Tosca Takes Me To The Neighborhood

Today the US National Soccer team played its counterpart from England.  I would've liked to watch it, but I don't have the necessary cable service (by choice) and I didn't want to go into a sports bar.  I think most of you could understand why.


Being a good American, I would've rooted for this country's team.  But I don't expect them to win the tournament.  Not many other people do, either. If and when the US team is eliminated, if Italy's still standing, I'll root for them.  And after la forza azzuri, I'll root for les bleus of France.  But if Brazil wins, I won't be upset.


However, I don't follow sports with the same passion I once did.  I could blame the hormones and such, and Dirt and her ilk will say that I'm impersonating feminized behavior.  Rather, it's harder to feel passion for pursuits and performers that have little, if anything, to do with my own life.  Plus, professional sports is an overwhelmingly male field.  Now, sometimes I don't mind that.  After all, when you I someone like Lance Armstrong (who, by the way, I have seen in person and photographed climbing Chamrousse in the 2001 Tour  de France)  exerting himself and not wearing much while doing it, well, let's say I don't look the other way or think about strategy.


Anyway...oh, wait, you wanted serious intellectual discussion, didn't you?  OK, here goes.  Well, OK, what follows may not be terribly intellectual.  But you might enjoy some of it.  After all, it is about a bike ride.  And you know how I love to ride, and to write about it!


Well, today I took another one of those aimless rambles that led me to some of the same streets three or four times and others in ways I hadn't expected.  And somehow I ended up, after an hour and a half of pedalling my fixed-gear, here:

If you hear me or anyone else speaking in superlatives about this place, as some wise ol' philosopher once said, believe the hype.  I have slurped lemon Italian ices in any number of communes in and out of this country.  None come close to what they make in this place.  Yes, they make the stuff themselves.  And, yes, you're likely to find actual lemon in yours, just as you'll find pieces of whatever fruit went into whatever flavor you've ordred.  (Their flavor list is in the window, to the right of the guys in white.)  I haven't tried all of their flavors--somehow I just can't bring myself to eat an Italian ice with peanut butter in it--but the ones I've tried were all excellent:  cherry, coconut, cremolata (like the ice cream), pistachio, cantaloupe, watermelon and a couple of others I can't think of right now.  Lemon is, of course, the classic, and when you eat it, you realize just how good the ice is:  It's elegant and, in its own way, pure--sort of like a beautifully done classic sauce, without any extra ingredients to detract from it.  Of the other flavors, I like cherry the best.  The office manager of my department likes the coconut ice.


It may not be Gatorade or an energy bar, but in its own way, it's the perfect snack to have during a ride:  It's delicious and refreshing, but not too heavy.  And, right across from LIKC, there's the perfect spot to enjoy it:

Yes, what better place to enjoy an Italian ice than in a park where older Italian men are playing bocce, watching their friends play it or simply passing the time of day?  Now there's a sport. Imagine the sense of deja vu I had at the end of a day of ascending and descending Pyreneean peaks and seeing, in the parc de ville of a ville that was tres petite, a bunch of weathered but rather dignified men immersed in their day's petanque match.


Neither they nor the men I saw in Corona were making any money from making metal balls roll and sometimes skitter on strips of sand.  Nor did the friends of my grandfather and uncles who played underneath the ancient railroad viaduct in my old Brooklyn neighborhood.  But they were having as much serious fun, or were having as much fun about being serious, as anyone in Major League Baseball, the NBA or the English Premier League.  Maybe more so.

Could this be Il Giro d'Italia meets Les Bourgeois de Calais?

But the determined faces were not just those of older men.  On this day of major World Cup games, a couple of aspiring stars were in their own shootout:

I

I was scooping and slurping my sublime glacial confection on a bench about fifteen feet behind the kid in the red shirt.  When the ball sailed by him and missed me and Tosca by less than the width of her handlebar, the kid turned and said, "I'm sorry, lady!"


Can you imagine some goalie in the World Cup doing that?  Clint Dempsey's shot leaves Robert Green sprawled on his side and, after getting up and dusting himself off, he turns to the crowd, looks at a middle-aged female spectator and says, "Pardon me, ma'am"?   Now that would be a World Cup moment!


Even Tosca would appreciate it:

Which reminds me:  I caught her in just the right light and she showed something she shares with Arielle, my road bike:

You can see, at least somewhat, what makes their finishes unusual.  They're both Mercian's Number 57, the so-called "flip-flop" finish. If you look at the top tube, you can see what happens to the color when the purple flips or flops, depending on your point of view.


In case you're interested:  That's a single-speed freewheel on the left side. (Why am I bragging about that?  I have no excuse:  I have no more testosterone!)  I haven't ridden it yet.  On the bike's right is a fixed gear.  I know I don't use the same gear ratio as anyone who's ever riden in Vigorelli, but what the hell.

Dreaming of A Bridge To The Next Journey

It's a little odd to write in a cycling blog when you haven't ridden in a couple of days.  We've had some rain, and I feel like I have a chest cold.  I think it may have developed when I fell asleep the other night in front of my open window with neither a blanket nor very much clothing on me.  And the temperature dropped steeply.




Anyway, the parts I ordered from Velo Orange came today:  handlebars, brake levers, fenders and a bell.  They're all going on the Schwinn I bought over the weekend.  I guess it's appropriate that I ordered Velo Orange parts to go on the orange bike.  But I also have Velo Orange stuff on my Mercians, and my Miss Mercian will also have some of their parts and accessories.  Sometimes I think a velo orange is a state of mind--even if the bike is "flip-flop purple/green," a.k.a. Number 57 on Mercian's colour chart.




Now that I haven't ridden in a couple of days, I've found myself thinking about someplace where I'd like to ride again, but can't.  Actually, one can ride there only once a year:  during the Five Boro Bike Tour.  I've done that ride a number of times, including a few of the early editions.  Those were the best because it wasn't quite as big as it is now.  Although I'm happy to see more people cycling, I get wistful sometimes about the days when we were the fringe.




But I digress.  There's one part of the ride that can be done only on the day of the ride, for it is off-limits to bicycles at any other time.  Here it is:

I took this photo from the deck of the Staten Island Ferry, on my way home from my ride in Jersey.  Even though I have seen this image--or some reflection of it--thousands of times, I still get woozy with deja vu, as Kurt Vonnegut said in Breakfast of Champions.  




I saw an image very much like the one you see here from the window of my room on Dahill Road in Brooklyn when I was a child.  It was like a neon sign in a window of my dreams.  And, of course, when I woke from the dream, I saw the bridge and wanted to cross it, wherever it went.




The bridge in the photo is the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge.  There is a promenade that winds under it as curls around the rocks and flotsam on the Brooklyn shore, from Coney Island to near the old Brooklyn Army Terminal. If you're ever down that way, take the ride:  The bridge, the rocky shores and the wide expanse of the bay could make you think, if only for a moment, that you're in San Francisco.  




Even though I know exactly where the bridge goes, it still is the symbol for every crossing, if you will, I encounter.

And I think of it when I get on a bike, wherever I am and wherever I'm going--especially if I still haven't decided on my destination when I start to pedal.

I Rode That Way Then Because This Is How I Ride Now

"Velouria" wrote about me and this blog on her "Lovely Bicycle!" blog.  


She made me blush.  I may not know much, but I know this:  The only thing better than a man who can make a woman blush is another woman who can make another woman blush!


Part of me wonders whether I deserve such a wonderful write-up. First of all, look at the photo at the top of her blog and the one at the top of this one.  Not only is she (or whoever took that photo) a better photographer than I'll ever be, she's also more beautiful and stylish.   Take a look another look at that photo:  Do you really think I can compete with that?


Also, look at the layout and design of Lovely Bicycle!  I wouldn't have a clue as to how to do anything like that. And, finally, read her writing and compare it to my ragged prose.


But, hey, what can I say?  I'll take the compliments.  Besides, she's right definitely right about the fact that I've experienced two completely different aspects of cycling, and I'm one of the very few people who's experienced both of them.  


The funny thing is that I was the "lycra-wearing, hard-training, fast-spinning, Alps-conquering roadie...named Nick" precisely because I wanted to be "the woman who cycles to work in a skirt and heels."  Or, more precisely, I was the hard-riding guy precisely because I always knew that, deep down, I was, and was meant to be, that woman cycling to work, to the marketplace and down a country lane to the sea.


So why did I live and cycle as I did?  Well, I have to admit, I enjoyed competitive riding, whether or not it was sanctioned in a race, and the camaraderie that accompanied and followed it.  But I now realize that I wanted to ride as hard and as long as I did because I had so much anger in me.  By now, you probably realize what forged much of that anger:  the cauldron of rage that roiled from the fires of my unfulfilled desire--to live as the woman that I always knew myself to be.


Some guys' worst nightmare is finding out that the girl for whom they've fallen was once a guy--and probably even more of a guy than any of them ever were!  Of course, I don't mean to make light of that:  Too many of us have been killed over that. But, it's hard not to see the irony in it, and to apply it to my cycling life:  What if some of those guys I used to ride with and against were to meet me today?  

Actually, one of those guys has.  And he's taken it very well.  He has an even stronger sense of himself than I ever imagined he did.  What am I saying?  Back in the day, I wasn't even thinking about whether he or anyone else was secure within his own skin.  There was simply no way I--as I was in those days-- could have thought about that. 


But as for the other guys...well, I'll tell you about one of them.  He would have utterly despised me, as I am now.  Or, at least, he would not have been seen with me, whether or not either of us was on a bike.  But I know for a fact that if no one else were watching, I am the very first person he would have come to, for love, advice or just about anything else.  He would have--if he were honest with himself--spent the night with me rather than with his wife or any girlfriend he ever had--or, for that matter, almost any other woman and absolutely any man.  He would have gone for rides with me for the same reasons he would have gone to museums, poetry readings and stores, and walked the streets of Paris, San Francisco, Rome and Boston with me.  


Actually, he wouldn't have done any of those things with me.  He did those things with me.  What's more, he did them with me, and in the presence of his wife and girlfriends.


By now, you've probably figured out who that man was.  Yes, he was me.  And he was who he was--including that "lycra-wearing, hard-training, fast-spinning, Alps-conquering roadie"--because he was me:  the "woman who cycles to work in skirts and heels."

"New" Bike

So far, you may have noticed two things:  my favorite colors (purple, green, pink and blue) and my favorite bike maker (Merican).

Well, the bike I bought the other night is neither of those things.  That's probably a good thing--or, at least, it's a good thing that it's not a Mercian.  That's because I plan to park it on the streets.

It's a Schwinn LeTour III from 1978 or thereabouts.  I bought the bike because the frame is bigger than most step-through frames made today.  I'm amazed that most stop at about 20 inches (50 cm):  If anything, there are more women of my size (horizontally as well as vertically) than there were thirty years ago.

Also, I decided to buy it because it's a solid bike.  It's not light or fancy, but it will, I think, do the job I want it to do.  

Schwinn's LeTour series bikes were made in Japan by Panasonic.  Most of you associate Panasonic with electrical appliances and electronic goods.  But they made some very fine bikes, including the ones they made for PDM, one of the most prominent cycling teams of the 1980's.

This photo shows the roughest part of the paint job and an interesting feature this bike shared with some other women's and mixte frames of that era.  

Notice how the rear center-pull brake is mounted, and the long straddle cable.  This eliminates the need for routing the cable up the seat tube and back down again into a stop.  It's not only an aesthetic consideration:  The up-and-down cable configuration is one of the reasons why the rear brakes on so many women's and mixte frames didn't work very well.  I guess the bike builders figured that a good rear brake wasn't necessary, for they probably believed there weren't very many fast women (on bikes, anyway!).

The Schwinn Aprroved-branded brake is a standard Dia Compe centerpull, which is a Japanese-made clone of the Swiss Weinmann centerpull, which was found on Motobecanes, Raleighs and countless other European bikes of that time.

Even though I'm not going to paint the bike, I plan to modify it considerably.  I'm getting a pair of Milan bars and city brake levers, as well as a pair of fenders, from Velo Orange. (I highly recommend VO:  They have excellent products at fair prices, and Chris is a very nice guy.) I placed the order today:  Actually, I returned a seatpost I bought from them but didn't use.  (It's a good seatpost; it just has more setback than I needed.)  And, I also plan to turn the bike into a single-speed.  But it won't be a "fixie"; rather, it will have a single freewheel.  I have used them on commuter and "beater" bikes before, and I like them because they're simple and, most of the time, I don't need anything more for quick local rides.  

I also plan to add a rear rack and front basket. 

The Almost Unbearable Lightness of a Late-Day Ride

Gunnar and Velouria may not have ever met.  But they have created a monster.


You see, they both used the word "pretty" in talking about the photo someone took of me the other day.  So, when I stopped during my ride today, I asked random strangers to take photos of me.  


Here's the first one, taken by a young Japanese woman on the George Washington Bridge:

OK, so it's not going to get me an endorsement deal, much less a modeling contract.  But at that moment, I understood what Salvatore Quasimodo meant by writing the shortest poem I know of: 


M'illumno
D'immenso.


That I was riding over the bridge at the beginning of rush hour but not dealing with the rush hour traffic was, in and of itself, pretty exhilarating.  But it was an utterly glorious day:  Yesterday's heat and humidity were nothing but memories (or bad dreams).   Pedalling across the bridge felt like flight.


On the Jersey side, I turned left and pedalled down the road that winds a descent from the top of the Palisades to the shelves of rock that line the Hudson, which looked like the sun-filled atrium of one of those very peaceful houses in which  everyone would like spent his or her childhood-- and some can visit in their dreams.  


I spun the cranks of Arielle, my Mercian road bike, as I descended layers of sunlight to the ferry piers at Port Imperial.  Then I followed the riverside road to Hoboken, where young people who work in downtown Manhattan were ascending from the PATH station.  A day like this really feels like an ascent when you're coming from the grimy subterranean depths, and when you feel a cool if strong breeze before the sun begins to set.  

In back of me is the old Erie Lackawana railroad terminal on the Hoboken waterfront.  At times like that, I wish the government hadn't taken over the still-existing railroads after the Penn Central bankruptcy of 1970.  After all, what use will anyone have again for such a beautiful word as "Lackawana?"


I continued down Washington and Jersey Avenues to the Jersey City waterfront.  Marlon Brando's character certainly wouldn't recognize the place now.  He might, however, recognize Richmond Terrace and the views from it:

I stopped in a nearby deli for something to drink during the boat ride.  That, ironically, caused me to miss a boat, with the next one half an hour later.   I had to spend that time in a penned-up "secure" area.  Staten Island's terminal of its eponymous ferry feels more like a series of airport security checkpoints.  A TSA employee even brings in a dog to sniff the bicycles.


Anyway, here I am in their version of Checkpoint Charlie:

Still, as you can see, I was in a great mood.


You may have noticed something pink attached to the saddle of this bike, and my fixed-gear.  It's one of the more interesting products I've tried lately:  a Bike Burrito.  It's so named for the way it folds (or rolls) up.  Inside it are a few small tools and a spare inner tube.


Back in the day, when I was poor, I used to roll up my repair kit inside a bandana and strap it to my saddle rails.  The Bike Burrito is basically the same idea, except that it has pockets inside and is made of very sturdy duck cloth, much like Carradice bags.    That canvas comes in various colors as well as a few prints as Jayme, who sews the Bike Burritos herself, finds them.  I ordered the two pink ones with black interiors.  They are "negatives" of a combination she offers regularly:  black outside, pink inside.  (That might be more anatomically correct, but what the heck.)  I also bought another, in a multi-colored paisley, which will go on my Miss Mercian.  That bike, because I'm building it with the Velo Orange "Porteur" bars, won't have the tape you see on my fixed and road Mercians.


Anyway...I recommend the Bike Burritos, which are available in three sizes.  Jayme is very sweet and accomodating, in addition to being a talented designer and crafts person.  And, her creations are compatible with Shimano, Campagnolo and SRAM shifting systems, as well as all other current and vintage components and bicycles.


And I recommend late afternoon-early evening rides along the Hudson that culminate in ferry rides back to the city!

Serendipities

I got up late today because last night, after riding, I stayed out until the wee hours of the morning. Then I couldn't sleep when I got home.

After showering and having a sort-of-vegetarian supper, I went to Columbus Circle  to meet Joe.  He lives in New Jersey and advertised a bike on Craig's List.  Last week, I sold my three-speed because it was small for me.  I liked the ride and look of it, but even with a long seatpost and stem, it never felt quite right.  Plus, I would have had to change saddles, as I did with my Mercians.  And that Raleigh three-speed, which was painted a bronze-greeen colour, simply would not have looked right with a new saddle.  (I had a brown Brooks--a very traditional leather saddle--on it.)

Anyway, Joe had some car troubles but finally made it to Columbus Circle.   His fiance, Deanna, accompanied him.  When they had just entered Manhattan, she called me.  "It's been a day from hell," she sighed.  I thought she said "date." 

"This is his idea of a date?," I wondered. 

She defended him; I laughed.   It wouldn't be the first time any of us laughed.

At any rate, the bike is what I'd anticipated:  It's a larger ladies' Scwhwinn Le Tour III, from around 1978.  The finish, once a rather nice pearlescent orange, is chipped, cracked and marred in all sorts of ways. But everything worked, and the price was right. 

I'm going to work on it.  I'll probably change the handlebars and seat, and I'm going to add  a rear rack and  fenders.  So it'll be a commuter/beater bike.

After I bought the bike, Joe and Deanna said they were heading downtown and invited me to accompany them to the Cafe Esperanto.  When we got there, we found that it had closed for good.  Instead, we went to Cafe Reggio, which I hadn't gone to in years.  It's not that I dislike the place:  They always have my respect for looking and acting like, rather than merely caricaturing, a funky bohemian cafe from back in the day.  Reggio served esperesso and cappucino before most Americans knew what they are; today Reggio's versions are still among the best.


But the best part was staying up half the night and talking about theatre (Joe is a sound engineer), art, politics and thinking generally.  He asked what I thought of Obama; after I explained why I've never been crazy about him, we got into a long conversation about foreign relations, conspiracy theories and such.  


It made me think of what my youth ight have been like if a few things had been different. It  was exhilarating to be on Macdougal Street, one of my old haunts, even if it was almost wall-to-wall people.  And there I was--the clean, sober woman I carried within me during those days of drunken bitterness.  Best of all--though it makes me a little sad now that it's the day after--is the way the conversation and their company stimulated me.  I almost never feel that way after spending time on campus, among some of my so-called educated coworkers and acquaintances.  That's one of the reasons why being at the college has been so dreadful lately:  In addition to all the pettiness, there is a severe lack of intellectual stimulation.


Ironic, isn't it, that I find mental stimulation on a Saturday night from a guy  who got a two-year degree and a woman who got her certification in cosmetology?  Also strange, n'est-ce pas, that in middle age, I'm finding the sorts of excitement I wanted in my youth, and that I found it when buying a used bike?


I guess that even when I find order in my life when I ride my bike, cycling also makes it--some way or another--unpredictable and serendipitous.