In earlier posts, I've written about "playing chicken with the rain". On days when precipitation the clouds look ready to drop buckets, I might for a ride, all the while daring the sky to deal me a deluge. I feel I've "won" the "game", if you will, when I arrive home (or wherever I'm going) just as the first drops plop against my skin.
Today there was absolutely no risk of rain. It was one of those perfect fall days, with the kind of sunlight that feels as if it's trickling through leaves even though the sky is blue. And the wind and the waves echo a softly crackling flame. At least, they seem as if they should.
The waves...Yes, I took an afternoon ride to the Rockaways. Although the water is still warm enough (at least for someone like me) to swim, the air was cool enough that nobody tried. In fact, the only people in the water were a few surfers.
But I was playing chicken. You see, I started in the middle of the afternoon and lingered on the boardwalk (actually, it's concrete now) at Rockaway Park. A month or two ago, I could have lingered--or ridden--even longer than I did. Well, actually, I could have done that today, too. But I was also thinking about the time of day--or, more precisely, the time at which the day would end.
After lingering, I rode some more along the boardwalk and, after crossing the Veterans Memorial Bridge into Beach Channel and Howard Beach, took a circuitous route through streets of wood-frame houses--some with boats in their driveways--away from the ocean and bay and up the gradual climb to Forest Park, right in the middle of Queens. From Forest, I rode streets I've ridden dozens, if not hundreds of times before as the sun began its descent just beyond the railroad tracks and the East River.
Yes, I got back to my apartment just as the twilight began to deepen into evening and the street lamps were lighting. I had lights with me-- I always keep them in my under-seat bag--but I didn't have to use them.
In other words, I played chicken with the sunset. And "won"!
Every city's mass transit system has its own rules about bringing bicycles onto trains, buses and other vehicles within the system. Here in the New York Metropolitan area, each part of the system seems to have its own regulations. For example, on PATH trains, bikes are allowed only in certain cars on the train, while on Long Island Rail Road and Metro North and New Jersey Transit trains, bikes are allowed during certain hours and in certain areas of each car.
On the other hand, in New York City subways, there don't seem to be any rules at all. At least, I haven't found any, aside from a prohibition against locking a bicycle to any part of a station, such as a gate. But there is a certain unwritten etiquette which, from what I've seen, nearly every cyclist follows. Mostly, it's common courtesy: Don't block doorways or get in people's way, and try to keep your grimy bike away from passengers' clean clothes. And try not to bring your bike on the train during rush hours!
I try not to bring my bike onto the subway at all, not out of fear, but mostly out of pride. I prefer to ride the entire length of my route whenever I can; I'd rather be riding my bike on even the busiest streets than wheeling or holding it in a crowded subway car. If I've had a mechanical breakdown or some other problem (thankfully, these things have been rare for me) and have no other way of getting to a bike shop, home, work or wherever else I have to be, I'll get on the train. Also, if I stay out later than I'd planned and I don't have lights with me, or if it's a cold day and it starts to rain heavily, I'll get on the train for safety and health reasons. But I try, at all costs, to avoid "bailing out" because of tiredness. That, to me, is an admission of defeat. I can't remember the last time I did that, but I can recall one or two occasions when I got on the train because I just didn't feel like riding anymore.
I wonder what this guy was thinking and feeling when he got on the train:
Some have called last night's debate "depressing".
I was too much in shock to be depressed. The last time I felt that way about an event in which I was not personally involved was on 11 September 2001.
Like many other people here in New York, I was stunned for days, for weeks, afterward. Then came grief, a sense of loss: Even though I didn't lose anyone I knew in the events of that day, I felt a sense of loss. When a complete stranger cried on my shoulder, I held her until she got off the bus we were riding. We didn't speak and I never saw her again. Each of us understood, I believe, and gave each other what we needed in that moment.
I had not thought about that encounter in years, until now. Some have seen that time as a kind of Fall, when this country lost its collective innocence. The days and weeks that followed--which, as I recall, were unusually warm for the time of year--did not feel autumnal.
The holidays, like the days that preceded and followed them, passed through a kind of gray storm in which needles of ice rained down even on the clearest of days. Those first glacial spears stung; the ones that followed stunned; after that, I was too numb to feel the rest, for a long time.
There may have been a Fall that year. But the season that followed did not feel Autumnal: that October and November felt just like the following January and February, in no small part because those months were--up to that time--the warmest winter months this city had experienced.
Today, in contrast, felt exactly the way some of us might have, at some time in our lives, expected a day from this time of year to feel. Today began overcast but turned, rather quickly, into an afternoon with a blue sky lit by intense sunlight that hinted at the sunset that would tinge the horizon a few hours later. The morning's chill had, by that time, turned into a nip.
In other words, it felt like the Fall day it is. It was that day when one realizes that the season is well underway: It's no longer possible to say that summer has just passed, but winter, though everyone knows it will come, does not yet seem imminent.
Fewer cars and taxis and buses plied the street on which I live, or the avenue around the corner or the other streets that branched from it, than one sees on a typical Monday. The reason, of course, is that today is a holiday (as I like to say, for a guy who got lost): the one that always seems, to me, the one that signals that it is indeed Fall.
On this holiday last year, I was in Montreal, where--ironically--it was warmer, more like a September day here in New York and the leaves of the iconic maple trees that line the city's streets blazed in the sun. Montrealers, like other Canadians, don't celebrate Columbus Day. Rather, the second Monday of October is, for them, Thanksgiving Day. I certainly was thankful for having such a wonderful day to ride and interesting places to explore.
I had those things, today, too. So of course I went for a ride. I didn't plan anything, not even which of my bikes I rode. As it turned out, I took Tosca, my fixed gear Mercian, for a spin. Perhaps I chose her because, somehow, I knew--my body knew--that I needed to keep my feet spinning. But I was not riding for escape: In fact, it was quite the opposite.
Where did I go? I know I pedaled through various parts of Brooklyn and Queens; I think I even popped into Nassau County, briefly, and back again into the borough I now call home, into the one I called home The Day The Towers Fell, and back home.
That ride gave me exactly what I needed, for I did what I needed to do. And I am satisfied now.
(Note: I didn't take any photos during my ride. The image you see was made by Matt Hyde.)
I've heard that certain women are attracted to male authority figures. All right, I take that back: I've known a few women for whom such men exerted a pull. That magnetism was all the stronger if said authority figure wore a uniform.
Now, of course, I don't mean to imply, let alone say, that such women represent the rest of us. Like any other group within a larger group, they are of and among us, but they are not all--or, most likely, even most--of us.
But I think more people in my parents' and grandparents' generations--women as well as men--believed that all or most women had that desire, or even a need, for such men in their lives. I am living in different times; also, I have enough experience with authority figures of both genders so as not to be overly awed by them. Plus, I have an innate skepticism of authority and institutions--which may seem paradoxical when you realize that I have spent much of my working life as an educator and, as often as not, avoid conflict and change when they are on the horizon. Moreover, I lived the first four and a half decades of my life as male, which, I believe, has magnified my skepticism, sometimes to the point of cynicism.
Now, I don't mean to say that I am disrespectful--at least, not deliberately. On the other hand, I rarely, if ever, "play up" to power, in part because I am not very good at it. Certainly, I don't think I'd be--or even try to seem--as happy as the women in this photo:
According to The Denver Post, which published this photo:
They had beauty but no licenses, and so the young women shown here had to walk back from their bicycle ride. Two police cars halted the cyclists at 2551 West 26th Avenue in Denver after they had received a complaint that the bicycles had no licenses. The bikes were returned to a dealer in a truck. Left to right are Doris Weeks, Virginia Huke, Clodagh Jones, Genevieve Strauss, Patrolmen H.W. Gibbs and L.R. Wigginton, Elouise Downer, Marietta Grange, Lois Hale and Rita Carlin.
That photo was taken and published in 1939. I wonder whether any of those women are still alive and, if they are, whether I am dragging their reputations through the mud. Really, I don't mean to!
I just can't get over how they're all smiling. Were they coerced into it, or were they genuinely happy, or at least content, to get the attention of Men In Uniform. (A few years later, in a Hollywood movie, I could see any one of them would fall into the arms of a soldier or sailor disembarking from the war.) And, I wonder: How did whoever tipped off the cops know that those young women were riding without licenses?
It would take a far more serious offense for me to call the police on them, let alone take them into custody. I guess that's one reason why I never became a police officer!
Note: This post contains a frank discussion of a female-specific cycling issue.
Perhaps I am the last person in the world who should criticize anybody for having a surgery.
Still, I couldn't help but to cringe when I heard about women who had their toes shortened to better fit into sky-high stiletto heels. To me, it sounded like a version of foot-binding that has the imprimatur of the medical establishment.
I mean, it's one thing to go under the knife, or to be bound and stitched to look the way one wants to look. Countless people, including many transgender women I know, have had surgeries to lift cheekbones or chins, raise eyebrows or lower hairlines, or to change the shape of their noses or ears. Still others have had their breasts augmented and buttocks lifted and firmed or had that most common procedure of all: liposuction.
It's sad when people are cut, broken, bound and stitched to fit some Barbie-like "ideal" that no real woman meets. Most such people look perfectly good the way they are; the others are simply unique. But I won't knock anyone who has surgeries or other procedures if it makes them happier and better able to function in the way they wish. After all, some people would say--wrongly, I aver--that my gender reassignment surgery fits into that category. Certainly, I could have lived without it: after all, I did, for decades before I had it. I just don't know how much longer I could have lived, at least as I was.
What disturbs me, though, about toe-shortening is that it's done in order to fit a device, i.e., high-heeled shoes. (A device for what? I'll let you answer that!) How many of us would have our hands surgically altered to better fit our keyboards or our bodies reshaped to the contours of a chair?
Now, you are probably asking what this has to do with cycling. Well, I'll tell you: There are women who are having parts of their inner labias removed because they rubbed against their saddles. This sometimes causes chafing, bleeding and even infections, as it did for me when I first started cycling after my surgery.
Sometimes I still feel pain, as many other women do. But it has been less frequent for me, as I have found saddle positions that work for me, most of the time, on each of my bicycles. And I have been experimenting with ways I dress when I ride, especially when I wear skirts.
But I am not about to undergo what some are calling "saddle surgery". For one thing, my labia was constructed by a surgeon. She did a great job (and it cost me a bit of coin), so I don't want to undo it. Also, I simply can't see myself altering my body again to fit a machine, even if it is a bicycle. If anything, it should be the other way around: the machine should fit the human.
And my identity--the reason I had the surgery--is not a machine.
Also, the pain I experience these days is really not any worse than the pain and numbness I sometimes experienced after long rides before my surgery. Besides the equipment I have now is a lot less noticeable under form-fitting shorts than my old equipment was!
