Leg Day is a newsletter about the pursuit of joy as a city cyclist.
My first New York City bike ride lasted less than an hour. Under the watchful eye of my pal Haley, my partner and I rented electric Citi bikes and zipped around Prospect Park. The cost? $20.46. The immediate sensation that I had found an activity I could actually see myself loving for the rest of my life? Priceless!
That ride was on March 4th, 2023, just over two years ago. The anniversary gave me the perfect excuse to spend way too much time looking through all the photos of bike-related nonsense I’ve collected and to marvel at just how quickly I’ve changed from a person who was literally too scared to ride a bike in the city to a full-blown lycra appreciator.
Photos from before I took the visor off this helmet, which is still the one I wear almost every time I ride. The bottom image is from the time I made Stella and Josh come with me to get dumplings in Chinatown, the first group ride I ever led.
In order to force myself to get on a bike, something I had wanted to do for years, I did the classic trick of the lifestyle writer: I pitched it as a story. Here, an early draft headline and the final cover story, which was published in the April 1st issue of the Wall Street Journal.
The best part about biking is actually everyone I’ve had gotten to bike with.
I especially love biking with my partner Stella, a lifelong cyclist who is much more gracious about how annoying I have become about biking than she has to be. She is the textbook definition of “True to this, not new to this.”
At the end of 2023, a few of my friends and I started doing a Friday morning group ride, often to the tip of Greenpoint. Time would pass amazingly quickly on these mornings. I would return home in awe of how easily biking nine miles, something that had seemed totally impossible to me just seven months earlier, actually felt. It didn’t hurt that the early fall weather really showed up!
There’s bike specific messaging everywhere you look for it : )
How do you guys clean your bikes? The shower in our basement works great, but I hate having to carry it down the stairs.
Some selfies : )
After getting my own bike, I basically didn’t ride a Citi bike for a full year. Why would I pay money to ride a bike that was clunkier than the one I owned? I’ve since come to appreciate them, mainly for the basket and the fact you don’t have to lock them up or try and convince your friends to let you bring them into your apartment.
Last year, I started trying to get more serious about cycling as a sport/fitness practice. As part of that, I started riding on Zwift. I’m currently long-term testing the Zwift Ride. This photo was taken at the beginning of Tour de Zwift Stage 3 when I was fresh, before I made it to the one climb in the route.
Even still, most of my biking is done in the meat space. How else would I be able to spot all these sick rides? Admittedly, one of these is a screenshot from the Probably Riding YouTube channel. Also, I tried to ask the person with the balloon why they were carrying a balloon on their head like that, but they didn’t hear me.
One more for the road! Thanks for reading!
If you enjoyed this sometimes saccharine, totally earnest post, let me know by dropping a like or leaving a comment. The last time I waxed this poetic was as I was getting ready to run the marathon. You might also like reading my interview with Tina O’Brien, another extremely earnest person who was getting ready to bike across the country.
what a joy to bike with you!!
I bet a lot of people really took to cycling during the pandemic. From being a necessity to part of ones life.