It Looks Like A Lane Now

It looks like a real bike lane now.


Last week, I mentioned the construction I saw on the Queens side of the Edward Koch/Queensborough/59th Street Bridge.  (At the rate it's going, the bridge'll have more names than God has in the Old Testament!)  Well, I don't know whether they've finished it.  But at least now the path is useful, and takes you to a practical destination.


More important, it doesn't force cyclists into this:

This is where the lane from the bridge used to end.  Just beyond the orange barrels, 27th Street dead-ends under the elevated tracks of the #7 and N lines of the New York subways.  Most of the traffic on 27th (which is one-way in the direction of the truck in the rear of the photo) merges onto the bridge ramp; a few vehicles turn right onto Queens Plaza North, where you see the black sedan.  Sometimes those streets are completely full of vehicles, and their drivers aren't known for patience.


So, when a cyclist coming off the bridge can turn left onto the lane, which intersects with 23rd, 22nd and 21st Streets. All of them continue underneath the tracks.  Or one can take 23rd in the other direction to go to Astoria.  That street passes through an industrial area and the traffic on it is usually light.   Twenty-Second is one-way in the opposite direction from 23rd, and 21st is a major artery that serves as part of the route for several bus lines.  


I would love it if the path were extended to Vernon Boulevard, which skirts the Queens bank of the East River.   That would offer cyclists relatively easy and safe access to PS 1, Socrates Sculpture Park and the Noguchi Museum, among other things. 


One can always hope.  For now, I'll suspend my cynicism and be grateful for something that's better than what we had.

They Need A Few Good Bikes. The Women, Too.

A counselor at my second job is a volunteer with Neighbors Link, an organization that helps recent immigrants. He is asking people to donate bicycles and sturdy clothing and footwear (such as jeans, overalls, T-shirts and work boots) to that organization, which will give them to recent immigrants.


The idea intrigued me for several reasons.  For one, I notice that more and more immigrants--mainly from Latin America and Asia, and mainly men--are using bicycles for transportation. I'm not talking only about the guys who make deliveries for various restaurants, cafes and diners.  Others are riding their bikes to work at construction sites, warehouses and other places where native-born degree-holders fear to tread.  Some, I suspect, are also riding to classes at the community colleges, language institutes, trade schools and GED centers in the area.  


As you can imagine, they're not always riding the best of bikes.  Sometimes they're on cheap department-store bikes, most of which are not assembled properly (in addition to being of poor quality).  Others are used bikes of just about every genre.  These days mountain bikes from the early and mid-90's seem to be the most common pre-owned bikes to find their way into the immigrant communities, and there are large numbers of "vintage" ten- and twelve-speed bikes, in addition to some English (or English-style) three-speeds.  (Do you know what makes me feel old? Knowing that I rode "vintage" bikes when they weren't vintage!)  All of these bikes, even the best of them, are in various states of disrepair.  

Image from "The Urban Country"

I think the counselor who's coordinating the collections is doing a great thing. If you're in the NYC area and have anything to donate, I can refer you to him, and he will arrange a pick-up.


But now that I've undergone changes, I've become a radical feminist.  (Ha, ha!) So I notice that these immigrant bike riders are invariably male.  That is not a stereotype or sweeping generalization; I can't recall the last time I saw a Latina or female Asian immigrant riding a bike for any reason.  Every female cyclist I've met here has been native- or European-born.  


So now I'm thinking about why that is.  It seems to me that bicycling, like education, can make such women less dependent on men and less isolated.  I have had many female immigrant students, some of whom were single mothers and others who were married to abusive men.  Even those who seemed to be in happy marriages and families were living in a kind of isolation I can just barely imagine.  I mean, I've lived in a culture different from my own, and I've traveled to others. But I realize now that, when I was living abroad, and in my travels until recently, I had a great deal of freedom simply from being a single American, and from living as a guy named Nick.  But even when I went to Turkey five years ago--as Justine, but still three years before my surgery--I was able to move about in ways that I never could had I been a Turkish woman.

Oh, and I didn't see a single woman on a bike when I was there.  And I wasn't riding, either.


Anyway...Let me know if you want to make, or know anyone who wants to make, a donation to the program I described.  I'm also interested in hearing any thoughts you might have about the situation of immigrant women I've just described.

The Birth Of A Sophisticated Cycler

Back in the dot-com boom, the young, hip and on-the-make talked about "getting in on the ground."  That meant investing in a company or trend as it was about to become popular and highly profitable.   Everyone, it seemed, spoke of wanting to be in on "the next new big thing."  


Of course, some of those "next new big things" have become mainstays of today's world: Think of Google,as an example.  On the other hand, some were comets that flared brightly and briefly before crashing.  Do you remember Pet.com?


Well, I don't think very many of us are going to get rich, even for a moment (as so many of those former dot-com millionaires were), by finding the next hot new blog as it's starting its run.  I missed the start of "Lovely Bicycle!" by about five months and "Bike Snob NYC," "DFW Point-to-Point," "Girls and Bicycles," "Urban Adventure League," "1410 OakWooD" and a few other great blogs by a couple of years.   (Sorry to all of the ones I haven't mentioned:  Simply listing them would be a post unto itself!)


However, I think I might have witnessed the birth (well, OK, I caught it on its second day) of an interesting new cycling blog.  I'm talking about The Sophisticated Cycler.

In it, TSC is documenting the building--or, rather, making--of a bike that suits his particular needs and tastes.  It's fascinating to follow his process, from his research and decision about what type of bike to buy to the ways he's customizing it.


He's only on his fourth post, so you can still be there for the "birth," as it were.  

Scapes and Escapes

Today's ride was pleasure without revelations, or epiphanies--at least regarding bicycling or The Meaning of Life, anyway.  And those are all you really care about if you're reading this blog, right?


All right...My ride, which took me up by Throgs Neck, led me through an industrial area of the South Bronx.  I've mentioned it before:  I enjoy cycling there on weekends because there's absolutely no traffic.  But sometimes I see things, too, that I hadn't been expecting.


From a block away, I thought I saw the kind of sand-art-in-a-bottle that was so popular in the 1970's, rendered in the entropic colors of dystopia:  just what someone might see if he or she were to watch Miami Vice while coming down from an acid trip.  

Then I could swear I saw someone--trying to escape? or simply "losing it?"  

I couldn't help but to think of the woman in the pattern of the yellow wallpaper of Charlotte Perkins Gilman's story, which I've read and assigned to my students more times than I'll admit!


The "prisoner" or "captain" or whomever you see in the second photo was actually in the window of a factory.  The other photo is of another window on that same building.  As best as I could tell, some sheet or something that was used to black out the windows was falling off or wearing away.


I guess I could rescue him (or her) by climbing on this:

I'm pretty sure that both are still used by trains; it's been a couple of years, at least, since I've seen a train pass over either of those trestles. Then again, that's about how long it's been since I've seen those trestles on a weekday, and I suspect that those trains run when the factories are open.


But if they aren't in use, I'd love to see them become the next High Line or Viaduct des Arts--except, of course, that bicycles would be allowed on it.

You Can Cross That Bridge When You Come To It

This is not an April Fool's joke:  Today is the second.


Besides, you don't really believe that a nice, simple middle-aged woman (Is that a contradiction?) would play a joke on you, do you?  


I really did buy that fixie you saw in yesterday's post.  ;-)


Anyway...What I'm telling you today is true, although some of you familiar with the situation might think I'm extending April Fool's Day by another 24 hours.


If I go about a kilometer or so directly down the street on which I live, I come to an entrance for the Edward I. Koch Bridge. Those of you who don't live in New York and know what you know about this city from Simon and Garfunkel probably call it the 59th Street Bridge.  Officially, it has been known as the Queensborough Bridge.


As you can imagine, I cycle over it fairly often.  And, being a New Yorker, I can find reason to complain about it.  Actually, you don't need to be a native of this city to find ptoblems with the crossing.  The path on the north side of the bridge is divided between cyclists and pedestrians.  It isn't wide enough for either, and sometimes rollers, skateboarders and surfers use it too.  All right, I was kidding about the last one.  But you get the picture.


Still, it's not bad, as bicycle/pedestrian accesses on local bridges go.  It's been well-maintained and, of course, there are some interesting views.  Plus, it takes you about as close to the Roosevelt Island finiculaire as you can get without riding it.  

The main problem with it is getting on and off it.  The path ended where 27th Street effectively dead-ended in Queensborough Plaza.  And the traffic on that street is one-way, in the direction opposite from the one a cyclist would be riding upon exiting the bridge.  


Until recently, there was one other alternative for exiting the bridge:  turning left onto a path that wasn't really one.  In other words, it was a strip of dirt in a berm that was, as often as not, full of glass.  But it at least took cyclists to 23rd Street, where one could turn right and cycle toward my neighborhood and other points north. Or one could turn left and go underneath the bridge and train trestles to Silvercup studios and the factories and warehouses (some of which are now used for studios and other purposes) in Long Island City.


Well. the city Department of Transportation is paving that ad hoc path, effectively extending the bridge's bicycle/pedestrian path.  The cynic in me gapes in disbelief that the city (or any American municipality besides Portland) is providing something safe and practical for cyclists.  And--gasp--it's pretty convenient too (at least for me).  


Now, if they could only extend the exit/entrance ramp on the Manhattan side just a bit.  It ends on 60th Street and First Avenue.  That's fine if you're going uptown, as that's the way the traffic goes on First.  I sometimes take that route  when riding to the George Washington Bridge.  However, it's not so convenient if you're going downtown, as I do when I teach at the technical college on 34th Street.


I guess I should be thankful for what we get, and hopeful that we'll get more.  Actually, it's rather nice to think that way.

Hipster Needs More Holes

OK, I'll admit it:  The real reason I've been denigrating all of those "hipster fixies" is that I've wanted one.

Well, now I've made my wish come true:

 Happy April 1st!

I must say, I like the ride.  But it's a little on the heavy side.  So to keep its fine ride qualities, I'm going to do what we used to do back in the day to lighten up:

It just happens that someone gave me a  nice old drill with some nice hard bits. 

And all of us old-school cyclists know that "an ounce off the wheels is worth two off the frame."  So if I like the ride now, imagine if I made the wheels lighter.  And the tires...

Not A Stepford Cyclist

One of the reasons I haven't ridden with a club in a long time is my aversion to groupthink.  As often as not, they're riding the same bikes or the same few bikes, and the componentry and accessories tend to be the same, or similar on each club member's bike.  They might even be wearing club jerseys.


No, I have no desire to be a Stepford cyclist.


Seeing everyone riding the same bikes, wheels or other components has no appeal to me.  But, to me, it would be downright creepy if everyone rode the same seat.  That is definitely not an area in which one should be a slave of fashion:

If the Tour de France riders were to use his seat, they never would have to worry about taking l'arret pipi.

A Sort of Reveille

It's really strange.  The other day, when I was out riding through some old stomping grounds and along seaside bikeways battered by winter storms, I saw maybe two other cyclists.  Granted, the weather was chilly and breezy, but it was still more conducive to cycling than what we had through much of the winter.  


Today, if anything, was colder and windier.  Yet, during my commutes, I saw even more cyclists than I saw during our "heat wave" (when temperatures climbed over 70F) about a week and a half ago.  Some were dressed, as I was, in clothes we'd wear to work; others came wrapped in lycra on their racing bikes.  I'm happy to see them all:  They're definitely signs of spring, even if the weather isn't.  


And the bike rack at my second job was full.   It was yet another sign that the bike season is, if not in full swing, at least on its way.  


But one thing tells me it's not quite spring yet, whatever the calendar says:  the hue of the water.  The other day, when I crossed Jamaica Bay and clattered along the Rockaway boardwalk, the water took on an almost metallic, cobalt-like hue:

In some places, along the beaches of the Rockaways, that color was made a bit earthier, as if the dunes were spilling into the tides:

Of course, the water is still much too cold to swim, and will be until some time around Memorial Day. But the tone of the water is enough to tell you that we haven't quite left winter yet.

But sometimes I think that we, as cyclists, have our own clocks, much as other living beings have internal chronometers to tell them when to stay, fly away, change colors or go to sleep.  We are all just starting to wake up.

Sometimes You Just Have To Ask

Today I parked my bike in a place where I never before parked it.


The funny thing is that it was a place where I used to go almost daily for about two years.  That was about a dozen years ago, at least, and I hadn't been back since.  I had no bad feelings about the place; I simply hadn't been in its vicinity.


The reason I never parked there is that I never needed to.  I worked just across the street from it and parked in a storage area of the building.  So I never knew whether or not the place would allow my bike to accompany me.


And I found out that the proprietor would let me park there the same way R.J. Cutler, the director of The September Issue got to talk to Anna Wintour:  he asked.


Actually, the proprietor is  nowhere near as ferocious as the famous (or infamous, depending on your point of view) Vogue editor.  But he is an intense man who seems not to have aged at all since I last visited the place.  For that matter, the place hasn't changed since then--or, it seems, since the 1970's or thereabouts:

I mean, when was the last time you saw stools with Naugahyde in that shade of mustard-beige, and lampshades to match?  

The menu seems not to have changed, either.  In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if it hasn't changed since the 1950's, if the place has been around that long.  And most of its patrons--including yours truly--wouldn't want it to.  It consists of the sorts of sandwiches and dishes diners in New Jersey and New England (away from the Route 128 corridor, anyway) would have served during that time: things like spaghetti with fish cakes, meat loaf, roast beef sandwiches and some Greek and Italian specialties.  


Back in the day, I would buy a cup of coffee and a corn muffin on my way in to work. Sometimes I would go there for a sandwich.  It was all really good.  But today they had sold out of muffins and donuts and looked ready to close:  apparently, on Sundays they stay open long enough only to serve people going to, or coming from, church and the ones finishing up the weekend shift and the nearby bus yard. 


So, I had a baklava and cup of coffee.  These days, I don't normally drink coffee, but this was one good time to make an exception.  It was as good as I remember from back in the day.  And the baklava was not soggy, as it is in too many places:  The buttery texture of the flaky pastry really tied together the tastes and texures of the nuts and honey it contained, and the slight taste of cinnamon was the perfect "foil" for the rest of it.


The funny thing is that the proprietor was looking at me as if he were trying to remember where he saw me before.  Finally, I said, "I used to work in this neighborhood, and I used to come here."  

"When?"


"A long time ago.  About twenty years ago."  I stretched the facts a bit, but the truth is that it seemed even further in the past than that.  It was, almost literally, another lifetime.


The proprietor's wife, who had been putting away dishes of butter and jars of jelly, overheard us.  


As I left, she said, "Come back, will ya?"


I promised her that I would, next time I'm down that way.  

The Season Is Starting, Slowly

Last year, at least, I had an excuse.  I was shaking off the cobwebs at this time a year ago because of my surgically-induced layoff.  But this year...Well, OK, the streets were covered with snow, slush or ice, or some combination thereof, for a good part of two months.  Still, I feel that I'm getting off to such a slow start to my cycling season.


Now I can recall years in which there wasn't a cycling season. It seemed that for a few consecutive years at the end of the last century, we had mild winters.  In fact, there were a couple of years where we barely seemed to have a winter at all.  The cold has never been a deterrent for me, but even with studded tires, commuting is not always feasible when there are snow and ice on the roadways.


Even so, I've never been tempted to move to a warmer climate.  Somehow I can't think of cycling, or anything else, without the rhythm of the seasons.  However, if I were to move to, say, Southern California, I suppose I'd adapt:  When you come right down to it, most people do what they need to do in whatever situations they find themselves.  It's a bit like learning foreign languages:  Lots of people, at least in this country, never do and assume they can't. However, I would think that at least some of them would learn, in one fashion or another, if they moved someplace else.


Ever since the warm weather we had a week ago, it seems we've returned to winter.  I suppose that if I were more religious or believed more in any sort of cosmology than I do, I'd say this was retribution for my arrogance in riding in the middle of major local roadways under the biggest, brightest moon I'd seen in a long time and thinking myself Queen of the Road, or some such thing.  


All right...If I get out for a good ride tomorrow, all will be right with the world.  Maybe I'll still be off to a slow start.  But even a slow start is a start, and a move forward.