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[1] An elaborate mural is currently being painted on a long wall along my cycling route. I love riding past each day and checking in on what the artist is up to. The graffiti painted over, a new beginning. Sea animals being sketched out will soon be fully formed so I can imagine them swimming with me as I ride.
[2] A new/modernised mixed-use area is being developed along my route. I have been cycling past for at least the last 7 years and gradually watching empty lots turn into cafes, restaurants, housing, bike shops and kindergartens. I love looking up at apartment balconies and windows and seeing how people make them their own and colour their surroundings.
[3] I love watching the seasons change along my route. The way flowers bloom in big wild hedges as I cross the route’s first bridge in Spring, the way vines have twisted along covered the grey cement of the underpass I ride through. I love riding through dry leaves in Autumn and rain in Winter. I love looking down and watching the shadow of my bike appear and then disappear into the shade of the surrounding trees under hot Summer sun. I love riding with a clear view of the stars at night.
My recommendation here is to look up, to appreciate change in your surroundings and in yourself. To see whimsy and poetry in the everyday.
3d ago
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One time I went on a bike ride from Boston to Newport, RI, and it was honestly one of the best times of my life. I remember setting out and being nervous about whether or not I'd be able to make it the whole way. I was pretty new to biking in general and had never created my own route before, so I ended up riding along a lot of highways and paths that definitely weren't made for my bike.
I wrote a new journal entry each time I went through a new town and stopped to take a picture of everything that I thought was pretty, which was nice because you can't always stop to do that in a car, and I feel like it made me take closer note of everything that was going on around me and everything going through my mind. No detour had to "make sense." I was just biking.
I met so many different people who I still think about every so often. My two battery packs and my phone died multiple times, so I had to pivot and find somewhere to stop. I met a woman at the CVS who let me use their picture station because they have all the cords you need and her daughter ended up being one of my classmates. She told me to make sure to call my mom and let her know where I was, and we had a really nice conversation.
It kind of felt like I was in the Truman Show because I don't think I ran into a single person who wasn't nice to me, and we always had something to talk about because everyone wanted to know why I was biking 80 miles. It was mostly because I was bored, but I also wanted to visit a friend. It was pretty spontaneous, and I was underprepared, but I have so many good memories from that trip.
My friend's girlfriend was working on getting her sailing license, and she took us on a sunset cruise that was hosting a bachelorette party and a golf club and we all drank so much champagne and just talked. We went to his local bar and talked to every single person in there. I met a guy who would only let us play darts if we threw them while his hand was on the board, and he ended up getting us drinks the whole night.
Before then, I had never been around that many people who were just genuinely interested in getting to know each other. I had always fallen into just having a specific group of people that I'd open up to and be myself around (which is fine and valid), but it wasn't really until then that it kind of clicked that I was kind of hiding "myself" or all the versions of "myself" that I could be and closing myself off from meeting people who I could get along with or share things in common with, and I carried that feeling the entire way back and met even more people. I stopped at more restaurant's and food trucks to eat alone, and I felt comfortable; it wasn't lonely, and I wasn't afraid to ask someone to take a picture of me or to ask where they were from and just talk.
This post started as something completely different in my head, but I said all of this to say that biking definitely changed my life for the better. I want to bike further, and I want to bike with my friends, and I want to see more things on my bike. Some of my favorite memories from the past 5 years happened while biking. My mom thought it was crazy to spend $450 on a bike, but if you take good care of it, it can last for years and I'm gonna use the same bike to plan a trip cross-country with an Amtrak rail pass this summer.
If you've been considering it, I HIGHLY suggest buying a bike.
Mar 30, 2024
Apart from the obvious (easy way to get more exercise and time outside, cheap, good for the environment), something I really value is the different view of your city that it gives you.
You aren’t bound to avoiding traffic, and it’s usually safer to go avoid main roads, so you end up on some lovely backstreets that you never would have otherwise seen. You also get routed through parks and along the water. Because it’s so easy to pull over and park anywhere, you stop to enjoy things more often too.
I find I interact with and feel way more connected to my city as a cyclist. I‘ve found so many cool spots from having biked by them.
This is a photo from my bike commute before I moved🥲
Mar 14, 2025
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Idk why I only got hip to this method of transport as my primary one this summer as this is my 4th year living in New York. I was notoriously 30 min late everyday to any class before 12pm in college or any class I didn’t care about purely because my method was train or bus then train and I’m one of those people that always just thinks they have 20 minutes to spare when it takes so long for them to put a perfect outfit together and they then negate breakfast every morning. I was often late to morning shifts of retail jobs for similar reasons or the bus just was late late late… Or I’d oversleep so much going to class didn’t even seem worth it.
But now. I realize. If I had just taken a fucking bike. I really wouldn’t have been the latest girl in the world all these years. And I love biking; it’s literally how I survived lockdown. my daily routine was get high all day and ride my bike around my suburban hometown to different locations and keep smoking (until this led to an actual psychosis.)
perhaps I was intimidated by nyc chaos. I will admit electric Citi bike is not for the faint of heart. I’ve almost gotten hit numerous times. And once somewhere around Times Square on my way to the JT concert, a strange man with a high quality camera took a picture up my skirt? Hopefully it was blurry as I was going the speed of light but idk. so many of the docks are broken which may cause insurmountable frustration? And there was one time this summer I went to 5 different stations and every dock all of them were dead and it felt like the electricity system was conspiring against my ability to meet my friends at Mott Street Eatery.
Regardless. I’ve felt safer transporting myself at night without the fee of an Uber. I’m more often at time. I feel like I’m flying. Ive gotten to reconnect with my passion of the bike ride. I love to whip around with my friends who equally love biking. And I feel unstoppable.
My dad wants me and my sister to invest in collapsable helmets but that feels embarrassing like borderline voyeuristic - and I’d have to really commit to the bit as I bike probably average 4x a day now. he says young people avoid safety precautions because we have huge ego. Considering the amount of accidents these fast ass bikes cause: he has a point.
Live love laugh electric Citi bike. It’s an art you should master. I have a need for speed.
Oct 7, 2024
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