First Cycling Of The Year

Sunday, September 6, 2015

     Throughout this year, Anno Domini 2015, I have been frustrated again and again in my efforts to re-establish the cycling routine I sustained in France last year.  This is not a minor thing, cycling has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember.  I've been cycling since I was a kid in East Harlem and my parents managed to get hold of a 20" two wheeler when I was eight.  When I was a junior in high school, I saved the money to buy a Peugeot U-O8.  I rode it through my college years at Harvard, and post graduation, during the transit strike in 1980.  I was working at the old Lehman Brothers Kuhn Loeb then, and it was far from fashionable to cycle.  I enjoyed the cycling so much, I kept it up after the strike ended, which was considered "not quite the thing".  How times have changed!

     In law school, I rode between Fordham Law School and where I lived in the Columbia University area.  My second year in law school I had my left ovary removed, a major operation then.  After the surgery, the one question I was most interested in knowing the answer to was "When can I cycle again?"  (Three weeks, was the answer.)

     The U-08 was stolen from where I locked it in front of Fordham Law School some time during my third year, but a classmate getting a new bicycle sold me her Trek, a silver steel model with 8 speeds, and wrap-around handlebars, made for a man .  It did double duty while I was studying for the Bar and living at my parents' in East Harlem.  That was in 1985.

    It is still the bicycle I ride, although last year I replaced the wrap-around handlebars with mountain bike handlebars so I can sit up straight and put less pressure on my back.  I had the changes made at the end of the season, so I had no chance to see whether the new handlebars actually lead to greater back comfort.  I went out to ride early in June, but Beau's difficulties adapting to being alone in France scotched my riding this summer.

     Somehow, this Sunday presented itself as an opportunity to get on the bike and ride.  The weather is cool enough that it is possible to ride in mid-afternoon, so I went out on the road that runs past my house, which leads to Trausse and beyond, to Felines, a pretty village in the hills.  I have ridden this road many times in the last three years and it is not challenging, 12 kilometers each way, 15 miles in all.

     A year since my last ride, not much has changed: the allees of plane trees are untouched, the roads are as empty as ever, the old windmill up the hill from the Chateau de Paulignan still stands, Felines  is as sleepy as ever.  What had changed is that the tree snails were out, their white shells visible on every low-lying branch of reed grass, now that the summer's heat is a thing of the past.  In contrast, the Languedocien standard that used to fly proudly over a grove of oliviers within walking distance of  Caunes, is gone.

     And I am a year older.  (My birthday is Wednesday.)  But I made it back and forth from Felines without any physical strain.  Perhaps I'll get a happy chance to test my physical capacities further before I leave the Minervois towards the end of October.  Which would be ample reward for almost nine months off the bike.