Leg Day is a newsletter about pursuing joy as a city cyclist. Last week, we held a celebration of life for my first vintage bike. Over the course of the eventing, we raised $910 for the Bike Plant Repair Fund over the course of the evening, which I’ve rounded up to $1,000. Isn’t that something?! I want to thank everyone who attended, all the brands that donated product we could serve or raffle off, and the team at Outlandish in Crown Heights for being great hosts.
During the event, I read a eulogy for my first vintage bike. Here, a slightly edited version, plus images taken on the disposable cameras I brought.
A frame, two wheels, a handlebar, some gears, two cranks, a chain, a seat, several bolts, several nuts, a hose clamp. These were the component parts of my Raleigh, which lies before you today. But the machine I rode happily for a full year was so much more than the sum of its parts.
It represents countless memories. Trips down Brooklyn and Queens to our beaches. Laps in Prospect Park with beloved friends. My first half century ride through tediously suburban stretches of Staten Island.
The first time I rode this bike, from a random guy’s garage in Midwood to my studio apartment in Clinton Hill, something clicked. There was something so freeing about the fact that I owned this thing, and I could use it to take anywhere I wanted to go.
I no longer had to default to taking the train, where I’d have to wait in a hot station to use a system our elected officials seem to have no interest in improving. I could ignore the voices of our culture that claims the only convenient transit option is a two-ton reaper that puffs unceasing sooty particulates into our air. My Raleigh was the first thing that felt like a real alternative. I loved it so much.
Riding it became my entire personality. I would reshape plans to maximize the amount of time I spent on bike. I would bug my friends to get them to join me on rides when we were all supposed to be getting ready for work. I started collecting extremely unflattering spandex that I started to wear in more types of circumstances that seems at all advisable.
And then, I ran it into a car. It was a moment of distraction and poor preparation. I had been riding all through a hot May morning, long having run out of water an hour ago. I was in streets that felt familiar, but wasn’t quite sure where my closest coffee shop stop could be. And I drove straight into the back of a double–parked white pickup truck. It was an unforced error, completely my fault.
But I’d be lying if I said this was my first thought.
Last October, I rode my bike over the Williamsburg Bridge to attend a protest ride. It had been the most deadly nine months for cyclists in the “Vision Zero” era. At that point, 26 had been killed in traffic accidents, almost entirely because they had the audacity to ride their bikes in one of the many many many parts of the city that still doesn’t have any bike infrastructure. I joined up with about 500 other riders who rode from Union Square to City Hall. We chanted. “Safe Streets Now.” “Eric Adams, Do Your Job.” “No More Deaths.”
When I hit the back of the pickup truck, I took a moment to collect myself. I looked around. The tree-lined one-way street I was on is about three-cars wide, which should offer plenty of space for anyone who wants to bike through it. But both sides of the street were occupied by parked cars. With this pickup truck loitering in the middle, there was basically no room for me left for me to have passed through anyway.
Thankfully, I was uninjured. My bike wasn’t so lucky. The top and bottom tubes were bent, which meant I couldn’t move the wheel in a straight line without it rubbing against the twisted frame. I pushed it back to my apartment, zigging and zagging it down the sidewalk for the better part of an hour. I was so mad at myself for the mistake I had made, and the money that fixing the bike would cost me. Alas, I learned, there was no amount of money I could spend to bring the bike back to life.
The more time I’ve had since the experience, the more frustrated I’ve grown that we’ve ceded so much of our public space to cars. Why do they get to squat for free in front of our apartments, our coffee shops, our parks? Why do their owners—40% of whom are New Yorkers that make over $150,000—have such an outsized influence on our mayor, our council members and our governor? Why do they get to dismantle the open streets programs in our neighborhoods, the outdoor dining program that saved our restaurants, and the small congestion pricing toll that would have funded our subway repairs?
People who have known me for a long time know that I’m not a new urbanist. I moved away from my family in the suburbs not because I needed to get away from them, but really because I wanted to move towards a place where I could live my values. Even now, I still love New York’s buses and trains. I hope to always be the type of person who doesn’t flinch at the thought of a 45 minute walk.
But riding my Raleigh made all this feel way more urgent to me. It made me want to spend the rest of my life trying to get people to see that their cities can serve them better. It made me feel like getting from place to place didn’t just have to be a thing that we had to do, but a way we could experience joy.
Dear bike, thank you for being there for me. I’ll cherish everything we’ve experienced together. I’m so sad you didn’t live long enough to experience the new protected bike lane on Bedford Ave, which, after years of delay, is literally being constructed blocks away from where we stand right now.
A better world is possible. Because of you, dear bike, I can see it. Thank you!