Bennet Fischer
bennett fischer
The Ride, Issue 120
 BROOKLYN, NY Is the journey from one's home to job a chore or a delight? In small towns and compact cities, a short stroll through welcoming environs would be considered a pleasure. But the modern world allows fewer opportunities for enjoyment in the whooshing tunnels or humming avenues connecting the growing distances of our nation's commute.But just take a step to the side. Beside those same city streets coexists an alternate universe, where joy can come from the journey to work in a big city. New York City borough dweller Bennett Fischer has found the secret to urban cycling happiness. "I love riding around Brooklyn and the greater New York area," reported this 47 year-old teacher. "I love the neighborhoods, the streets, the attitudes, the skyline views, the great urban parks, and all the great places to stop, look, listen and eat! "It's everything from post-industrial wastelands to high-toned residential enclaves; grand city boulevards to old cobblestone side streets." Starting with his first ride without training wheels on a Bronx sidewalk as a five year-old, bikes long played a role in Fischer's life. Or one bike in particular did. "Getting that 1968 Raleigh Sports 'English Racer' that I owned and rode for twenty five years is a milestone memory," he said. He rode it around his home town of Hastings-on-Hudson, N.Y, and it held up through his college years in western Massachusetts. When he moved to Brooklyn two decades ago, he bought a guide to the city's architecture. "I strapped it to my bike rack and rode through the city neighborhoods, stopping every few blocks to compare notes with the book. It was a great way to get to know the city." Six years ago, Fischer was diagnosed with severe arthritis in his left hip. He returned to regular riding in an effort to take some weight off his hip and build up leg muscles. He fell in love with the bike all over again and realized that he could spend a lot more time in the saddle if he rode to and from work. Since then, Fischer has been regularly commuting the ten mile round trip from Flatbush in the heart of Brooklyn to an old area near the Brooklyn Navy Yard known as Wallabout. That's the location of PS 231, where Fischer teaches art to 3rd, 4th and 5th grade special-needs students from the inner city. "But like so many bike commuters I know, I rarely take the shortest route!" he said. In anything but the worst weather, he stretches his commute to between 20 and 35 miles, taking a convoluted route through the various wilds of Brooklyn's neighborhoods. Another favorite spot can be found in Prospect Park, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux's landscaping masterpiece. Now without his Raleigh (that beloved four-speed was stolen several years ago), Fischer switches between two mounts, one a Habanero titanium road frame and the other an aluminum Caloi Nexa-Cruz. Designed as a beach cruiser, Fischer swapped out practically every part of the latter except the internally geared Shimano Nexus seven-speed hub, and rides it through the winter with steel-studded snow tires. Despite riding year-round, often in adverse conditions, this Brooklynite's most memorably worst ride had nothing to do with weather, traffic or equipment failure. It was his homeward commute on September 11, 2001. PS 231's second and third story windows face downtown Manhattan at a few miles distance from the East River. Fischer's students witnessed the planes crashing into the World Trade Center, and teachers had their hands full trying to make the kids feel safe. One of Fischer's three children, his daughter Catey, was at school on East 15th Street in Manhattan; she joined her aunt, cousin, and tens of thousands of other New Yorkers as they crossed over the East River bridges by foot. "When the school day finally ended I rode home with two colleagues of mine who also commute. The atmosphere was positively eerie," Fischer said. "The streets were clogged with immobilized traffic and pedestrians coming from the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges. But everything was quiet except for the sounds of distant sirens. The mood was of incomprehension, disbelief and anxiousness." A member of Transportation Alternatives, Fischer is keenly aware of the difficulties of city riding. He believes more bike lanes are needed, both on and off streets. "I don't think that on-street bike lanes increase cyclists' safety by any great margin - and they can lull inexperienced cyclists into a false sense of security. But they do lend bike commuters an aura of legitimacy and build awareness of cyclists' presence." He identified speeding motorists, clueless pedestrians and wrong-way cyclists as other burrs in the saddle of an urban commuter. If traffic laws were enforced more strictly, Fischer foresees bicycles gaining respect as legitimate vehicles. "Bicycles give us a certain imagined youthful freedom, but we have to behave like grown-ups to earn the awareness and respect of a car-riding public." | more supercommuters » BikeCulture Magazine and Planet Bike honor the silent hero of the Revolution: the bicycle commuter. A supercommuter rides through every season, in all types of weather, day and night. Choosing the simplicity, health and pleasure of bicycling, a supercommuter isn't necessarily against automobiles. They simply prefer to ride a bike to the grocery store, to work, to a concert or the cafe. nominate a supercommuter » For each issue BikeCulture chooses a new Supercommuter. They are posted here in addition to BikeCulture Magazine. |
