Love+Sprockets | NYC Cycling Info

There's something about cycling in traffic that fuels me. I used to get the same rush skating through the city—my first apartment was off of Times Square. I used to love that adrenaline rush I would get from skating and biking after work through midtown traffic, especially at night. The pulse of rush hour just pushes those twitch muscles to go to work. I moved out of Manhattan to Brooklyn and was on wheels less and less. I missed the rush though. Sadly I also settled into a new job and for about 10 years and rarely skated and biked. With the more sedentary life, I also started having some health problems. Then, like a lot of people, I read Lance's book and felt inspired and motivated to ride again and found the joy of riding a century. Now I'm hooked and am trying to get re-claim a lot of the things I associate with being on wheels.

This blog, for me, is like a public contract to ride. When you set goals publicly, you can't wimp out. It's like a contract. So I'm going to use that to keep me honest, to set the harder goals. For me, the harder ones are endurance events that seem a bit out of my reach, like doing a ride longer than a century or a triathlon.

This blog also has something to do with freedom—the freedom to ride, which doesn't come easily on a bike in NYC. The right to ride may not be the highest among the issues I get support with my dollars, voice or feet, but it is important. As a NYC rider, you know that we have our rights routinely trampled on, so I will undoubtedly report on those issues from time to time.

On the practical side, this site is also about making it easier to find the stuff you need to ride in NYC. In those first few years, the process of finding century event information for cyclists in NYC meant going through all of the bike club sites, Bike NY, TA and checking my club newsletters. Seemed like such a distributed effort, and I would end up noting all the events in my calendar so I could plan on the ones I'd train for and ride. It just seemed natural to aggregate it all and put it online in an events calendar.

There's more that can be done here, but this blog and events calendar is the focus for now. Oh, and about missing those daily rides through rush hour traffic. As I prepare to launch this site, I've just changed jobs and now am working downtown near Union Square. So I'll be selling the car that I used to get me back and forth to work in NJ and will be making the daily ride from Park Slope to Union Square on my fixie beater. Life is good.

Love, peace, and bicycle grease,
Michael (jibbajabba)