• DOT’s JSK Welcomed at NYCC March Club Meeting
  
   
• In Memoriam: Dan Henry, 1913-2012
  
   
• Four Hundred Gorgeous but Harrowing Miles in Sri Lanka

DOT’s JSK Welcomed at NYCC March Club Meeting

By Grace Lichtenstein, NYCC Public Relations Director 

Every cyclist’s favorite city official, Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan, made her long-awaited visits to a Club meeting last Tuesday and urged everyone to “demonstrate your support” for more protected bike lanes, the coming bike-share program and other benefits that have been implemented by the Bloomberg administration over the past five years

There are more improvements to come, she promised, without being too specific.

With her Bicycle and Pedestrian Coordinator Joshua Benson and other aides in tow, she arrived to a packed house at Annie Moore’s. When the crowd of several hundred people greeted Sadik-Khan with a prolonged standing ovation, she thanked them and asked jokingly, “Want to come to a City Council meeting?”

Her message was mostly upbeat: “We’ve come a long way, but we’ve got a long way to go.”  A year ago, she pointed out, the city was experiencing a “bike-lane backlash.” But “cycling has enormous support” in the city, she said, quoting polls that by last October showed 72 percent of the population in favor of the bike-rental plan. (She did not mention that the same poll showed residents split almost 50-50 on additional bike lanes in their own neighborhoods.)

The New York Cycle Club, she said, is in a great position to help solidify the gains made by her department and to see them strengthened even after Mayor Bloomberg’s term ends in 2013.

Make your views known to local elected officials and community boards, she urged listeners, while acknowledging that community board meetings “aren’t the sexiest thing.”

Which key messages to carry forward?  New York is growing not just more bike-friendly but also safer for both cyclists and pedestrians. Commuting numbers are way up and risk of serious injury way down. What’s more, cycling has “environmental, pocketbook and health benefits.”

She also emphasized that “following the rules of the road” are of paramount importance for bicyclists in winning over non-cycling citizens.

Both she and Benson sounded hopeful but vague on further reforms. Responding to a variety of questions from the floor about better access to bridges, additional crosstown bike lanes, dangerous delivery riders and others guilty of “salmoning” (riding the wrong way), educating businesses on safer deliveries and the use of electric-powered bikes (currently illegal in New York State but used by more and more food-deliverers), the typical answer was “we’re working on that.”

Rather than punish the low-wage food-deliverers themselves, she said her department planned to work with their employers on safer riding.  Education efforts also would come into play when the city installs 10,000 bikes in Manhattan and Brooklyn for sharing this summer, a program she believes will propel New York toward the ranks of “world-class” bike-friendly cities such as Amsterdam and Copenhagen.

Benson said that DOT hoped to implement this spring the plan recently unveiled for Prospect Park that would give cars, pedestrians and cyclists their own lanes. Asked about the stalled pilot program for a completely car-free Central Park, he said “I think you’ll see something in the next month or so.”

After accepting Sadik-Khan’s thanks to the Club for its advocacy of smart bicycle reforms, President Ellen Jaffe presented the Commissioner with a token of our appreciation: the long-sleeve red and black jersey bearing the NYCC logo. She promised she’d be wearing it while riding very soon.

Note to NYCC Members:  First person to submit a photo of JSK in the jersey wins a great prize − a large NYCC logo coffee mug. Email to: bulletineditor@nycc.org

Sadik-Khan offered a wry story about how her department’s reforms have affected “hard, hard-core bikers” who remember the meaner streets, traffic hazards and vehicular mayhem of old. One wrote her to complain, she said, that DOT was “taking the thrill out of biking in New York.”

Just a wild guess, but aren’t most of us thrilled that DOT’s changes have made cycling safer throughout the five boroughs?

 

In Memoriam: Dan Henry, 1913-2012

Dan Henry : Diamond Jubilee – NYCC History (1/10/11)

By Jody Sayler, NYCC Lifetime Member

All my cycling life, I have heard of the name Dan Henry – the guy that invented the route arrows painted on the road to guide cyclists during their tours. He was ancient history. Imagine my surprise when David Walls, another NYCC Lifetime Member who now lives in Santa Barbara emailed me last Friday that Dan Henry was still around and here is his phone number! I quickly googled him – Wikipedia – to find all sorts of info, including that he was born in 1913 – so he was 23 years old when our Club was founded.

I called him on Saturday afternoon knowing only that I was calling a guy who was 97 years old in Solvang, California, and not having any idea what to expect. I heard a hopeful ‘Hello’ and I asked,

“Is this Dan Henry, friend of Irv Weisman of the New York Cycle Club who organized the Club’s riding and monthly meetings in the early ‘50s; the same guy who would put his bike on rollers for audiences and strip down to almost nothing from his suit while riding – not to mention the famous arrows?”

I heard a laugh then “Yes”!

I introduced myself as an NYCC Lifetime Member and mentioned that I had organized the 50^th Anniversary celebration. I told him that we were now celebrating the Club’s 75^th Diamond Jubilee. And asked him if he could tell me what he remembered about those early days. He sounded very surprised and asked me if the Club was still active.

Is the Club still active!?

I told him that we have more than 2,000 members. Oh really! Do you still have monthly meetings? How many people come? So I filled him in. I could tell he was as surprised to hear that the Club was still active as I was to learn that he was still active. So I told him about our weekends and our training series.

I asked him about Sid Lang starting the Club in 1936 and he confirmed that it started as a hiking club but was soon – perhaps 10 years later – The Queens Road Club. He lived in Flushing and joined in the early ‘50s and started organizing the rides. He told me they rode every weekend in season and a typical ride would consist of a dozen guys putting their bikes in their cars and driving to the White Plains airport. They’d park their cars, have breakfast at the airport lunch counter and start their ride mostly through Westchester but sometimes they would do longer rides to the Adirondacks.

Besides organizing the rides, Dan started the monthly Club meetings so he appreciated learning that something he started some 60 years ago was still going on.

I asked Dan if I could call him if we had any more questions and he said that he would be 98 years old in March and indicated that it would be difficult for him to get involved. He said he and his wife Trudie would ride together every day until about 2 years ago because he lost the vision in his right eye. I asked him, “So what’s wrong with your left eye?!” I got a good chuckle from him. So he stopped riding because with one eye he had no depth of field. He also told me that around that time Trudie died of a heart attack plus he said he had been in the hospital from a fall the week before and was home resting.

I suddenly realized that I might possibly be the last person to talk to him from the cycling world. I had to let him know how much we appreciated his contributions!

I had a copy of a letter in front of me written from Irv Weisman to Dan Henry in 1987 telling him of our 50^th Anniversary celebration and ending with a personal note. I told him I wanted to read him this note from Irv. I got anxious when he asked how long it would take! I started reading immediately:

Dan, the work which you put into the club years ago is still bearing fruit in the pleasure which succeeding generations of riders are enjoying.

I thank you, personally, and as a member of NYCC, for all that you have contributed to NYCC’s history and to cycling in general.

If nothing else, your mark is found and referred to all across the country in the form of Dan Henry arrows!

But many of us also have recollections of your strip-tease acts on rollers.

Happy cycling, Dan.

Keep well, keep riding, Irv Weisman.

And indeed – Dan was riding until he was 95!

 

Four Hundred Gorgeous but Harrowing Miles in Sri Lanka
 

By Jay Jacobson, NYCC Member since 1992

Cycling in China, Myanmar, India, Bhutan, Thailand, Indonesia, Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos over the past 20 years have heightened my fascination with this part of the world. It’s “where it’s happening these days” and exciting for me. Another plus is that the weather in January and February is always warm and dry in Southern Asia.

Some of my American and Australian cycling friends have toured with Bangkok-based Spice Roads Cycle Tours and have recommended them. Sri Lanka’s civil war ended a few years ago and numerous recent travel articles have touted it as an up and coming travel destination. It appealed to me as being somewhat similar but also somewhat different from India where I have been on three trips so I thought the comparison might be interesting.

The dates of the tour which included 10 days of biking were January 15-28, 2012. A daily average of 40 miles might not sound like much but it can’t be compared to U.S. road bike mileage. The terrain, traffic conditions and use of mountain bikes (they loaned me a new Trek) all slowed us down.  In addition, we made frequent stops for photo ops, wildlife and botanic observations, religious sites, farms, tea plantations, rice paddies, etc. The quality of the roads varied and about a third of the time we were riding on dirt paths and roads. The paved roads frequently had numerous potholes.

Very little of the cycling was on heavily trafficked roads. We were shuttled by our van through these stretches. As it turned out the narrow two lane rural roads were scarier to me. Wide trucks and busses came onto the opposite lane for passing slower vehicles. When they approached us in our lane without slowing, we had no choice but to quickly get off the road on our bikes onto whatever (if any) sandy shoulder existed. If we were lucky there were a few inches of shoulder before an unguarded precipice with a drop of 300 or 400 feet or more. I don’t think there is a word for guardrail in the local (Sinhalese) language. As in most Asian countries, the larger vehicle takes the priority!

In his recent book, “Tea Time with Terrorists” Mark Stephen Meadows calls Sri Lanka’s Highway A9 “the Highway of Death” for this reason. It dawned on me that I had never noticed a first-aid kit in our van. I didn’t ask our otherwise-capable guide, Sampath, if he had ever taken a first-aid course. I didn’t even think about conditions of the hospitals in the rural areas we cycled through. Fortunately, none of our four tour members required medical attention.

The $2,600 cost of the tour included most of the meals, bike rental and a hotel single-room supplement. (Much less than an American company would have charge for a tour of this length.) My co-cyclists included a lovely Australian couple and an Italian man, Valentino, who is a strong rider. In addition to Sampath, there was our van driver who accompanied us.

Sampath knew all the routes in his head. We always rode together, following him and didn’t require cue sheets (just like me and the NYCC rides I lead!) We started on Sri Lanka’s West Coast near the capital and airport of Colombo at Negombo along a string of fishing villages. By the third day, we started climbing in a northeastern direction into the interior. One afternoon, we left our bikes for a wildlife safari on a jeep on which we observed elephants, wild buffalo, deer, etc.

The next day we had a very difficult climb of about 15 miles and sunny skies and for the only time I really felt hot. The ensuing descent was a bit scary for me with sudden twists and turns on a sandy road downhill (of course without guardrails!) so I opted for the van to take me down.

As the tour started to wind down and we approached the East Coast, during the last several days the riding became less demanding—more undulating and flat. We crossed Sri’s lush tea growing regions.

They were attractive beach resorts on the beginning and ending days. One hotel, between

Galle and Colombo looked like it was copied from a beach resort in Miami or San Juan. The other hotels varied greatly in quality. There was not any hot water at three hotels. One didn’t even have a hot water spigot! I assume the second hotel’s solar panels weren’t functioning and perhaps the third was on a cost-cutting program. On the other hand, three or four of the hotels were extremely luxurious.

The food also varied substantially and included both Sri and Western cuisines. Incidentally,

Sri Lankans customarily eat (mostly curry and rice dishes) with their fingers. There are sinks strategically placed near the dining room tables for pre- and post-dining hand-washing. Perhaps this is why Sampath, unlike bike tour guides elsewhere in the world, didn’t eat with us much.

I should emphasize that the lasting favorable impression I took home was the beauty of the countryside, deep verdant shades of palm trees, tea plantations, rice paddies among various other plants flowers and trees. To accompany the scenic beauty, we had nearly perfect weather − nary a raindrop in the 12 days!

The words Sri Lanka means “land of friendly people.” It couldn’t have been more apt. As we cycled through numerous villages and towns, we were always greeted by waves and hellos from the denizens, children to octogenarians. There wasn’t a single incident of hostility, even rudeness.

By the way, NYCC member Linda Wittner also recently toured Sri Lanka on two wheels, with another touring company, Exodus. If you are considering a tour to this interesting and exciting part of the world you may want to also get her impression.