Cycling The November Sky

Here's what makes a November sky different from its October counterpart--or, for that matter, what we think of as a "fall" or "autumn" sky, or what stretches above and in front of us at any other time of year. The clouds are exactly that--clouds.  Even as they shift across the sky and reveal patches of blue backlit by the sun, like a skylight in a Romanesque cathedral, they fill the sky in layers, to the point that they seem to become the sky itself, and to define not only the light, but the wind and chill that come from it.


However, there is absolutely no threat of rain, or any other kind of precipitation.  One can feel just as confident of cycling under this sky as among Shakespeare's "darling buds of May" and not having one's skin moistened by anything that wasn't within his or her own body.  (Whether or how much one sweats depends, of course, on one's conditioning and the strenuousness of the ride.  Mine today wasn't very. )  The best thing about cycling under these conditions, at least to me, is that the light is nothing more or less than that:  it's not the glaring sunlight that taxes light eyes and fair skins (like mine) and it's not diffuse or "painterly," as much as I appreciate and even enjoy that sort of illumination.


This is the sort of light that makes the things--like foliage--that were described with "fall" as prefixes attached to them in October become autumnal in the truest sense of that word.

This may seem odd to some of you, but I find none of this depressing.  In fact, I quite enjoy it.   Now I'm going to sound like exactly the Europhile (or, more specifically, Francophile) snob some of the people with whom I grew up suspected me of being, or having become.  I think that autumnality or autumnalness (OK, if Sarah Palin can compare herself to Shakespeare, surely you can indulge me in this!)  is not much respected, much less valued or celebrated, in American culture.  I suppose it has to do with the notion that this country is supposed to be a place where one can start over and re-invent one's self, and its attendant value of youthfulness and novelty.  The mature sexuality of French or Italian women or the ironic sense of the English--or, for that matter, the ability to accept life on its own terms while questioning one's self that seems to be part of a Germanic way of seeing--is not valued in the same way in America as that of youthful effusiveness and ebullience.


The quality of autumnalness I'm describing is what you might see in western New England if you get off Route 7, or if you take the back roads of the Adirondacks or the routes departmentales of the Vosges.  I have done all of those things, on my bicycle; perhaps having done them in my youth shaped, in some way, my attitudes about cycling and much else in my life.


Will it lead me to be like this couple?:

They say that in the spring a young man's fancy turns to love.  As if I would know about such things!  But at this time of year, an older man's and, ahem, woman's fancies turn to...wait, do they have fancies?   And if they do, will they be realized under this sky?:

I suspect that some of mine will be.  However, I am sure that I will continue to encounter them, as I did today, from my trusty steed for all seasons:

In The Family

Got up late this morning to more rain.  Still felt sleepy throughout the day.  I have an excuse:  lack of REMs during the past three days.  Hopefully, I'll feel better and will be on my bike tomorrow.


I was just "flipping" through some photos I took.  Nobody'll confuse my work with that of Henri-Cartier Bresson, but I have a couple of pictures I like.  Here's one I took a couple of weeks ago when I was riding on the Rockaway Boardwalk:

It was interesting to see the two boys with their mother.  A woman I knew--a former co-worker--who used to live out that way sometimes rode with her daughters along that boardwalk.  I accompanied them a couple of times; I enjoyed the company of the mother and her daughters.  And, they turned out to be better cyclists than I'd anticipated.  


I can recall a few other times when I've seen mothers riding with daughters, or with their husbands and kids. However, I don't think I've ever seen a woman cycling with her boys, but not her husband or daughters, if she had them.  On the other hand, when I've seen boys on tricycles or bicycles with training wheels, the adult who was watching over them was a female--usually the mother, from what I could tell.  I've seen fathers or other adult males riding with young boys, but never accompanying or supervising them as the woman in the photo did.  


As I remember, my mother and grandmother took me to the park or watched over me as I toddered along the sidewalks in our neighborhood.  Those memories are sunny.  That's most likely because we went out only on nice days.


But neither they nor my father, or any other relatives, rode with me--at least as best as I can recall.  To be fair, almost no adults rode bikes in those days, at least in the US.  And, as I now realize, my parents may not have had enough money to buy bikes for themselves.  After all, the bikes I rode as a kid were gifts or hand-me-downs.  Worst of all, they were very busy, and thus very tired, so much of the time.


How involved were your family members in your childhood and adolescent cycling experiences?

To Ride or Not To Ride To Work In The Cold Rain

I woke up very early this morning, as I have been on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  Although it was warm in my apartment, I could feel the chill in the air outside my window as I heard the rain thumping against the awning next door.  


Riding in the rain is one thing.  Riding in rain and cold is another.  Starting to ride in the rain and cold is less appealing still.  I realized there is yet another category for the kind of rain we had today:  grayness, almost pure grayness, dropping through the chilled air and bringing down brightly colored leaves that are turning have turned into shades of rust, and soon will return to ashes and dust.


If I'd been on my bike as the day broke, I suppose it all could have been pretty, if in a rather melancholy way.  I could have worn my raingear and changed clothes at work.  But I decided not to.  For one thing, with the health problems I've had recently, I didn't want to take any unnecessary risks.  For another, it simply wouldn't have been a whole lot of fun, especially in a couple of places where the drivers can be pretty whacky.  Why do agressive risk-takers become even more aggressive and live even more dangerously when the rain slicks the roads.  At least, they seem to.  

In the end, though, I simply don't care to start riding under the conditions I saw this morning, and throughout the day.  It's one thing if I get on the bike when I know that there's a risk that I'll encounter bad weather.  Sometimes I'll take that chance.  But to start riding in the kind of weather we had today is simply not too enjoyable and, frankly, isn't going to make a big difference in my conditioning, such as it is right now.

Typical Commute--And Commuter?

Sometimes I'm happy to have an early a.m. class.  Those sometimes are almost always on days when I pedal to work.  Now I'm on my bike just before sunrise; soon I will be getting in the saddle in the dark.  Until then, I can enjoy sights like this:

I saw tree from the corner of my eye as I turned from the cinderblock sprawl of Lefrak City onto a side street in Corona.  Yes, as in "the Queen of Corona," which Paul Simon immortalized in "Me and Julio Down By The Schoolyard."

A student told me that the ride to work brings out my "glow."  Another student--who's not in one of my classes now--captured me as I was ready to start riding home:

The parked bike is the Pinarello cyclo-cross bike I've mentioned in a previous post.  I've seen it every time I've ridden to my second job.  

It has Mavic Cosmic wheels, Paul cantilever brakes and an XTR crankset and derailleurs:  not what one normally sees in a college's bike rack.


Then again, some would argue that I'm not the typical commuter who parks in a rack like that one.

November Cycling

Today's the first of November.


This is the month that separates the committed cyclists from the rest.  People who pedal once or twice around the park every other weekend usually call it a season about now.  At least, that's what they seem to do in Northern Hemisphere locales that have four discernible seasons.


Yesterday I noticed there were fewer cyclists on the roads and Greenway than there've been on most Sundays during the past few months.  That isn't too surprising:  It was a chilly, windy day, though it was lovely, if in a rather austere way.


Although it was Halloween--the last day of October--in cycling terms, it was more of a November day.  That, for me was part of what I enjoyed about cycling yesterday.


Of course, no month is more beautiful than October.  Perhaps May or June could be said to be as lovely, if in entirely different ways from the month that just passed.  Cycling--or doing nearly anything else outdoors--in  October is a feast for the senses.


On the other hand, November grows grayer and more wizened as it proceeds.  Colors fade into shades of ashes and as trees are stripped of their leaves, their branches grow darker and splinter.  Somehow, though, they endure like the coats the old and the poor wear through another season.


Someone who continues cycling this week, this month, will probably continue to some time just before Christmas.  And anyone who continues cycling after that will probably still be on his or her bike in February.


By then, even they--we-- will be ready for another season, having cycled forward from the light of the gray November tableau.