What Are You Wearing For Your Halloween Ride?

Tomorrow the New York City Marathon will wind its way through the Big Apple's five boroughs.  Knowing that, the pub crawls that will snake their way through various Gotham neighborhoods--as well as cities all over North America--today seem oddly appropriate.

Hmm...I wonder how many people will make the rounds of bars today and round the turns of tomorrow's run.

The first time I heard about Halloween pub crawls, it occured to me that it's what people do when they don't want to grow up but are too old for "Trick or Treat."

Most of those becostumed kids who knock on doors are in cities or relatively compact suburbs or towns.  And, of course, all of those pub crawls are in urban enclaves of young professionals.

So what does one do when separated from his or her nearest neighbors by miles of prairie or mountains or soybean fields or whatever?  Do kids in such places go Trick or Treating?  (I'm guessing there aren't many young professionals in such places,and whatever twenty- and thirty-somethings are living in them have other things to do!)  If so, how?

Well...I have a hard time imagining their parents driving them from one potential shakedown site to the next.  Could it be that they're riding from house to house on bicycles?

Why not?  I've seen racer-wannabes in team kit who looked more ridiculous than anything I've shown in this post.

Happy Halloween.

Autumn Twilight In New York

Is the spectacle of day turning into evening the most autumnal part of the day?  Or is Fall the twilight of the seasons?

During my short but exhilirating late-day ride today, the time of day seemed to mirror, perfectly, the time of year.  Day was turning to dusk; leaves were falling and spreading a shawl of deepening hues across the aging, wizening ground just as the setting sun cast its glow across the deepening cold of the river and sky.

Some have said that cycling sharpens our awareness of our surroundings.  I agree that it does, in part because it opens our internal vistas in much the same way skies and trees open before us.

On my way back, I stopped in Queensbridge Park.  The bike path along Vernon Boulevard, which wends its way along the Queens side of the East River, detours into the park and brings cyclists, runners, skateboarders and dog-walkers within the shadow of the bridge for which the park is named.  The park is named for the bridge.  But, while people use the name in reference to the park (and a nearby housing project and subway station that share the name), they never use it to refer to the bridge, which is more widely known as the Queensborough or 59th Street Bridge.

Anyway, the park--about two kilometers from my apartment--is wonderful and interesting in all sorts of ways. One, of course, is the views of the river, harbor, skyline and, of course the bridge--especially when the lights are turned on.  Another is the way that it seems to stand, almost defiantly, against its surroundings.  

As I mentioned, there is the housing project across Vernon Boulevard from its eastern side.  There are also small factories and warehouses.  The bridge looms over park's southern side. But to the north is a Con Ed power plant:

During the summer, the leaves on the trees at least partially obscure those smokestacks, depending on the spot from which you're viewing.  Now, of course, the trees offer no such cover.  However, they seem to be as inseparable in this autumnal vista as this season and time of day.

A Crusader's Bike Lane

Some people have streets named after them.

For the longest time, I hoped to have a bridge named after me.  That dream began during my childhood when, from the roof of the building where my family lived, I watched workers pull cables and link girders that would become the Verrazano Narrows Bridge.

Sometimes I'd still like to have such a span named after me.  But now, if I were going to have anything named after me, I wouldn't mind a bike lane.  Not too many people have that, at least not yet.

One member of that club is a heroine of mine.  If you weren't living in New York during the 1990s, you probably haven't heard of her:  Julie (J.A.) Lobbia.

Every day, clad in bike gear, she'd roll her wheels into her office, where she'd change into one of the vintage dresses she found in flea markets.  At her desk, she'd write the stories she found while pedaling all over New York City, from the streets of Bed-Stuy to the avenues of Astoria, from East New York to the Upper West Side.

One of her rides uncovered a path of arson that predated the wave of gentrification that spilled over Williamsburg and other parts of Brooklyn. On other rides, she found everything from eviction notices to shards from construction sites led her to her stories.

But she was not a mere reporter or even just a researcher; she was a crusading journalist in the tradition of Jacob Riis, one of her idols.   She was also a kind of Sister of Mercy, if you will:  When an X-ray technician lost his job and home, she got him mattresses, pillows and blankets.  One day, she saw an eviction notice on a Chinese-speaking neighbor's door.  She spent a workday having it translated and later left a note under the door, in Chinese, explaining what that neighbor should do.

At least one of my commenters has said that cyclists have a stronger sense of justice than most people.  In my own unbiased view ;-), said commenters are right.  J.A. Lobbia was proof. 

In 2001, at the age of 43, she died of ovarian cancer. She asked to be buried in her favorite dress and bike shoes.

The sign in the photo stands at the intersection of Sixth Avenue and 33rd Street, just a block east of Penn Station and Madison Square Garden.

The Most Famous, If Not The Better, Mousetrap

You might be riding rattraps.  If you're of (ahem) a certain age and rode them, you may also have ridden with a mousetrap.

No, I'm not assuming that you are, or have ever been, an exterminator.  Instead, I am talking about a type of bicycle component and a style of a certain bike accessory.

Rattraps, of course, are what are commonly called "cage" pedals.  On such pedals, the metal (aluminum or steel) plates have serrated edges on both sides, the better to grip the sole of your shoe.  (I actually rode a pair barefoot. I think I can still see the marks.)  Those cages usually don't have the "quill" common on traditional-style racing pedals.  And, because the cages have the same serrated surfaces on both sides, they can be ridden with or without toeclips.

Examples of "rattrap" pedals include the MKS Sylvan and the Lyotard 460D:

MKS Sylvan

Lyotard 460D.  They were usually silver, but for a time were also available in blue, red or black.

Many different companies make, and have made versions of the "mousetrap".  Some claim to be better versions of the most famous (if not original) one:  The Pletscher Model C.

I bought one for $2.75, new, at Michaels's Bicycle Co. on Route 35 in Hazlet, NJ.  That  rack ended up on about three or four bikes I owned during my youth.  It was actually good for a light load, but would sway a lot when used with panniers. (I don't think most panniers made today would fit.)  Some people didn't like the Pletscher rack because the clamp that held it to the bike chewed up the paint on the seat stays (and, on some bikes, the seat stays themselves).  I think, though, that many people forgot to use the "T" bar that attached to the brake bolt and had two holes for the rack clamp screws.  Also, it helped to cover the stays with tape or a piece cut from an inner tube.

The "mousetrap" clamp on top was good for a baseball glove, a pair of shoes or sandwiches--if you didn't mind eating things in shapes you never saw before.  It also held a soccer ball or basketball firmly.  However, when I tried to carry books in it, they ended up all over the street.  (Ironically, many shops and catalogues sold the Pletscher or its near-facsimiles as "book racks".)  And, when I got my Pletscher, bungees hadn't been invented--or, at least, they weren't available in any place I shopped.  (When I first found them, they were called "sandows".)  So, if we wanted to carry things on the platform that wouldn't fit into the mousetrap, we used string, rope, duct tape and almost anything else you can imagine.

Even if you are young, you have probably seen hundreds of Pletscher racks, or imitations of them.  They have been attached to just about every kind of bike you can imagine:  I have even seen them attached to the struts of "banana" seats.  And--perhaps not surprisingly, given their ubiquity and low cost--people have actually used them as front racks, with varying results.

I wonder what, if anything, the rider of that bike carries on the rack. Whatever it is, it would have to be bound pretty tightly, or it would slide off the rack and into the path of the front wheel. I guess that's one way of making yourself a cold Panini, if that's what you want.

If seeing the on the front, slanted like the right side of an accent circonflexe isn't enough for you, look at how the rack is attached to the fork crown:

We didn't have zip-ties back when I bought my Pletscher rack for $2.75, new, at Michael's.

 

Drillium Jewelry

You might say that I came of age (as a cyclist, anyway) in the late 1970s:  the heyday of drillium.

It seemed that, for a time, everyone was trying to drill as many small holes into whatever bike parts they could.  Even parts that were already ethereally light did not escape the probing and boring of high-speed steel bits.

Some drillium parts were rather lovely; others were just insane.  This, I believe, is beyond either category:

Uploaded to Pinterest by Henrik Jakobsson

I would like to meet the person who gave this Campagnolo Nuovo Record "the treatment".  Did he or she have a regular job (or was this part of that job)?  A family?  I can only imagine how much time that person spent on this project.

And I have to wonder whether that person did the same thing to the bike that this derailleur was hung on.  Or was it ever installed on a bike?

All right, I'll stop the snide rhetorical questions and admit that I actually like it.  No, I take that back:  I love it.  It's over-the-top in its minimalism. (Is that a contradiction?)  I would even say it's jewelry, of a sort.