.  At least, they weren't in the AYH store.  So we entered the prices of items by hand in the register.    I realized that I could enter, say, a handlebar bag that cost $29.95 at $28.95 and enter $1.00 for the flag.  Then, if the customer questioned it, I could say that I "mistakenly" entered the wrong price and simply added the difference.  And they could take one of the flags.

A couple of days later, we still had no takers for the flags.  Even when I tried giving them to customers as "gifts" with their purchases, nobody wanted them.  

We even offered them to riders on the Five Boro Bike Tour--which, in those days, AYH sponsored.  Still no takers.  Perhaps I was hallucinating (from what, I don't know), but those orange safety flags were starting to look more like white "surrender" flags.

A few months later, AYH moved its facilites up the street, to a building on the corner of Crosby and Spring that today houses a Sur La Table store.   The boxes of flags got "lost" somewhere along the way! 

Did they send up a distress signal?  If they did, we never got it. 
 

My New Commuter Bags: Koki Bagatelle And Dilly

If you've been following this blog for a while, you know that on most days, I had been commuting with my Carradice Nelson Longflap saddlebag.  On occasion, if I didn't have much to carry, I'd use bungee cords to lash my tote bag to my rear rack.  But, I'd say that the Carradice carried my books, papers, lunch, change of shoes and, sometimes, an extra layer of clothing (or, on hot days, clothes to change in to) on about 95 percent of my commutes during the past five years or so.

It's hard to beat the sheer, flat-out quality of Carradice's canvas bags. Plus, I love the way they look, especially on classic steel bikes (or modern steel bikes inspired by them) like my Mercians.  When I attached a shoulder strap to my green Nelson, it looked something like an old-school duffle, satchel or Danish book bag.

However, taking it off or putting it on the bike isn't quick.  I briefly used a quick-release Bagman support, but I found that the quick-release latches weren't very secure.  I understand that more recent versions of the quick-release Bagman have corrected this problem.  Still, I didn't want to take the trouble of attaching it to my saddle.

Before I started commuting with my Nelson, I used various panniers.  Because of their shape, I found that papers wrinkled and crumpled, and clothes wrinkled.  Also, I found that some panniers had a rather wide profile, which I didn't like when riding in the tight spaces of urban traffic.  The difficulty of maneuvering was further exacerbated when I used baskets that mounted on the sides of the rear rack, as they were even wider and boxier.  (I once snagged one of those baskets on somebody's bumper!)

I could have lived with the Nelson's idiosyncracies.  However, I got a really good buy on a Koki Bagatelle pannier.  i was buying something else on eBay, and the seller just happened to have the new bag, with its tags still on it.  At the price I paid for it, I figured that if it didn't work as a commuter or shopper bag for me, I--or someone else--could find some other use for it.

After two months, the Koki Bagatelle is looking more and more like a "keeper."  The Bagatelle is actually made for small-wheel bikes like Brompton and Dahon. So it is longer, but has a narrower profile, than most other panniers.  That means, among other things, that it protrudes over the rack platform, in contrast to most panniers whose tops are level with the rack platform.

What has surprised me is how stable it is.  It attaches to the rack with two alligator-type clips which are very strong.  

There is nothing to secure the bottom of the pannier to the rack.  Turns out, such a thing is not necessary:  The bag did not bounce, even when I ride on streets that bear more resemblance to the Ho Chi Minh Trail than to thoroughfares in modern first-world countries.  The mounting system also makes the bag easy to install and remove, though the latter is not a one-hand operation:  You have to pull the top of the bag, unclip one of the clips, then the other.  Still, removal is quick, which is particularly nice on a bag that's so secure when it's installed.

Once the bag is removed, you can set it down just about anyplace:  It has a "boot sole" rubber bottom that prevents wear and also keeps the bag from tipping over, even when it's unevenly loaded. 

Another reason I like this bag for my daily commutes is that I'm almost always carrying papers or manuscripts.  The bag's shape makes it very well-suited to this purpose.  I haven't tried carrying my laptop in it, but I would expect that, in its sleeve, my computer would fit very securely.

I happened to get my Bagatelle in a tan canvas material with brown leather trim. Personally, I think it looks great on Vera.  After using it for a couple of weeks, I bought a matching Dilly handlebar bag, which doubles as a shoulder bag.  

While it performs both functions quite well, I have two small complaints: 1. The length of the shoulder strap cannot be easily adjusted, and it's not easy to remove.  So, I have to bundle it up and tuck it inside the bag to keep it from getting caught in my brakes or spokes.  2.  There is no way to clip a light onto it, and the mounting bracket keeps me from using the light I had on my handlebar.  Plus, it's a bit small to use as a tote bag: It's more like a small purse or shoulder pouch.

Koki provides nylon rain covers with all of their bags.  I've ridden my bags in the rain and, while they provide a fair amount of water-resistance, they aren't as watertight as Carradice or, certainly, Ortleib bags.  But the rain covers will keep your gear dry and keep the canvas clean.

All in all, commuting with my Koki Bagatelle pannier and (sometimes) Dilly handlebar bag has been working out very well, and the quality of the bags seems very good.  I have been satisfied enough to take advantage of Koki's clearance sale on last year's models and buy another Bagatelle in another color, and a ""Budgie" handlebar/tote bag (which is a bit larger than the Dilly, but fits on the same mount as the Dilly).

For those of you who like ratings, on a scale from 1 to 10, I give the Bagatelle a 9.5 and the Dilly an 8.5.  My Carradice will return to the role to which it's best suited:  day and weekend trips.