DV Digest 12.13
A few exciting announcements, followed by some things you can read and watch this weekend.
Leg Day is a newsletter about the pursuit of joy as a city cyclist.
Quick announcement: Leg Day is “sponsoring” a cycling team! Long-time readers should be familiar with Leslie Burnett, one of the co-founders of the Thursday morning Dawn Patrol ride who helped me plan the Prospect Park Half Century Ride. In the time since I interviewed her for the newsletter, Les started Angels NYC CC, a team of enthusiastic, bike-obsessed athletes who love to cross-train, snack constantly, and would self-select to race in a women’s field. Where most cycling teams are pretty prescriptive about what disciplines, experience levels or racing regimens you need to do to join and stay in good status, Angels is more fluid. Some Angels race in the local Central Park and Prospect Park series, some take on absurd endurance challenges, some Angels bike pack solo and self-supported across states or countries. Instead of any particular type of riding, Angels is flexibly organized around the shared goals of having a great time while accomplishing something difficult, improving bike culture by being visible advocates for positive social change, and providing community service through a diversity of volunteer initiatives. In the coming months, expect to hear more about their efforts in this newsletter. We’re also planning to co-host some events, including another half century. Stay tuned!
Thank you also to everyone who has filled out the Leg Day 2025 Reader Survey. I’ve enjoyed getting to know a bit more about your equipment and cycling habits, but also appreciated your takes on what I should be doing in the coming year. As a reminder, those who fill out the form will be invited to a SUPER SECRET SUBSCRIBER-ONLY GROUP RIDE on Friday, January 9th. Here’s the link again!
I also want to remind you that I’m currently running a sale on paid Leg Day subscriptions. Many of the stories I’m most proud of, and seem to have resonated the most deeply with my audience, took me weeks to complete. Each individual upgrade helps me justify the time I spend doing the research, interviews, and testing to make them great, instead of sending out job applications and cold pitching outlets that aren’t interested in these kinds of bike culture stories. If you use this link before the end of the year, your Leg Day subscription will only cost $4/month for the rest of time. If you can swing it, I’d be eternally grateful.
And now, without any further ado, the promised list of things to read and watch this weekend.
Parking Shouldn’t be Free, Vol. 4,691
How Mamdani Can Deliver Free Buses — and Subways, Too, Vital City
I’m still kinda reeling from the back-of-the-napkin math done by the author here. By just charging $3.47 a day for each of its 3 million parking spots, New York City would make more money than the MTA currently collects from bus AND subway fares.
Karen Is The Coolest?
I Am Not Crazy, Spokesstack
If you follow any New York City fixed racers, you know about Karen Walker. She’s a perennial podium finisher, but also one of the New Yorkers brought out to race Formula Fixed earlier this year. (She won the women’s crit race over Brittany O’Neal, another fixture of New York City racing.) I really enjoyed getting to know how she got started in the sport via this profile from Matt Johnson of Spokestack1.
It Is Not Just About Sports
How Right-Wing Superstar Riley Gaines Built an Anti-Trans Empire, Mother Jones
This feature is ostensibly about a MAGA grifter, who parlayed a tie for fifth into a career as a paid spokesperson for the anti-trans movement. Indeed, it gets quite deep into the timeline of Riley Gaines’ career, and how people who simply hate trans people use arguments about sports to make their bigotry more palatable, even pragmatic. What made the story more memorable to me, however, is how it talks about the many obstacles that still exist to the participation of all women, cis and trans, in sports. There’s a lot of context shared about underfunding, yes, but also how common it is for female athletes to experience sexual and emotional abuse. It makes things clear to me that anyone who actually cares about women’s sports would be more focused on rooting out bad coaches than forcing athletes to undergo strip searches.
Faster is Funner
How to Ride a Bike Faster, Explained for Newbies, Cade Media
There are lots of videos on YouTube that dive deep into the many ways you can get faster on the bike, whether by training smarter, eating better, or optimizing your equipment. But very few of these are as grounded as this kind of shockingly comprehensive guide from Cade Media. The video begins with a relatively simple, but important postulation: “Being able to ride a bike fast is fun.” The strategy that follows is not about some sort of wellness bro coded desire to become the best possible version of yourself, but rather to make the hobby you’re getting into as exciting and enjoyable as it can be. I also appreciate that the video is structured to make it clear that you can make a ton of progress on your capabilities without spending a ton of money on clothing and equipment. As with most things, the key is consistency.
Who Cares about Strava “Wrapped”?
Why I Don’t Pay for Strava, She Rides Far
Elsa is an absolutely brilliant rider—she’s won multiple ultra distance events and literally rode solo from New York to San Francisco in 2020. Like me, she uses Strava. But unlike me, she’s well adjusted enough that she doesn’t feel the need to pay for Strava premium to access her relative effort scores. On the eve of the company’s Year in Sport recaps, Elsa wrote about how she actually enjoys free Strava more than the more feature-rich (and data-mad) version people like me are getting2.
A Dog Eat Dog World
Hot Dog Crawl Recap, Burger Diva
File this under “events I want to copy.” My friend Christina writes Burger Diva, a newsletter where she rates and ranks the burgers of New York City. A few weeks ago, she hosted a pub crawl entirely comprised of bars that served … hot dogs. Whatever, looks like the event was fun. What would a Leg Day version of it be? Would we ride bikes to eat … cars? No, that’s not it.
Streetsblog Corner
The only cyclists the cops are ticketing are Black and Latinx. The legal argument for ripping out the 31st bike lane in Queens was pretty flimsy. The DOT has decided we actually need to cede more of the street to trucks. Universal daylighting has been punted. The cops are so bad at enforcing illegal parking it took them a whole week to discover that the car with tinted windows (illegal) someone had left in front of a fire hydrant (illegal) had a literal corpse inside (extremely depressing).
The first draft of this list was literally three Streetsblog links. What can I say, I think its coverage is essential!
Can you believe this guy has the discipline to do a profile a week? Couldn’t be me!
Wait, you actually want to see my Year in Sport? Well, since you asked so nicely…
I’ve gotta update that profile picture.