We Can Get There; Now We Need To Cross

Sometimes I'm thankful for small things.

No, this post won't be about cream colored ponies and crisp apple strudels, although those things are quite nice.  Instead, I'm going to show you something that, I hope, will make one of my rides a bit safer and more pleasant.

I frequently cycle the promenade by the World's Fair Marina, which rims Flushing Bay to the north and east of LaGuardia Airport for about a mile and a quarter.  Until recently, the lane ended rather abruptly at an especially apocalyptic-looking yard that seemed to serve mainly as a parking lot for New York City Department of Transportation trucks.  There, the lane turned into a dirt path that looked--and, when you rode on it, felt--like the Ho Chi Minh trail if it had been on the moon. That is, if you were lucky.  If you weren't, you had to dodge whatever parts the trucks dropped or a hose some cement-mixing company left behind.

Well, the dirt path has been cleaned up, and a concrete sidewalk built on it.  That has improved access to the Northern Boulevard Bridge, which you must cross if you want to continue into Eastern Queens.  But, as nice as the sidewalk/lane extension is, it still has one problem:  It leaves you at an entrance ramp for the Grand Central Parkway.  

Sometimes there isn't much traffic, but at other times, especially on game days (It's near Citi Field), it can be all but impossible to cross.   The worst part, though, is that the point at which you cross is at the end of a curve in the ramp.  So, while you may  not see any cars or trucks coming, they could come zooming from the other side of the turn.

I don't know whether the Department of Transportation plans to install signs or a signal at the crossing--or, for that matter, how much good such things would actually do.  From what I've seen, not many cyclists or pedestrians have been using the bridge.  However, I can't help but to think that it has had to do with the perilous crossing, the until-now-poor condition of the access lane and the narrowness of the bike/pedestrian lane on the bridge.  

Well, at least one part of the trip has improved.  Perhaps there is hope for the rest.

 

What If They Had Critical Mass Back Then?

In its early years,  Saturday Night Live  episodes included a bit called "What If" History.  Perhaps the most famous episode was "What If Eleanor Roosevelt Could Fly?"

Now, here's something the SNL writers never considered:  What If Critical Mass Had Existed In 1949? 

I don't know how the world would be a different place.  But I would imagine that their rides might have looked something like this:

From SF Gate Photo Archives

  These cyclists were rolling along Market Street, where it met Fulton Street, in San Francisco on 7 April 1949.  This intersection no longer exists:  the UN Plaza now stands in its place and, as a result, Fulton no longer meets Market.

The first Critical Mass ride commenced in San Francisco, not far from where this photo was taken, in 1992.  I wonder whether that ride included any of the cyclists in the photo.

A Crash By Any Other Name

This happened at a bicycle race in Matamoros, Mexico on 1 June 2008. One cyclist was killed.  Ironically, "Matamoros" means "Kill Moors" in Spanish.  (From VeloWorld)

A few years ago, a man used his SUV to run over five people on Long Island after getting into a fight with one of them.  He fled the scene of the accident.

Tell me:  What's wrong with the above passage?

It's in the last word:  accident.  The last time I checked my Oxford English Dictionary, none of the definitions of the word "accident" included intention, volition or causality.  Perhaps I should look again, just in case my memory is getting fuzzy.

Yet no less than the New York Times--and, presumably, the Nassau County Police Department-- used that word to characterize the incident.

Now, you might say that my perceptions are colored (clouded?) by being a writer and English instructor. Still, I contend that words are powerful, and the ones that are chosen shape the way people perceive whatever is being described.  And people's responses, or lack of them, are a result of their perceptions.

The Long Island man's use of his SUV as a weapon of mass destruction certainly wasn't the first--and probably won't be the last--time such an incident is referred to as an "accident."  It's also not the only kind of non-random collision that has been, or will be, so misnamed.

About two years before the Long Island incident, rapper Foxy Brown is said to have hit two cyclists on West Houston Street in Manhattan.  She originally claimed that her former friend, Ayesha Quattara, was at the wheel, but the testimony of the cyclists who were hit--and Quattara--indicated that the rapper (who is said to be losing her hearing) was the real culprit.  Quattara and the cyclists also said that Brown yelled, "Get out of my way, you dumb white faggots!"

That incident was also listed as an accident (and her friends claimed that she is neither a racist nor a homophobe).  Now, she probably didn't intend to run them down.  However, Brown herself admitted she was agitated as she was racing from one Louis Vuitton store to another before it closed.  So the incident can't be called an "accident" that "happened."

Calling such incidents "accidents", by implication, lessens the culpability of the drivers involved.  It also, I think, causes detectives and others charged with investigating such incidents to think that they are simply terrible fates that could not have been avoided.  I can't help but to believe that anyone who thinks that way will take their investigations less seriously and, perhaps, to be less diligent in them.  

On the other hand, if such incidents were classified as (attempted) homicides or negligence, the cops would be right on them.  Even classifying what Foxy Brown or her friend did as a hate crime would have gotten it more attention than it got as an "accident".

An Atala In Another Life

In my previous life--many years ago--I saw an Atala bicycle for the first time.  Then, it was as exotic to me as African masks and Japanese prints must have been to French artists in the middle of the 19th Century.  

Even next to other racing bikes I'd seen, it seemed almost other-worldly.  For one thing, it was probably the first bike I saw that was equipped with Campagnolo components--although I had no idea of what they were, let alone why they were so revered.  Hey, I didn't even know that the frame was made of Columbus tubing, which was the only equal to Reynolds 531.  

One thing I knew for certain was that the bike was pretty (even prettier than the one in the above photo):  painted in a kind of coral color with white bands and chromed lugs and dropouts, if I recall correctly.  In fact, I probably thought it was the prettiest bike I'd seen up to that time.

As I came to know about and ride other bikes, I was less impressed with Atalas.  Whatever awe I had for them was all but destroyed after I worked on a few in bike shops:  Other bikes, from Italy as well as other countries, had much better workmanship.

But seeing that Atala important for me for one other reason.  Atala was probably the first bike brand I encountered for the first time through its top racing model.  I knew of Royce-Union, Schwinn, Raleigh and a few other manufacturers through their three-speeds, baloon-tired bombers or their kids' "Chopper" or "Sting-Ray"-style bikes, and would later encounter their road bikes.  I first learned of Peugeot, Gitane and few other French makers through their lower-level ten-speed bikes, which seemed to appear like toadstools after a rainstorm during the early years of the BIke Boom.  A couple of years later, I would encounter Japanese bike makers like Fuji, Nishiki and Miyata in a similar fashion.

It wasn't until years later, when I went to Italy for the first time, that I saw an Atala city bike.  Back then, such bikes were all but unavailable in the US:  Bike shops would stock a model from, say, Peugeot or Kabuki; it wouldn't sell and everyone would conclude there was no market for such bikes.

Over the past two or three years, I have been seeing more city bikes from European and Japanese companies that, for decades, have been making them for people in their own countries.  One of those bikes is the Atala I saw tonight, parked just a few doors away from the apartment of a friend I was meeting.   

I'll bet that whoever rides that bike has never seen that Atala racing bike I encountered a long time ago, in another life. 

WE BIKE at Smorgasburg

Yesterday I promised to tell you about the event where I saw the Pashley Mailstar, which is used by the "posties" of Royal Mail in the UK.

Liz (R) showing two cyclists how to repair an innertube.

Liz Jose, the founder and president of WE Bike (Women Empowered through Bicycles) used the bike to transport a table tools and various WE Bike schwag to a repair workshop/recruitment drive held at Smorgasburg in Brooklyn.  

We volunteered our own bikes for "the cause"!

Actually, some might argue it wasn't a full-blown repair shop.  What we did was to teach some female cyclists (and, in a few cases, men who accompanied them) how to fix flats.  If a cyclist--especially a female rider-- learns to do only one repair, this should be the one.  If nothing else, knowing this basic skill can keep you from getting stranded.

Erin (facing to the side), Shelley (in pink t-shirt) and Liz (seated).

The fear of getting stranded by a deflated tire, and not knowing how to fix it, is one of the most common reasons why people won't take longer rides or use their bikes for transportation.  I think this fear is greater among female cyclists, for we (well, many of us, anyway) have more reason to fear for our safety if we are stuck in the middle of an unfamiliar or unsafe area by ourselves.  Also, I think that many women have been taught, implicitly or explicitly, to distrust their own abilities to fix even very basic things, not to mention to be self-sufficient in any number of other ways.  

Having been raised as male, I wasn't inculcated with that same distrust of my abilities.  Of course, I did not understand that until I started the transition that has culminated in living in the female gender of my mind and spirit.  I suppose that, in addition to some skills that I possess, that self-confidence might be what I can offer the women and girls who join and ride with WE Bike.

I hope that doesn't sound condescending, or as if I'm some well-intentioned  but misguided do-gooder.  I have been known to do things at least partially for altruistic reasons, and I can say that joining WE Bike is one of those things.  But the most important reason why I've decided to involve myself with it is that, since my transition, I've come to feel out of place in both the formal and impromptu men's cycling groups in which I've participated.  Even the so-called co-ed groups are dominated by males.  Not that I have anything against them:  I simply feel that I want and need other things now, as my motivations for (and, most likely, style of ) riding have changed.

Plus, so far, I'm enjoying the company of the women in WE Bike.  Isn't that the real reason to be involved with any group, whether or not it's formally organized?

As for the dilemma I faced: I managed to look presentable enough, I suppose, for the writing workshop.  I don't know whether anybody there noticed, but I was wearing a cardigan/jacket over the sundress in which I rode to the workshop--and to the WE Bike workshop.  But once I got to the latter event, I covered the top of my dress with something else:

I'd say that the fit might've been a bit snug, but the color worked!  And somehow I managed not to smudge the T-shirt or sundress in spite of the grease and dirt on my hands!