Never Again--Until Now, Of Course

In an earlier post, I talked about the futility (for me, anyway) of saying “Never again!”

I built up a Trek hybrid frame from about 1990 and used it as an errand/”beater” bike for a few weeks before deciding it was just a little too big for me and giving it away.  I said I wasn’t going to do anything like that again.

Did some famous person say all resolutions are temporary?  Or is that just some rationale I’ve devised for breaking vows I make?

 

Or, perhaps, I’m just in the habit of making promises to myself that I simply can’t keep.  You know, like the one that I was going to live as a cisgender heterosexual male.  Oh, well.

Anyway…You’ve probably guessed where this is going.  Another bike found its way to me.  Yes, really, it did…just like that kitten I brought home as a kid followed me home.

Actually, I found it at a yard sale in Brooklyn—not far from the neighborhood in which I grew up.  And the owner made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.  Well, I could have, but I don’t have that much resolve.  What can I say?

So for a princely sum of ten bucks I found myself in possession of a Schwinn LeTour manufactured in October 1975.

The frame itself had barely a scratch and seemed to be in perfect alignment. However, the rims and spokes were rusty, perhaps from sitting in a garage or basement.  Those parts, and the others—except for the tires and seat—were original equipment.

I took everything off the bike, as I would have done to overhaul it.  Then I unlaced the wheels, tossed the rims and spokes and gave the tires, seat and handlebars to Recycle-A-Bicycle.

As the bike probably hadn’t been ridden much, the other parts were in very good condition.  So I decided to list them on eBay, figuring that they’d be good for “period” restorations.

In my listings, I made sure to mention that the parts were original equipment on a ’75 LeTour.   A guy in Tennessee bought the derailleurs, shift levers, cranks and bottom bracket; other buyers bought single parts.  The brake levers—complete with the “suicide” extensions—went to a fellow in Switzerland!

While I didn’t make a fortune from those parts, they netted me enough money to buy a pair of wheels.  I know, they’re kind of strange:  the kind of “Deep V” rims you might find on a “hipster fixie”, with a coaster brake on the rear.  But I figure the rims will take a beating and the coaster brake won’t require a lot of maintenance.  Plus, the bike is going to be used for errands and such, and locked in all manner of places, so I wasn’t looking to assemble a technological marvel.

Those wheels were all I’d need to buy. (After assembling the bike, I bought the Wald baskets.)  The other parts came off other bikes or were acquired for projects I never pursued.  And I got the fenders in a swap.  Someone had drilled them for a custom fitting but decided he didn’t want steel fenders.  The way I fitted them to the LeTour is inelegant, but somehow right.  Anyway, it works.

I’m not going to sell or give this one away.  At least, not for a while, anyway. ;-)

A Guest? Or An Alien?

Perhaps you’ve noticed them:  the bikes parked on your block, at your workplace, in front of your favorite bookstore or café, or by any other building or structure that’s part of your everyday environment. They’re there for a couple of days, a week, a month or two, or longer.  Then they’re gone.

They can be any kind of bike, from a Columbia pulled out of a trash heap to a Campagnolo-equipped Colnago, a fixie or a downhill bomber, a classic three-speed or vintage ten-speed.

They’re there, then they’re gone.  Where do they—and, more important, their riders—come from?  Where do they go?  Why are they parked to the parking meters, signposts or fences where you see them?

At different times in my life, one of those bikes has been mine.  I’ve parked in front of campus buildings where I took classes for a few weeks, a few months.  I’ve locked my bike near office buildings where I took workshops or seminars, or worked temporary jobs.  I’ve left my bike chained in front of houses or apartment buildings where I tutored young people who were having difficulties pronouncing Spanish sounds, conjugating French verbs, following the currents of history or constructing a sentence—or simply passing some test or another.  And I’ve had to secure my bike to whatever immobile objects stood around court and precinct houses, sports areanae or performance spaces when I was writing some story or another for a newspaper.

And then, of course, there were the times I parked a couple of times a week, or every day or every night, for a week, a few months, or even a year or two in front of the house or apartment building of someone with whom I had a relationship—or simply some sort of recurring business or errand.

I wonder whether the bike in the photo has a story like any of the ones I’ve mentioned.  I saw it every day for a couple of weeks, then it was gone.  The last time I saw it, I didn’t notice any scratches or marks that weren’t there the first time I saw it.  That’s especially interesting, perhaps even a little disturbing, on such a stark white bike.

An Ideal Ride, Almost

Many cyclists have their own, very particular definitions of the "perfect" conditions for a bike ride.

Me, I don't have one scenario for the ideal ride.  Rather, I have a few different visions of the best conditions for a day of pedaling.

One of them came true today.  The temperature was neither too warm nor too cool:  For most of my ride, they hovered between 21 and 25C (70 to 77F).  They started as the former and rose to the latter before dropping back as I approached the Atlantic shoreline.  Further inland, the temperature rose to 30C (86F), according to the weather reports I saw. But I was spared that.

But even more important were the sky and light.  The sun shone, mostly through a filter of puffy clouds that did not threaten rain.  So I enjoyed the benefit of bright light without having the sun beating directly on me as it did during my Somerville ride on Memorial Day.

Plus, I encountered relatively light traffic.  I figured I would, which is one of the reasons I decided to do another Point Lookout ride today.  Tomorrow, the weather is expected to be the same, maybe a degree or two warmer.  Because it will be a Saturday, throngs of people will flock to anyplace with a beach.  But today I didn't have to be around them:  Long stretches of sun, sand and waves were almost entirely mine!

The only "smudge", if you will, in this picture was the wind.  It's not that I'm wind-adverse.  Rather, I found myself riding with the wind on the way out, but I had to buck it on the way back.  Like most cyclists, I prefer the opposite.  But I won't complain:  Everything else, including Tosca, was Ideal.  And any day I can ride is a blessing.

One Person's Trash Is Another Person's...Honjo? LeFol?

I used to know people who never bought furniture or electronic equipment:  They furnished their rooms, apartments or even houses—and made music, phone calls, designs and algorithms—with stuff people left curbside for sanitation workers to pick up.  I still know someone, a musician and bike mechanic (If he’s reading this, he knows who he is!), who has never purchased a power tool or even a vacuum cleaner:  He has refurbished stuff other people discarded.  He even owns a couple of bikes acquired that way. I, too, have had such bikes in my life.

Maybe it’s because most of my acquaintances and I are well into middle age that I no longer hear of people filling their living spaces with beds, couches or even desks or cupboards other people no longer wanted or needed.  Perhaps young people are still doing such things and I just need to make younger friends.  Or it may be that concerns over bedbugs and contagious diseases have stopped people from constructing their living spaces from the flotsam of other people’s lives.

I admit it’s been a while since I’ve done anything like that.  In fact, when I see piles of furniture and books, or bags of clothes or concatenations of toasters, blenders, food processors, microwave ovens, stereo equipment, light fixtures and framed prints relegated to the edge of the gutter at the beginning or end of a month (when people move out), I almost never stop even to take a look.  For now, I don’t want any living being besides Max or Marley to take up residence in my apartment unless he or she is helping me to pay the rent or is a partner in a recreational (not procreational!) activity with me.

The other day, I rode by an apartment full of stuff without the apartment abandoned in front of a recently-built waterfront condo building on Kent Avenue in Williamsburg.  I wouldn’t be writing about it if I hadn’t noticed something from the corner of my eye and checked it out.

It’s not every day that someone leaves behind a pair of hammered aluminum fenders with a randonneur-style rack. It would be serendipitous (Is that an actual word?) enough if they were from Velo Orange.  But I knew, as soon as I picked them up that at least the fenders aren’t.  

The pattern on them consists of hexagons that are more sharply defined than the polygons on the VO fenders:

I doubted then, as I do now, that they’re original LeFol or other vintage French fenders.  But could they be Honjos?  The pattern matches.  And, even more interestingly, they are 43 mm wide, the same as Honjos, whereas my VOs are 45 mm.  (VO also makes 35mm hammered fenders.) 

But I didn’t see any sort of markers to indicate their provenance.  I’ve seen a couple of pairs of Honjos before, but I can’t recall whether they had any decals or emblems on them.  I also don’t know whether some other company is making fenders that look so much like Honjos.  It’s not inconceivable:  After all, how could Honjo claim a patent infringement when its own fenders replicate 50- or 60-year-old French designs?

Anyway, the fenders are in excellent shape.  There’s a little bit of dirt on the underside, which shows they were ridden, but not much.  There are a couple of indentations where the fenders were fitted between fork blades or seat stays.  They were drilled for some frame that had threaded fitments in the fork crown and underneath the seatstay bridge, as Helene (my newer Miss Mercian) has.  The holes don’t seem gouged or otherwise enlarged and have no cracks or other stresses around them. So, if I wanted to use the fenders on Helene, fitting the front should be no problem, but the hole in the rear might not line up with the fitting on the rear bridge. 

Of course, I could plug that hole and use the fender with a bracket—on Helene or Vera.  But the rack is not meant to be used with panniers or loads of more than a couple of kilos—both of which I sometimes carry on Vera.

Before I try anything, I want to ascertain that these fenders are actually from Honjo (or LeFol?!) and not some knock-offs that would be a downgrade, quality-wise, from my Velo Orange fenders.  

Crochet!

I have to admit:  I've always enjoyed seeing the work of Cristo. You know, the guy who wrapped the Pont Neuf, Reichstag and other public spaces.  For some time, Jeanne-Claude has been his partner in crime, so to speak. Whichever of them is responsible for what part of their work, I'm happy.

I'm still waiting for them to do one thing, though:  wrap a bicycle.  Maybe that of a Tour de France winner or an Olympic medalist.  While they're at it, they can wrap the Alpe d'Huez or one of the other major Tour climbs.

For now, though, I'll enjoy the work of New York artist Olek:

Looking Out

Yesterday was the sort of warm late spring day that lets you know summer is near.   It wasn't as oppressive as last Monday, when I rode to Somerville, but the wind and sun necessitated hydration.

I'll spare you all the cliches about water being everywhere, but not a drop to drink.

It's called Point Lookout because, well, people look out.  So do birds:  There was one standing on the sandbar out just past the waves.  Do they ever think about whether it's a beautiful or terrible day? Do they think beauty is subjective?

All right:  I wasn't tired enough to think of silly questions like those when I got to PL. It was an invigorating, but not exhausting ride out there and back.  That has at least something to do with Arielle:

Even in this cell-phone photo, you can see why she likes going to Point Lookout:  something about the air and light there bring out her natural glow.

Celebrating Myself And The Soul Clapping Its Hands And SInging

I celebrate myself, and sing myself,

And what I assume you shall assume,

For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

I loafe and invite my soul,

I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.

My tongue, every atom of my blood, form’d from this soil, this air,

Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their parents the same,

I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,

Hoping to cease not till death.

 I am, ahem, a bit older than thirty-seven.  And this blog is a good bit younger than that.

So you can be forgiven for wondering why I'm starting this post with the first part of Walt Whitman's Song of Myself.

Well, you know, writers and English instructors are supposed to use pithy quotes from their favorite writers.  But seriously...I feel that Whitman's verses encapsulate much of the spirit of this blog--and this day.

You see, this blog turns four years old today.  So, it's lasted as long as a US Presidential term (and a gubernatorial term in most states).  It's also lasted as long as the average American stays on any particular job. (My friend Lakythia, with whom I rode yesterday, works in workforce development and mentioned that particular fact.)  And, ahem (What does it tell you when you see two "ahem"s in one post), it's as long as I was married.  When I look back, I'm amazed it lasted that long.


But back to Whitman and this blog:  I guess one might say that this blog is a celebration of myself.  Perhaps a blog about one's personal experiences, feelings and such is, by definition, just that.  Some might say it's self-indulgent.  Perhaps it is.   But even the most self-effacing person, let alone an entire culture, does not survive without celebrating him/her/itself, even if in small ways.

Seen while loafing and inviting my soul during a stop in St. Luke's garden in Greenwich Village

We also survive, at least in part, by loafing and inviting our souls.  Scientists have emphasized the importance of daydreaming, imagining as well as various other kinds of playing and "down" time in everything from the development of a child to the creative processes of everyone from poets to physicists, artists to entrepreneurs.  Perhaps my accomplishments are small compared to those of others and the footprint I've made--and will leave behind--will be minimal.  But it's hard for me to imagine my accomplishments and triumphs, such as they are, without cycling. 

Sooner or later I'm going to update the masthead photos: People tell me I look a bit different now and, of course, the bikes do, too, with the bags Ely of Ruth Works made for me.  Since it's loafing, if you will, I'm not going to rush any of it.  I tried soliciting donations and advertising, to no avail. Really, I am not disappointed with that:  This is a labor of love.  And cycling has made so many other things possible in my life that I simply can't begrudge whatever I didn't make from this blog.

Anyway..,It makes a certain amount of sense to do what I'm going to do next:  close with a quote from William Butler Yeats. For one thing, I often find myself looking at Yeats after I look at Whitman.  But, for another,in his Sailing To Byzantium, he gave the best advice one can get after loafing and inviting his or her soul.  It's a pretty fair summation of what I feel when I'm cycling:  Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing/ For every tatter in its mortal dress.

Naked In The City Of Rosebuds

OK, I admit it:  I've never been to Portland.  Now you might be asking yourself, "What kind of cyclist is she, anyway?"

And, sad to say, I don't expect to be there on the 7th.  Then again, some might be happy that I won't be in the City of Rosebuds for the World Naked Bike Ride.

I've never participated in a Naked Bike Ride.  Sometimes I had a very convenient excuse:  I was in a different part of the world from wherever the ride was taking place.  Even when the ride was in a more convenient location, I had a "scheduling conflict" or had less than a moment's notice.

Now, as to why the amount of notice should matter when the ride is happening in the city where I happen to be:  I don't know.  After all, how much planning could it take to get on your bike while wearing nothing at all?  Right?

Anyway, the ride's organizers say they're trying to promote positive body images.  Maybe that's the best reason for me to participate in the ride: I know I'm among the 99 percent.  Well, yeah, that 99 percent, but also the vast majority who look better with clothes than without them.  (Don't ask how I gained such knowledge!)

 

From last year's Philadelphia Naked Bike Ride

Like other Naked Bike Rides, only the starting point has been announced.  The route is a secret.  The reason for that, of course, is to minimize the risk of arrest and of meeting protesters, hecklers and those who would wreak havoc with the ride (as in breaking bottles in the roadway).  I'm thinking now of one of the objections voiced by Orthodox Jewish communities to bike lanes being built in their Brooklyn communities:  The paths would channel "scantily clad bicyclists" (Yes, they used that phrase) through their streets, in front of their houses and shuls.

Interestingly, fundamentalist Christians and Muslims--Yes, there are lots of such people in the Big Apple!--did not voice the same objections.  And the Hasidic Jews of Williamsburg have become among the biggest users of Citibike, New York's bike share program.

In any event, I wish the Naked Bike Riders well. From what I've heard about the city, I'm sure they'll have a great time in Portland.

Thanks to Mandie's Bikes and Beyond for alerting me to the ride!  Check out the blog.