Trails And A Track, Then and Now

For the last couple of days, I think I've had some version of a summer cold.  I have felt congested and tired, and a bit weak.  So I didn't cycle today.  However, yesterday I rode to a couple of places I hadn't been to in a while.  Neither is very far from me, but I just haven't had occasion to go to them.

One was a place where I used to ride off-road with a few guys I used to know.  It's at the far end of Queens, near Nassau County.  I rode on the dirt paths in the woods of Alley Pond Park, which even in the most suburban part of New York City, seems bucolic.  I didn't try any of the jumps we used to do:  I haven't done them in a long time and, frankly, a lot of what I did in that park--and off-road generally--I did to show off.  Yesterday, even though I felt myself riding slowly, a man about my age who was riding one of those bikes that you'd think was a bargain if you found it for about ten dollars in the Salvation Army store looked at me and yelled, "Whoa, lady, slow down!"

Hmm....Maybe I am a fast woman after all.

I had gone to the park after the real purpose of my ride, which involved meeting with the chair of the English Department at a community college not far from the park.    I actually had met her once, years ago, in the only other time I had ever been on that campus.  I don't know whether she remembered me:  Back then, I was still one of those guys riding on the trails in Alley Pond Park, among other places.  I didn't mention that to her.


I started to think that it might be good to work there, and with her.  It'd be a fairly lengthy commute, but if I were to pedal it regularly, I'd really get into good shape. Even in the unlikely event that she remembers that brief, long-ago meeting with me (which wasn't bad), I'm not sure it would matter.  I don't think anyone else in that college knows who I am.  That, as you might have guessed, is one of the reasons why I thought I might like to work there. 


Save for Sheldon, who now works at Bicycle Habitat, I have not seen any of those guys with whom I used to ride the trails since we rode those trails.  They are like some other people from my past:  I would be curious to see them again, to see what they look like and what they're doing now.  I'm not so sure, though, that they'd want to be friends with me, or that I would with them.  They weren't bad guys, but our whole relationship was that of guys doing those rides together.  They may not be the same sorts of guys I knew then and, well, I'm not a guy.  And they may not be riding anymore, or they may be riding differently. 


And, in the course of my ride, I stopped somewhere else where I used to ride with some other people I haven't seen in years:  the Kissena Velodrome.  Yesterday, only one cyclist, a young and shy Latino, was pedalling on the banked oval.  

Ironically, Robert Moses built the Velodrome.   He was not known as a friend of cycling, or of anyone who isn't behind the wheel rather than astride two, or on his or her own feet.  (His motto could have been auto uber alles.) Two of his best-known projects, the Verrazano Narrows and Whitestone Bridges, don't have paths for pedestrians or cyclists.  And the Major Deegan Expressway, which he also built, has made it all but impossible to pedal across the Bronx from the George Washington Bridge, not to mention that it destroyed a few neighborhoods and was instrumental in the decline of the Bronx.


I used to ride on the 'Drome, as we called it, on a Bianchi track bike.  I'm talking about the real thing, not the prototypical hipster fixie you see everywhere.  The one I rode was an older Italian-made Bianchi, with a lugged frame made from Columbus SL steel tubing.  How real a track bike was it?  The geometry was right, the dropouts were those nice thick rear-facing horizontal ends you see on track bikes and--yes, here's the clincher--neither the front fork nor the rear stay bridge were drilled for brakes.  I could have drilled that front fork for a brake, but in those days, that seemed sacrilegious.  Besides, I didn't ride it on the streets:  If I wasn't on the Velodrome, I rode it on an enclosed loop that was closed to traffic, such as the ones in Central and Prospect Parks.  

Women's National Championship at Kissena, 1964

I thought, for a moment, about riding a lap or two.  Would that have made me the first woman to ride it in a dress?  The idea was tempting, especially since the track was in much better condition than it was back in the day.  Back then, one of us joked that we were going to design the first dual-suspension track bike specifically to deal with the Kissena surface, which at times resembled the Ho Chi Minh trail after a monsoon.


One of these days, I'll go there with Tosca.  Its geometry is not quite as aggressive, I think, as that of my old Bianchi, and it does have some amenities to make it more rideable on the road.  But it's actually a better-quality bike and, being a Mercian, has a bit more character.  I've been told that these days, I do, too.

Where There Are No Riders But Me

Sometimes I ride through the Neighborhoods Where Women Don’t Ride Bicycles.  Other times, my bikes take me through those places where no one over the age of sixteen or so mounts a saddle.  But today, my ride included a neighborhood where, it seems, nobody rides a bicycle.

I usually pass through or near the neighborhood on my way to work.  And, some years ago, when I was writing for a local newspaper, I used to go to the neighborhood’s local police precinct, community and school boards, and to various other offices and events in the community.  And, every time, if I pedaled there, I was the only one on a bicycle.

What’s interesting is that it’s neither a poor ghetto nor one of those tony areas where kids get chauffeured to soccer practice and dance lessons.  Rather, it’s a thoroughly working-to-middle class neighborhood where nearly all residents live with their families.  Unlike Astoria, where I now live, there aren’t very many young single people or childless couples.

Although the cast, if you will, has changed, it’s still the same sort of neighborhood it was forty years ago.  I know that because in those days, relatives of mine lived there.  Then, most of the people in the neighborhood were Italian-Americans, like my relatives, or Irish- or German-Americans, and nearly everyone was Catholic.  Most of the men were blue-collar union workers or self-employed, and most of the women stayed home to raise kids.

The only difference is that now, most of the people in the neighborhood are Sikhs or Indo-Caribbeans.  On a summer day, sights like this are not uncommon:

But I’ve never, ever seen any Sikh or Indo-Caribbean on a bicycle, at least not in this area.  Before they emigrated, many of the people rode bicycles for transportation or work.  I guess that, for them, cycling still has that connotation.  Where they come from, people ride bikes because they had little or no choice.  It’s certainly not seen as a sport or recreational activity, and not something the educated do.  I read somewhere that, in contrast, the majority of bicycle commuters in New York are college-educated.

If my hypothesis is correct, then the Indians and Indo-Caribbeans of Richmond Hill , where the men in turbans congregated, and neighboring Ozone Park are acting like past and present  immigrants from countries where people’s bikes were beasts of burden and utilitarian in other ways.

I also can’t help but to wonder whether the bikes they rode turned them off of cycling.  In the last bike shop that employed me, we saw a few Indian three-speeds, and I fixed a few of them.  I take that back:  Those bikes don’t get or stay fixed.   They may be the worst bikes I ever encountered.

Ex Cathedra: From The Saddle

As much as it pains me to say this, I think that switching from all-leather to “donut” saddles has worked for me.

My gynecologist said as much.  The last time I saw her, some of the tissue near my labia was torn and developed an infection.  This time, I didn’t have such a problem.  Rather, the stinging I felt was a yeast infection.  In addition to a one-dose medication, she prescribed less sugar and more yogurt for me. 

So, in that sense, the Terry Falcon X saddles I installed on Arielle and Tosca have succeeded for me.  I’m also starting to like their shape, which flares more gradually from front to rear than the Brooks saddles or the other nylon-based saddles, like the Fizik Pave (Here's a review of it.)  and Selle Italia Flite, I’ve ridden.  However, I’m still getting re-accustomed to the feel of thin (though dense) padding between a fairly inflexible base and a thin, stretchy leather cover.  I must say, though, that on the longest ride I’ve taken so far on either of those saddles, I didn’t feel sore.

I have installed a Terry Butterfly saddle on the Miss Mercian I’ve been building, which is almost complete.  (I’m waiting for the rack and I think I’m going to put wider tires on it.)  The Butterfly is wider, has a larger cutout in the middle and seems to be a bit more padded.  Therefore, I think it might be better for the Miss Mercian, which I will be riding in a more upright position than I ride my other two Mercians.  Having taken only two very short rides on the new bike, I’m not ready to comment on the Butterfly.

At some point in the future, I’ll say more about both saddles.  By then, I may have decided whether they’re keepers.  

(By the way, the bags you see under both saddles are Bike Burritos.  I highly recommend them.)

Killer Cyclists Invade Manhattan

They must be really desperate for ratings.

I'm talking about the local CBS news at 11:00 pm.  Last night and tonight, the program featured segments that made it seem as if cyclists are the greatest menace to this city since the 9/11 attackers.  


They shot footage of the scariest-looking messengers, the least attractive delivery men (Yes, all of the "rogue" cyclists were male.) and the most hysterical pedestrians they could find, and made it seem as if cyclists are all missles of hostility wrapped in lycra.  You would think that every cyclist has run a red light and hit somebody's grandmother, and that life in this city is about to come to a standstill because residents and people who work here are too afraid of crossing the street to get anything done.







Some years back, WNBC ran something similar.  The difference is that back then, there were neither dedicated bike lanes nor as many people cycling for transport as there now are.  So, if anything, I think that the WNBC segment was less hysterical, at least as I'm remembering it.  To see the current WCBS "report," one might think that bike lanes will take over all of the city's parking spaces.


Now, I'll admit that I've run a red light or two in my time.  But, tell me, what pedestrian--at least in New York--hasn't crossed against a red signal?  And do you mean to tell me that motorists don't run red lights?


Also, I would venture to guess that many more cyclists have been injured by motorists, or even pedestrians, than cause injury to non-cyclists.  That almost never gets reported, mainly because cyclists tend not to report accidents, even if they are injured in them, because so many of us feel that 
the police and other city authorities don't take cycling accidents--at least ones not caused by the cyclist--seriously.


That happened to me once when a pedestrian charged into the middle of a street and knocked me and my bike onto the pavement.  Luckily for me, at the previous intersection, the light had turned red, so there was no traffic behind me.  To this day, I shudder to think of what might have happened had cars or trucks streamed through that intersection.


When I told some policemen who were on foot patrol, they were for some reason convinced that the pedestrian, whom I had never before met, bore some sort of grudge against that I caused, and therefore I shouldn't have been surprised at what happened.  


It's funny that the so-called journalists never seem to find people like me, or the cyclist whom a cop pushed off his bike for no apparent reason, or the cyclist who was almost run down by Foxy Brown a couple of years ago.  If those reporters were to track us down, they'd find that, while we don't have the wealth or power of the Policemen's Benevolent Association or any number of other groups in this city, we are, for the most part, well-educated and very aware of our surroundings.  But that would be too complex for a TV evening news program, I guess.

Do The Laws Of Energy Apply To Cyclists?

Today, dear reader, I’m going to ask you to help me to solve one of the mysteries of the universe. 

All right, I was exaggerating just a bit.  But there is still something I haven’t figured out after more than three decades of cycling.

Here’s the dilemma:  Yesterday I rode for less than an hour, on flat roads.  Yet I felt more tired than I did after my ride to and from Connecticut last week.  In fact, I was so tired that I didn’t write last night. 

I don’t think I’ve lost any of my conditioning (such as it is) during the past week.  And, I don’t think the fact that I rode my fixed gear yesterday rather than my geared road bike (which I rode to Connecticut) should’ve made a difference.  If anything, my fixie is lighter, simply from having fewer components on it.  Otherwise, they are similarly built Mercians:  the geometry is slightly tighter on the fixie, but they are both built of Reynolds 631 tubing.

And I undertook both rides about an hour after eating breakfast/brunch.  Yesterday I ate a mushroom-and-onion omlette with corn tostadas and salsa.  If I recall correctly, I ate the same thing, or something very close to it, last week.

So why did I have enough energy after last week’s ride to make dinner but, after yesterday’s ride, I had some Chinese takeout and fell asleep shortly afterward?