Additional to yesterday’s publish, contemplate the next quote from the latest New Yorker article about Grant Petersen:
“Bikes are turning ugly,” Petersen just lately wrote. “I personally have extra respect, tons of respect, for any person who rides round city, to work, for purchasing, and for enjoyable, than any person who does front-flips on handrails with a fifty-foot dropoff on one aspect.”
What? Ridiculous!!! Biking isn’t about enjoyable or about usefulness, it’s about performing death-defying stunts on bicycles of restricted utility to be able to promote overpriced clothes and overcaffeinated swill on the similar time:
Right here’s the video:
Eh, frankly in terms of action-packed movies that mix bikes and trains I favor ones that function Bromptons:
Now that’s what I name suspense.
Generally you screw the watermelon:
And different occasions it screws you.
Talking of on a regular basis biking, the smuggies are actually pushing the concept e-bike share journeys have to be cheaper, and now a metropolis councilmember is introducing a invoice that might cap the price of an e-Citi Bike journey:
I’m all for Citi Bike, and it’s an excellent factor that folks have the choice to decide on electrical ones, however I’ve not modified my opinion, which is that NOBODY OWES YOU A CHEAP RIDE ON A GODDAMN E-CITI BIKE. Who the hell cares what they value? E-Citi Bikes didn’t even exist till about six years in the past. Now instantly they’re a fundamental human proper and we’d like a regulation in order that they value the identical because the subway? Properly, right here’s what the councilperson has to say:
I promise you that completely no person in New York Metropolis is making their main life selections primarily based totally on Citi Bikes, electrical or in any other case, although I do suspect Lincoln Restler is complicated the way in which regular folks dwell with the comedian subplots of ’90s sitcoms:
I additionally promise you that they aren’t changing automotive journeys in any significant approach:
Actually, paradoxically, e-Citi Bikes are inflicting extra visitors as a result of they require a fleet of drivers to service them:
In fact in Restler’s sitcom universe capping the value of Citi Bike will magically outcome within the expensive development of an unlimited underground electrical system that may exchange the van fleet. This magic is named “public funding,” and it’ll repair all the things. Don’t consider it? Simply take a look at what nice form the MTA is in! It’s doing so splendidly these similar smuggies are telling us that it may well’t perform with out congestion pricing:
I get that it’s trendy to consider in a future during which drivers paradoxically abandon their automobiles and but in some way fund a motor vehicle-free transportation utopia with their tolls, however I’m starting to surprise if the relative lack of public funding the system receives is the one factor that’s saving it.
Within the meantime, in the event you’re in search of an inexpensive e-Citi Bike simply come to the Bronx and assist your self, they’re completely in all places:
Simply ensure that to carry a spoke wrench.
Talking of mixing purchasing and enjoyable, I did simply that yesterday, and on certainly one of Outdated Man Petersen’s bikes besides:
Driving the paths in a populous space typically requires you to share the path with people who find themselves strolling canine:
Or, much less typically, birds:
I suppose he simply needs to offer it some recent air, but when something it appears needlessly merciless, like marching a prisoner by the city sq.:
Positive, generally once I’m driving a motorcycle on this city I too really feel like a caged fowl:
However at the very least it’s straightforward to park.
