Category: Unit 2 (Page 4 of 7)

The first memories I have about the bicycle come from a long time ago, and I could say that when I was approximately four years old, I already wanted to be on a bike, like most of the people I saw on the streets of the town.

I grew up in a town of 14,000 inhabitants in Colombia, which means that it is a community with a small population compared to the big cities in the world. It is a small place, which means that the social conditions are different in their practicality and perhaps slower. Cars are not used much in the towns; people usually get around on foot, by bicycle, or by motorcycle. Everything is relatively close, and the roads or mountains facilitate the use of these means of transport.

I have very explicit scenes from my memories with the bikes—all kinds of images. A man was transporting fruits and vegetables on his bicycle. A lady was taking her children to school by bicycle. Other people are on their way to work on bikes. I remember my teachers arriving at the school garden on their bicycles, which had baskets that carried their folders and books. I remember that, in the afternoons, it was very common to go to the park and see the boys and girls on their bicycles, playing all kinds of games, from races to a bit of practice with acrobatics. I remember asking for my first bike when I was four years old as a Christmas present. Surely I had good behavior because it was at that age that my relationship with this means of transport that is so important worldwide began.

Curiosity drives us to inquire about things that interest us, and ever since I got my first bike, I have wanted to find out about all the possible ways to use it and learn how to do it properly. The first step, of course, is to learn to ride a bike without the support of four wheels. The goal in childhood is to learn to ride a bicycle on two wheels.

Time went by, and I realized that there are different practices to do and learn by bicycle. Among these practices, we find BMX, which is a sport that has two disciplines; one is the races that aim to complete a route in the shortest time possible, and the other is acrobatics, which is about making movements with the body and with the bicycle, which generate positive points. The bike has a unique design and tires for these terrains, typically practiced since childhood.

I realized that in the town, the youngest ones met to create tracks to compete in BMX, and they did it themselves with shovels, removing and organizing the earth to build ramps. Usually, a person who knew about the subject taught them techniques and trained them in this sport.

There is another sports practice, and it is the Trial. In this discipline, the objective is to reach the finish line without speed, only with balance, starting from the ground to the top of an obstacle. The obstacle can be a barrel, rocks, vehicles, or others. It is a more professional and adult practice, and the design of the bicycle is also specifically for this discipline since they usually do not have a saddle or gears.

I discovered the Bike Trial on television, and throughout my childhood, I heard people talking about it. It is a sport that they describe as high intensity and risky. It would be best if you had a lot of practice to do it well and even participate in competitions.

Among the disciplines applied to cycling, I also discovered mountain biking. It is the one that has caused me the most curious of all the ways of using a bicycle because it has seemed to me, as I have grown, that practicing mountain biking is a personal delight. In this modality, you ride a bike outdoors and in natural environments. In general, and doing it professionally, circuits of 6km in length and categories and tests that can last a minimum of 45 minutes and up to 3 hours of travel are made.

With mountain biking, there is a massive advantage in my country, and that is that Colombia is crossed by mountain ranges that allow cyclists to have incomparable landscapes in front of their eyes. That is an advantage of riding on two wheels in Colombia. The mountainous terrain becomes a gift and a passion for those who decide to practice these disciplines because there are also good rural roads, and that is where I realize that route biking exists.

When I realized that road cycling exists, I began to learn about cycling history in Colombia. This discipline is practiced on asphalt, and when discussing competitions, different tests appear, in which the objective is always to finish each stage in the shortest possible time.

My curiosity about road cycling was awakened in me when I was in my teens. It opened the doors for me to meet excellent references for Colombian cycling. I realized then that my country is a cradle of outstanding talents in cycling and that we have very valuable representatives in this sport worldwide.

Boyacá, a city of Colombia, is located in the Andes mountain range, a department of Colombia where great representatives of international cycling originate: Nairo Quintana, Egan Bernal, and Rigoberto Uran. They have been outstanding athletes, and thanks to them, cycling is news every day in our country.

Thanks to them and other references, we have also been represented internationally, such as in the New York Times; in 2019, an article entitled “The Colombian Who Made History at the Tour de France” was published by Sinar Alvarado and made known worldwide that: “Bernal, 22, is not only the first Colombian to win but also the youngest champion of the Tour de France since 1909, and the first Latin American champion in the entire history of the competition. With his win, he fulfilled what had been a Colombian dream since 1975, when Cochise Rodríguez, an early luminary for that country in the sport, made his debut in the race and finished 27th overall.”

Clearly, for Colombians, cycling has been idealized as a sport that generates pride and has become a passion for all fans who practice it. Cycling is part of Colombian DNA. We realize that we have high-level cycling and that the people who have managed to stand out have worked hard and trained hard to achieve it, which has also been shown at an international level.

There are press headlines, videos, images, and articles that tell us that the Colombian is characterized by his “berraquera”, which translates to strength and courage not to give up even though there are many obstacles. As the New York Times proves again in the article “Tour de France Lead Changes Hands as Hail Shortens Stage,” also published in 2019 by Victor Mather, in which he comments on the great triumph of our fellow athlete. “The twist allowed the Colombian Egan Bernal to take the overall lead from the Frenchman Julian Alaphilippe on a day when Thibaut Pinot, also of France, dropped out.”

The most impressive thing about these international representations is that all the effort they have made also has another side. Another story is about how some people start their professional cycling career. These people go through a lot of work and achieve such important goals as world recognition, and when we talk about our cyclists, we speak about peasants.

Peasants who use bicycles in Colombia usually do so to cover a need. In this case, it is the use of the bike as a means of transport to work and the get food. The rural areas in my country are generally of limited economic resources, which forces families to make more significant efforts, to which many of us are not accustomed.

So in Colombia, it is normal to see a peasant transporting himself by bicycle and standing out for having an almost professional performance. In this way, some peasant parents decided to encourage their children and put them to the test in cycling, training them on high mountains and rural roads to improve every day to be high-performance athletes. This is how Egan Bernal and Nairo Quintana begin as peasant children who ride bicycles.

In addition to everything, it can be mentioned that cycling is the protagonist of a sector of the national economy in Colombia. The bicycle industry has managed to produce more than 70,000 jobs in Colombia in what has to do with manufacturing bicycles and the manufacture of clothing designed for this sport.

All these data, and knowledge I’ve gained about cycling in Colombia have been thanks to my own experience and curiosity that caused me to ride the roads of my country in the open air. At some point, I was a young Colombian traveling through mountains and rural roads with the sole purpose of feeling proud of the natural diversity that my country has; taking advantage of the opportunity to share with other people and the pleasure of riding on two wheels, feeling that cycling is a passion.

REFERENCES:

The Colombian Who Made History at the Tour de France – Sinar Alvarado

Tour de France Lead Changes Hands as Hail Shortens Stage – Victor Mather

Pictures: By me when I use to practice Mountain Bike.

New York’s Oozing Problems and How We Can Solve It.

I have been living in Brooklyn all my life but sometimes I would go to the city with my parents. During the times I went to Manhattan when I was younger I would see the things around me. It was amazing. The scenery of gigantic skyscrapers, the streets were relatively clean, there were different people of all kinds and there weren’t that many homeless people. Compared to Brooklyn and specifically, the area where I live is pretty quiet, lacks crime, and is small. But as the year goes by to the new year New York has been degrading there seems to be more crime, more homeless people, everything is pricey, garbage political leaders, so much trash, tax is taking our money, horrible laws, and rent is super high to the point where during the 2021 election there was a political party called “The Rent Is Too Damn High”. Even my own neighborhood has gotten worse with crimes. the only crimes that I saw before we car crashes and occasional robbings, but now it has turned into robberies every other week, and even hate crimes have been increasing lately.

New York is truly amazing but these problems are truly destroying New York to the point where people are leaving in masses. Over 300,000 people have left New York since the last census. We as New Yorkers and others must solve this problem so that we can make New York good again. If we do not try and keep letting it get worse then it will be worse for our future generation and they do the same thing that we did until New York turn into a dump.

The political leader in our state should always try their best to do everything for the people of New York and always be truthful. But what happens when they don’t. “the Cuomo administration had internal data showing that the deaths of 13,147 nursing home residents were reported as of Feb. 3, 2021. But it publicly reported that only 9,076 deaths were tied to nursing homes during that time period, failing to report 30 percent of the deaths”(Ferré-Sadurní). During the beginning of the pandemic, former governor Andrew Cuomo was praised for his control of the COVID-19 outbreak, meanwhile, he was hiding data from the public on how many people died. If Cuomo hid data for this then what other things did he hide from the public? A political leader that is corrupt is another reason why this state is becoming worse. They put bad policies and rules that either make the problem worse or don’t change. Why was Cuomo even governor? The answer is the people themselves. there are many problems that led to bad politicians being elected. A few examples are Not looking at their views but only voting for whatever side they were on, not being a voter,  the main culprit is not voting at all. Voter turnout is how many of the registered voters voted in that election. During the most recent election (2021 Election) The voter turnout was around 21% which is the lowest ever in history (Ngo). We need to actually do our research to find out which candidates we like and go vote.

New York’s problems have drastic effects on us, one of the most recent problems as of March of 2022 is shoplifting and stealing. Abdul Alhirsh is an owner of a smoothie store and was robbed at gunpoint and lost $500 after that he was shortly robbed again ” Earlier this month, he ran out of the store to stop someone who had stolen a bottle of coconut water. The person’s accomplice shoved him to the sidewalk…and no one was around to help. Mr. Alhirsh stood up in a daze, hands bleeding, and walked back into the store.”(Hong) Mr. Alhirsh got fed up and tired of people robbing him of his money so he took matters into his own hands but when the thieve’s friend attacks Alhirsh, only then did Alhirsh realized that he should not have to risk himself for his item. It is an unfortunate thing. The police can not do anything to stop this because they have to deal with other crime and usually see it as less prioritizing.  These people should not have to risk their lives for trying to get their own stuff back even though it is justifiable. Some of them are dangerous and could hurt you. Every month the NYPD reveals the citywide crime statistics for the month and for February 2022. “grand larceny increased by 79.2% (3,762 v. 2.099), and grand larceny auto increased by 104.7% (1,083 v. 529).”(NYPD) Grand larceny is robbery above $1000. If grand larceny has a 79% increase imagine pettier crimes like under $1000 thief. What’s the point in staying in New York if you keep getting robbed that leads to you making less money then after that having to pay the rent that is too high overall causing you to lose your profits. If I were them and I had the money I would relocate somewhere.

New laws are supposed to make things better but sometimes it does not. A man was arrested for robbing a bank in  December 2019. But for some reason, he was released with free bail, Which led to this person robbing more banks. only when the Fed had to join to arrest him because of the fact that he was robbing FDIC-insured banks only then was he actually held(Cohn). Why was this man releaded with free bail? The reason why he was released with free bail is because of the Bail Reform. The Bail Reform gives free bail to people that do certain crimes, for example, some crimes that are  2nd to 3rd-degree Robbery and Burglary as a hate crime, selling drugs to a child, 3rd-degree assault and also a hate crime, Aggravated assault on a child under 11 years old, 2nd-degree manslaughter, aggravated vehicular manslaughter, Grand Larceny, Public lewdness, Assisting in female genital mutilation, Possessing a sexual performance by a child, and another estimate of 130 crimes are made free with bail(CBS). Do these crimes seem like first-time offenders and sorry people would do? The crimes that I have listed are all horrible and whoever commits these heinous crimes should be in prison for a long time. I understand that the bail reform is for the poor that need can’t pay for bail but when there are people that are exploiting it there must be something done. One more example of a person who had exploited this bail reform is Tiffany Harris a woman who went around between December 2019 and January 2020 slapping and cursing 3 Jewish women. She was arrested but guess what happened. You guess right she was freed and two days later slapped another Jewish woman holding her child she was again also got free bail again. How is that fair for someone to assault another person and get no penalty at all there should be restrictions on violent crime out of this bill? This case resonated with me because my family and I are Jews ourselves and when this happen there was a mass amount of hate crimes towards Jews in December 2019 one of the notable ones being the Monsey Hanukkah stabbing where 5 Jews were stabbed and one of them died. I was extremely upset at New York and the NY Government when Tiffany Harris was able to walk out free. It felt like they betrayed me and the Jewish people. Jews are the main target for hate crimes in New York but as of recently both Jews and Asians have been the main targets for hate crimes. If we truly want the Bail Reform to work we must need solutions for it. Some solutions could be making sure that first to second-time offenders are the ones that are able to be eligible for bail reform, taking violent crimes out of eligible crimes, and people that get rearrested can not get be eligible for the bail reform.

I want to live in a New York where people are not in fear of something happening to them. You see some of the problems that affect us every day. We must find a way to fix these problems. Some solution to these problems is voting and researching the candidates and voting for the one you agree with. Try to make others vote by helping them learn how to vote. Pick up trash or bring others to help clean the streets. We should fix the bail reform bill and try to make sure that the good people that make mistakes for low-level crimes do get some Justice meanwhile those that keep on doing the crime should not be able to get free bail and should have a tighter sentence. Fix the rent price to more affordable prices. Lower our taxes, and help fix the homelessness problem by giving them shelter and protecting them so they don’t get robbed or attacked in those shelters. There are so much more solutions to fix New York but we have to think of them altogether. So let’s fix New York NOW.