Cycling On Le Quatorzieme: Revolutionary?

Today is, of course, le jour de Bastille.   Three times in my life, I've been in France on this date: Twice I was cycling in the countryside; the other time I was just barely keeping myself out of trouble in Paris. 


Possibly the most interesting of those quatorziemes was the one I spent in a town called Foix.  I ridden from Toulouse through the Pyrenees into Spain and had just come back into France when I came to Foix.  If you are in that part of the world, I definitely recommend going there.  It's not a big city at all, but it has played significant roles in the history of France and the region.  I won't get into it here, for much more than a blog post would be needed to do it justice.  But it's also worth going simply for the spectacular views. friendly people and the castle:

According to a local song, El castels es tant fortz qu’el mezis se defent: The castle is so strong it can defend itself.   Indeed, since it was built around the year 1000 C.E.,  it has never been captured.  Within its walls resided the counts of Foix, who were considered l'ame  of the Occitan resistance against the Albigensians in the 13th Century.


Most people think that some particularly clever Marine came up with the slogan Kill 'em all.  Let God sort 'em out. Actually, it was Arnaud Amaury, the Abbot of Citeaux and the Papal Legate to the Crusaders, who said Neca eos omnes. Deus suos agnoscet ("Kill them all; God will know His own.") when Simon de Montfort, the Commander of the Crusade, pointed out that not everyone in Beziers, a town he was ordered to sack and burn, was a heretic.

No matter how many people they killed, they couldn't touch the Foix castle. I have no idea of what the Bastille was like. But I imagine they would have had a much, much more difficult time storming the Foix castle than they did with the Bastille. How would history be different if the Foix castle had been built in Paris or the Bastille in Foix?

Anyway...When I showed up at the castle on my bike, people--all of them strangers--applauded. Do people applaud during revolutions?

For A Light, The End Is Style

Today, as each drop of rain pelted the streets, sidewalk and window, you could practically feel the steam rising. I didn't ride to work, or at all.  That meant, of course, that I took mass transit.  


It amazes me, even after all of these years of living in New York and having used the subways and buses, to see just how grimy the stations and other facilities can be.  Having had the opportunity to ride to work again only makes some of the stations seem even more squalid than they were before.  It only makes me want to ride to work all the more.


As you've seen in previous postings, I've added rear baskets to the Le Tour.  Soon I'm going to install a small (just enough for my pocketbook) front basket.  I've also attached lights to the bike:  a Planet Bike "Blinky" on the rear and two headlights on the front.  One is also from Planet Bike:  an LED light that can be used as a regular light or as a stobe.


But I also added something almost nostalgic and whimsical:

Cyclists of my generation will recognize it:  the Schwinn-approved "bloc" generator, which was made by Soubitez of France.  I had one on my Schwinn Continental when I was fourteen years old.  


One thing I liked about it was that using it with a battery-operated tail light eliminated the need for long wires to connect the generator with the light.  Plus, for such a small lamp, the light output was good, at least by the standards of that time.


I tried it the other night.  It's pretty good:  It will help me to see road obstructions and make me more visible to oncoming motorists.  But there still is a lot of drag, and the conventional tungsten bulb will never be as bright as a halogen, much less an LED, light.   Still, I've always liked its style.  And that's what really counts. Right?

The Tides, Coming and Leaving

Today I did another ride to Point Lookout.  This is the third time in the last four weeks I've done that ride.  So, as you might imagine, I'm starting to feel like my physical condition is returning, and I am therefore gaining some more confidence. 


The ride offers so much that I like:  seaside vistas, a laid-back feel and the opportunity to ride from city to small town and back again.  In that sense, it reminds me a bit of touring in Europe:  Because that continent and its countries are smaller than North America and the United States, city and country are closer to each other in the "Old World" than they are here.  So I could indulge my passions for art and architecture as well as for sunshine and fresh air and food.


In a way, you can say that today I channeled my Inner European in one small way:  the way I made my bike stand when I got to Point Lookout:

Obviously, I'm not doing a track stand.  And there's no kickstand on my bike.   So what's my secret?  It's one of those many tricks I learned in Europe:

If you lean the bike on the left pedal, make sure it's slightly behind the 90 degree position.  Otherwise, the bike will topple--unless, of course, it has  a fixed gear.


I've done this ride at least a hundred times before, and I'll probably do it that many more times, as long as I'm living within a morning's ride of it. According to Bike Snob, I'm in the same league as babies, dogs and designers.  Like them, I can be fascinated by everyday objects, or at least by the everyday.  So, when I got to Point Lookout, I watched the tide going out.  

People who live there can tell you when the tide comes in or leaves.  They remind me, in a way, of a rather old couple I met in Liborune, France.  The town is about 30 kilometres from Bordeaux and is situated at the point at which the Garonne river bends and begins to open to the sea.  I'd cycled from Paris via the Loire Valley and Aquitaine; my intention was to cycle to and along the sea.   It was late in the afternoon; I'd stopped by a riverside grove.  The couple were   taking a walk, as they did every day, he told me.  They'd asked about my ride and what brought me to their part of the world.  "J'aime ces pays," I said.


"D'accord," they replied in unison.  Then, suddenly, the woman tapped me on the shoulder.  "Regardez!  Regardez!"  

I turned to look at the river, which was swelling like a small tide.  The man explained, "Les marees vienent deux fois chaque jour":  The tides come in twice every day.  He took pride, not simply in knowing that fact, but in his intimacy with a place and life he clearly loved, and with a woman who shared his passion.


The tide left, and I did some time later.  Just a little way down the road from that grove, I picked up a bike path that paralleled a route departmentale to Bordeaux city line.


(Note:  I'm looking for a scanner I can use on some of the photos I took during that, and other bike trips.)

Easin' On Down The Road To Hell (Gate)

I'm off to ride my bikeee....and then I'm gonna ease on down, ease on down the road.

OK, you ask, why have I just mangled theme songs from two classic movies.  Well, it has to do with this photo:

One of the few things I have in common with Diana Ross is that I've crossed this bridge.  One difference is that the bridge didn't look like that when she crossed it.    Instead, it looked like this:

This image, of course, comes from the movie version of The Wiz.  It's one of those things that worked much better on stage that it did on celluloid.   The best things about the movie, to me, were "Ease On Down The Road" and Michael Jackson's portrayal of the Scarecrow.  Diana Ross, oddly enough, didn't lend any of her otherworldly charisma to the character of Dorothy, much less portray the character convincingly.  It was a shame:  I've seen her do a much better job as an actress, not to mention as a singer.


In the end, the movie seemed like a shameless attempt to cash in on the popularity of Blaxploitation films that had been popular for a few years before it was made.  Instead, it helped to kill off the genre.


Anyway...You didn't come here to see me do a bad imitation of Siskel or Ebert--or Pauline Kael.  I'll tell you that the bridge in question links Ward's Island with East 103rd Street in Manhattan.  

It's one of the oddest and most interesting structures in New York City--or anywhere.  To my knowledge, it's the only bridge in New York that's dedicated entirely to pedestrian and bicycle traffic.  No motor vehicles are allowed.  It's also odd and interesting for another reason:

As you can see from this photo, which I borrowed from The Bowery Boys, the section between the two towers is lifted when a ship needs to pass underneath the bridge.  The bridge is kept in this position through the winter and is therefore closed to bicycles and pedestrians.


Ward's Island is also a strange place.  There's a big mental hospital on it and, technically, it's no longer an island:  It was connected by landfill to Randall's Island, which is known for its sports venues and as the stage for le Cirque du Soleil.


Ward's and Randall's have a number of paths, some of which are paved, that zig-zag with the shorelines of the East and Harlem Rivers.   They also contain fields used by youth soccer and baseball leagues, a training facility for the Fire Department and a wastewater treatment plant that, at times, fills the islands with the scent of cologne poured down a septic tank.  


The two islands also sit between Manhattan, Queens and the Bronx.  All are connected by the RFK Memorial (formerly known as the Triboro) Bridge, which is really a system of three different spans that all meet on Randall's Island.  


There's also a spot where, a little birdie tells me, more than a few New Yorkers were conceived:

It's underneath a bridge over which you've passed if you've taken the Acela (Amtrak Customers Expect Late Arrivals) between New York and Boston.  

Yes, it's the Hell Gate Bridge, which begins near Astoria Park, which is near my home. 


Might Charon himself be the pilot of the lead boat?

Going this way?:

See what happens when you stay up late nights reading The Inferno and drinking espresso?  Hmm....Imagine what would have happened if all those English public school kids grew up reading it instead of Pilgrim's Progress.  Maybe punk rock would have happened 300 years before Richard Hell (I just had to include him in this post!) and Sid Vicious.


Anyway...While we're still in Hell Gate, I want to show you something you definitely wouldn't have seen in a 1970's  Schwinn ad:

Ignaz Schwinn would be spinning (pun intended) in his grave!  This is more like what he would have had in mind:

No wonder 20-year olds weren't buying Schwinns in 1978.  (Trust me, I know:  I was one!)  


Some things never change, though.  In those days, everyone said the world was going to hell in a handbasket.  And our parents and teachers thought we were leading the way.  Really, though, we were just easin' on down the road:  We could, because the world was a simpler place.  Or so we think now.

The Only Girl On A Bike?

The past two days, the temperature rose to 100 degrees F and beyond. Today's 90-degree high seemed autumnal by comparison.

About the only ones I've seen riding are the Mexican delivery guys and  a few older men who were filling the racks and bags attached to their bikes (or, in some cases, held in one hand) with bottles, cans and whatever else they could recycle.  There were also a few young adult males on road or mountain bikes--the latter almost invariably in black, their rear wheels spinning  huge brake discs  like ferris wheels on crystal meth.   

So, as you can imagine, I got an unfair share of attention when I rode to work today in a skirt and blouse.  I didn't wear my heels on the bike; I brought them with me and changed into them from my Keen sandals when I got to work.  I think I got as much attention as  I did, in spite of my un-glamorousness (Is that a word?) because I may well have been the only woman anybody has seen on a bike for the last couple of days.

Back when I was in boy-drag, some people would tell me I was crazy for riding in the hot weather.  But while riding, I was almost never noticed.  The exceptions came when I was in my best physical condition:  Some people, including fellow cyclists, noticed my riding skills; other people--mainly a few women and gay men--noticed my shape.  I can recall times when female and gay male drivers pulled up alongside me and rolled their windows down, ostensibly to ask for directions.  Let's just say that their eyes weren't on the road ahead of them.

Today a man in an Acura Coupe did the same thing when   I pulled up alongside him at a traffic light.  He rolled down his window.  "Babe, could you tell me what time it is?"    Now, he might be from one of those cultures in which it's considered rude to make eye contact.  Still, I thought it a bit strange that his line of vision seemed to begin at one of the curls in the print of my skirt--and that curl rested on my left thigh.

Now, that wasn't the first time a man looked at me that way when I was riding my bike.  Still, it surprised me, or at least caught me off-guard.  As it was such a warm, humid day, plenty of women--many of whom were better-looking, or at least younger and in better shape, than I am--were showing more than I was.  But now I realize I may have been the only one that driver, and some of the other men who were looking at me, had seen riding a bike.  And they certainly weren't expecting to see a woman on a bike on such a hot day.

Waking To A Heat Wave

Today the temperature reached 103 degrees F (about 40 C).  It seemed that even the places that normally seem like iceboxes--like the central building of the college, where, it seems, the air conditioning is turned on in June and kept on full-blast until September--felt soggy today.


I woke up later than I'd planned, and by the time I got outside, the air already felt as if a knife would stand up in it.  I was going to ride to work, but decided against it as soon as I stepped outside to go to the dry cleaner's.


Even people who don't normally complain about the heat were wishing that they were taking an Antarctic cruise.  


I've cycled in weather that's as hot as today's was, but couldn't see the point of riding today.  For one thing, there's an ozone alert, and while I suppose I could  wear a filter mask, I don't think that, given the sinus problems I've had, that doing any outdoor exercise in that heat and air would do me much good.


Plus, I no longer have the need I once had to prove myself to...whom?  People who didn't care?  Myself?  What, exactly, would have I proved to myself by taking a ride on a day like today.  Now, if I had to ride, that would be another story.


There were a few times when I had to ride in heat such as what I experienced today.  It was even more difficult when I wasn't expecting it, as when I was cycling through a mountainous area and found myself in a pass or valley.  The day after I had my life-changing encounter in St.Jean de Maurienne, an Alpine town a few kilometers from the Italian border, I rode down a mountain and into a valley where the thermometer on a bank in town read 40C.  I felt my skin burning, but I wasn't sweating.  That, I understand, is common at very high elevations, which tend to be drier than lower-lying areas.


But at least I knew it would be hot--if not this hot--today.  I just wish I'd awakened earlier.

Adjustments and Sea-Changes

Today my ride consisted of a spin to the park next to the Queensboro Bridge and over the bridge itself to...Bicycle Habitat.  I had to bring in a rear wheel they built for me so it could be tuned up.  Most shops that build custom wheels will tell you to bring them back after two hundred miles or so for a check-up.  

Although the wheel was still rideable, some spokes had come loose.  But, as it's a custom-made lightweight wheel, I want to keep it in optimal condition.  Arielle, my Mercian road bike (which I rode today and the other day), deserves no less.

Hal Ruzal re-tensioned the wheel for me.  

More years ago than either of us will admit (well, OK, more than I'll admit), Hal built me a pair of wheels that I rode along the Mediterranean from Italy into France.  I carried a pair of panniers on my rear which progressively filled with all sorts of chotchkes from flea markets and such, as the exchange rates were very favorable to the dollar.

It's really a wonder I made it through that trip.  I drank way too much wine, and other things.  A glass-half-full person would say that I must have had good bike handling skills.  That's probably true.  But I still don't know how even my pedaling prowess got me through one particular day's ride.

I was about thirty kilometers south of Genoa, somewhere on the road that zigged and zagged along that rocky coastline--or, to be more accurate, along the edges of cliffs from which loose rocks--and pieces of that road--tumbled into the sea.  

The day was overcast when it began; by the time I got to that stretch of road, a storm that surprised me with its violence blew in from the sea.  I didn't know the Mediterranean could have such rough weather!  

I also didn't know--until I got to that stretch of road--that the Romans may have been the greatest road builders in the western world, at least until the nineteenth century.  But they didn't seem to think much about safety, at least not in the ways we think about it.

So that road along the edge of cliffs that drop into the sea was about the width of one and a half vintage Alfa Romeos.  The guard rail on the edge stood up to about my knees.  The wind that was waling at my side could have easily sent me over that guard rail into a wild blue yonder that was darkening in gray.

 

I may not know how I survived that ride.  But I can tell you how my wheels made it:  Hal built them.   

Hal is an excellent wheel builder and mechanic.   He and Charlie, the store's owner, treated me and my fellow employees very well when we worked for American Youth Hostels.  Back then, AYH's New York headquarters were on Spring Street, around the corner from Habitat.  We sent a lot of business there:  People would book their places on AYH-sponsored tours, or simply get their Youth Hostel passes and other necessities from us, and then would go to Habitat for wheels, tires, bags or other things they needed for their tour.  A few of those people even bought new bikes.

Back then, there were still real, live artists living and working in the lofts that abounded in the neighborhood.  The Soho stretch of Broadway hadn't yet become a fashion-designers' strip mall.  So, as you can imagine, the clientèle of the shop was a bit different.  

Then, as now, many messengers went to the shop, as it's along one of the routes they would take from the Wall Street area to Midtown.  Some of Habitat's customers lived nearby.   Most of the neighborhood's residents at that time didn't have a lot of money. One might say that Soho at that time (early 1980's) represented the last stand of genteel poverty in New York.  A few of the artists and others who lived in the neighborhood bought bikes at Habitat; many more had their mounts repaired or resurrected there.

Interestingly, the people who worked in the shop--including Hal and Charlie--reflected what some might have called the spirit of the neighborhood.  Hal is a musician; other current and former shop employees are and were artists of one kind or another, or involved with theater or dance.  And Charlie is a civil engineer by training who, like the so many of the personnel and clientèle of that shop, are or were trying to live in this city without becoming part of the "rat race."

Whether or not cycling was ever the most important thing in my life, it has been one of the few constants for me during the times I've described and the ones in which I'm living.

And now that I think of it, Habitat--like most enthusiasts' bike shops--was, back in the day, overwhelmingly male.  During the busy season, they might have a woman selling the bikes, but all of the permanent employees I recall--and nearly all of the customers that I can remember seeing--were male.  

I'll give you an example of how things have changed:

I couldn't get over how well Melanie's dress and shoes coordinated with her bike, particularly with the gold parts and the blue chainguard.  Can you just see her in the peloton now?

 

I didn't ask whether she chose her bike to go with her ensemble.  Even if she did, I won't complain:  I don't think anyone else in the shop minded.  

Who said that we have to become the change we want to see?

Birthdays

The other day I mailed a birthday card to Marilynne's daughter.  She and I underwent our surgeries on the same day last year.  

If that day is our birthday, then I'm only about five hours older than she is.  Hmm...That sounds like the makings of some sort of science fiction story.   If any of you want to take the idea and run with it, be my guest:  I seriously doubt that I'll ever write science fiction.  I just don't think it's in me.


Anyway, in one sense, we were both born that day. If that's the case, how long was our gestation period?  Was it the time we had been living as female?  Our entire lives?


But today is what most people--as well as the laws of just about every jurisdiction in this world--would define as my birthday.  It is the date on which I came, a whole bunch of years ago, from my mother's body into this world.  I probably will always celebrate this date as my birthday, partly out of habit and, well, because it's the biggest national holiday of the country in which I was born and have spent most of my life.  It's a bit like being born on Bastille Day in France or Christmas in any country that celebrates it.  


The only times I wasn't in this country on the Fourth,  I was in France.  Three times I was in Paris; the other time I was in a town called Auch in the southwest.  Unless you've been there or know something about French history, you've probably never heard of it.  I ended up there on my birthday ten years ago in the middle of a bicycle tour I took through the Pyrenees.   It's a lovely place, and if you should go there, you should certainly go to la Cathedrale Sainte-Marie. 

 It may very well have the best acoustics of any place of worship in the world.  It certainly has one of the best organs and choirs.    The singers were rehearsing that day.  I got into a conversation with a sweet-faced alto-soprano who was about twenty years older than I was.   Even before she talked, I could sense her enthusiasm and passion for that cathedral and for her music.  


When she asked where I came from, I said, "Les Etats-Unis."


"Eh...Votre jour d'independence."


"Oui.  Et mon anniversaire."


Her already bright eyes perked up.  "Voulez-vous une chanson speciale?"  With a smile, I nodded, and she and the choir gave a little impromptu concert for an audience of an American cycling solo in France on his birthday and his country's day of independence.


Whatever my birthday is, I believe I have an interesting heritage.  And I feel honored to share at least something with Marilynne's daughter.