Rich Mintz  

I’m afraid that my bike training regimen hit a speed bump. I had a good second week, but then an emotionally rough weekend due to circumstances beyond my control, and guess what? It turns out I’m not always in the mood to bike 25 miles, who knew?

So I spent week three putting another 60 miles or so on the electric bike and getting no exercise at all. Which is fine — the electric bike is lots of fun, for reasons totally unrelated to my physical health, and to be fair to myself, I brought my weight down about 6 pounds since I started this regimen and have held it there, so good stuff. But as my boyfriend reminded me today, I only have a couple of months before I have to bike a hundred miles in a day, which is a lot more miles than I’ve ever done before. So I’d better get cracking.

Today it rained off and on (nothing like Wednesday, now that sh*t was extreme) so I didn’t take the electric bike in the morning, which meant I found myself at work in the evening with only my trusty red folding bike, which I hopped on and rode home in a steady light rain, and I remembered why I enjoyed riding it so much (bounce bounce bounce! the Tigger of bikes) and something tells me I’ll do 15 or 20 miles this weekend and I’ll be back in the saddle.

I have to say that four days in a row on the electric bike (including a couple of trips all the way up to the West 70s and back) were a joy of their own. I’m up to almost 400 road miles and getting mighty comfortable on the thing, which is well-engineered for stability and fast enough to ride in ordinary Manhattan traffic without feeling outgunned — in fact, both drivers and cyclists tend to mistake it for a motorbike, which gives the former a useful paradigm for interacting with it, and occasionally pisses off the latter. I got a nasty lecture from a (lady!) cyclist yesterday that I didn’t quite understand, since I’d taken great care not to crowd her or ride up on her. But I’m mature enough (and, as importantly, have had enough time in New York, where everyone’s pissed off about something) not to pay too much mind to angry people getting up in my face for their own reasons, and I just waved and let her ride on.

I just wanted to acknowledge that my bike training regimen is going fine. While I’m not formally tallying miles, I am out on the bike every day, and trying to fit in a long ride (15 miles or more) every day that I have the time.

In the past week I’ve biked through Brooklyn and Jersey City; been to the Upper West Side three times; and, yesterday, rode a 25-mile loop from the Port Imperial ferry terminal in Weehawken north to the George Washington Bridge, across the bridge, and down Broadway (and the 9th Avenue bike lane) allll the way home.

My official scale is at the YMCA, not here, but I’m guessing I will have dropped at least three pounds in 10 days once I get myself over there for a weigh-in. So that’s good, too. And I’m feeling better all around. As I’ve noted previously, exercise makes me less hungry, in a virtuous cycle that makes healthy living easier, and on a day like yesterday, with lots of exercise and controlled (but not starvation-level) intake, I end up with something like a 1,500-calorie “credit.” Or, to put it another way, yesterday alone I lost half a pound. (Yay me!)

I had an errand to run in Jersey City this evening. The PATH train doesn’t allow bikes during rush hour — I’ve never seen anyone enforcing that, but why risk it? — and I like being on the water, so I left work and biked up to the 39th Street Hudson ferry terminal in midtown Manhattan.

I’d never been to that terminal before, and I was surprised how bustling it was — not exactly crowded in the way the Lackawanna Ferry terminal in Hoboken must have been once upon a time, but still busier than I expected. It reminded me of a small airport (Lansing maybe, or the Marine Air Terminal at La Guardia). It had 8 or 9 slips, and boats being announced and coming and going more or less continuously during the evening rush, to half a dozen destinations.

So I bought a one-way ticket to Newport (and a bike ticket) and rode the ferry across to the Jersey City waterfront. The Newport terminal is deserted — just a rush-hour stop, basically just a dock bolted to a patch of asphalt, but I rode around the boardwalk and through the Newport business district into downtown Jersey City, and across to take care of my business in the crook of the expressway that approaches the Holland Tunnel.

Afterwards, I rode around Harsimus Cove, Hamilton Park, and downtown for a while. Five years ago or so I lived in downtown Jersey City (near 5th and Brunswick, if you’re keeping track), on the second floor of a tumbledown triple-decker near a vacant-lot-turned-community-garden. It was cheap, and the owner was friendly and respectful, and the neighbors were civil, so I pretended not to mind that if you set an egg down on one end of the kitchen floor it would roll to the other end.

In 2007 the neighborhood was “in transition.” It’s still a mixed neighborhood, in transition culturally, racially, economically — but it feels safer and more settled. There are new businesses on Newark Avenue, a couple of new restaurants around the park, a very nice ice cream parlor on 1st Street two blocks from the PATH. (There’s also a spiffy-looking Key Food that replaced the filthy C-Town supermarket I used to avoid.) Tiresome-looking gay couples of a certain age (i.e., mine), always a reliable indicator of neighborhood investment, were about. I stopped for an excellent burger and a couple of cocktails at the tavern at 9th and Coles right near Hamilton Park (what used to be on this corner? I can’t even remember), swung by the ice-cream parlor (which I knew of only as a result of jealously reading Linda Yang’s Foursquare checkins), and made my way south to Paulus Hook for the return ferry to Wall Street.

I’d taken this ferry before, when I lived in Jersey City. It’s obviously a heavier-traffic route — bigger boats, and apparently seven-day service. The Midtown-to-Newport ferry is a short ride downriver, but Paulus-Hook-to-Pier-11 is a sweeping ride across the top of Upper New York Bay, past Liberty Island and the Staten Island ferry terminal, with the lower Manhattan skyline in full view ahead of you. It’s probably the best $7 boat ride in New York — plus $1 for my bike, which you can see threatening to tumble into New York Harbor in the photo above. It didn’t tumble, though, and I rode home the few blocks from Pier 11 feeling like I’d had an adventure at sea in the middle of the afternoon.

Side note: Thanks to the NYC Department of Transportation for clearly posting an “alternate route” for bicyclists around Times Square (left on 48th, right on 7th Avenue, left on 42nd back to Broadway). It keeps us out of the worst of the pedestrian congestion (which is good for everyone), and it moves us through Times Square a minute or so faster.

In fact, I’d like to see something similar near Greeley Square, because it’s almost as congested as Times Square, but the way the blocks come together doesn’t allow the same sort of tidy bypass. Perhaps the DOT could signpost a diversion on southbound Broadway just above 36th Street as a left turn, with the caption “Alt Route Southbound – Use 5th Ave”

Not for the first time, I biked home from the Upper West Side today down Broadway, this time from 96th Street (via Columbus Avenue to Broadway in the West 60s) all the way down to Fulton Street. That’s about 7 miles, and thanks to the smart policymaking of the New York City Department of Transportation, most of the route was via protected bike path or separated bike lane.

In particular, the mostly-separated bike lane is continuous from Columbus Circle (at 59th Street) to Union Square (at 14th), passing through or around some of NYC’s primmest real estate, including the Times Square megaplex, the Greeley Square/Herald Square agglomeration, the Madison Square/Flatiron conurbation, and Downtown Union Square.

In all four of these areas, and through some of the stretch in between, ginormous swaths of land have been given over to pedestrians, and those ginormous swaths are, for the most part, densely occupied by people. Once you get used to the fact that you’re dodging people and not cars, it’s actually more fun to ride through these pedestrianized zones than it is to battle car traffic. You’re reminded that transportation in the public sphere is a social act, and that saying “excuse me” and “thank you” (and, occasionally, “oops, sorry”) to people on foot is one of the things that makes biking more interesting than driving.

The first couple of times I rode through Greeley Square and especially Times Square, I was frustrated by the people walking in the bike lane. But you know what? People are what the city is for. I have a bell and a mouth; I use them both (politely). I have brakes; I use them to slow down to a more human speed. And I enjoy the fact that, on a sunny evening, thousands and thousands of people are out in the street doing nothing in particular. What’s it going to take me, four and a half minutes longer to go all the way downtown?

I did a little research and figured out a couple of training rides to try over the next couple of weeks.

This Hudson County route, roughly 20 miles long, will take me from Hoboken through Jersey City, down along the Hackensack River, through the length of Bayonne, then over the Bayonne Bridge to Staten Island, and around to the ferry. This was a compromise — I really wanted to do a loop through Newark and Elizabeth that included the Goethals Bridge, or a loop through Bay Ridge that included the Verrazano Bridge, but thanks to the visionaries at the Port Authority, neither is an option. I think I’ll do it tomorrow.

View Hudson County bike loop in a larger map

This Coney Island loop is about 30 miles, and I’m a little scared to try it (isn’t it uphill all the way home up Ocean Parkway?). But maybe next weekend I’ll be ready.

View Coney Island bike loop (30 mi) in a larger map

I promised my friend Ryan Davis that I’d ride the Sea Gull Century with him in October. It’s a 100-mile leisurely bike ride (with shorter courses, too) through what is, thankfully, some of the flattest country in America, on Maryland’s Eastern Shore.

The Sea Gull has been happening for 24 years — in fact, at left you see a photo of Ryan himself having just completed the ride many years ago (I won’t say how many, but if you must know, just look at the photo).

The problem here is that despite my all-around bikiness, I’ve never ridden 100 miles in a day. I haven’t even ever been on a serious group ride of any length. And so in addition to learning all that stuff you need to learn about when to eat carbs and how much water to drink and what to do about the sun and so forth, I need to actually get out and ride.

I’ve done 30-mile days many times, and I know I can handle them, by which I mean “I know I can finish and I won’t be dead afterwards.” But I should probably work my way up to more serious rides, and if I want to handle 100 miles comfortably in three months, I’d better start now. So here’s my plan, starting today:

• Track my miles.
• Weekly minimum of 50 miles. Given that the weather’s going to be nice for the next several months, I really have no excuse, and if I have to, I can do 50 miles as one two-hour training ride on the weekend and 4 trips to work during the week.
• At least one weekend training ride of 25 miles or more. What I really am hoping to do is a 25-mile ride this weekend, followed by 30 miles next weekend, then 35, and so forth. But even in a terrible week with no motivation, I ought to be able to fit in one solid two-hour ride, right?

I should see some side benefits from this, too. If I ride like this for a few months, I’ll feel the need to eat less, and I’ll lose some weight — probably 25 pounds. All the positive feedback should keep me on the program even after the ride. But the short-term goal is not embarrassing myself in front of Ryan. I’ll keep you posted.

In the past 3 weeks I’ve more than doubled my mileage on the FlyKly electric bike. In 250 miles I’ve been over every East River bridge (most of them twice), as well as the Pulaski, and been up and down the 1st, 2nd, 6th, and 8th Avenue corridors numerous times.

At this point I ride comfortably, without feeling awkward on the bike (despite the fact that now that I have the rear storage compartment installed, my seating position is a little squeezed). And I no longer have my eyes peeled for police: I watch for them, sure, but I haven’t been hassled at all, even when riding through areas where I’d be cautious even on a normal bike.

On a day like tonight, the FlyKly is perfect for a long loop like the one I took — from the West 70s looping through the bottom of Central Park, over the Queensboro Bridge, through Long Island City to the Pulaski, through central Greenpoint and down the Brooklyn waterfront to north Williamsburg, around the Navy Yard to the Brooklyn Bridge and then home. With 2 stops for coffee and one for a Tom Collins, of course. That’s about 20 miles, which (on top of the 5 miles I did earlier in the day) just about tapped my battery out. But it’s the kind of fun that I moved to New York in order to have — I saw about 10 neighborhoods (depending on how you count), and a beautiful sunset, in about two hours.

In the two months I’ve had the bike, I’ve been cussed at by a total of two bicyclists (one each on the Manhattan and Brooklyn bridges) and told “you can’t park here” a total of twice. In exchange for that, I’ve been fawned over by at least a hundred cyclists, pedestrians, and motorists. Today alone I got an enthusiastic “thumbs up” from a guy in a van on Jackson Avenue in Long Island City, and had three separate substantive conversations about the bike with people who coveted it. And the curious include people of all ages (including the elderly), and everyone from douchey-looking dudes to barely-English-speaking deliverymen. Security guards and doormen especially love it, but it’s not just a guy thing; I had a long chat with a woman of at least 60 who saw the potential in it.

Today, with a trip to Gorilla Coffee in Park Slope via the Manhattan Bridge, I hit the 100-mile mark on my FlyKly electric bike. That’s 100 miles through the streets of New York City on a bike that the New York State DMV says is not street legal, even though Congress explicitly says otherwise. The bike runs perfectly, the range is adequate (I’d love another 10 miles, but the 25 or so miles of range that I actually get are sufficient for my city riding), and most importantly, it’s fun!

It’s particularly fun to ride through near-empty city streets late at night, passing the few late-night spots full of people in my neighborhood.

For the most part, everyone loves looking at the thing — pedestrians, bicyclists, and drivers stopped at red lights ask me about it constantly. (I’ve opened the seat and shown off the battery at least 10 times in a month.) And so far I haven’t had the remotest bit of trouble with NYPD, who (obviously) have real crime to worry about; a portly middle-aged man wearing a helmet and observing all the traffic laws, while ordinary bicyclists scream past him through red lights weaving through crowds of pedestrians, is not on their list. (I do take care to moderate my behavior — stop at every red light and stop sign without fail, no showy behavior around police, etc.). As I noted before, from a distance the thing looks to police like a Vespa, which on average works to my advantage, since they “know” how to watch a Vespa driver and make sure he’s behaving safely.

True, one cyclist called me an idiot today on the Manhattan Bridge bike path. (Not sure why; I wasn’t in his lane, wasn’t overtaking him or blocking him, had no impact on him whatsoever.) But if that’s the worst thing that happens, I’m content.

I now have my NYS motorcycle learner’s permit, which means I can take the safe riding course and then get the motorcycle endorsement on my driver’s license. The course will be a good experience in itself — a lot of my safe bicycling skills map directly onto safe motor-driven cycling skills, but there are things I want to learn about handling, given the different weight distribution of the electric bike. And I imagine the motorcycle endorsement won’t hurt me if I’m ever ticketed, because I’ll have a counterargument to any claim by police that I’m creating a hazard by definition.

And now, some electric bike porn…

As you’ve noticed if you follow me on Twitter, after seeing one on the street and arranging to test-ride one around the block, I ordered a FlyKly electric bike, and it arrived last week.

What it is, in essence, is an electric scooter, with a top speed under 25mph and a claimed range of 40 miles, that you can recharge in the house off normal electrical current. (The battery is removable.) It weighs only about 100 pounds (less than half what a gas-powered scooter weighs). While that’s too heavy to carry it up the stairs, it’s light enough that you can easily maneuver it through hallways and in and out of elevators to keep it in, say, an apartment building’s bike room, and (since there’s nothing to drip or leak) there’s no reason not to park it in the living room.

The FlyKly does have functional pedals, like a bicycle, and in fact under federal law it’s classified as a consumer product (like a bicycle), rather than a motor vehicle. In fact, the relevant statute states that electric bikes must be treated by states as consumer products rather than motor vehicles. New York State, however, has ignored this, and all electric bicycles are illegal here and subject to confiscation as unregistered motor vehicles. (You may have noticed the 20,000 electric bicycles on the streets of NYC, piloted by deliverymen and hobbyists; yes, under NYS law they are all illegal to operate, and subject to a $500 fine and impoundment.) However, NYS DMV will not register them. So you may legally buy and own them, but not actually use them.

This is, of course, legal nonsense, and it will be straightened out eventually. (It seems to me that what is needed is the proper kind of plaintiff to sue NYS in federal court — someone who has the time and flexibility to put up with the timetable of litigation, the sense to make the right arguments, and the maturity to present well in front of a judge. If I get a $500 citation that isn’t dismissed, I’ll see whether I have the stomach for it.)

In the meantime, what seems to happen in NYC is that if you are riding responsibly, the police ignore you. When you are at speed, you look like just another Vespa (which are legal if registered), and when you aren’t moving, nobody cares anyway. I had one encounter with a parks cop (who treated me as though I were a Vespa rider, and simply said pleasantly that I had to walk the bike in a crowded pedestrian area), but I don’t think I’ve been noticed otherwise. Last night I (cautiously) rode through the pedestrian shortcut alongside police headquarters (connecting from Madison and St. James through to Frankfort and Gold, under the Brooklyn Bridge), past three NYPD guardhouses, and nobody cared.

I was careful, though, to walk the bike whenever I was passing through an area I might expect to be hassled for riding through on a normal bicycle. And without exception I’ve stopped at every red light, and stayed in traffic in congested areas rather than trying to find a way around. This means that for trips of more than a block or two, traveling by FlyKly is actually marginally slower than riding a normal bicycle in the typical amount of city traffic.

But who cares? In nice weather it’s so much fun to get out and just ride. I’ve been all up and down the lower half of the island, and tomorrow have a couple of errands on the Upper West Side, so I’ll have a chance for a longer ride.

The handling is fine; the 25mph governor is not a problem in the city. (I rarely find myself wanting to go any faster than that.) The bike seems well designed and I keep finding things I like about it. There’s a bag loop, so you can carry one bag of groceries, along with whatever is on your back. (There’s an optional cargo box, but to install it you have to remove the rear rail, and I use that rail to lift the bike when I’m flipping the kickstand, so I’m reluctant.)

The only problem was that I tripped the electric fuse on one of my first rides, and had to let the battery cool down before I could reset it and it would “stick.” (It actually wasn’t a clean test, because during the cooldown I had the bike plugged in, so I’m not absolutely sure that overheating was the issue.)

I investigated motorcycle licensing in NYS, because it seems prudent to have evidence of training in the event that a police officer claims I am “riding unsafely.” It’s actually pretty easy — you pass a written test and get a permit, and then if you take a 3-day riding course, you waive out of the driver’s test. So expect to hear about that in the next few weeks.

In the meantime, zoom zoom! Bike porn below.