Outrunning The Clouds To Spotty Showers

If you've been reading this blog for a while, you may recall that I've written about "playing chicken with the rain."  As often as not, I manage to keep the rain at bay. ;-)

I did the same thing again today.  As I pedaled down 11th Street in Long Island City, I was greeted with this fairly ominous-looking vista:

Most days, the weather across the river in Manhattan ends up in my neighborhood withing a few minutes.  That's because Manhattan lies to the west, the direction from which most of our weather (one notable exception being hurricanes/tropical storms) comes.  When I can't see the spire on Liberty Tower (where the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center once stood), I know it ain't gonna be pretty.

The weather forecasters predicted "spotty showers" for the afternoon before a full-on storm would plow in for the evening.  What else can showers be but "spotty", especially on your clothes?

That is exactly how my ride ended:  with the showers making spots on my tank top and shorts just as I reached my front door.  In the meantime, I managed to make it to Point Lookout and back--105 km, at least.  I say "at least" because I took what I believe to be a slightly longer route--through Brooklyn--home.

Cycling To School

Yesterday I wrote about a sight I saw on my way to school.  To work, actually, but since I was teaching, I guess I could say I was going to school on my bike.

Which is kind of ironic, in a way.  You see, when I was going to school--at least, in the way most people think of it--I didn't ride my bike there.  

From Department of Transport  (UK)

All through my years in elementary school, and into junior high, I lived in Brooklyn.  I was never more than four blocks, or about a third of a kilometer, from any school I attended.  The same was true for just about every one of my peers.  So, nearly all of us walked; a few--believe it or not--were driven.  There weren't any bike racks or other storage facilities where I learned (well, where someone tried to teach me, anyway) reading, writing, 'ritmetic and religion.  

In those days, one almost never saw bikes parked on the street:  When any of us rode, we brought our wheels into the park or into our homes (actually, the basements of our houses or apartment buildings). If we went into a candy store, we propped our bikes by the store; I don't recall anyone's bike being stolen.  (Yes, that was in Brooklyn!)

Even after we moved to New Jersey, we never had to travel far to sit in classes in which I daydreamed about being a girl while my male classmates were thinking about girls.  Maybe a few other kids rode bikes; you knew they were freshmen or sophomores because when they became juniors, they got their drivers' permits and didn't touch their bikes again.

So, I grew up thinking that all of the kids who rode their bikes to school were fresh-scrubbed, blue-eyed Midwesterners  (or, perhaps, Southerners) with blonde pigtails or crewcuts.  Of course, they all rode Schwinns that they got for their birthdays or Christmas and, even when after their bikes were passed on to younger siblings, they looked like they just came out of the showroom.

I didn't pedal to class until I was in college.   Even if I had a driver's license, I couldn't have driven:  Underclassmen weren't allowed to bring cars on campus.  That didn't matter, really, because if I took a class on the other side of town, or the river, I could get there faster than the students who took the campus buses.  And, most of the other things I needed were within easy walking or cycling distance.

The Dawn Of A New Semester

The college semester has begun.  I'm teaching a couple of early morning classes.  This morning, I went in about an hour early to post some materials I'm using in one class.  

There are a number of ways I can ride to work.  This morning, I decided to wend my way through an industrial area of Long Island City.

Now that I think of it, using "wend" and "industrial" in the same sentence seems almost contradictory.  But at the time I rode--about 6:30--there's almost no traffic.  It seems almost bucolic, in a weird sort of way.

And the light is not to be missed:

I wish I'd brought my camera:  I caught this image, such as it is, on my cell phone.  At least there's a glimmering of what I saw.