Excuse me, but do you know about New York City in the summer?

Do yo know about the exuberance? The motivation to spend hours in a park? Do you know about how the buildings tower over pockets of green, peering down, jealous?

Have you breathed in the air shared with nine million people, all wearing very little clothing? Bumping elbows on sidewalks, sharing sweat and furtive glances around the corner; dirty, odd-numbered side streets where burly men throw parcels on to trucks lead to wide open, heat-seared avenues of migrating men in suits, of blaring taxi horns.

The whole city sweats - the smell of that stagnant water in the gutter, or of the sudden moist greenery of Central Park where you go to lie in the grass, to get impossibly grass-stained dirty in a fit of cuddling and wrestling with a friend.

Don't you want to yell and laugh? Grab a stranger's hand and spin around? This is what will happen: the crowd (and yes, there will be a crowd, for where are people but outside on the sidewalks?) will push back to create a circle for you and they will watch, some with glowing eyes, some warily, but when they skulk off they will remember your movement, your effortless and graceless abandon, and they will dance someday too.

New York City in the summer! I let slip to a boss the phrase "slacker summer" not once, but twice. I didn't hide the look on my face when I was asked about my five-day weekend, but let flow facial expressions, grins like laughter at the feelings from letting myself ride, enjoy the sun, enjoy a date or three in new york city, unencumbered, in the summer.

Why hide it? I challenge the liars. You don't want to be indoors anymore than you want to excise a piece of your heart. You don't want to be working, and if you say you do, then I challenge you to run around the block and then head to Madison Square Park; sit on the grass for thirty minutes and then I'll show up with a blended fruit smoothie or some sort, or a beer in a paper bag. Tell me now where you'd like to be!

I was at Coney Island for the Mermaid Parade and, dehydrated, undercaffeinated, and slightly boggled by the hour-long bike ride there, and the sudden infusion of piercing, bleached sunlight, lost my place as I found myself listening to a voice in my head narrating thoughts I didn't know I had; it did take me a moment to realize that the voices came from a loudspeaker, cabled to the announcers speaking the afternoon from their vantage point on the grandstand, but it felt like they were holding my hand through the oddest of dreams.

Later that afternoon, I hopped on my bike and rode somewhere else.

I do, I love it, I feel better than I have in a while. Chalk it up to several things if you want to - and that's okay - but I'm just going to say that I am thrilled by this love affair with New York City. It may take me longer to fall in love with the sighs and resignation of autumn (The Tartar Steppe) or the dream clarity of winter (Winter's Tale), but maybe I need to try harder. Maybe I even will.

I curse, fiercely and forcefully. It's just gotten dark and the rain is starting to come down hard again; I am on my bike on Broadway in the 30's, heading South of course, and I'm in the worst place possible during an alleycat race: alone. The rain exacerbates the darkness and the lights glaze everything in a shine that obscures rain-filled potholes, pedestrians sneaking out in the road, and my desire to continue riding hard. We're two thirds of the way through Broadway Bomber and I do not yet have a bruised hip, scraped arm, and cracked helmet.

Despite a few mishaps on the way to the starting line - a wipeout in the rain and a broken seatpost bolt suffered by a non-racing friend - the race started off great. We gathered in a parking lot at the tippy top of Manhattan and waited around, staying warm and grabbing snacks from an over-airconditioned bodega. For once, I didn't mind waiting for an excessively late start - the longer we waited, the drier the roads were getting. I should put it in the singular: road. This race started at the beginning of Broadway in Manhattan, and ended at the end. Thirteen and a half miles from the top to the bottom: Broadway Bomber.

When they're ready to begin, the organizers lead us over the Broadway Bridge into the Bronx, to a parking deck behind a Target, a few blocks away from the Bridge. Mike Dee abuses us a little bit when one person crashes and two people flat on the bridge - "You were advised to stay off the steel roadway! There are two perfectly good concrete sidewalks for you to use! Now shape up and get in line!" Before beginning there's a brief hype session. The top twenty finishers from the last race, Rumble Through The Bronx, are given front spots in the pack and gold stars, while the others are told that we are the ones to beat.

I'm strangely calm by the time the security guard comes around to tell us to leave. Mike Dee and Chris ignore him, finish their speil, and with a whoop and a hoot, send us packing. Not knowing how to get off the deck, I follow the dozen guys in front of me down a ramp, and for a few minutes, it's a quiet, tense scramble over sidewalks, off curbs, and the wrong way down the street until we get to the bridge. We all take the sidewalk; I decide to be cautious until we get to open street, and I think everybody else decides this, too, but the difference between me and them is that my cautious is a little bit slower. When we get on to the street and I get up to speed, the leaders have a block on me.

I hop on the wheel of a tall, wide-smiled guy on a Pogliaghi, drafting him. As usual, the first push has fooled me into thinking I'm tired, but as we start up the first challenge - a long, steady climb up to the George Washington Bridge - I settle into a smooth spin and wiggle my eyebrows at a few cheering bystanders. I'm putting space between me and the people behind me, and trying to close the space in front of me. If I can stick with the front pack...

In and out of the first checkpoint, and onward! The next checkpoint is at an island on 163rd; "Eat a donut!" Jacob from Boston says; I take a bite, yell "fifty five!" and get my manifest stamped, and head out as Heidi pulls in. I hear say, "Nope, I'm vegan..." and as I'm pulling out, see a few people overshoot the checkpoint. I settle in to another climb; Heidi pulls next to me and we chat. She passes and pats her butt, yelling, "Hop on!" and I jump on her wheel to draft, spinning well and moving fast in the open stretches of Northern Broadway. I want to work with her, so on some of the fast descents, I take the red lights with my hand brake and give her a signal so she can bomb through with no brakeless reservations.

At the 125th checkpoint we're told, "tenth and eleventh." Nice! I clip back in and we head up the hill - I see a few riders ahead of us and say, "What say we make up a few places?" We pick up the pace going up hill, but then I see something too tempting to pass up - a bus that I can catch up to. I grab a hold on the wheel well, lean away from the wheels, and enjoy a great, fast-paced skitch up to the crest of the hill. I pull in before Crihs, but pull out after him. It's hard getting my manifest in and out of my damp pocket - I finally resolve to buy a cool hip pouch.

The hills are over and we've got time to settle in to a little paceline. Crihs greets me by name - that's cool, I didn't know he knew who I was - and as we're tearing down the Upper West Side we're working together with another couple of riders, communicating well and absolutely flying. My plan was to ride really hard for these stretches of the race, knowing I won't be able to handle the sub-42nd street traffic as fast as some of the others. If I'm keeping pace with Crihs, then the plan is working. Lincoln Center Checkpoint: Check. I tear through Columbus Circle but lose half a block on Crihs and the other two guys.

Suddenly, I realize it's getting dark. I navigate Times Square badly and have to hop a curb, ride through some tourists' picture, and drop off a curb to get to the checkpoint where Amanda, Chombo, and others are working. I pause for breath and realize that I've been dropped: dammit. 42nd street is jampacked and I go through it awfully slowly. My manifest is getting soaked and gross and I don't know where the next CP is - I don't want to fly by it, and I have no security of people in front of me pulling over. Without other riders to keep up with, my pace sags.

And then comes the rain. It starts slowly, with the realization that the street is wet, but then it is drizzling, and then really coming down. It is getting nasty. I'm tense and unhappy - we're in lower Manhattan and this is not a good place for racing. I take the Madison Square Park interchange badly and need to dive across a few lanes of traffic. Kym pulls up behind me as I slow off - "Don't slow down now!" she yells. I thank her and put in a new burst of energy, which lasts me until Union Square. I figured the Checkpoint would be on the island on the southeast side, but as Broadway hits the top of the square, a guy is yelling, "Checkpoint in here!" There are metal gates, can't go through, need to turn around, and then my tires slide, bike is on its side, I'm following it down, and I hear the crunch of my helmet against the pavement.

Stop, start. This is how accidents work. Different day, different time. I get up and grab my bike and straddle it and mumble something. "How's your bike?" Someone asks me. "Don't know, keep racing," I say. I get my mani stamped and I'm shaking my head and body out as I pick up another manifest off the ground in time to see Heidi come back around the corner, looking for hers. I hand it off to her - she barely breaks stride and takes off. I struggle to catch her and do - we share a few grumbles. The race has taken a foul turn - crashing rattles me, the conditions were absolutely dangerous, and the traffic was getting worse in lower manhattan, famed for covering road work with metal sheets. I just wanted to finish this race and get off my bike.

At the next checkpoint, Kym is off her bike, bleeding profusely from her hand. Gary catches up and I get re-energized. I want to beat him. We're getting close but I don't know where to finish. A cab squeezes me against the curb and I elbow its panel sharply; a few riders pass by on the other side and I lose more places - damn. Kym blows by me, still bleeding. Damn. And then there's a bull - we must be close, but I don't know where. I barely know where I am and can barely see where I am. I hear a yell and see a finish line, well off to the side. I yell at those in front of me, do a death-defying turn between a bus and a sedan, and make for the steps of the U.S. Customs House, ahead of everyone I had just passed. I run up the steps.

"How'd you do?" someone asks. "Only went down once," I mutter, as my manifest is checked over. I hand it to Hodari and the guy with the computer and go back down the stairs again. The pack is filtering in, and then it's a swarm, and suddenly there are a lot of bikes at the foot of the stairs.

I need to walk around. I feel weird, shaken, uncomfortable. I got tenth place, I should be thrilled, right? Top Ten in a NYC alleycat. But I didn't like the last two thirds of the race, and I only got top ten because I got lucky at the finish, and I'm cold and wet and tired. I talk with a few other people and more stories fill in - a crash over here, over there. Jeremy running from Canal Street after blowing his last tube in a crash. Heidi's ankle bleeding. Oh, and that sound I heard at the beginning of the race, on the ramp? That was Dan.

But that's races. A pretty big roll of the dice, about conditions, competition, and the ability to see where you've got to go. I don't feel lucky to get top ten - I got nothing out of it, and who wants bragging rights by beating their friends by dumb luck? Points were awarded seven deep for this race - I come up empty.

I have good company. We watch the fireworks. It's okay. It's just a race. My body is sore, but everything's okay.

Racin' some bikes!

I took my chances in another alleycat race this past weekend, and rode to a respectable 10th place in New Haven, Connecticut. There's nothing quite like doing well despite a couple of mix-ups and getting lost to make you vow to do a whole lot better next time, especially when it's combined with repeatedly catching up to (and passing) a fast local, only to have them pick a better route from behind you, and emerge in front of you yet again.

On my commute to work this morning I thought a little bit about why I ride in alleycat races. I'm aware of the tendency for bikeishness to lean toward snobbishness and general jockery, and don't want to be a part of it. Bikes are for fun, not status symbols. So it was a funny moment to realize, hey, wait, alleycat races are surprisingly non-competetive. I mean, people aim to do well, but I haven't seen any idiotic cock-measuring of "I'm gonna kick your ass today!" People ride hard, cooperate frequently (I rode the whole race alternating between drafting off of and pulling another NYC rider, and was joined by several CT folks at many points of the race), and are generally out to have fun with the mentality that anything can happen in an alleycat race. It's not about speed, nor is it about geographical knowledge. It's about both, with a healthy bit of luck thrown in - are you going to get a good sequence of lights down that avenue? Flat right after the first checkpoint? Pick a direct route only to run into a devastating headwind? Kiss the hood of a taxi?

I think that a lot of riders know that when they ride, there's a lot that is within their control, and a whole lot that is out of it. The sobering threat of an inattentive driver damaging your frame or your body adds to the mix the knowledge that whatever happens happens, and it's preferable to some of the worse-case scenarios.

Bike races are fun. Before I started doing them, I was pretty convinced (based on slim evidence, mind you) that racers were a hardcore, exclusive bunch. I've since been proven wrong. When you're on the outside of something, it's really easy to be scared of stepping in. When you're inside something, though, it can slip one's mind to reach outside. That's why I like having fun at races, being friendly to bikers who haven't raced, encouraging them to race - to test their limits, improve themselves.

After all, I'm at a point where one of my notions of fun is to sprint my bike around for 20+ miles through traffic, and I can do it well enough, too. It's a physical feat that I never really thought I could accomplish until I realized it was within my grasp.

That was the point at which I thought, I wonder what else I can do - on bikes, and off.

It's been a while since I've updated this blog, but I still have big plans for it. Consider this time to be a bit of a winter semi-hiatus. After all, it is cold; we are less expressive, insulated among coats and layers. Trees, in the winter, look barren and dead, but it is in the winter that they grow underground, their roots expanding outwards to support the weight that will grow on them in the spring and summer.

That's how it is here at tristatevagabond's headquarters. I've finished building the Pogliaghi (pictured above!) - the right saddle, used, from eBay; wrapped the handlebars with cloth tape; got its own pedals. I took a few minutes on Saturday to take some pictures of it in the sunlight. I wanted to go for a ride, but the cold scared me back indoors, and instead of riding I picked up a guitar and played.

I'm in something of musical crisis, but I have new projects in the works.

I've got big plans for the spring - places to explore, photos to take, even new art ideas that, well, I've been keeping to myself. Growing underground, one might say. Anticipating the return of that exuberant weather, that warmth that makes strangers smile at each other, that makes people flirt with each other, that makes people laugh and dance and make beautiful things.

Planning beauty with secret smiles, while bundled against the cold - New York City in the winter.

There's something about Interstate 95 in New Jersey that's magnified by a wet, humid Saturday morning in January - the whole state seemed moody and hungover, the worse for wear. On the way back, the Delaware Bridge was obscured by fog; crossing the George Washington Bridge after sunset we saw the lights climbing the suspension cables before disappearing into the dark fog. Even Manhattan was barely visible.

Several times on the drive I pulled out my camera, but put it away for lack of space on the memory card, and for another reason too. Photographs are just photographs - they can beautifully augment an experience, capture a moment, or the process of doing that can leave you stuck behind a viewfinder.

So, attempts to write the song that perfectly archives this or that Life Experience - with humor, hindsight, regret, nostaligia - can occasionally be detrimental to one's ability to learn from a situation. Archiving life by writing about it is a good idea, but sometimes those songs and stories must remain unfinished, so that I can remember what I carry with me - past, pain, joy, love. Keeping yourself firmly rooted in the past is part of staying in the present.

And, with that said, I'll close with a joke about how coming to visit somebody From The Future is way more of an exciting and terrifying prospect than saying to somebody, "I Am Coming To You From The Paaaaaaaaast!" Because really, that should not come as a surprise to anybody...

In an odd turn of events, I have a very nice thing. A new bicycle frame, possibly a redundancy in my slim fleet, but the offer was too good to pass up. A classic 1970s track frame, built by an acknowledged master, with a beaten-up paint job and an owner who's too big for it. The price I got was better than good, and so I started aquiring a few parts for it - used cranks, a used front wheel, a cog. I'm still looking for a rear wheel and pedals that I can put on it permanently so I don't have to swap back and forth between it and my daily rider, but quite frankly, since building it up late last week for a weekend's worth of beautiful weather and riding around, I've barely gotten off it. I've even commuted on it.

That, of course, brings up questions in my head about the smartfulness of riding "brakeless" in city traffic, but I consider myself a careful and skilled rider and have geared down, letting me accelerate and decelerate with greater ease. I've had no problems so far, except for the occasional bump of my foot against the front wheel - the frame has significant toe overlap, which takes some getting used to.

Fortunately, I've got the opportunity. Winter has not lived up to the expectation that it would force me from my bike and into moody restlessness. It's been a curious winter. Temperatures in the single digits in early January and nothing bur balmy since. We were all lightly dressed for the Memorial Ride for Fallen Cyclists this past weekend; we all sweated our asses off at the New Years Eve Alleykitten. We sniffed curiously at the gas smell on Monday morning.

Those of us trapped at desks only heard about the brief moment or two of snow flurries that fell this morning, after commuting hours.

Sometimes in the middle of the week, it's hard to stay focused when you're looking forward to the end of the week. My band Maxwell's Demon is playing a show down in Washington DC, and I'm ready to skeedaddle from work on Friday afternoon, have a dinner party in Brooklyn, bike back up for some sleep and leave town early on Saturday morning to turn the amplifiers up. After all... the boys are back in town!

This morning's commute:
19 degrees Farenheit.
Winds at 26 mph, gusting to 35 mph.
1 degree with the wind chill.

Fucker!