When The Rain Held Out For Time

I am not a shadow; I am not cycling among shadows. There are no shadows:  A couple crosses from a dark canyon of shutters and silence into a delta spreading from the streaming white current of the streetlight and sprayed by a flashing traffic signal.  

The couple crosses the intersection, their bodies making slight bobs with each step.  They look younger, much younger, than I am, but carry with them ages of stone, ages of fire, far older than the bricks and shingles and window panes that line these streets.  

Perhaps they will live the rest of their lives, and their children theirs, on these streets in which the flow of time stops for their history, their eternity, every Friday night.  Or, perhaps, when the streams of sodium vapor light and steel will swell, or the glow of neon will turn the brick houses into the walls of an inferno, and they will leave as, perhaps, their grandparents did from some other place where a cyclist who wasn’t one of them rode through a deserted intersection—or stopped—as they crossed.

They have, probably, another block or two to walk before they reach they reach their parents’ or grandparents’ or friends’ homes—or shul.  I have about another hour of riding ahead of me before I come to my apartment, and Max and Marley.  I hope the rain will hold out until then; it has for most of the afternoon and evening, and this night, for which it was promised.  Even if it doesn’t, I wouldn’t care; in fact, I might even wend my way through more of these streets.

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As it happened, I did ride up one of those one-way street, turned at an avenue, descended another one=way street, and continued along that self-imposed maze for a couple more kilometers than I would’ve ridden otherwise.  Although the night was humid, the air felt more like the kind of pleasant spray you feel on your skin when you stand by the ocean: It was somewhat cool for this time of year.  

I arrived at my apartment dry.  The rain held out, not only for my ride home, but for the ballgame—the Brooklyn Cyclones vs. the Auburn Doubledays—to which I rode, in Coney Island.  Thirty-some-odd kilometers there, a few more than that back.  The Cyclones, in spite of making four errors, won the game in the last at-bat.  As the saying goes, a good time was had by all.

Going Bananas

Back in the day, when dinosaurs roamed the Earth and we raced on bare rims, shoeless, in three feet of snow, we didn't have energy bars.  Therefore, most of us carried things now relegated to the shelves of your local Whole Foods (a.k.a. the store with the most unhealthy-looking healthy customers).  I'm talking about things like granola--and bananas.

Bananas are still one of the best foods for cycling.  But on warm days, they ripen.  So, when you pull one out of your bag--or, worse, your jersey pocket--you're liable to have a mushy mess squooshing through your fingers and, possibly, oozing through the seams of your bag or jersey.  

It seems that a San Francisco company called Biken has come up with a solution to the problem:

Will the Banana Holder become this year's must-have accessory?

You Say Orgao, I Say Urago

Today I will tell you one of my dim, dark secrets.

No, I don't have any warrants against me in other states or spouses or children in other countries.  Not that I know of, anyway. ;-)

OK, here it is:  I worked in market research.  It was a long time ago, and not for very long.  The money was really good, especially for someone who had no relevant experience or discernible skills or talents. (Some would argue that I still don't have any.  If I don't, I probably never will.)  And, in one weird way it was an excellent fit for me:  I learned all sorts of weird facts that had no bearing on anything else in my life.  And, truth be told, I enjoyed it.  Perhaps it's the--or, at least, one--reason why I've worked in the academic world.

One of those strange and, to me, useless facts is this:  Of all of the world's registered trade-mark names, the one that is least often misspelled is also the only one that sounds exactly the same in every language. At least, those things were true at the time I was working in market research.

It's the name of a company that makes things most of you have used at one time or another, and many of you use today.  Any guesses as to what it might be?

All right, I'll tell you:  Kodak.

George Eastman, the company's founder, said he made the name out of thin air.  He liked the letter "K" and wanted a trade name beginning and ending with that letter.   That's how "Kodak" came to his mind.

I don't think there's any equivalent in the bicycle industry.  Since bikes are made in so many different countries, with so many different languages, many names are pronounced--and, perhaps more important, spelled--in ways that would render them unrecognizable in their home countries.  Or they are confused with other names.

As an example, when I mention to some sweet young thing on an urban fixie that my beloved single-gear steed is a Mercian (as three of my other bikes are), they think I'm talking about Mercier.  Back in the day, the latter company made some perfectly respectable bikes in France (Lance Armstrong won his first race on one); now they are cranked out of a factory in China and sold on the Internet.  In contrast, Mercians are made in Derbyshire, England, in pretty much the same way--and from similar materials--as the very first bikes bearing that name were made nearly seven decades ago.

Others have seen my fixie--or my other Mercians--and saw "American" instead of the name on the bikes.  I guess that's understandable.  After all, the other day I similarly misread the name of a bike listed on eBay.

Like Mercier, Urago was once a well-respected French bicycle maker.  Actually, Uragos were built by hand, though in greater quantities than bikes from custom builders, so they had nicer workmanship than Merciers.  Also,  Merciers were built is Saint-Etienne (near Lyon), the traditional center of the French cycle industry.  Uragos were made in Nice, which at various times in its history was ruled by Italians.  Not surprisingly, there are still many people of Italian heritage in that part of France--among them, les freres Urago.

So, perhaps, I can be forgiven for first misreading the name of the bike I saw on eBay--and for, after realizing I hadn't, thinking that the person who wrote the listing misspelled "Urago" as "Orago".

Turns out, the bike actually bears the latter name.  The person who listed it couldn't find any information about the company that made it.  All he/she knows is that there's a town called "Orago" in Italy, near Milan.

However, the  bike looks a lot like something Urago might've made--at least, if they made a ladies' city bike--just after World War II.  

 

I think it's quite lovely, whatever its name or wherever it comes from.