Bike City: Attempt 4

I have a new bike, my fourth since returning to California ten years ago:

My first was a Long Beach-local company, 3G, beach cruiser that was built like a tank. It was with that cruiser that I learned what I actually wanted from a bike.

It had been my first cruiser. It was heavy and matte-black. I'm sure I even posted about it here. When I went to get a new bike after the first few months in this relatively flat, relatively perfect weathered place, I had a few ideas on brain. Something like my last main bike, before we left San Luis, was what I thought my goal was. It had been a Sport-Comfort Raleigh, something today called a "hybrid."

A hybrid bike blends the characteristics of three kinds of bicycles: road bikes (the classic "ten-speed" and most racers); touring bikes (robust bikes made to handle carrying the weight of travel gear); and mountain bikes (off-roaders with lower pitched seats, suspension and better durability). Here's a picture of one version of the Raleigh SC40:

My edition did not have the suspension on the front tires, but did have the tiny spring under the seat. Mine was solid gray. The reports on this bike were: 1) for novices, it is pretty awesome---good for commuting and sturdy for general getting around on pavement as well as some mellow off-roading; but 2) the parts (seat, brakes, derailleur) are of low quality and make the bike heavier than it needed to be.

I qualified as a novice, and this bike was awesome for me. I rode it from Oceanaire to campus everyday for multiple years, and still used it as my main transport after moving to Palm St, but that was closer to campus. I traveled all around San Luis on my Raleigh SC40, and had nothing but love for it. Compared to Corrie's heavy-ass mountain bike, it was light as a feather.

But, after returning to California, and looking for a bike, I realized that I mostly rode my Raleigh in the heaviest gears, even when jamming up the steep hills. I never liked the easy gears: I want the heavy resistance---it makes me feel alive.

When I test rode a few bikes, the lack of different gears in the 3G Cruiser - Isla Vista wasn't an issue. Another thing I realized I liked: no wires of any kind:

The brakes were of the "coaster" style---backpedal brakes, like with the BMX bikes kids my age had. This beach cruiser style bike was a nice price, a nice look, had what I wanted as far as performance and aesthetics, and held up super well for as long as I possessed it. I even wrote the Two Towns Over piece about riding it.

Where it had been secured wasn't, eh, secure enough, and it was stolen. Bummer. By this point I had been staying up late at night and reading about bikes (just like recently, only not so late one night, rather kinda late many nights), and settled on looking for a different style of bike, the European/Asian city bike. This is what I ended up with:

As terrible as the bike turned out to be---and terrible it was (besides falling apart and resulting in my broken femur, the signs were there early in its generally poor craftmanship)---this bike garnered a TON of compliments and positive attention.

It was creaky, squeaky, rickety and soft, and I pushed it beyond its miniscule limits and paid a drastic price. BUT, my life is better in ways I wouldn't have guessed had this specific reset hadn't happened, so...there's that.

It was stolen, and you can read about it here.

Soon after, Corrie sprung for a new bike, a Decemberween present. This time I went for heavy duty, sturdy, and respectable. I settled on a Virtue, a brand that I had heard of, and the version I got was called, rightly, the Tank:

It was a cruiser, like the 3G. It had no wires, no extra gears, and coaster brakes like the 3G and the Death Bike. I would purchase a serious U-lock and carry the 75lb bastard up the stairs every night to keep it safe.

For the first time since my Raleigh, I had a serious daily commuter. This was my bike for all my new career stuff after my femur healed. I installed a rack and attached a bag to hold clothes and books. I would take it on the train and ride across the 'Hood twice a day. I put literally hundreds of miles on this bike. I blew two tubes on my back wheel in a week and bought a Kevlar-lined tire. I loved this bike.

It was stolen off our balcony at our old apartment. It was a fourteen foot balcony, which means you'd need a ladder. Also, it weight 75 pounds. ALSO it was U-locked to itself, so any thief would be better off breaking the spokes than trying to bust the lock without a torch.

Long Beach has some very ambitious and enterprising drug fiends.

Also stolen from that balcony was our neighbor's bicycle and Corrie's '70s era Peugeot mixte, all three on different days, with mine last. My pedal spoke left scrape marks on the balcony railing.

The Virtue Tank or something like it was what I was looking for now that we, as a family unit, are looking to re-outfit ourselves with bicycles.

IT TURNS OUT THAT BEACH CRUISER-STYLE BICYCLES ARE SOLDOUT ACROSS THE COUNTRY. Rad for them, of course, but it makes it tough for folks like me.

Corrie found a bike for her, with a toddler seat for Camille (the whole kit 'n caboodle is still waiting for some parts before we go pick it up), and at the place where we went looking for her stuff, I found a Linus that fit my needs:

It has no wires, no extra gears, coaster brakes, and is a simple street bike. (It's also the most expensive bike I've ever purchased. Gulp.) It works for me. 

And then, there's the adventures we've had so far, in a short week...

Two Decembers ago we got Cass a bike, and now, since I have a bike and his muscles have developed, he's keen to come out riding with me. Since we're still awaiting Corrie and Cam's finished setup, Cass and I have been going out alone.

And it turns out my Boy is a machine! Maybe being almost five years old sheds light on the reality, but damn, son, he's like, "No, let's keep going," over and over. We went clear across town on the beach path on a busy Saturday. He was still wearing his pajamas (he refused to change and I've learned when to give a shit about fighting him). PJs, helmet, training wheels, all golden boy, jamming as fast as he could go:

Eventually we turned it around, headed away from the beach and into a neighborhood, and cruised home.

And the next day we did it again! We rode across town on the beach, headed into a neighborhood, and came home on quiet streets:

He'd taken the sweatshirt off early on in the trip, but once we went down to the end of the pier, he wanted it back on. He didn't remove it again until we made it home.

At the end of the pier, we took some pictures of our home neighborhood:

And enjoyed some popsicles before heading out:

(Shout out to Into the Spiderverse on that one...)

And now, I've got my bike U-locked right outside our apartment, visible only to us and the courtyard below:

Every time I get on it, if Camille can see, she starts to get all excited and amped, but ultimately disappointed. Her time will come. And Cassius asks me to ride everyday, which I adore.

Those two afternoons, just the two of us, were two of my favorite days ever:

Also, since I'm on the subject of bikes:

• Biking the Shoal Creek Trail in Austin in 2010
  
• Searching for Birth 55: a behind the scene look at how a Caliboy in Brooklyn post comes about
  

Back At It (Again)

I thought I would give a silly name to this post. 

I'm once again reading three books simultaneously, and it feels great. After crushing Opal and Nev, and pondering the Nalo Hopkinson collection, some new arrivals have been combined with a local purchase into a new (for me) trio:

I mentioned that I ordered a few books and them shipped here. This is true. I did not use Amazon. Just wanted to state that. 

Anyway: after viewing the Netflix miniseries, I ordered this copy of The Queen's Gambit. So far the book is difficult to put down, and shows off how true to the book the series was. I thought it would be fine, having seen the show first, so already having in mind specific faces of specific actors chosen to play characters, like it shouldn't be weird...right? Turns out it kinda is. Not bad, just...weird, more weird than I had anticipated.

The middle book there is called Stone Junction. I learned about it from an online community I'm a part of: the introduction is written by Pynchon. So far it's right up my alley: weird, visceral, and Out There.

Big Bang is Bowman's posthumous work. He died in 2012, and this was edited by folks who loved him and knew of its existence. I learned about it from one of my Sunday LA Times book review sections a few years back. It covers the late '50s America through Kennedy's assassination and is written much like a documentary: scene upon scene upon scene with historical pop-culture figures, many scene a fictionalized one, as a whole revolving around some piece of America that died in November of '63. It's good, but...there's no protagonist, no characters to follow and care about.

Is that necessary? It is good...I bought it from a local used bookstore. I try to find things to purchase whenever I visit, and this marked a obvious find, since I've been thinking about buying it since I bought Milkman on my Kindle.

Anyway, Book Nerd in the house!

Tide Pools and Such

This past weekend we did some stuff. Beach stuff. Trying to shake off the confines of over a year cooped up, shake off the pent up frustration and overcome fatigue and emotional exhaustion, just try to start to go about our little lives in any old-fashioned "normal" sense, had us going to some beaches.

I mean: we live right next to the damn beach.

We've committed to going to the beach each Saturday. At least Corrie and I have discussed it many times. Whether that trip means our sandy zone with little surf or a trip by car to further reaches, so be it. This past weekend, we did both. Saturday we went to some tide pools in San Pedro (about fifteen minute drive over the bridges and through Pedro); Sunday we went to our beach (walk and stroller time).

In San Pedro, they were charging $8 to park down at the bottom of the steep hill. I asked about walking it, and they said sure. So...

Corrie and Cass pause to view surfers

Here you can see Corrie and Cass (maybe?) on the walk out.

The tide pools here were rather unpleasant to walk on, but we got to see all manner of cool critters: crabs, both normal and of the hermit variety; sea snails; anemones; even some tiny fish. Large patches of the zone were soft sand, so once you got past the teeny barnacles, it was smooth walking.

There was a huge purposeful breaker placed here at some time on the past, and occasionally the water would crash up on and over it, mildly visible below:

It was a lovely trip.

The next day, at our own beach, I was playing with Camille in the waves, which she loved, while Corrie was burying Cassius in the sand. The first moment I let go of Cam's hands (of course), she fell over in the three inch wave, and as I was bending down to get her, a wave washed over her face, momentarily dunking her fully underwater.

That was not the plan. I quickly got her up into my arms and she slowly began to shiver and view the crashing mini waves with an air of menace. She was mostly done for the day in the water...but I'm sure she'll return to excitement the next time around.

This was a lovely trip as well, even though I left my camera at home and got too much sun.

Saturday-Beach-Day has to become a thing for us, if only to maintain our sanity as we return to whatever we're careening towards.

Glimmer of Recognition Amidst the Swirl

While taking a few minutes to peruse NPR's website, I came across a staggering news article that became worse while reading it. The titles stated that as a country, we were averaging about 10 mass shootings a week for the calendar year 2021.

I did the proverbial spit take, and, after scolding myself for ever being surprised by this grisly factoid, I glanced at the article. It stated that through the 18 weeks so far this year, the country's experienced 194 mass shootings, where a "mass shooting" is defined as any event where at least four people were shot, not including the shooter. They don't need to have died, just having been shot.

Now, I'm a math guy, and I saw that 194 is closer to the result being "almost 11 mass shootings a week" rather than "about 10."

Anyway, to skip to the end: I clicked on the available Gun Violence Archive link and caught a glimpse of this just-concluded weekend---Mother's Day Weekend (because of course)---and saw the 11 incidents. ONE HAPPENED IN CITRUS HEIGHTS. Philly, Newark, and Compton were less shocking if tragically stereotypical.

But Citrus Heights? I can't say if I've ever seen the name of where I spent over a decade (and where Dan and Norm still live) in any random article about anything (where I wasn't specifically looking for information about it).

Looks like some dudes got into a fight at a bar, guns were pulled, four people got shot, and they were still fighting when the cops showed up. According to the Sacramento Bee's article, the shooting victims were recovering at the hospital.

Some Ideas for Later

I just wanted to put some things down here before I forget, so I could come back to them later.

The first is that I finished the Opal and Nev book last week, and it was cool to have a book tugging at my attention all the time. I've been reading Milkman by Anna Burns on my Paperwhite for an embarrassingly long amount of time, and while I am digging it...

I can't finish that sentence. 

It's a Kindle, sure, and that poses its own issues (like I still find it weird to hold and it doesn't give you a page count, only a percent that isn't on a 1-to-1 "page" turn ratio), and the writing is nice and dense (which got critics pissy, a style they would have praised had Ms. Burns been a man), and the subject I find interesting, so...I dunno. I'd kind of like it in paper.

I found a tiny thing by Nalo Hopkinson (Report from Planet Midnight) and Assata Shakur's autobiography. I have an old copy of Bowman's Big Bang I'd love to start. After watching The Queen's Gambit, I ordered a copy of Walter Tevis's book the show was based upon.

The Queen's Gambit was a show I adored, and wanted to write up a comparison of it and (another show I adored) The Flight Attendant, the HBO show starring Kaley Cuoco, the "hot girl" from the stereotype-heavy Big Bang Theory show.

On a deep rabbit hole dive one late night I found a book from the periphery of Thomas Pynchon's sphere, purchased it, and finished it at the Farm a month ago. It speaks to some realities about our TRP, as it was the brain child of someone who at one point was Tom's best friend (when? the dorms and adjacent years). Then I found a book about an orphan brought up by magicians that has an introduction written by Pynchon, and that's on its way here also.

I really just wanted to come to this place and write up that we watched Tenet last night, which was May Day itself, and the first day it was able to stream on HBO. I really liked it. I can understand if someone doesn't like it, and I can see the reasoning behind the notion (I saw written) that it's the most polarizing Nolan film, and has the potential to be a great cult classic.

Granted, it is heavy on exposition and short on character development, but something about it that just gripped me. I'm fully on board with John David Washington's American "protagonist," and the action set pieces are so ambitious, if even a little silly. But what can I say: I like the big swings that Christopher Nolan takes. 

I wanted to put together some ideas on the Nolan films I've seen:

• Memento
• Inception
• Interstellar
• The Prestige
• Tenet
• Batman Trilogy

I ordered them like that for a reason, which I may hold to whenever I write it up next week (or month). 

One last thing I want to elaborate on later: for all its charms and flaws, one of the things that Falcon and Winter Soldier seemed to do, or attempt to do, was normalize "shit" as a curse word. The show is on Disney+, and the word shit is used at least three times per episode. That may be a tiny exaggeration, but at least once is for sure, and plenty of the six episodes have more than just the one time.

Good shit.