Sorry I'm Late, I Thought It Was Still Wednesday

Remember Ann Pfoser Darby, the community board member in Queens who said that we won't need any more bike lanes once Trump deports all the illegal aliens?

Well you should, because I just mentioned her yesterday.

Either way, you'll be pleased to know she's retracted her comments and apologized.

Just kidding!

Nah, she totally doubled down:

Pfoser Darby doubled down on the comments when reached by phone Wednesday, saying she was sharing her observations with the community over bike lanes already installed on Queens Boulevard.

"I see who goes by and who doesn't, and there was a lot of people going by to work early in the morning and like about 90 percent of them are gone," she said — adding that she took it as a sign that these people have been "picked up by ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement.]"

"It looks like they were illegal aliens, I don't know, I didn't speak to them," she added.

When asked how she could tell someone's immigration status from afar, she said it's "observation and logic."

"You can kind of tell, especially sometimes the way they dress," she said, adding later that it's obvious if "someone speaks only Chinese."

90 percent of the people using the bike lane have suddenly disappeared, really?  Has she checked her cataracts?  Because she sounds pretty addled, even for someone born in the early days of the Roosevelt administration.  (Frankie, not Teddy.)  Anyway, it would be easy to dismiss all of this as the harmless ranting of an old racist still waiting to get discovered by Norman Lear, except that she's a member of a fucking community board that makes life and death decisions.  Why should someone so out of touch have any input at all on whether there's a bike lane on 111th Street, or on anything that affects public safety?  When this woman was a kid here's what 111th Street in Corona, Queens looked like:

I'm sure she'd like to turn back time to the heady days of rolling hoops and throwing rocks at immigrants, but sadly those days are gone.

I wonder #whatpressureyourunning was appropriate when gravel-grinding on 111th Street in Corona back in 1938.

Speaking of #whatpressureyourunning, while riding north of the city this morning I decided "screw it," hopped a guardrail, and scampered into the woods:

My bike was over-geared and under-tired and wearing street clothes, but it was an enjoyable detour nevertheless:

Actually, it was probably an enjoyable detour because of all those things, since I'm finally learning that the less "prepared" you are for a ride the more enjoyable it's likely to be.

Oh sure, there's now a bike and a drivetrain and a tire tread pattern for every conceivable type of terrain, but that doesn't mean you need any of it.  If you run out of gears and your rear wheel starts slipping you get off the bike and walk, it's really not a big deal.

I realize this may seem like common sense to you, but for me as a recovering Fred it's been a long and technical climb to spontaneity--though one that's been aided by my relocation to the Bronx, since it puts me within easy striking distance of this sort of thing, whereas from Brooklyn you've got to ride for two hours in any direction just to escape the sprawl:

Still, as bucolic as this particular spot may seem it's still the suburbs, and there appeared to be some sort of local ordinance requiring every resident to own at least two dogs.  Indeed, at one point I was set upon by a pack of hounds and terriers who, fresh from frolicking in a stream, all decided to paw at my crotch:

Funny how that sort of thing never happens when you want it to.

Anyway, I continued to ramble:

And enjoyed the handiwork of the local trail builders:

Which today's high winds had effectively air-dried after yesterday's heavy rains.

Then I took to the gravel, despite the fact that I was not riding an industry-approved gravel bike:

Really I don't think anybody would approve of my travel bike with its ungainly spacer stack, but for whatever reason it's been the bike I've been gravitating towards lately:

It may be time to start curating the route for the 2017 Grand Fondon't.