I've Got A Bike, You Can Ride It If You LIke...

Some might say I've lived two cycling lives because I've, well, lived two lives:  as a guy called Nick and a woman named Justine.

Of course, others might say that they are two parts, stages or chapters of the same life.  I wouldn't disagree with that, or that I've lived two lives.

Whichever (if either) is true, I know that some of my experiences while riding as Nick were different from the ones I've had as Justine, while others have been the same.

As for the latter category:  As both Nick and Justine, I've heard shouts of "Nice legs!" from other cyclists, as well as drivers and pedestrians.  I've also heard "You're built!" in both of my cycling incarnations.

When I was in Rome, riding the cute red bike I rented from Bici & Baci, a man on a much lighter and sleeker bike pulled up alongside me and intoned, "Tutto Campagnolo!"

I know he wasn't referring to the bike I was riding. Not his, either:  I could see just enough to know that his Olmo frame had mid-level Shimano stuff on it.  Perfectly good, but certainly not "Tutto Campagnolo."

Since then, I've wondered if his call had another meaning I hadn't picked up.  I mean, I know a bit of Italian, but I certainly am not up to speed on local slang.  

Hmm...Could it have been a pick-up line?  After all, cyclists (and other people) have said stranger and cheesier things:

From the Cascade Cycle Club blog.

Crossing The Tracks

One of the invaluable life skills I learned in my youth is that of crossing railroad tracks on a bicycle.

If you've done it before, you know that you should approach them with your tire at a 90 degree angle--a.k.a. perpendicular (I remember that much from my geometry class!)--to the rails.  This is especially true if you are riding skinny road tires.

However, at many railroad intersections, this is not possible.  I have seen junctures where the road or path is nearly parallel to the rails when they meet.  Such intersections are all the more hazardous when, as often as not, the road or path has a sharp turn or curve just before it meets the tracks.  You then are faced with the same hazard presented by many urban bike lanes:  You are riding into the path of turning cars--at the same time you're negotiating the tracks.

So, perhaps, it's not surprising that in at least one locale, the most dangerous spot for cyclists is a railroad crossing.  

Knoxville, Tennessee is one such location.  Chris Cherry knows the spot all too well:  He watched his wife "really mangle her knee" after taking a spill at the Neyland Drive crossing.

Turns out, her mishap was one of 53 crashes recorded over a two-month period (2 August-3 October 2014) by a camera at the site.  As hazardous as railroad crossings are in general, this, city authorities acknowledged, is an unusually high number.

Cherry, an associate professor of engineering, at the University of Tennessee, decided to investigate.

 

  The problem was that the Drive crossed the tracks at a 45 degree angle--and, not surprisingly, the stretch of the drive leading to the tracks had a sharp curve.  

As a cyclist and engineer, Cherry knew that he best solution would have been to reconfigure the street so that it would cross the tracks at a right angle.  The city wasn't going to do that, however because the involvement of the groups it would have required--and the crossing's proximity to the Tennessee River--would have pushed the cost to $200,000.  Instead, the city used the "jughandle" approach (If you've cycled or driven on New Jersey State routes, you have seen it) to create a 60-degree angle.

Cherry, who was consulted on the project, knows it's not an ideal solution.  But, he hopes, it will reduce the number of crashes at the site.  So far, he thinks it's been effective.

Still, I think the intersection is one I'd approach with heightened caution:  I've pedaled through many others like it.

Working Undercover?

In the US, the term "states' rights" has become a dog-whistle for those who, essentially, want to roll back the clock to 1861 or thereabouts.

"Local politics" has an almost equally-sullied reputations, as school boards, cities, counties and, yes, states have used their authority to excise any mention of evolution, climate change or slavery from school textbooks and to mandate all sorts of other ignorant, mendacious and mean-spirited policies.

But, sometimes, there is something to be said for localities having the power to make their own rules and deciding how their money will be spent.  An example of that is occurring now in Davis, California.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Davis may well have been the original "bicycle friendly" city in the US.  Home to a major University of California campus, its planners--at least some of whom were and are cyclists--have a long history of taking cyclists seriously.  

At the same time, other California cities grew exponentially.  So did their motor vehicle traffic:  The Golden State has, to many people, become synonymous with car-clogged freeways and smog-choked skies.  

(Of course, not all of California is like that.  I have seen it for myself!)

Sacramento, the state's capital, is one such city.  Not so long ago, it was a west-coast version of Albany or Springfield:  a town that rose and slept with its legislative sessions.  More recently, however, the high-tech boom that turned fruit orchards into corporate blocks in the Santa Clara Valley has spread eastward from the Bay Area.  So, Saramento has experienced the sort of growth in population--and traffic congestion--cities like Los Angeles witnessed in earlier decades.

The President would not approve!

Thus, some folks in Davis are taking it upon themselves to encourage their neighbors in Davis (and the ones closer to home) to trade four wheels for two. They want cyclists who "know the Sacramento area inside and out" to share their knowledge and experience as "Bicycle Ambassadors."

In doing so, these "ambassadors" will,  according to Bike Davis President Trish Davis, help the city and region in its effort to reduce greenhouse gases.

Now, do you think the current occupant of the White House--or Congress, as it's currently constituted-- would ever implement such a program?  Hmm...Could it be that all of those tree-hugging liberals are really working undercover for the conservative Republican agenda?  Local control, indeed!

The Dilemma

So..After ten days of hot and mostly dry weather in Italy, I came home to...a week of hot--and humid--weather in New York, punctuated by rain.

Yesterday was a respite.  I could not have asked for better cycling weather.  When I started, the skies were partly cloudy and the temperature was 17C.  The skies cleared along the way and the temperature increased a bit, but I was pedaling into 20-25 kph wind most of the way.  Still, I barely sweated all the way to Connecticut, where the sky was overcast.

On my way home, the clouds broke for some sun, but I didn't feel the need to replenish my sunscreen.  I think the temperature reached about 26C by the time I finished, in mid-afternoon.

The ride was completely pleasant and uneventful.  I was riding Arielle, my Mercian Audax, so it could hardly have been smoother or more effortless.  Although it's a drop-bar all-arounder road bike, I felt less strain on me than I did when I was riding an upright bike in Rome.  It probably has to do with the Mercian's fit.  Also, being a lighter bike, it's simply easier to pedal in  higher gears.  Most of all, it's my bike, so even when I don't ride it for a couple of weeks (or months, as sometimes happens during the winter), it takes me no time to re-acclimate myself to it.

So, which is better:  Going to faraway places and riding among sights you will rarely, if ever, experience again--or riding a bike you know and love on a route you know?

Such a dilemma!  It used to be so much easier back in the day, when most airlines (the non-US carriers, anyway) would take your boxed bike (with pedals, front wheel and handlebars removed) as one of your pieces of luggage as long as it, and whatever else you brought, was within the weight limit.  For most European carriers--as well as Air India, Air Pakistan (yes, I flew them to Europe), that limit was 44 kilos.

These days, it seems, airlines don't want you to bring your bike, or charge some exorbitant fee for it.  I figured that for a ten-day trip, it was easier to rent a bike, especially since I wasn't going across the countryside with loaded panniers and camping gear.

Of course, the obvious solution would be to get one of those bikes that travels easily like Bike Friday or Brompton, which would cost about as much as going on a trip somewhere.  Or, perhaps, there's some other way to take Arielle or one of my other bikes across the seas with me.

That would make my choices a little easier.  Then again, when I come home from a Connecticut ride--or one to Point Lookout or the Jersey Shore--Max and Marlee are waiting for me!

A Croc Of...?

Grant Petersen of Rivendell Bicycles has been called a "traditionalist iconoclast".  At first glance, that sounds like an oxymoron.  What it means is that he advocated a return to tried-and-true designs, methods and materials for bicycles and components at a time when the industry was moving toward carbon fiber and such.

On the whole, I'm with him.  In fact, you might say my bikes are, at least somewhat, Rivendells without being Rivendells.  All of my frames are lugged steel; all of my components are steel or alloy: there's no carbon fiber anywhere on them. For that matter, I don't use brifters, clipless pedals or low spoke-count boutique wheels, although I've tried them all.

I also agree with him when he says you don't need special clothes for cycling.  I say this as a reformed Lycra Lizard.  

But he also thinks that Crocs are perfectly fine shoes for cycling.  Again, there was a time in my life when I wouldn't even ride to the local bookstore (remember that?)  unless my foot was attached to my Look pedals with the stiffest shoes Carnac or Sidi made.

Now I ride mostly in "normal" shoes.  Still, I have never pedaled in Crocs.  In fact, I have yet to own, or even try on, a pair.  Maybe I won't, ever, especially after seeing this:

From Memecenter

Even after shedding skintight racing gear and jettisoning clipless pedals and cleats, there are still some things I won't wear on a bike!  I'm sure Grant would concur.

Space

After my trip to Italy and writing about bike lane controversies in Brooklyn, I got to thinking about my sense of space, as a cyclist.

It took a couple of days of riding in Rome to acclimate myself to the ways drivers behave around cyclists.  I can say the same for Paris and France, but I had an even more acute sense of how drivers' and cyclists' sense of shared space is different while in the land of Michelangelo and Caravaggio.

You can ride through one of those traffic circles, or any other intersection, and a motorist might be a gear-cable's breadth from you.  Yet you would be in less danger than if you'd had a wider berth--or even riding in a "protected" bike lane--in most US cities.  

Italian--particularly Roman--drivers are often called "crazy".  Yet they not only are more aware of two-wheeled vehicles (including Vespas and motorcycles, as well as bicycles) than their American counterparts, they are more accustomed to driving in--and sharing--really tight spaces.

I was reminded of this when looking, again, at this street in Florence, between the Ponte Vecchio and Uffizi Gallery.

It's about half as wide as most sidewalks in New York!  Yet I actually saw a car and bike pass through it at the same time.  And the driver didn't honk his/her horn!

I also couldn't help but to notice the condition of the bicycles parked next to it.  If they'd been locked to a New York City parking meter or sign post, this could have been their fate:

Making More Sense Than The Department of Transportation

The New York City Department of Transportation seems to operate from the same misguided notions that guide other cities' efforts to be--or seem--"bike friendly". 

Once again, the NYCDOT is showing its ignorance in a report it released recently.  That report, among other things, designates two Brooklyn neighborhoods--Ditmas Park and Sheepshead Bay--as "Priority Bicycle Districts" that could receive new lanes.

Now, if you've been reading this blog, you know that I am, at best, ambivalent about bike lanes, at least as they are usually conceived, designed and constructed.  From what I can see, the NYCDOT wants to repeat the same mistakes it has made in other parts of the city, the most egregious of them being "bike lanes" that are little more than lines painted on asphalt and run next to the parking lanes of streets--into which drivers open their doors, delivery vehicles stop and drivers of all kinds double-park.  

An all-too-typical "protected" bike lane in Brooklyn

Oh, did I mention that too many of those lanes lead cyclists straight into the paths of turning or merging vehicles?  I wouldn't be surprised sif the proposed lanes did the same.

Anyway, of the two neighborhoods I mentioned, one--Ditmas Park--might welcome the new bike "infrastructure", at least somewhat.  Parts of it are quite charming, with Victorian houses and the kinds of cute little shops one finds in neighborhoods with young creative people before they turn into, well, Williamsburg.  That means there are a number of people who cycle for transportation as well as recreation.

The other neighborhood--Sheepshead Bay--lacks such cyclists.  It lies further from the central areas of Brooklyn and Manhattan than Ditmas Park and is far less served by mass transportation.  In fact, one subsection of Sheepshead Bay--Marine Park--has no subway and little bus service at all.

What that means is that most residents of Sheepshead Bay drive.  Some drive their cars to their jobs; others are building contractors or self-employed in other ways and are therefore dependent on their vehicles to transport equipment and for other purposes.  Sometimes families ride their bikes to the park, or individuals might go for a late-day or Sunday ride, but relatively few ride for transportation.  

It is in such neighborhoods that one finds the most opposition to bike lanes and other amenities.  Some of it is class or generational resentment:  Cyclists are seen as entitled elitists or worse.  Some of the other objections, if they don't have merit, are at least understandable:  People who depend on their motor vehicles in places where streets are narrow and there is no room to expand are, understandably, wary of anything that might make driving or parking more difficult or, at any rate, more inconvenient.

Something really interesting is happening, however in Sheepshead Bay--especially in and around Marine Park. In New York, when a city agency like the DOT makes a plan, it is presented to the local community board for the neighborhood that would be affected by the plan.  Last year, the DOT sent a proposal to the local community board for Sheepshead Bay/Marine Park.  The community voiced its objections to it, partly for the same driving and parking issues I've mentioned.  

But they also made some of the same arguments I, and other experienced cyclists, have made against bike lanes.  They pointed out that a cyclist is no safer in a bike lane that runs next to a parking lane than he or she is in a traffic lane.  They also mentioned, as I have, that too many lanes lead cyclists directly into the path of turning or merging vehicles.

They also described a situation that makes their neighborhood different from the more central urban areas like Williamsburg and most of Manhattan.  Sheepshead Bay--especially the Marine Park area--bear more semblance to a suburban town than a city neighborhood in at least one respect:  The majority of residences are detached or semi-detached private houses with driveways rather than than apartment buildings.  Cars and vans frequently pull in and out of those driveways.  

The proposed bike lanes would have run right in the path of those cars entering and leaving the driveways.  Too often, drivers pulling out of driveways are driving in reverse, which makes it more difficult to see cyclists (or anyone or anything else) in the bike or parking lane.  And, when cars make turns to enter driveways, they would turn right into what would be the path of the proposd bike lanes.

So...While we still need to help drivers who aren't cyclists understand, if not empathise with, cyclists, we still need to hear them out--especially when they're making more sense than the Department of Transportation!

Lost And Literary

I'm thinking, again, about one of the many times I got "lost" in Rome last week.

In previous posts, I've said that sometimes I mount one of my bikes and let it decide where I ride.  For example, I might sling my leg over Arielle, my Mercian Audax, and without thinking about it, I find myself pedaling toward Connecticut or the North Shore.  Or I might slide my foot into a pedal of Tosca, my Mercian fixed-gear and the next thing I know, I'm on my way to the Rockaways or Coney Island.

So, I think I can blame the bike I rode in Rome for leading me in circles and through far corners of the city--and even outside of it.  The pretty, shiny red bike I rented from Bici & Baci (which I recommend) led me, after my tour of the Catacombs, though some near suburbs and back into the city, albeit a far corner.  

You never know who you'll run into in such places:

Yes, the mayor New Yorkers love or hate has familial roots in the country that sent some of my ancestors to America.  Now, I'm all for a liberal immigration policy, but it might've been nice to have someone like Trump (Really? Did I just say that?) running the country, even if only for a day, when Rudy's parents were ready to get on the boat.  

Then again, it might've been nice to have Trump--or, at least, the immigration policy he just endorsed--when his grandfather was about to be deported from Germany. (I have to hand it to him:  It takes some doing to get yourself kicked out of the country in which you were born and raised!)  If this country hadn't let him in, he would've gone to...I dunno...Canada?  Australia?

Anyway, I won't speculate (at least, not now, anyway) about what New York City and the USA might be without Giuliani or Trump.  Just a couple of minutes after seeing that sign for Rudy's relatives, I wandered into a section of drab apartment buildings where the streets had some interesting names:

I know that all of them spent time in Italy:  In fact, James Joyce spent much of his adult life there.  He once remarked that although Italy, at the time, was plagued with poverty and mismanagement, it at least had a nice climate and lively intellectual atmosphere.  His native country of Ireland, he said, was Italy without those two things.

Even if his assessment were off, I couldn't blame him for living in Italy.  Could you?

Looking Up: A Tourist!

You can usually tell when someone is a tourist:  He or she is looking at all of the stuff (and, sometimes, people) the natives take for granted.

In downtown and midtown Manhattan, they are usually looking up--at the Empire State Building, Liberty Tower and other skyscrapers.  I haven't stopped noticing such things, but I think I've developed some sort of peripheral vision that allows me to look at the spires and other architectural features that are expressions of somebody's reach.

I realize now that in Italy, I must have been as obviously a tourist as someone from North Dakota or Oklahoma is while ambling along Broadway.  Or someone speaking Italian on Mott Street:  Little Italy is all but gone, so that person is more than likely from Milan.

Of course, I could've been taken for a tourist on my appearance alone.  The Italians usually greeted me with a friendly if somewhat deferential "signora", but they could not have seen me as one of their women:  I am taller and lighter than most of them.  Also, my Italian--such as it is--doesn't sound anything like what anyone speaks in "The Boot."  If anything, I probably sound like pure Bay Parkway by way of Asbury Park.

There is one other thing, though, that surely gave me away as a visitor--aside from the fact that I was consulting maps.  You see, I was like all of those gawkers I see in my home town:  I spent a lot of time looking upward.

In an earlier post, I mentioned that the skylights in the catacombs' chapels must have turned those early Christians' attentions skyward, i.e., toward the heavens.  I couldn't help but to thin that so much cathedral architecture--internal as well as external--was at least somewhat influenced by a memory, historical as well as visceral, of that:  Worshipers were usually looking up, whether at the altar (which was raised) or the stained glass windows or statues above.

Even when I wasn't in a basilica or some other such place, it seemed that I couldn't look anywhere but up.  And, yes, my gaze was often turned above me even as I was navigating those Roman streets and traffic circles.

Was Eddy Mercx thinking about something like that when he told George Mount that if he really wanted to learn about bike racing, he had to go to Italy?

A Ride Back

I will tell you more about my Great Italian Adventure, and post more photos of it, soon.  I promise!  

In this post, however, I want to talk about something that happened to me today.

The sky was mostly clear, the day warmer and humidity a bit higher than it's been since I got home, even if neither the heat nor moisture was oppressive.  So, of course, I went for a ride:  my first long(ish) trek since coming back.  At least, that's what I'd planned.

A familiar route down to the Rockaways and along the South Shore of Queens and Long Island took me to a familiar destination:  Point Lookout.  Since it's a flat ride and the wind blew lightly, I took out Tosca, my Mercian fixed gear.  

Even if the ride couldn't thrill me as much as pedaling up and down the Roman hills, it sure was nice to ride one of my own bikes again.  Of course, a fixie is going to be more responsive than an internal-geared hub, and a Mercian is going to feel more lively than a heavy utilitarian rental bike.  Still, the difference in "feel" was even greater than I anticipated.  

The ride was pleasant and completely uneventful; I felt good and nothing complicated that.  After I crossed the Veterans Memorial Bridge from Rockaway Beach back to the Queens "mainland", I stopped at a deli for something cold to drink.  While sipping on some combination of slush with cherry Jolly Rancher flavoring (I wanted a bit of a sugar rush), a man and woman pedaled in.  

He pointed to me.  "Where do I know you from?"

Turns out, we rode--occasionally the two of us, but usually with a group of other riders--in Prospect and Central Parks, and on some longer rides, back in the day.  He also worked in a couple of bike shops I frequented in those days.  We recalled those shops, some of the guys (yes, they were men) who rode with us, a few of whom also worked in those shops at one time or another.

He introduced the woman who accompanied him.  They married seven years ago, he said.  That wasn't the only surprise of our encounter.

For another, he was smiling.  I never, ever saw that in all of the time we rode "back in the day".  In fact, a few of us half-jokingly called him "El Exigente", whom he resembled in his facial hair and other physical features--including the seemingly-permanent scowl.   We all respected him as a rider; his forays into racing were certainly more successful than mine! 

In those days, we didn't actually talk much.  Some time ago--possibly in those days--I read a book by an anthropologist or some other researcher that said, among other things, that women form relationships by talking but men bond by doing things together.  Perhaps one could see that in our rides.  It also could be a reason why I always had the sense that he disapproved of me somewhat:   Someone once described me as an "extroverted introvert", meaning that even though I am more comfortable within myself than without, I am not averse to talking.  

Or, perhaps, I just insecure that I wasn't, and probably never would be, as strong or fast a rider as he was--or is.  

He certainly didn't care about that today, as I rode with him and his wife.  Their route home paralleled mine part of the way, but they invited me to follow them to their home, in Brooklyn, if I wanted to.  "Well, there's nowhere I have to be", I said.  Really, the only reason I had to get back to my place tonight was to feed my cats.

So my ride was a bit longer than I'd planned:  I reckon about 140 kilometers instead of 120. But I felt more nimble, more supple, as we wove through the building rush-hour traffic in the streets of East New York, Brownsville, Bedford-Stuyvesant and their Flatbush neighborhood.

We all shook hands as we parted.  If he was surprised to see my red nail polish, he didn't show it.  She didn't register any surprise, as she didn't know me when I was Nick.

He knew me then.  But he took to my new and current name with no trouble.  We all promised to stay in touch and get together for another ride.

My ride home involved climbing a couple of long but gradual hills to Crown Heights and the east side of Prospect Park, past the Brooklyn Public Library toward the Navy Yard.  From there, I rode through Williamsburg and Greenpoint, easily passing riders who could have been my children and grandchildren, as if I were one of them.

Back when I was riding with him, I was.