A Reflection On 2015

I know that for many people, 2015 has been a terrible, tragic year.  I feel their pain, not in the least because at least one devastating event touched my life, if only tangentially.

Still, this year has been a very good year for me---the best since my surgery, and possibly before that--in many ways.  Cycling has had much to do with that.

Of course, riding to and from museums and cafes, along rivers, canals and boulevards, and through new experiences as well as memories, in Montreal and Paris can make just about anybody's year.  What really made those events, and much else in my life, special this year is an observation my friend Jay made while we had lunch in the City of Light: "You seem very settled as a woman now."  


The last time we'd met before then, I was in the early stages of my gender transition.  I was still acting and dressing in ways I was "supposed" to.  To be more precise, I was trying to show that I wasn't a man. (That, after I'd spent so much of my life trying to prove the exact opposite!)  At that point in my life, I really wondered whether I could or wanted to continue cycling. For one thing, I knew that I couldn't continue to ride in the way in which I'd been accustomed.  More important, though, I still believed that my transition meant "killing", if you will, the man named Nick I had lived as.  For that reason, I also wondered whether I would continue teaching although most people don't think of it as a particularly "masculine" occupation.

Since then, I have come to realized that cycling and teaching, as well as writing and even my taste in foods, are not part of one gender or another; they are part of my identity.  In other words, they intertwine with other things to make me who I am.  When anything is so integral to your life, you don't dispose or efface it; it changes with you or you change it as you are changing yourself.  So, perhaps, the way you execute or express them changes.  

In my case, pedaling up a hill or writing an essay or poem is no longer a conquest or even a goal met; it is an accomplishment, on whatever scale. Sometimes I still think about how Nick would have seen all of this--he wouldn't have approved, I'm sure--but I feel compassion for him.  After all, he couldn't have understood that he was, even then, becoming me.   Yes, she was becoming her mother!

It's fun, really. And the cycling has gotten better. That's what 2015 means to me right now.

How Important Is The Bicycle To Women's History?

In a post I wrote three years ago, I relayed one of the most striking insights Susan B. Anthony offered:
   
    "Let me tell you what I think of bicycling.  It has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world.  It gives women a feeling of freedom and self-reliance."

Yesterday, I came across this:

     "Advertisements, magazines and posters promoted the image of the New Woman, just as other forms of mass media would later exhibit images of the flapper, the housewife, the wartime worker, and the androgynous feminist.  The bicycle was the symbol of the New Woman's freedom outside the home, as she raced off with her friends--men or women--down city streets and into the countryside."

Obviously, that didn't come from Ms. Anthony.  It did, however, come from a source that's intersting, if not as much so as, and for different reasons from, the godmother of feminism as we know it.

The second quote is the only mention of the bicycle in The Social Sex:  A History of Female Friendships, by Marilyn Yalom with Theresa Donovan Brown.  Dr. Yalom is a former Professor of French and senior scholar at the Clayman Institute of Gender Research at Stanford University. Ms. Donovan Brown is a former speechwriter and ran a financial communications firm.

I strongly suspect that Dr. Yalom supplied most of the information and Ms. Donovan Brown did most of the writing.  After all, the section on women's friendships and the salons of 17th Century France contains ideas and insights that only someone who read the sources in the original could have gleaned.  And the prose flows freely--like, well, a good speech.

Therein lies both the book's strengths and flaws.  While Donovan Brown's prose flows freely, it often lacks depth.  While Yalom's research provides the reader with glimpses into the nature of the relationships described in the book, and shines a light onto documents that might otherwise have been lost, those documents (letters, stories, essays and novels) come almost entirely from women (and, in a few cases, men) from, or with connections to, the upper classes.  That, perhaps, is not Dr. Yalom's fault, as most women who weren't part of those classes were illiterate until the 19th Century and rarely went to college before World War II.

Still, the book is an engaging and, at times, interesting read.  It won't turn you into a scholar or an expert, but it's a good starting point for anyone who wants to read more about relationships or women's history.  Finally, there is something to be said for any piece of writing that reminds readers of the importance of the bicycle in changing women's lives, however brief and fleeting that reminder might be.

An Autobahn For Bicycles In The Ruhr

Whenever I've ridden the Five Boro Bike Tour, the best parts were (for me, anyway), the sections on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway and the lower deck of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge.  That ride is the only occasion on which cycling is allowed on those roadways.  The views of New York Harbor, the Statue of Liberty, Manhattan skyline and Brooklyn's brownstone neighborhoods are most enjoyable.  But what makes it exhilarating is taking over, if only for a couple of hours, roadways on which motorized vehicles with four or more wheels hold a monopoly the rest of the time.

I am sure that along the way, someone probably thought, "Hmm...Wouldn't it be great to have a highway like this only for cyclists?"

Turns out, for about the past decade or so, municipalities and other jurisdictions in Europe have been working on the idea.  Short bicycle highways of 5 to 20 kilometers have been built in the Netherlands and Denmark (where else?) and the city of London is looking at the idea of building one. 

The new Ruhr Valley bicycle "autobahn".

Now Germany has opened its first stretch of its first bicycle "autobahn".  Five kilometers long, it will eventually be part of a planned 100-kilometer bikeway that will connect the cities of Duisberg, Hamm and Bochum--and four universities--in the Ruhr Valley.

In the meantime, Frankfurt--Germany's banking center--is planning a 30-kilometer route south to Darmstadt.  Munich is working on a 15-kilometer thoroughfare to its northern suburbs and Nuremberg is launching a feasibility study for a path that will connect to four other cities in the eastern part of the country.  Earlier this month, Berlin's city administration gave the green-light to conducting a feasibility study for a bike highway connecting the city center with the leafy suburb of Zehlendorf.

One way in which the newly-opened Ruhr roadway could serve as a model for future projects is that it's built along a disused railway, something found in abundance in declining industrial areas like the Ruhr.  On the other hand, the Berlin project points to an obstacle that too often bedevils such plans:  Who will pay for it?

The German capital is, almost paradoxically, the poorest of the country's major cities. So there is objection to the project, and others like it, especially among conservatives.  One problem is that, as in many other countries, the federal (or national) government builds and maintains motor-, rail- and water-ways, while cycling and pedestrian facilities are the responsibility of local governments.  If those localities are heavily endebted, as Berlin is, other funding schemes must be proposed.  The conservative CDU party has suggested placing billboards along the way:  something almost no cyclist, and very few other citizens, support.


Similar roadblocks detour or stop bicycle lane construction here in the US, and the same sorts of people (conservatives, mainly) oppose--or, at least, don't want to pay for--it.

If such obstacles can be overcome, it may one day be possible to ride from New York to San Francisco without stopping for a traffic light--without a speed limit, of course!

My Christmas Lights Tour

Perhaps your city has a Christmas Lights Tour.  If it doesn't, and you've never heard of the concept, give you a brief description.  You buy a ticket, get into a bus or van that takes you past the most beautifully or ostentatiously decorated houses.

And trust me, the stereotype about the most over-decorated houses belonging to Italian-Americans is mostly true.  As you can tell from my last name, my heritage (most of it, anyway) comes from the "boot".  That makes me an authority on such things.  Really!  Oh, and my family's house would have been part of one of those tours, had anybody come up with the idea of running them back then.

I don't think I will ever put so much time and effort into stringing lights and putting up props that will be taken down a couple of weeks later.  Also, even if I were to become rich, I wouldn't want to pay the electric bills the owners of those houses run up.  But I can look at them---from my Brooks saddle.

You see where this is going:  I did a "lights" tour on my bike.  I didn't stray very far from my place.  But I put in a couple of hours of riding to see these:

First, I pedaled to 2179 25th Avenue in Astoria.  I first discovered this place during the first Christmas season I spent, six years ago, in my current place.  

I am alwas amazed at how the owner of the house manages to turn the front into a collection of little Christmas dioramas.

Wherever I start, and in whichever direction I go, every "panel" seems more wonderful and elaborate than the last.  

Hey, you can even watch the umpteenth rerun of "Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer"!:

I would say that the owner of this house certainly gives the neighborhood a gift every Christmas:

From this place, I rode to "thirty by thirty":  the corner of 30th Street and 30th Road:

The four-colored lights look simple. But I like the way they're arranged.  From the front, they give this house an almost-Asian look:

Finally, back to my block.  Interesting, isn't it, how two adjoining row houses can have such different styles of decorating:

Reflective Tape--Or Ruban Conspicuitif?

As a college instructor in New York, I teach, and have taught, many students whose first language is not English.  Some were and are wonderful writers and spoke the language very well, if with an accent.  Others, however, couldn't read much more than a telephone directory in the language of a country and city to which they try so hard to adapt.

Perhaps the most interesting of the non-native speakers I've encountered are the ones who can make themselves understood most of the time, but express what they are trying to say in ways no native speaker ever would.  As often as not, they are thinking in their native languages, which they translate literally, sometimes with the aid of electronic devices.  Sometimes this results in their using words that actually exist in the English language but you would rarely, if ever, hear in conversation.

I came across such a word in, of all places, an eBay listing for "conspicuity" tape.  Most of us in the English-speaking world would refer to it as "reflective" tape.  

"Conspicuity" Tapes

The seller is in China.  Now, I am not familiar with any of that country's languages, but I am guessing that whatever character they have in Mandarin or Cantonese or Fujian for what the seller was trying to say would translate, at least literally, into "conspicuity."  Now, perhaps you are more educated or literate than I am, but I feel confident that it's not a word you use very often.  I can't recall ever having used it at all.

To be fair, the word "reflective" can also mean "contemplative", and the word's literal translation into the seller's native language might reflect (no pun intended) that meaning more closely.  Also, to be fair,the seller did use the words "reflective," "safety" and "warning" in the listing title.  I guess he or she was trying to cover all bases, as the words "tape," "film" and "sticker" are also included.  

That last part  also interesting (at least to me) because I know that adhesive tapes--like hadlebar wraps as well as first-aid tapes--are referred to as "rubans adhesifs"--adhesive bands--in French.  On the other hand, the Velox "rim tape" you use on your Mavic rims is a "fond de jante"--rim base, or foundation.

Should I ask the seller of "conspicuity" tape whether he or she has "rim tape"?  

Bikes On Boxing Day

They play cricket, rugby and football.  They drink tea and like their beer.  They use the metric system and words taken from French with their original spellings.  

What countries am I talking about?  Ireland, New Zealand, Austrailia, South Africa, Jamaica, Trinidad and Barbados, Guyana, Nigeria, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales-- and England.

What else do they have in common?  As you've probably discerned, they all speak English and are, or were, part of the United Kingdom.

You've also probably noticed an exception.  That would be the good ol' you-ess-of-ay.  We spell it "color"; they spell it "colour".  (George Bernard Shaw once quipped that England and America are two countries separated by a common language.)  Their meters are  3.2808 feet.  (Shakespeare's was iambic pentameter.)  And while deluded young Yanks play a game in which they gallop terribly against each other's bodies and call it "football", what all of those other countries, with the exception of Canada,  call "football"--soccer to the Yanks--will always be America's sport of the future, as more than one wag put it.

And, oh yeah, most of us in the USA drink coffee and concoctions of chemicals and fake foam they call "beer".  Some drink tea and artisanal or microbrewed beer but are the majority only in certain precincts of Boston, Brooklyn, Portland, San Franciso, Seattle and a few other cities in the US.



And today, the day after Christmas, is the day the after-Christmas sales start.  But in all of those other countries--including Canada--it's Boxing Day.  The holiday is said to have begun centuries ago when wealthy people gave gifts (hence the "box" in "boxing") or money, as well as the day off, for being of service on Christmas Day.  It grew to include tradespeople, artisans and workers receiving said gifts from customers or employers.  Perhaps it could be said that such gifts were the original Christmas bonuses.

And, of course, brick-and-mortar, as well as online, retailers--including bike shops--hold sales.  

On this day, I find myself thinking about the British annd French people who  have been donating bicycles and supplies, as well "wellie" boots, ponchos and other items of clothing to refugees living in the squalid "Jungle Camp" just outside Calais, the French city closest to England.  Somehow I think that what they (some of whom participated in a bicycle ride for the residents) are doing is entirely in the spirit of this day.

(Note:  The article I've linked is followed by some of the most uniformy hateful comments I've ever seen.0

Happy Christmas!

Happy Christmas!  

Feliz Navidad!

Joyeux Noel!

Buon Natale!  

Krismasi Njema! (That's about as much Swahili as I know.)

Vesele Vanoce! (Czech)

Frohe Wahnachten!

Nedeleg Laouen! (Guess what language this is!)

Krismisaya Shubkhaamnaa!

Sheng Dan Kuai Le! (I don't have the characters for this!)

And the best to everyone.  Thank you for reading.


(I took the photo in this post on my cell phone while I was riding down Alexander Avenue in the South Bronx, NY.)

Tonight, St. Nick Might Have Another Chance To Use Rudolph As A "Blinky"

I am a heartless b***h.  Una puta.  Une putaine.

At least, some of my students are saying such things about me.  I can understand: After all, they just got their grades. 

But animal-rights activists might also be saying such things about me after what I said about Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.  Actually, they should direct their ire toward that guy with a white beard in the red costume.  After all, he's the one using a poor, innocent rangifer tarandus  as a Planet Bike Superflash--and further endangering him by putting him at the front instead of the rear, where he belongs.

Well, Ain't, I mean Saint, Nick might get a chance to perpetuate his misdeed tonight:

Even if he imposes unfair burdens on his beasts, I don't want him to crash into the Empire State Building--which, believe it or not, is in that fog, somewhere behind the "cross" on the RFK Bridge.
 

This Santa Claus Is A Rider

People of, ahem, a certain age remember Gene Autry as "The Singing Cowboy."  People of my generation know him best for singing "Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer."

He brought pleasure to many of us.  I can't comment on how much he actually knew about riding herd where the buffaloes roam. However much he knew, I hope it was more than Sylvester Stallone, a.k.a. Rambo, knows about soldiering.

On the other hand, I can say, with some certainty, that he didn't know much about road safety or optics.  After all, a red headlight is illegal in most places.  It also isn't very effective--or, at least, not as effective as a white or yellow light--for seeing ahead.

To be fair, it's not Autry's fault for miseducating, if inadvertently, a couple of generations of young people.  The guilty party is actually Johnny Marks, who wrote the song.

I got to thinking about all of this after reading a news story about a "Santa" who delivers Christmas trees on his bicycle:

On Clarendon Street in Boston, en route to Copley Square

He seems to have been born for the job in more ways than one:  His real name is Jimmy Rider, and he hauls balsam firs  in a custom-made trailer through Boston-area streets at this time of year. 

"Every person is happy to get a tree," says Rider, who operates his side business "EverGreen Delivery" out of Ricky's Flower Market in Somerville, Massachusetts.  But, as with stand-up comedy, it's not just about the material:  The delivery matters.  "He does it with such enthusiasm, whether it's snowing or raining, or early in the morning."  says proprietor Ricky DiGiovanni, who supplies the trees.   "He'll even do it late in the evening.  He gets the job done, and he does it with a smile.

During the rest of the year, Rider's main business is delivering goods from farmer's markets and restaurants on his bike.  Somehow I imagine he brings good cheer all year round--and that he knows enough not to use a red light in front.
 

It's Here: The Randall's Island Connector!

OK, I won't be sarcastic. Or snarky. I'll even try to dispense with irony. (Actually, if you're trying, it isn't irony anyway.)  I'll be appreciative, maybe even polite and respectful, too. 

But, I must admit, I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop.

You see, something I never thought would happen in my lifetime came to pass.  No, I'm not talking about $200-a-month apartments on the Upper East Side.  Or a sale at Sotheby's.  Or that Congress will pass legislation banning the production of any new movie with "Ocean's" in the title--or any sequel or remake. Or that gender theorists will stop using any form of the word "performative".

So what is this epochal event to which I'm referring?

 

 

The bicycle/pedestrian bridge from Randall's Island, a.k.a the Randall's Island Connector (catchy, isn't it?) to the Bronx has just opened.   I used to joke that it's been under construction ever since the island (and the rest of North America) split off from Pangaea.  All right, that's an exaggeration.  But it did seem to take longer to build than Stonehenge or the Great Wall of China. 

 

So, of course, I just had to cross it, just to be sure that I wasn't having a flashback from something I don't remember taking.

It spans the Bronx Kill between the island and 132nd Street, just a couple of blocks east of where the RFK Bridge bike/pedestrian lane enters the Bronx.  What makes this new bridge better is that it's flat, lets pedestrians and cyclists off in a less-trafficked area than the RFK Bridge does and has much better sight lines.

 

 

Interestingly, it has a grade-level railroad crossing on the Bronx side. If the bridge is ever shut down for a passing train, it could take a while to open:  The bridge enters, and the train tracks cut through, an industrial area and trains can be more than a 100 cars long.  Just as interestingly, the bridge runs underneath an Amtrak trestle.  The effect is enigmatic:  like being in an open-air (at the sides) tunnel.

I wonder whether the RFK Bridge lane will be kept open.  Even though it has a rather steep ramp with sharp turns and is rather squalid, it's better to have it as an option if, indeed, one has to wait an hour for a train to pass through the Bronx side of the new bridge.  Plus, this is one bike lane that purely and simply makes sense, a trait not shared by many other bike and pedestrian lanes.

I know, I said I wouldn't be sarcastic. Or snarky.  Oh, well.  I tried.