Riding Again At Sunset

I'm so happy to be back on my bike again.  Late the other day, I took a ride that wasn't a commute for the first time in weeks.  I was going to meet some people for dinner in the Village, which meant I would have to lock my bike on the street.  And I knew that there was still a lot of ice and sand on the streets. So I took my LeTour, as its tires are the closest things to snow and ice treads I have.

It wasn't a long ride, but enough to stimulate my senses.  I got this glimpse of dusk on the Hudson River near Christopher Street in Manhattan.

And this--with the relatively rare sight of ice on the Hudson--just north of 14th Street:

I did what I could with my primitive cell phone. But I think I captured something of what the light, if not the cold air, felt like!  If nothing else, they're whetting my appetite for more riding.

Cycling Under The Rainbow

Today the Pride March makes its way down Manhattan's Fifth Avenue to Washington Square Park. From there, marchers will turn on to Christopher Street and pass the Stonewall Inn.  On this date forty-five years ago, patrons fought police officers who tried to raid the bar.  This clash, first labelled as the Stonewall Riot and later the Stonewall Rebellion, is usually cited as the beginning of the modern LGBT equality movement.

As always, there will be some bicycles in the procession.  Of course, nobody will ride very fast, and some of the bikes as well as cyclists will no doubt serve mainly as props for signs or floats.

I admire the spirit of these marchers in Vietnam, who are pushing for marriage equality in one of Asia's most repressive regimes:

We all know that such struggles are important.  But we can't forget that sometimes the battle is won and lost with, and on, accessories:

Scraping The Sky, Or Brushed By Fog

Late yesterday morning and the afternoons were just interludes between rainstorms.  Or so it seemed.  And it rained even harder, from what I can tell, last night.

I crossed the Queens-Randall's Island spur of the Triborough (RFK Memorial) Bridge just before the window closed or the clouds opened, depending on your point of view:

Freedom Rider

On this date in 1929, Martin Luther King Jr. was born.   His birthdate will be commemorated on Monday, five days from now. We also observe the births of Presidents Washington and Lincoln, as well as other holidays, on Mondays in this country.

I guess if you want to become famous enough to have a holiday dedicated to you, you have to be born on Monday.  Or, perhaps, being born on Monday will lead you to fame.

But I digress.  I don't often hear or see MLK and bicycling mentioned on the same page, let alone the same sentence.  The biographies I've seen tell us that he enjoyed riding his bike as a kid but make no mention of him cycling as an adult.

From Dan's Globe Bike

So why am I mentioning him on this blog?  Well, I believe that my cycling is one major reason why I began to think about issues of social justice long before I would be affected by them in the immediate and visceral ways I would experience them when I was transitioning from male to female.  Riding my bike through New York--where I have lived much of my life--and other cities, I have seen, close-up, the stark differences between neighboring communities.  Just minutes after spinning by the opulent townhouses and boutiques of Manhattan's Fifth and Park Avenues--which rival Rodeo Drive, Kensington Gardens and l'Avenue Montaigne--I descend the ramp from the Triboro Bridge to the southern tip of the Bronx.  It's part of the 16th Congressional district, the poorest in the entire nation. There, I am as likely as not to be the only woman on a bicycle within a radius of several miles.

In both neighborhoods, people sometimes compliment the bike I'm riding, or (on rarer occasions these days) my riding itself.  In either neighborhood, I am keenly aware of my privilege:  Even if I am riding to work or an appointment, I am riding my bike by choice.  And I am riding a bike I choose to ride.  Even if I have no money in my purse, I still occupy a higher rung on the social--and, yes, economic--ladder then those who are riding bikes that no one else wanted so they can deliver pizzas or get to an appointment with a case worker.

As long as I can ride, and choose to do so, I am privileged.