One of the things I've learned, in cycling as in life, is that any container you carry will fill up. The question is: with what?
Given that there are far fewer trash receptacles on this city's streets than there were a few years ago, it makes sense that people will make do with whatever they find. Sometimes, though, what they find is a bike with baskets on it.
I very stupidly deleted a photo I was going to post with this. In it, the side-by-side rear baskets that hung off each side of a bicycle's rear rack were completely filled with trash. And I complained about finding a couple of White Castle cartons on the front basket of my LeTour!
And now I also know that New Yorkers aren't the worst offenders when it comes to "trashing" a parked bike. The above photo was taken in Tokyo.
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In addition to White Castle cartons, I've found empty and half-empty beer bottles, boxes from Kotex and religious tracts in my basket. I wonder pamphleteers were targeting me.
What are some things you've found in your bike basket, or on your rack or any other part of your bike, after leaving it parked on the street?
I must say: The question never crossed my mind. But I got the answer to it today. Here it is: What if there had been hipsters during the '80's?
Might they have ridden a "fixie" like the Schwinn in the middle of this photo?
If they had, they might have borne the wrath of all the disdain I heaped upon that decade's young and annoying people: the yuppies.
Now, I've never been a yuppie or a hipster. Couldn't have been either, even if I'd wanted to. But I'll make a confession: Back in those days, I wore a cycling jacket in a pink just like the one on that bike. It was a rather nice jacket, actually.
You know that anyone who ends a sentence with "actually" isn't wearing a jacket in a color like that! Likewise, on the day I learned, in Sociology 101, that my family was "working class," I was no longer part of it. Now, what that's got to do with hipster fixies and yuppies and a jacket I wore twenty years ago, I don't know.
All I know is that if I'm rambling the way I just did after seeing a tacky bike in a shop, I've spent too many hours reading way too many student papers. Some of them were due months ago; I suppose I've been suffused with the "holiday spirit." Plus, I don't want to deny any student whose "sob story" may actually be true. I mean, what if some freshman's grandmother died for the fifth time this year?
If she did, she sure won't be riding that bike in the picture. Me, I wouldn't be caught dead on it. But you probably knew that already.
What have I done this week? Woke, had breakfast, rode bike to work, taught classes, read papers, taught more classes, rode home, read lots more papers, went to bed, woke and started the cycle all over again.
At least I was able to ride to work. Actually, I came to the conclusion that I had to. Not to meet some training goal or to fulfill some egotistical desire; no, I had to ride, even if only to work, to keep even a pretense of sanity. And, it was the only thing that was allowing me to do my work.
You see, last week, I took the train and bus on Thursday. The weather was cold, but not as bitter as it's been the last couple of days. Rather, I thought I could use the transit time to get some work done. But I was so tired that I couldn't focus. Yet, at the same time, I was on edge: Imagine that you can't keep your eyes open but an electrical storm is flashing inside of you. Even if I could have concentrated my energies enough to read a few papers, I couldn't have: Everything was crowded, so I had hardly enough physical, let alone mental, space.
It also seems that my work load at the end of this semester has been particularly onerous. I feel as if I never really caught up--in cycling as well is in my work; forget about my personal life!-- after losing a week to my eye infection.
I apologize for the absence of photos or other images. I just didn't get a chance to take any pictures. I take that back: My mind just hasn't been working in that direction.
But the riding has been good. And I actually was accompanied, at least for the first two miles of my ride home last night, by one of the full-time faculty members at the second college where I teach. She saw me pick up my helmet and one of those, "You ride, too?!," conversations ensued.
She may not be the most experienced rider. But she's a more skilled rider than she realizes. And, she wants to do it. Plus, I have to admit that while she was praising the fact that I seemed "unfazed by the cold" (and you all know how good I am at seeming to be one thing or another, as I spent so much of my life at it, until a few years ago!) and that I was keeping up the kind of pace I was (which, actually, wasn't that great, but I didn't care) , I was noticing how good she looked riding her bike. In my next life, I'd like to look as good as she does when she's riding. Hey, I wouldn't mind it in this life!
Now, here's the one of the other things I do to keep some shred of sanity: writing on this blog. I needed to do this, too: A couple of days away, and I really missed it. Whatever its other merits, if any, this blog and my other let me do some writing that doesn't involve comments like "Society can't think anything" or that dyspeptic prose found in the academic world or the narcotic diction of education papers.
Now I'm becoming narcotic. That's not too strange, though, given what time of year it is
For many people, a quintessential childhood memory is one of finding a bicycle under the Christmas tree. One generation dreamed of a shiny Schwinn balloon-tired bikes; the next yearned for three-speed "English racers." Then there were those who lusted after slick-tired "Choppers" or "low-riders" or cruisers with sweeping curves--and, later, ten-speeds, which seemed as fast and exotic as sports cars.
If you've ever found a bicycle under the tree on Christmas morning, you know that nothing--not even getting that custom frame you'd been dreaming about--is ever quite as exciting. Perhaps things are different for the current generation, but for mine, and those that came earlier, a new bike was the ne plus ultra of rewards Santa (a.k.a., Mom, Dad or other adult) bestowed upon you for being a good little boy or good little girl. Not that I was ever either one... ;-] In fact, as an adult, I was once given a bike for Christmas for being naughty, if you know what I mean!
So, dear readers: I'd love to hear about the bikes you got, or gave, for the holidays.
They say it's bad luck when a black cat crosses your path. How does that affect you if you learn that as a kid? Well, I guess it could really screw up your race relations, or leave you with a pile of therapists' bills. The latter is a common consequence of being inculcated with just about any superstition.
For the record, I've paid all of my therapists' bills. That is not to be confused with paying your dues, if for no other reason that if you think you've paid your dues, you haven't. At least you know whether or not you've paid your therapists' bills. Trust me: I know from whence I speak!
Now I've really digressed. To get back to the subject of this post...which was? Oh, right, a black cat crossing your path. Well, one didn't cross my path today. However, this one crossed in front of me when I was riding on Randall's Island:
She's feral, so she doesn't stand still for very long. However, she did pause from her prowlings when I stopped. She tiptoed to within a few feet of me, gazed into my eyes and, perhaps realizing that I hadn't brought anything for her to eat, took off.
There's been some material written about how to deal with stray dogs when you're on your bike. But I have yet to see anything that deals with the subject of stray cats encountered when cycling.
I recall now the time I was pedaling up a narrow mountain road near Briancon, France. The surface and the sides looked sunbaked, even though the day was overcast. I'd just made one of those turns from which rocks tumble off the edge of the road when I heard--meowing? Here?, I wondered. There were no other animals and no vegetables, or so it seemed. Well, at least I knew that my soon-to-be new friend (who seemed to be a Chartreuse cat) didn't get skinny from smoking cigarettes and drinking black coffee.
I didn't have any cat food with me. However, I did have some butter cookies in my handlebar bag. I broke up a few and they seemed to end up in her mouth almost as soon as they passed through my hands.
From there, I cycled into Italy. Ironically, on the way back, I rode down the same road and the same cat crossed my path.
As hard as her life must have been, at least she had a wonderful view. So did the cat who came my way today:
Some black bike parts are said to have a "stealth" look. I suppose that on a black bike, they would "fly under the radar." And, if enough people are riding black bikes, I suppose that those "stealth" bikes and parts could go unnoticed.
But what if the world were lit by magenta neon? Seeing the old Rudge-Whitorth in that light in Flushing made me think of this: That bike, which was black, certainly didn't look "stealth." That's not to say I didn't like its looks: It had a nice patina on it, and there's something classy about some of those old three-speeds. But if one wanted to make it less visible, what would one do?
Would these be "stealth" in the light I saw last night?
Tonight, on my way home, I stopped in Flushing for a bite to eat. Now, I've never been to Hong Kong, but Flushing is what I imagine Hong Kong would be like if it were transported to Queens. Or, perhaps, with its ubiquitous neon, it could be seen as an Asian version of Times Square.
I wonder whether the makers of this Rudge-Whitworth ever imagined it in magenta neon light. In some odd way, bike and light are not incongruous, at least to me.
One particularly interesting feature of this bike is its chainring cutout pattern:
Is the hand halting or waving? Whatever it's doing, it looks good doing it on this bike.
I'm guessing that the bike is from the 1940's or 1950's. At that time there were dozens, if not hundreds, of bicycle manufacturers who made what we now think of as classic English 3-speeds. (Many of those companies, including Rudge, were bought by Raleigh during the 1950's.) While, at first glance, they seemed almost the same, each model had its own particular set of details that set it apart. An example is in the chainwheel you saw in the above photo. Many other British makers used chainwheels with interesting and sometimes whimsical patterns cut into them. The Raliegh three-speed I rode last year had a heron--Raleigh, which of course was Raleigh's corporate symbol.
I've seen other chainrings cut out in interesting patterns. Here's one of my favorites:
It's on an AJ Warrant bike from Austria. Although there's no earthly reason to use a cottered crankset today, I wouldn't mind having the one in the photo.
Last night my commute took me through the great wilderness of the Land of Overdecorated Houses.
Even after so many years of cycling, I still can't get over how much brighter and gaudier those lights and combinations of green, red, gold, silver tinfoil seem when you don't have two feet of glass and two tons of metal between you and them. And the cold, clear night made them glint and glare all the more, or so it seemed.
We're supposed to have more of this bonechilling clarity through the next week. I hear even Santa's reindeer don't want to come out in this weather. Hmm...I wonder...How would the world be a different place if Santa and his helpers rode bicycles instead of sleighs pulled by reindeer.
I've tried to get Charlie and Max interested in cycling. But they aren't interested in the hard work: They like to supervise.
Max, at least, makes an effort at looking busy. (Is that something like acting sincere? I actually heard someone say that.) Of course, there's no contract, but there are no rules about sleeping on the job. Charlie knows that very well:
It was below freezing and, with the wind chill, about fifteen degrees colder. I got on my bike to go to work. Now you tell me: Which species is more intelligent and evolved?
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| From Utility Cycling |
It is undeniably winter now. Or, at least, it feels that way. The winds of yesterday doth blew today. Hey, I'm teaching a Shakespeare play in one of my classes. You have trouble with Shakespeare's language, you say? All right: Ou sont les neiges d'antan?
What made today really strange, though, at least climatically (No, that's not the word you thought it was!), was the fact that the temperature varied almost not at all. It felt that way and the recap I heard of the day's weather said as much: High temp 34 F; Low Temp 30; clouds but no precip; wind speeds from 20 to 30 mph. Not a day fair and excellent, as the Bard would say.
It's time to get myself out of denial. Time to take out the wool gloves, the wool shirts and such. The week I'll spend in Florida will be a mere interlude: the cold will precede and follow it.
At least there hasn't been any sleet or slush yet. I don't mind the cold, and I don't mind precipitation. Both together, though, can make for miserable cycling and can be simply depressing. Fenders and the proper clothing make such conditions endurable, if not enjoyable.
I'm not about to stop riding, though. I never have gone on "winter break" unless I had some health issue or another that prevented me from cycling. That hasn't happened often, and has never kept me off my bike for more than a couple of weeks every winter.
At least winter rides make hot chocolate and soups taste really good!
