This past weekend I headed out onto some of the more popular road cycling routes in the area, where I was reminded that I must OBEY ALL LAWS:
Additionally, the sign ordered me to RIDE SINGLE FILE:
I certainly don’t want to run afoul of the law in Englewood Cliffs, NJ the next time I visit, so as soon as was practicable I reviewed their local ordinances:
So basically I’m supposed to “ride as near to the right side of the roadway as practical.” However, it’s completely impractical to do so because of the sign. Furthermore, I’m not supposed to “interfere with or interrupt the passages of motor vehicles upon the roadway” because it “shall constitute a nuisance”–a nuisance I can’t avoid creating because of the sign that makes it impractical for me to ride on the far right side of the roadway. However, according to the laws of Englewood Cliffs–you know, the ones I’m supposed to obey without exception–should I find myself there again with a riding companion I am permitted to ride abreast of them, despite the sign’s admonition to ride single file. In summary, the sign is wrong and stupid on every level, and it might as well flash the message CYCLIST STOP HITTING YOURSELF and knock you off your bike with a giant mechanical hand as you pass.
Yes, there is much in this part of the world to provoke thought. Consider also the little beaches in the adjacent Palisades Interstate Park, which were once filled to capacity:
This is the park through which the popular cycling route colloquially known as “River Road” runs, and while I’ve been passing the little sandy patches for years, I had no idea of their history, or that you could take a ferry there from Dyckman Street in upper Manhattan, much to the chagrin of early-20th century proto-NIMBYs:
So what happened to the beaches? You’d assume they closed because of pollution, but in fact it had more to do with the George Washington Bridge essentially putting the ferry out of business, as well as various other economic factors:
And the water could be as clean or cleaner now than it was when it was teeming with bathers:
In the meantime however the irony of New York City is that there’s water water everywhere nor any drop to swim in–though some people do it anyway:
As someone who looks longingly at the water on a hot day while riding I often wonder, “Why don’t I just jump in?,” and I wonder if the reason we don’t do it anymore is really because of the pollution, or simply because we’ve been trained not to do it by a society that no longer accepts risk. (We now take it for granted that it’s reckless to cycle without a helmet, swim without a lifeguard, and so on.) No doubt it’s both, and personally I’m far more comfortable cycling sans safety cap than I am with the idea of swimming in a body of water of questionable cleanliness, though perhaps if the water continues to gets cleaner we’ll be able to stop mid-ride on River Road and jump into the mighty Hudson. Who knows? Maybe one day New York City will be like Zurich:
Though given how risk-averse people are these days it’s also possible we’ll never go back to that no matter how clean the water gets.
Either way, in the meantime I coped with the heat by “Bjarne Riising” it:
Bjarne Riising is like Donald Ducking, though while the latter refers to wearing a shirt with no pants:
The former refers to riding a road bike with nothing on your bald head:
Yes, it was so hot I was even forced to remove my sweat-soaked cap, and between my balding pate and my pointy Ergos I bore an uncanny resemblance to “Mister 60%”–who, I should note, would like you to know he’s not a bad person:
Though he’s no longer involved in professional cycling and has transitioned to the exciting word of Lithuanian heat pumps:
Naturally I checked them out, though I was able to make about as much sense of the Jordvarmepumpe IGLU Aleut 5 as the ape-people in “2001” do of the Monolith it so closely resembles:
Like, what component group does it compare to? Is it the Dura-Ace of heat pumps or simply the 105? Or is it the Microsoft Microshift Sword? Speaking of which, I see the new Sword Black is getting a lot of attention:
You’ve got to give Microshift credit for being the one drivetrain component manufacturer that removes a cog with each new release:
And the fact that somebody’s still making a 9-speed shifter that will work with a mechanical road brake is a sign that there may still be hope for cycling and for humanity:
I could see putting this stuff on the Milwaukee one day.