Issue Seven

In Buffalo’s Golden Era, the Ring Road was an ideal destination for a Sunday afternoon carriage ride. Today it attracts the increasing numbers of city dwellers in search of physical fitness or a convenient venue to shed the stress of modern life. They come in all shapes, sizes and ages. Their modes of transportation range from walking shoes, to baby carriages, to roller blades, to scooters, and of course bicycles.

Frustrated by the repugnance of city street riding, I often opted to strap the bike on the back of my car and drive to the rural open spaces of Wyoming or Niagara counties. When time was short, usually on weekdays, such trips were not an option. That’s when I would head to my fallback option, the Ring Road.

The City of Buffalo is blessed with one of the country’s most impressive park systems. Designed by famed architect Frederick Law Olmsted in 1868, the system boasts a number of glorious circles linking spokes of wide parkways throughout the city. While insensitive city planning and the Dutch elm disease have robbed Olmsted’s work of some of its original splendor, there has been a recent resurgence in the community efforts to protect and restore this distinctive reminder of Buffalo’s historic prominence.

At the heart of the city and the heart of Olmsted’s design is Delaware Park, originally known simply as “The Park.” This 350 acre green space in the northern part of Buffalo has a rich history, from its pre-park days as a camp site for War of 1812 soldiers to its prominent positioning at the southern edge of the 1901 Pan American exposition. Olmsted’s design included a man-made lake extending east to west through the middle of the green space.

The subsequent invasion in 1960 of an expressway along the north side of the lake has regrettably cut the park in half. The expressway is ironically named Scajaquada honoring a Native American who would have certainly disapproved of the concrete disruption of this green space.

Most current-day citizens are oblivious to the intrusion of the expressway. They have never known it any other way and they flock to both the north and south sections of the park. They come to visit the zoo, fish in the lake, or just to sit and enjoy the environment. But the vast majority come to play and to exercise, especially on the northern space.

This section is ringed by a paved road, a little less than two miles in circumference. The 120 acres inside the ring teem with sports activities, ranging from rugby, baseball, soccer and tennis to an 18 hole golf course which is wedged awkwardly in amongst the various playing fields. It’s not uncommon to see an errant golfer lining up a wedge shot that must carry a youth soccer field but stop short of the ice cream stand. Tiger Woods has faced few of the unique hazards posed by the Delaware Park golf course.

In Buffalo’s Golden Era, the Ring Road was an ideal destination for a Sunday afternoon carriage ride. Today it attracts the increasing numbers of city dwellers in search of physical fitness or a convenient venue to shed the stress of modern life. They come in all shapes, sizes and ages. Their modes of transportation range from walking shoes, to baby carriages, to roller blades, to scooters, and of course bicycles.

Given a choice, I avoided the Ring Road as a training site despite its proximity only a half mile from my home. While car traffic has been restricted to only a quarter of the circle, the crowds of walkers,  joggers and bladers travelling in different directions at different speeds are spatially incompatible with a bicycle going twenty miles per hour. As the summer wore on and my weekly training goals increased, I was on my bike every available hour of six days each week. Even after working late, I could still fit in a quick trip to the ring road and add another fifteen or twenty miles to my weekly mileage log.

Such was the case one wet Wednesday evening in late July. As I drove past the park on my way home from work, I calculated that misty rain in the air would not hinder my bicycling but would convince many of the after-work exercisers to post-pone their walks or jogs to a better day. Twenty minutes later I was entering the park on my bike and was pleased to find that my logic was accurate. Only a scattering of stern faced joggers were spaced generously around the road.

Settling into a steady rhythm, I half-circled the park and headed toward the gradual hill on the south end of the ring. With everything in order I reached down to adjust my new side mirror, recently acquired to replace the one I’d somehow lost in the Roswell Ride. As I fidgeted with the mirror, I caught a glimpse of another rider behind me. His brightly colored, boldly lettered jersey and shorts announced his status as a serious road racer. His hands were low in the drops of his handlebars and his torso was pitched forward to achieve maximum aerodynamics. His head was up, eyes fixed on my back. I had no doubt of his intent to use me as today’s contribution to his bicycling ego.

Since my first ride in May, I had been reminding myself that I was training to ride a long and arduous route, not to win a race. Yet, as family and friends will attest, my competitive spirit, while not always visible, lies very close to the surface. I thoroughly enjoy activities in a non-competitive atmosphere, but once challenged, I hate to lose.

Without conscious thought, that competitive instinct kicked in as this garish challenger pulled within a few feet of my rear wheel. Looking ahead to the incline of the small hill, I picked up my pace and pushed steadily toward the top. About thirty yards from the hill crest, I rose out of my saddle and used my weight to accelerate my speed up and over the hilltop.

Settling back in my saddle, I peeked back and noted my foe fifty yards behind, laboring to keep his pace. Having beaten him, I was now intent on punishment and sped off downhill to put even more distance between us. Hugging the inside curb at the north end, I started to take another look back, when just in front of me the blue plastic door of the roadside port-o-potty swung open. Carrying too much speed to brake, I swerved enough to avoid a catastrophic direct hit, but my new side mirror was neatly cleaved off at the neck.

As I collected the broken pieces and apologized with abundance to the shaken port-o-potty occupant, my would-be challenger passed by. My side view of his physique suggested that he had been spending significantly more time at the dessert bar than on his bike seat. Evidently, clothes don’t make the man even in the bicycle world.

Unlike skiers it is a rare biker who dares to wear the fancy garb unless he or she has the skill to match. My brief period of triumph was effectively muted two days later when on a return trip to the Ring Road, I was relegated to the wake of two experienced riders enjoying an early morning side-by-side chat at better than 25 miles per hour. My humility was once again restored.

William G. Gisel Jr. is chief operating officer of Rich Products Corp. in Buffalo, New York. In August 2001, he, along with his friend Ted Walsh, participated in a 500 mile bike trek across Alaska to raise funds for AIDS vaccine research.