The Green Bicycle Saves the Day: Part II

The streets of New Haven being less charming than the bucolic beach roads of New Hampshire and Maine to a cyclist with now other aspirations, the green bike was eventually, after having served dutifully many thousand miles, stored away.

The streets of New Haven being less charming than the bucolic beach roads of New Hampshire and Maine to a cyclist with now other aspirations, the green bike was eventually, after having served dutifully many thousand miles, stored away.

During the decade after college, when I apprenticed under a good number of the world’s best chef’s, the green bicycle made only infrequent appearances.  After all we were working eighteen to twenty-hour days.  Sometimes though, the urge to ride would call – I even bought one of those frames that allow you to “ride” the bike indoors; but more often, it would be trotted out of the closet to serve as some sort of hermetic sculpture, a totem of unspecified glories, a perhaps promising topic of conversation with the athletic guest: the girl-who-played-tennis-professionally for example.  But that is for another story: “The Too-Tight Trousers and “The Zone””.  It was not until I arrived at The Ryland Inn in 1991, that the green bicycle seemed to hold more promise than bother.  The Somerset Hills, idyllic back roads, and riding trails along trout streams all beckoned the Reparto Corse out of hiding.

It must be mentioned that the decade of apprenticeship was one of severe financial hardship, my routine having been to work one 50 hour per week job in a “Three-Star” restaurant for money (minimum wage) while also working another 50 hour job for free in a “Four Star” restaurant for “the training”.  So, when I finally appeared at the front door of The Ryland, I was well into six figures of debt (most of it being school loans) and I was well accustomed to scarcity.  Well, the Ryland itself had been during the same ten years, sliding into financial ruin.  At the time, the restaurant was running at a huge loss.  Deferred maintenance was necessarily a high art form – the youngest air conditioner unit was a 1942 “Worthington”, the kitchen equipment was on average 35 years old; and when it rained heavily outside, it also rained heavily inside five of the eight dining rooms.  We were, it seemed, as two foundlings reunited.

In desperation, the owner offered to make me a full and equal partner “if only I could stop the hemorrhaging and just break-even”.  But the “devil’s deal” had a proviso: I could do anything I wanted, except that I could have no money from him nor even borrow money from a bank.  Everything would have to be done from earnings.

Now, the kitchen stoves consisted of a 35-year-old six-burner and a 25–year-old four-burner which was grossly inadequate for the task.  So the first $100 of profit was used to buy a square of pig iron, cut to exact fit and laid atop the four-burner.  Now we had a “flat top”!  Eleven men would share the three foot by eight foot floor space before these two stoves.  All had to stand sideways to fit.  All were working twenty hour days.  All were in Svengalied euphoria.  They were heady times.

Within four weeks we had our first “Four-Star” review from The Courier News, the restaurant was filled with customers and every day was another $100, $200 of profit.  First a copper pot – how we revered it, then another, yet another.  Then a box of Limoges plates – twelve of them!  Now cooking tools: Peltexes, palette knives whisks, mixing bowls.  The world was our oyster.  Suddenly, in the sixth or seventh week, I heard a sound so disheartening it brought dread.  I could hear the grinding of the bearings of the motor to the exhaust hood.  “Oh my God!  If the exhaust motor blows we are dead in the water”.

I summoned the handy man to survey the situation.  The report was terrifying.  The motor had been overhauled so many times, that this time there would be no saving it.  “How much a new one?” I demanded.  The cost was beyond belief – even Croesus would cringe.  It would take every penny of profit of the next three weeks to replace it.   Would the motor hold-out that long?

Fearing the worst, I consulted with the handy man.  Since we could not afford the replacement motor that fit right over the fan shaft, but the restaurant having been in service since 1930, might there not be some other motor lying about that we could hook up if only he could create some sort of transaxle to the shaft, like a power take-off that we could run off a pulley system or chain belt?

He promised to get right at it.  Three days later, he brought forth the contraption.  If memory serves it might have been fashioned from junk-yard riding mower parts.  We tried it on the shaft.  Perfect.  But what about a motor?  Still nothing – further searches.  Then a moment of inspiration: a kitchen rooftop cabal.  The plan was born.

Still five days to go until enough funds to buy the new motor and we were facing a Saturday night.  And it happened:  flames, smoke and screeching. 

“Quick, shut off all the stoves!”
“Run and get the Handy Man!”
“Quick, fetch my bicycle and the roller frame!”
“You! Grab the ladder!”

Within minutes, the burning motor was removed from the fan shaft; the transaxle with its newly-fitted chain sprocket was attached in the motor’s place.  The green bicycle was set on its roller stand very close by and, connecting the bike drive sprocket to the fan shaft transaxle, was a very long bicycle chain – four standard bicycle chains fitted together to form one extra-long loop.

“Now boys, we’ll take turns?  Pedal for your lives!”

And, for the next few days and nights during service, the cooks would alternate roof top detail, pedaling to exhaustion, keeping The Ryland alive.  Inside the lucky ones would cook with renewed appreciation for what we did have.

On the following Wednesday the new motor arrived to much clamor of joy.  Beers were distributed, the Gods were thanked and the brave green bicycle removed below.  In all the excitement, somehow the bicycle was misplaced and never seen again.  It is one thinks likely serving some new master, painted no doubt in some ignominious color other than Celeste Green.

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