In the middle of the journey of my life, I am--as always--a woman on a bike. Although I do not know where this road will lead, the way is not lost, for I have arrived here. And I am on my bicycle, again.
The other day, I admitted that I have aimed an impolite hand gesture at inconsiderate motorists. I have also used more than a few words, in a few languages (hey, I'm in New York) that aren't fit for a family blog. (Is this a family blog?) I have also made those same gestures and hurled those same verbal missiles at e-bike riders who have come out of nowhere and cut across intersections, or in front of me. Afterward, I feel a little guilty: After all, I was once a bike messenger and understand how difficult it is to make a living from making deliveries. I'll bet that some of them, after a day of delivering pepperoni pizzas or Korean tacos, may not have a meal to bring home to their families--or for themselves. Even though I sometimes wish that all of those e-bikes would turn into real, I mean pedal, bikes, I realize that some of those delivery guys (nearly all of them are male) have to continue in the same line of work even as their bodies are giving out on them. I also know that nearly all of them are immigrants, some of whom can speak English very little if at all, and may not have many (if any) other marketable skills. If those guys stopped making deliveries, the city would come to a standstill. All right, perhaps I'm exaggerating just a bit. I have to wonder, though, what some folks would do if they couldn't have their diner dishes or trattoria treats delivered to them after a long day at work--or if said meals were to double in price. So if the problem is not that those workers use e-bikes, what is it?
Well, not all e-bikes are created equal. Here in New York, there are basically three classes. Class 1 e-bikes are the pedal-assisted variety and attain top speeds of 20MPH. Recently, Mayor de Blasio declared them perfectly legal in this city. Class 2 and 3 bikes are throttle-operated and not legal in the Big Apple. You might have guessed where the rub is: Most deliveries are done on Class 2 and 3 bikes because, well, they're faster and don't require pedaling. The fine for operating such machines is $500 per day--more than most delivery workers make in a week. Worse, the police can and do confiscate these bikes, which leaves workers unable to provide for their families--and lots of yuppies and hipsters hungry. Transportation Alternatives is therefore circulating a petition calling for, among other things, guidelines and requirements--as well as a program that provides financial and practical assistance--for converting Class 2 and 3 bikes to Class 1. In addition, the petition calls for a moratorium on e-bike enforcement until the regulatory framework has been fully implemented, and the workers, NYPD and public are educated about the changes. So, while I hope that I won't stop pedaling until someone can stick a fork in me, I don't want to deprive immigrants of income for themselves and their families. After all, who else will my General Tso's Chicken while I'm binge-watching The Golden Girls?
Call me a Luddite, if you like: I am still skeptical about any "smart" bicycle accessory. I am even warier of a "smart" helmet. That is what Apple stores have begun to stock. The Lumos helmet has front and rear lights, as well as brake lights. What makes it a "smart" helmet, though, is a feature that is activated when the wearer also wears an Apple watch: hand gesture recognition. When you signal a turn or stop with your hand, it activates LED turn signals on the back of your helmet. To go with the helmet, Lumos has introduced a new Apple watch and iPhone app that makes hand gesture recognition possible. An Android app for the same purpose will be introduced soon. (In case you don't have an Apple watch, the helmet comes with a wireless remote that activates the turn signals.) As best as I can tell, the helmet can only read "stop" and "turn" hand signals. But those aren't the only hand signals I, or other cyclists, make--especially to inconsiderate motorists! And what about hearing-impaired cyclists? Can the apps read sign language?
Is it possible to ride while sleeping? I may have done just that on at least one occasion. In particular, I recall a time I picked up a small package on the Upper East Side of Manhattan and delivered it to an office in the Wall Street area--a distance of about 8 kilometers, in traffic. When I arrived at that office, I opened my eyes and had no idea of how I got there. And, when I stepped out of the building, my bike was locked to a parking meter. When you are a messenger, nobody much cares about whether you slept or about anything else you might've done on your bike, as long as the document or package is delivered in a timely fashion, as they say.
It also helps not to have outstanding arrest warrants. That is what Angela Yates is learning as I write. Police officers found the 43-year-old sitting on a bicycle, passed out, in a Middlesboro, Kentucky gas station. They woke her up and found that, in addition to her arrest warrants, she had a criminal summons. During her arrest, the police searched her property and found a syringe containing a clear substance they believe to be crystal meth. They also found eight other syringes and other drug paraphernalia. Yates was then taken to the Bell County Detention Center, where she was strip-searched. A quart-size bag containing what officials believe to be marijuana, along with another liquid-filled syringe, were found in her possession. She faces a number of charges. If she is using those substances, I can't help but to wonder how she even got on a bicycle!
If you are a cycle-commuter, someone is sure to ask, "What do you do when it rains?" In most places, you have the following choices: 1. Use fenders and raingear (or carry a change of clothes). 2. Get wet. 3. Use other means of transportation. I'll admit to having used 3.) when it's raining, cold and windy--or during a hard, driving rain when I could hardly see in front of me. I also have used alternative means of transportation--which, for me, here in New York, means the subway--when there was more than a dusting of snow. Some day the weather excuse won't wash--at least, if architect Richard Moreta has any influence over urban planners.
He has just unveiled his "MINILOOP", an enclosed elevated bikeway designed to snake alongside streets or highways, or cut their own paths through cities.
Moreta says he has designed MINILOOP to be easily replicated in, and adapted to, different locales: It can be made open-air for warmer climates and fully enclosed in less hospitable environs. Most important, though, he believes his design will not only help to reduce the number of motor vehicles used for transportation; they will afford more vertical space for trees and plants to grow and help filter the air.
Today's Shimano Ultegra components trace their lineage to the "600" derailleurs introduced in 1975. The following year, a complete "600" groupset was introduced. Two years later, an iteration of them appeared with some fancy scrolls and engravings.
Shimano offered this groupset, called the "600 EX Arabesque" until 1984. It was good stuff, especially for its time, except for one thing: the headset required a special tool to adjust it. Apparently, some Shimano marketing person thought the lace and filigree engraved into the other components would be difficult to replicate on a headset. So, that person figured the best way to distinguish the headset was to shape the locknut like those scrolls. Still, it was a good headset: At least, the one I had served me well. (Can you imagine Dee-Lilah, my fancy-lugged Mercian Vincitore Special, with an Arabesque groupset? Maybe that would be a bit much, aesthetically.) Anyway, even with all those fancy scrolls engraved into the parts, I have always thought "Arabesque" was an odd name for a line of bike components. I wonder who their intended audience was. Perhaps it included someone like her:
Some people still can't fathom that I--or anyone else, for that matter--pedal from our homes to the next county or state. They express wonderment or disbelief when I tell them I've essentially lived on my bike in Europe or that I pedaled up and down mountains in Vermont, upstate New York, California, Nevada, France, Switzerland, Italy and Spain. I have to chuckle. After all, my exploits pale in comparison to those of folks like John Rakowski, who spent three years cycling around the world in the 1970s--or Greg and June Sipel who, around the same time, rode their laden bikes from Anchorage, Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, at the tip of South America. Now Chris and Sophie Haag plan to take a similar journey. Come late June, they will take a ferry from Bellingham, Washington to Homer, Alaska. Then, on 2 July, they plan to pedal north and cross the Canadian border. From there, they will bike south, through western Canada and the United States to Central America. From there, they expect to follow the Pan-American Highway into South America. They anticipate spending two years on the road--about the same amount of time the Sippels took.
Even if they have studied what the Sippels did, the Haags probably don't know what the most difficult part of their journey will be. But they know what has been the most difficult part of their planning: finding someone to take care of their pets. Fortunately for them, some friends in their hometown of St. George, Utah, have agreed to take on the task. If Marlee were to ask me, "Where have you been for the past two years?", what would I tell her?
Kyle Bailey was born with Cystic Fibrosis. At age 25, he underwent a double lung transplant. Since then, he's endured a liver and kidney transplant. He likes to say that he's been "given four chances at life." So, perhaps not surprisingly, he's started a non-profit organization dedicated to spreading awareness about the importance of organ donation and helping to provide for the medical needs of children with disabilities and limited-income families.
What some people might find surprising, however, is that the native of Port Huron, Michigan starting a 1400 mile (2200 km) bicycle trip today. He plans to pedal from Ann Arbor, Michigan to Orlando, Florida to raise awareness (and funds) for the work he and his organization are doing. One goal of his, he says, is to change the organ donor system in his home state of Michigan. Currently, a would-be donor has to "opt in" at the Secretary of State's office. Bailey would like to see it changed to an "opt out" policy, in which everyone is automatically an organ donor unless he or she says otherwise. Currently, several European and Latin American countries have such a policy, and several US states have considered them. Whatever happens with those policies, I think Kyle's ride just might convince a few people to become organ donors. If nothing else, it might help people realize that there is indeed life after getting a new liver.
When I was in Rome last summer, I learned that during the centuries when the Colosseum was all but abandoned, so many species of vegetation grew in it that Domenico Panaroli cataloged them. According to some writers and chroniclers, all of those herbs and other plants created micro-climates within the Colosseum's walls. I don't find that so difficult to believe: Different parts felt hotter or cooler, depending on the sun, shade and wind, during my visit there. My commute this morning got met to thinking about the possibility of Colosseum "microclimates". For one thing, the lane I ride to the Randall's Island Connector winds underneath the tracks on which Acela trains shuttle between New York and Boston. Those tracks run on a viaduct supported by stone arches that would not look out of place in Rome, or the ancient parts of many other cities in the Old World. But, more important, I think I rode into a microclimate:
The remanants of yesterday's storm dripped, and rays of sunlight flickered, through the tracks above. And I pedaled through the "rainbow" you see in the photo. I didn't see another rainbow anywhere else, nor did any rain fall. And the sky grew brighter as I neared the college.
He'd planned to go for a bike ride. Twelve days later, he woke up. "I didn't fully understand what was going on or why I was there," recalls Paul Gobble. Still, he doesn't "recall feeling surprised" that he was in a hospital bed. Paul Runnels was on the bike ride Gobble couldn't recall. Like Gobble, he spent "nearly two weeks in the hospital" after that ride. The last thing he remembered is pedaling to the right of the white line on the side of the road and hearing fellow riders shout "Car back!" Jennifer Johnson's last memory of that day's ride, which she led, was seeing the sign for Markin Glen Park. The next thing she remembers is waking up, seeing her right arm tangled in a fence and burrs in her clothing. Scanning her body, "I struggled when I couldn't find my right leg," she recounted. "I found it very acutely over my right shoulder."
Sheila Jeske met Johnson, Runnels and Gobble in a parking lot for the ride. Her next memory is from hours later, at 9:15 pm, in the hospital. Doctors asked whether she knew what had happened. "I said I knew I was on a bike ride and I asked where Deb and Suzanne were," she testified.
Debra Bradley
Suzanne Sippel
She was referring to Debbra Bradley and Suzanne Sippel. They would not remember the ride: They did not survive it. Nor did "Larry" Paulik,"Tony" Nelson and Melissa Fevig-Hughes.
"Larry" Paulik
"Tony" Nelson
Melissa Fevig-Hughes
Jeske, along with Runnels, Gobble and Johnson, described the ordeals they have lived through since the day Runnels heard "Car back!" Although they are all riding again, they endure all sorts of pain and continue to undergo therapies and even surgeries. Gobble, who suffered a brain injury, sometimes struggles with finding the right words. Still, he and the others, were determined to testify, no doubt in memory of their cycling buddies who met them every week for over a decade.
Their testimony came this morning, on the second day of a murder trial for Charles Pickett Jr of Battle Creek, Michigan. In addition to five counts of second-degree murder, he also faces five counts of driving under the influence: The police allege that he had metamphetamine, muscle relaxers and pain pills in his system at the time he plowed his blue Chevy pickup truck into the group of cyclists who called themselves "The Chain Gang." Now Jeske, Runnels, Gobble and Johnson are linked in two other ways: They survived a horrific crash, and they are giving voice to their friends who died that awful day.
I recently taught Dante's Inferno. In it, Hell is divided into nine circles, each reserved for particular kinds of sinners and each with its own punishments. (As best as I can tell, I'd end up in the third ring of the seventh circle. But I digress.) One thing that has always struck me about the punishments meted out in each part of Dante's Hell is that they are not only retributive (at least, according to notions of divine justice prevailing in his time); they are also meant to torment those who are sentenced. At least, that is how it seemed to me. Sometimes it seems that the torment is worse than the punishment itself. I think it's because the resulting pain, humiliation and embarrassment endure for even longer than any physical torture. Plus, folks whom you believed to be friends or allies--or, at least, fellow travelers--will pepper you with "witty" comments or taunt you with laughter.
At least, that was the experience related described Dublin-based writer Cal McGhee in his Broken Bicycle Blues. As if it weren't bad enough to get thrown from his bike into a parked car, all of his attempts to call would-be rescuers failed: The Vodafone customer you are calling is not accessible at the moment. Oh, but it gets worse: He starts to walk his bike in the pouring rain. He doesn't get very far when the "innards of the back tyre unravel and intertwine with the wheel, rendering it absolutely 'bolloxed'." So, unable to roll his bicycle alongside him, he has to carry his machine--until he no longer can. Then, "not equipped with any weaponry," he saws at the tire with a key in an attempt to cut the tire off. But that key proved no match for the tire and snapped in half. That key was--you guessed it--his bike key. Having endured the ordeal of flat tire, crash, broken key and the jeers of other cyclists who passed him, he finally reaches home, where he is "greeted by the beaming smile of a child." He reaches out to embrace the tyke when he notices how grungy he is and stops himself. "That's how I died," he informs us. He asks that no flowers be brought to the funeral. Instead, he requests donations that can go to "an experimental business heralding a new regime" in which "cyclists in peril" will be "rescued and fed curry sauce until they are restored to full health." Will that ease the torment of other cyclist seeing him walking and carrying his bike?
