Assembling the Pieces

Whenever I visit my parents in Florida, I see people riding "adult trikes."  They're different from the three-wheelers some of us rode as toddlers because the adult versions have chain-and-sprocket drives, just like almost any other adults' bike, while most toddler trikes have cranks that are attached to the axle of the front wheel.  And, of course, the versions some of us rode before we could balance two wheels are smaller than the ones one sees in the retirement communities.


Most of the adult trikes also have baskets, or some other sort of carrier, between the two rear wheels.  Those bikes are something like this:

However, what this man is riding didn't start off as one of those bikes men in golf hats pedal around artificial ponds.  Rather, it was once the sort of balloon-tired bike many kids--including, perhaps, you, dear reader--rode during the 1950's and early 1960's.  Some were quite elegant, in their own ways.  Some others made conscious efforts to emulate the "streamlining" of the vessels made during the automobile's baroque era/the space program's early days.  


I tried to get the man to stop and tell me how he put the bike together.  But he didn't hear me or didn't want to talk.  Given that he was porting something in his rear basket, he may well have been in the middle of some appointed round or another.  Having been a bike messenger, I understand how he might have felt.


My guess is that the rear wheels and axles came from some kind of bicycle pushcart.  When I was a kid, Good Humor ice cream and other things were sold from them in Prospect Park and other large public spaces.  Or the parts may have come from a regular pushcart or vendor's wagon.   Whatever went into that bike, making it was certainly a creative endeavor.


Here in New York, one can see all sorts of odd, interesting and sometimes scary permutations of bikes and parts.  Nearly all of them are contraptions I would never think of riding myself, much less putting together. Then again, I've been fortunate enough to have worked in bike shops and to have found ways to gather the means necessary to put together the sorts of bikes I've wanted.  (I can't remember the last time I bought a new complete bike; I've either bought frames I've built up or have bought--or was given, or found-- used bikes that I've modified.) I have custom bikes and others I've modified, but bikes like the one in the photo are unique in ways that I never could imagine.


They make me think of some of the ways people take whatever they find and use them to create, or at least assemble, something that suits (more or less, sometimes) their needs and whims.


So, perhaps, it's no surprise that they should remind me of how languages are formed and how literature and other creative forms of expression come to be.  Much about the "product" may not make sense to those who had nothing to do with creating it or who don't use it.  It doesn't make any sense that a word that sounds like "thru" could be spelled "through" or "threw" until we realize where each of the words--and the combinations of sounds and letters that comprise them--came from. 


English, like most living languages, was assembled from bits and pieces of other languages and other kinds of sounds in an attempt to communicate as e ffectively as possible in the environment in which it was created.  Dialects and other variants of the languages come from the grafting of still other pieces in an attempt to portray realities that previous speakers didn't encounter.  The kid who first rode the bike that became the trike in the photo probably never rode a poorly-paved street in an urban area or had to carry much beyond his or her bookbag to school.  But the man riding the trike contends with those realities.  He probably doesn't have much money, so he (or whoever put the bike together) used whatever could be found that could be made to do the job.  In the process,  some of those parts were altered; on some bikes, things might be altered beyond recognition.


That's not so different from what's happened to all those words we use every day but are pronounced differently--and might mean entirely different things--from the way they were used by those who first used them. Something similar happens to music.  Listen to Julie Andrews' My Favorite Things, then hear what John Coltrane did with it and you'll better understand what I mean.


When I was young and broke (as opposed to merely poor), I assembled a couple of bikes from what was available to make those bikes work in ways and under conditions the makers and orginal owners may not have envisioned.   I have also made meals, put together outfits and, yes, written reports and even poems in a similar way.  And, as you might've guessed, I was doing something similar, in a way, when I tried to explain how I feel to members of my family and friends, not to mention doctors and others from whom I sought help.  I pulled together various words and other expressions, images, metaphors and other ephemeral intellectual and emotional flotsam to convey something that would be as new a reality to them as it was for me when I first understood it about myself.


To be one's self and to master, rather than to be subsumed by, one's environment is itself a creative act.  So is making whatever is necessary in order to be able to function in the situations one encounters.  Whoever built the bike in the photo did exactly that.


I'd love to know what that person would do with this:

The Lone Cyclist

Yesterday I took a short and totally un-noteworthy ride locally through some local streets between my place and the World’s Fair Marina.   And I finally got the new phone –and phone plan—I’ve needed. 

Today, ironically, I found myself thinking—and talking—about cycling even though I didn’t ride and I spent the afternoon with my parents, who aren’t cyclists in any way, shape or form.

I met them at a place incongruously called Airport Plaza.  For years, it was the first stop for the bus that runs from the Port Authority Terminal, at the western end of Times Square, to the Jersey Shore.  Airport Plaza is one of those shopping plazas—It’s too old and small to be called a mall—that always looked rather forlorn and even a bit dusty even when business was booming.  It always seems to be filled with stores that started a couple of years too late and seem to hang on for a year or two longer than they should.  The Wetson’s restaurant that anchored one end of the plaza during the first few years my family lived in New Jersey may well have been the last of a chain that lost out to McDonald’s, Burger King and Wendy’s about thirty-five years ago.

When Mom and Dad were living in Middletown, I occasionally took the bus I took today, and got off at Airport Plaza.  Other times, I pedaled to their house and spent a night or weekend with them.  When I was at Rutgers, the ride was about thirty or thirty-five miles, depending on which route I took; from New York, I’d pedal about fifty miles by the time I saw them.

Usually, I’d detour a bit through the areas just on the other side of Route 36 from Airport Plaza.  They were webs of streets that paralleled, skirted or ended at Sandy Hook Bay. 

Those streets wove through the towns of Keyport, Keansburg and a section of Middletown that used to be called East Keansburg, but is now called North Middletown.  They were Bruce Springsteen country before anyone heard of him:  Streets lined with houses that were everything from tidy to shabby, depending on the amount of money and time the blue-collar families that inhabited them could or would devote to their care.  Not even the best of them would have been considered for Architectural Digest; the worst looked like somewhat bigger and better versions of the shacks seen in rural Appalachia.

And, yes, it seemed that at any given moment, at least half of the late-teenaged and young adult males were torquing wrenches or strumming guitars or pounding drums in the garages of those houses.  Then, as now, American flags rolled and spilled in the breeze in front of many of the houses; some also had banners for whichever branch of the military in which the fathers or sons served.  Many of those houses also had boats and trailers parked in their driveways. 

In those days, I used to enjoy pedaling along that stretch of the shoreline because the views were actually quite nice and because, in those houses and the people who lived in them, there was an utter lack of pretention—even though I knew most of those people would disagree with me on just about everything. 

Also, while some of those people would swim, sail or do any number of other things in the water, they did not turn it into a commodity.  There was no status in living closer to the water.  So, riding along it was a calming experience.

Oddly enough, it was during those rides that I could most readily imagine myself living as a girl and, later, a woman.  The artist/romantic in me says it had something to do with the waters of the bay and the billowing sails on the boats.  What’s really strange, though, is that I could feel as I did in an environment that could be fairly called “redneck.” 

Along the shoreline, multistory condo buildings and stores have replaced the older one-and two-story, some of which, in their splintered and peeling condition,  looked as if they’d been left there by the tides.

Mom, Dad and I had lunch in Ye Cottage Inn, a restaurant that, so far, has survived the changes.  But, even though it’s been updated and has some nice views from its windows, I have to wonder whether it will survive the changes I’ve described.  The food was pretty good, if unexciting.

The place was about a third full, which, I guess, isn’t bad for a Thursday.  However, about half the people eating there were part of the same group of senior women who seemed to be having their “girls’ lunch.”  And I was the youngest person eating in that restaurant.

Not that I mind older people.  Back in the days when I was riding down that way, I used to enjoy talking with two of my mother’s friends.  In fact, I preferred them to nearly all of my peers. 

But most of the people one sees in that area are very old or very young.  Those shoreline condos are, I’m sure, full of commuters who are young.  There is a ferry nearby that goes to the Wall Street area, so they probably don’t see much of the town besides their condos and the ferry.  When those young execs and execs-in-training are promoted, decide to have families or have some other life-changing event.  Will they stay?  And when those old people die, who will replace them?

Finally…Will anybody there take up cycling?  Although some of the streets are very cyclable, I cannot recall having seen, besides me,  anyone but very young children on bicycles.

If I pedal down there once again, will I be the Lone Cyclist?

Blood Under My Cleats

"Le sang coule dans les rues..."


Yes, I've ridden my bike in Paris--but not in 1572 or 1789 or 1871.  So I never got to see blood running in the streets, at least not in the City of Light.  


However, I did see blood running on the streets--and sidewalks--here:

To be precise, it was underneath the viaduct that I saw a thick crimson current.  Back in those days, the street scene looked more like this:

And one could see things that would turn him or her into a vegetarian on the spot:

I found this photo, and the one before it, on one of my favorite websites:  Forgotten NY.  The neighborhood shown in these photos is the Meatpacking District.  Ironically, it's now home to some of the trendiest shops and cafes in the city, as any fan of Sex and the City knows.


I rode down there today.  Actually, my doctor's office is a few blocks away and, after having my blood drawn, I ended my fast in the nearby park with tea and a corn muffin from The Donut Pub.  (I also bought a cherry donut for later in the day. I guarantee you that if you ever go there, you'll never even look at a Krispy Kreme again!)  


Fortunately, I didn't see any animal offal before or after consuming my impromptu brunch.  But, as I rode, I recalled a time when I was riding back from New Jersey.  Just after I got off the Staten Island Ferry, it began to rain.  The rain grew heavier as I pedalled up West Street and, finally, when I could barely see where I was going, I ducked underneath the viaduct you saw in the first photo.


I had just begun to ride with Look road pedals.  Those of you who ride them know that those cleats, like most road racing cleats, aren't made for walking.  I unclipped my left foot and touched down on the sidewalk--actually, in a pool of blood on the sidewalk.


The cleat at the bottom of my shoe was nearly smooth and flat.  It could just as well have been covered with grease.  My foot slid out from under me and I landed on my side--in another pool of animal blood.  When I got back up, I saw that my left side was covered with it, and it had spattered me on the front.  


Being covered with blood that is not your own is disconcerting enough. But what really upset me was that it ruined my favorite jersey I owned at the time:  a replica of the one Bernard Hinault and Greg Le Mond wore in the 1985 Tour de France.

In those days, I was skinny and could get away with wearing it!  


When the rain let up, I continued riding.  Eva had been visiting some friend of hers who didn't like me, and I didn't expect her to be back at the apartment when I arrived.  


"What the hell happened to you?"


All I could do was laugh.  Trying to explain it made me laugh even harder.  Soon, she couldn't help herself, either.  And, in one of the nicer surprises of the time we were together, she actually bought me a replacement for it.   


Every once in a while, she'd go for a ride with me.  I can guarantee you, though, that we never went to the Meat Packing District.  And we never walked or rode on the viaduct--which,in those days, never looked like this:

Now it's called The High Line.  It's supposedly inspired by the Viaduc des Arts in Paris, which, like the High Line, is an abandoned railway.  The High Line does have some nice flora and fauna tucked in among cafes that serve hundred dollar plates of spaghetti.  And   cycling isn't allowed on it.


Back in the day, one might have seen something like this on the Line:

When I was young (believe it or not!), the New York Central, which gave its name to Grand Central Station, was the second largest railroad in the country.  The Pennsylvania Railroad, for which Penn Station was named, was the largest. (It was once the largest company of any kind.)  But they, like most American railroads after World War II, were in decline.  So, someone had the bright idea of combining them into a company that would be "too big to fail".  The marriage was consummated, so to speak, in 1968; it lasted all but two years.  When Penn Central failed, it caused a crash on Wall Street and nearly brought down the US economy with it.


I know, banks and brokerage houses are different.  But you'd think that among all of those people with fancy degrees, someone would've remembered at least that much economic history.


After I finished my corn muffin and tea, I continued riding.  At least that's one thing nobody forgets how to do.  And there was no blood to clean afterward!

Riding When You Don't Have To Work

This evening I rode Tosca to the college.  The air was pleasantly cool, and I encountered little traffic on the way there, and even less on the way back.  On my way home, I felt as if I were flying.

I had to drop off some paperwork, including a letter of reference for a former student of mine.  I think I was the only person there who wasn't part of the maintenance or security crews.  

It's funny:  I don't think of this as a commute or a "work" ride.  I felt like taking a late-day or evening ride, and it simply seemed convenient to go to the college and take care of a bit of business. 

 

Almost nobody rides a bike to or from the college.  So, people--students and faculty alike--are surprised when I do.  And when I don't, some faculty members give me that smug, self-satisfied grin that says, "I told you so."

Tonight I experienced none of those things.  I was just a faculty member who happened to ride a bike--or was I a bike rider who simply happened to be a faculty member?

Being A Tourist On My Bike In My Hometown

Today I found the best kickstand I've ever used:

OK, so it's technically not a kickstand, as it's not necessary to kick it.  Kick it?  How would the world be different if that had been the lyric for a certain Devo song?  


My "stand" was found on this block:

And here is one an interesting specimen from the right side of the street:

Here's something from the left side:

Now, where is this street?  It's in Harlem.  Specifically, it's West 139th, beween Adam Clayton Powell and Malcolm X Boulevards.


From there I rode to this view:

Yes, I pedalled Tosca across the George Washington Bridge to Jersey.   The forecast called for "some" chance of rain, and the skies darkened, threatening rain that never came.  As clouds grew thicker, the air grew cooler, which I liked. 


I pedalled along the Palisades all the way down to Jersey City.

I've seen more than a few of these old movie theatres turned into halls of worship for evangelical or other equally fervent religious groups.  I guess they work for that purpose for the same reasons they made such good movie venues:  The acoustics are great, and having lots of people makes for some enthusiasm!  Hmm...Maybe I should hold my lectures there.  

Anyway, I rode down to Staten Island, where I got on the Ferry and shot the kind of  pictures a tourist would take:

OK, so the one with the shadowy figures isn't quite what a tourist might take:  The man and his son are, as you probably knew, tourists.  I guess I was, too.

A City Ride After Lunch, Thirty Years Later

Today I rode into Manhattan for a couple of errands and to have lunch with Bruce.  Even though I rode my "beater" (the Le Tour), I decided take a bit of a ramble around the city.

Somewhere along the way, it seems, a hipster couldn't bear giving up his bike when he got married and had a kid:

This Peugeot "Nice" was parked across the street from where the World Trade Center once stood.  I've seen bikes like it--which may also have been Nices--in France and Montreal.  But this is the first time I've seen one  here in New York.

To be fair to hipsters, that paint job is pure '80's.


Aside:  I didn't go anywhere near the WTC for a couple of years after 11 September.  Although I didn't lose anyone I knew, I simply couldn't bear to be around it.  


I continued down Broadway to the ferry terminals.  I missed the day's last ferry to Governor's Island and I decided I didn't really want to take the ferry ride to Staten Island, as much as I enjoy it.   

Another aside:  Staten Island is at its closest to the rest of New York at the Verrazano Narrows, where the eponymous bridge crosses it. At that point, SI is about 4300 feet from New York.  However, the island is only 600 feet away from New Jersey. After the English took New York and New Jersey from the Dutch (who took it from the Lenape Indians), they supposedly settled the dispute over whether Staten Island belonged to New York or New Jersey with a boat race:

Was anyone accused of doping?  Maybe they can use the Tour de France to decide whether France or Spain gets Andorra.


Anyway, I rode up the Greenway that skirts the Hudson.  Lots of the cyclists I saw today probably moved to New York in the last few years.   They don't remember the city without the Greenway.  They also probably think the Christopher Street Pier always looked something like this:

I remember when it looked nothing like that.  My earliest memories were more like what you see in this photo Ross Lewis took in 1993:

Believe it or not, I actually ventured out onto the pier when it was something like that.  My first adventure there was during my high school years, in the mid-1970's.  I don't remember much about it because, well, I did something teenagers sometimes do when they're someplace they're not supposed to be.  I don't think I would've gone onto that pier if I weren't intoxicated.  In fact, I probably wouldn't have crossed under the elevated West Side Highway.  A truck crashed through it in the early 1970's; although it was closed immediately, it wouldn't be demolished for another 15 years.  In the meantime, only those who were intoxicated, adventurous or simply had noplace else to go would cross under that highway to get to piers that were, in some cases, literally falling into the water.  


For a long time, those derelict quais were among the few places to which the public had access on New York City's hundreds of miles of shoreline.  New York is different, in that sense, from other seaport towns like Boston, San Francisco and Istanbul:  Until recently, there was really no individual or civic pride in the waterfront. It seemed as if one's social status was directly proportional to how far one was from the water.  That might be the reason why addresses along  Fifth Avenue, which is further from the waterfront than any other New York City Avenue, became the most prestigious in the city.

I have long said that New York could be, by far, the most beautiful city in the world if its waterfront were cleaned up.  I'm glad to see that's happening, finally.  Still, it's almost surreal to see the shorelines become places of recreation. 

 One of my uncles worked on the Brooklyn docks; as a teenager, my mother worked in a factory just steps away from those docks.  When I was a child, my father worked in a factory that was less than a block from the 57th Street pier, which is only about half a mile from the Intrepid.  Those workplaces, not to mention those jobs, are long gone.  In fact, the old Maritime Union headquarters in Brooklyn, which took up an entire square block, is now Al-Noor, said to be the largest Muslim elementary school in the United States.


I continued up the Greenway past the Boat Basin, Harlem toward the George Washington Bridge

On my way back, I saw this charmingly theatrical facade:

This building was the old Audubon Ballroom.  Many jazz performers played there; in addition, the Audubon was a movie theatre and a meeting-place for labor activists.  However, it seemed not to recover from having been the site of Malcolm X's assassination until Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center turned it into a research laboratory during the 1990's.


How much else will change by the time I take another ride like the one I took today? 

A Day Off: No Hipster Fixies

I didn't ride today.  It rained heavily this morning.  My unwritten personal policy is that I don't start a ride in the rain unless I absolutely must; however, if there appears to be some risk or rain, I'll ride and accept the  consequences.  


Besides, having done my ride to the Delaware Water Gap on Sunday and about 35 miles on my fixed-gear yesterday, I feel as if I've done some quality cycling.  So, today, I took care of some business, which included getting a manicure and pedicure.  My nails were hideous!  Then I met with some members of the advisory committee of SAGE.  I might be working with them, as a volunteer, in the fall.

Perhaps I'm not noticing them, but there didn't seem to be as many of the "hipster fixies" on the streets of lower Manhattan as I'd been seeing in recent years.  Now, I'm always glad to see people riding bikes, whatever those bikes are.  Still, I hope that some riders will get onto bikes that are prettier or more useful than what they're riding. 


 Every once in a while, I'll get into a conversation with a hipster who tries to convince me that my bike will look "cooler" or "nicer" if I install a pair of wheels with Day-Glo-colored V-shaped rim and other parts and accessories in various eye-burning hues.  While both of my Mercians are finished with paint that turns purple, green or silver--depending on how the light hits it or how you look at it, though it's purple more often than not--it's actually rather elegant and understated in a similar way to the "fade" paint jobs (something I normally abhor) on the old Swiss Mondia bicycles.  And I prefer to stick with classic and classy parts in silver or black,and to have a touch of additional color in an accessory like a bag or handlebar wrap.


Maybe I'm just getting old and conservative.  Then again, I've never wanted a tatoo, not even when I was hanging out with punk rockers back in the day.  I guess I never was a hipster or one of its predecessors.  Somehow I don't think I missed much.


Anyway...Tomorrow I'm going to ride. I don't know what, how or where, but I plan on it.

Recovery Becomes A Sunset

Today I wanted to "test" the blisters I incurred during my ride to the Delaware Water Gap.  I "popped" them the way they used to teach us in the Scouts and the Army:  I cleaned the blisters and the area around them with alcohol, then I pierced them with a sterile needle.


After bandaging them, I got on Tosca with not particular destination in mind.  I stopped first at the Canarsie Pier, then in Coney Island.  After that, I rode to the promenade that rims the Verrazano Narrows and passes under the bridge named after that body of water:

I used my cell phone to take the photo, as I didn't bring my camera.


I was riding pretty slowly.  At least, it seemed as if I was.  But I don't berate myself quite so much for it when I'm riding my fixed-gear bike.  Besides, riding slowly to enjoy a sunset, particularly if it's on a large body of water or behind a bridge is acceptable as a reason or excuse, at least for me!