I'm a rabid urban cyclist by Simon Brennan

I don’t care what Lance Armstrong may think: it is about the bike. I’m a rabid urban cyclist. Fanatical even.

I biked in Los Angeles when I lived there in the early 80s (and if there is anything more antithetical to Los Angeles culture than commuting by bike, I’d like to know what it is—though I do hear that things are now getting a little easier there for my fellow bike freaks).

I biked year-round in Minneapolis during college days. More to the point (and anyone who’s ever visited that place even briefly from mid-October through April will understand the lunacy to which I’m admitting), I did this on slush, on ice, on snow in the dead of winter—and this is serious winter, tundra winter, Moscow winter, 0-degrees-Kelvin-lungs-burn-tears-turn-to-ice-on-your-cheeks-unprotected-skin-freezes-if-exposed-to-elements-for-more-than-two-minutes winter.

And, against the wishes of most who care about my physical well-being, I bike year-round in New York City and have done so for more than 20 years. I do training rides on weekends, have been known to do numerous loops in Central Park after work—and when forced, Prospect Park in Brooklyn—and, in embracing the nut-job cyclist’s creed of always being merely two inches from catastrophe, I commute to work daily, more than 10 miles each way through the streets of Brooklyn across the bridges and through the canyons of Manhattan.

But know this: our numbers are increasing steadily and we won’t go away. So cabbies; pedestrians; bus drivers; tourists; jay-walkers of all sizes and styles; out-of-towners, limo, stretch limo, Hummer stretch limo, SUV, delivery truck, moving van and town car drivers? You’d better learn to deal. Whether we’re weekend pleasure riders, competitive racers, commuters, or messengers, we risk our lives to do what we love to do. There is a lot to contend with: bad streets, bad conditions, metal construction plates that will wipe you out in a nano-second, broken glass to blow out your tire and crash you in the street, potholes, manhole covers, pedestrians who don’t look, drivers who don’t look, insufficient and poorly designated bike lanes, double parked cars and trucks, reckless cyclists (have to admit that, too). And some of us will not make it home at the end of the day.

The brutal reality of urban biking (particularly in New York City, where, I swear every car is out to kill you), is that cyclists get hit by vehicles, cyclists crash, cyclists get injured, and cyclists die. When a car meets a bike, no matter who’s at fault, the bike always loses. Always.

I love cycling, but I have paid a price for my addiction: in over 30-odd years of riding, racing and commuting, I’ve been in seven accidents, three of which have required nice little rides to emergency rooms and not so pleasant experiences once there. Some might think this ratio passes into the law of diminishing returns. No, I say, it’s just living life in the city in a way that provides meaning for me, that helps give me definition and perspective, that provides an unrivaled sense of freedom. That helps me get through the days.

I defy you to rival the feeling of flying across the
Brooklyn Bridge in fall on a cool, misty day when tourists and pedestrians don’t venture onto it, the two towers and the web of cables above you, the buzz of your tires on the wood planks below. You glance down to the roadway and see cars stuck in traffic as you blow by them; you’re up and out of the saddle, toes down, moving fast through the middle section where the grade levels out, wind whipping past your face and channeling through your helmet, mouth slack pulling the air into your lungs. Everything in sync, leg muscles taught, chain whirring through the cogs, ripping up the road. You’re alive. Two inches from catastrophe, as always, but alive.

photo copyright screeningroom.com

Alternate Side of the Street Living by Alex Sinclair

The car has got to be moved.
It’s got to be moved because it’s 7:15am on Tuesday.
“You have to move the car!” I roar at my husband, who is a large bump under the covers. He grunts. The sound of engines revving outside the window signals the urgency of the mission at hand. The morning mania has begun. Our car is on the side of the street that has to be cleaned on Tuesdays and Thursdays, from 8am to 11am. During that time, cars can unofficially double park on the alternate, ‘Monday, Wednesday, Friday’ side. Fine, except that it’s now 7:20am, the kids aren’t up because it’s not the weekend, and Son Number Two has to be on his school bus by 8:03am.
If you’re fool enough to own a car in Manhattan, let alone park it on the street, forget about coffee. In fact, forget about a life. Some people live in their cars. Now I know why. You have to be physically in the damn thing, with the wheels rotating by 7:25am or you can kiss a “double parked” spot goodbye. It’s the urban Grand Prix taking place on every block throughout the city. Without a spot, you’re left to wander around in parking space limbo with nowhere to put it.
If you’re lucky and you do get to double-park, then you just have to sit in your car, like a giant paperweight, smirking at those who are still circling the block and pretending to be very busy with your cell phone or newspaper until 8am, when you can officially step out of it. Leave one second earlier and you’re ticketed.
My husband is out of bed and in the car within five minutes -- I check out of the window to see if he remembered to put on pants. Then I play reveille in the boys’ room with my vocal chords and try to impress upon them the need to put on clothes instead of hanging naked from the bunk beds. I also have to shower, get dressed, prepare a bottle for the sixteen-month old, dress her, make sure that the boys load their packed lunches, snacks and homework into their backpacks, and try to figure out what the hell they will eat for breakfast. I discover that we are out of everything, including toilet paper (“mom!”) On this particular morning we’re out of peanut butter, jam, eggs, cheese -- we’re even out of bread. Except for a few cans of black beans and an enormous packet of dry cat food -- we’re picked clean. I decide that we’ll take the kids out for breakfast and I’ll use the car for a grocery shop. Parking solved. Till tomorrow.