Category Archives: Bike Life

Meet My Bike

09 Wednesday Nov 2011

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I thought I’d introduce you to an important member of my family. I never loved Boston more than when I started bike commuting from Jamaica Plain to Cambridge. Every weekday, I travel a little over twelve miles to and fro, more when I have evening activities (which is most evenings.)

05_19AThree years in, I’ve logged somewhere in the neighborhood of 5000 bike miles per year. Each winter, I find myself extending my season a little further because it hurts to be off the bike. Typically I’m not a jealous person but watching someone cycle past on a bright day, no matter how bitter cold or how bundled the rider, makes me yearn for my wheels.

Meet my rusty, trusty stead: a pink Raleigh mountain bike hybrid circa 1990s(?) Also known as:

  • The bike
  • My bike
  • The $60 police auction special
  • Heaviest bike on earth (not true, my Huffy was heavier)
  • The tank
  • The rickshaw

Panniers-annotatedMy “trunk” used to be a plastic milk crate, but I quickly outgrew that. Now I’ve a large set of bright yellow Ortlieb panniers. Unlike the bike, they’ve got actual names: Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. I named them in part because I have trouble with left and right. So Fred “rings and bell” and Ginger “turns on the light.”

This past fall, I got a death sentence for the bike: frame rot. Sadly, I know our days are numbered. In the meantime, I will continue to appreciate it as the best bike I’ve owned in my adult life, purchased from the first auction at which I hefted a number, hand trembling with anticipation when I won my “prize.” What a prize it has been.

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Librarytour: Brooks Memorial Library, VT

23 Sunday Oct 2011

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This stylish bike rack was captured during a trip with my mother to Brattleboro, Vermont. Not too far from Boston, but also not too close, we enjoyed our B&B, caught some live music at a bar, chatted up the clerk at a yarn shop called Knit or Dye, toured the popular farmer’s market, gushed over the co-op food market (kombucha on tap!), and of course visited the local library.

It seems I’ve misplaced all of the photos from that tour –save for the one above.

Wrath On The (Bike) Path

21 Wednesday Sep 2011

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IMG_5150Last night, at around 10:30 PM, I slowed my bike to a stop next to what appeared to be an unmarked police car with two officers inside, taking notes.

I asked: Are you cops on the path?
Police: Yes.
I said: Well, I just want to say thank you.
Officer behind the wheel: *big smile*
Officer in the passenger seat (marking in his notebook): Oh. You’re welcome.

Why the thank you?  Back at the beginning of the summer, I was attacked by children on exactly that stretch of path along the South West Corridor.  It was a terrible experience, being nearly knocked off my bike by two eggs.  Screaming in fear because I couldn’t make out what was happening to me.  Flipping my bike (luckily, I didn’t fall) in my haste to stop, stop, stop! 

I chased those children.  I wasn’t kidding.  And they scattered like marbles, like mercury.  I couldn’t even tell how many there were, and then they were gone.  Leaving just me and my fear and shame and frustration and anger.  Oh, and nearby, a couple of teenagers who watched the whole episode, seeming unaffected and also unwilling to rat out the children.

I called the police and waited half an hour for them to show.  When they did finally, they didn’t seem to care.  It even felt to me that they wanted to dissuade me from filing a report.  What happened to me just wasn’t serious enough, the offenders were just kids, there was nothing the officers could do at the moment besides patrol the path and away, the Boston Police didn’t have jurisdiction over the path, the State Police would need to be called in for that.

I’ve put a lot of thought into what happened to me.  Who the officers might be who looked at me from their car and decided I wasn’t hurt enough.  Who those kids might be, whom, after the attack taunted me from a safe distance and then ran.  To them, I’m just another angry woman on a bike.  Just a target.  But I’m not used to being a victim.  I’m used to first not presenting like a victim, and second, fighting back using whatever means available.

At the same time, one of the values I live by is: first, do no harm.  Another is to understand, look at as many sides of an issue as I’m aware of.  And last, proceed with caution.  Proceed with love.

So I take my opportunities whenever, however they arise.  If I see cops on the bike path, working to keep me safe, to keep other cyclists safe, to keep those kids safe, I thank them.