Again In The New York Groove

After an unique biking journey, returning to your normal rides looks like placing the identical underwear again on proper after a bathe: at first you’re like, “Eeew,” however earlier than lengthy you overlook all about it and simply get on together with your day.

My preliminary plan was not less than to mitigate the soiled underwear feeling considerably by taking the Platypus onto some trails in an try to duplicate the previous weekend’s journey, albeit on a smaller scale:

Nevertheless, situations had been dampish and rain was imminent, and so I made a decision to stay to the highway as a substitute:

By the point I used to be heading again residence the rain had start in earnest, however not less than it’s solely imagined to proceed without end:

Talking of my current journey, I’m holding some commentary in reserve in the intervening time as I’ll be in the end be incorporating them into one thing I’m engaged on for a sure outside life-style publication. Nevertheless, one or two of you may have requested how the Clem did, and the reply is “Very, very properly:”

The truth is it will be laborious to think about a greater bicycle for the terrain we had been driving, proper right down to the step-through that tremendously facilitated the odd unplanned dismount. (And no, the unplanned dismounts had nothing to do with the bike, these had been all me.) Now granted, I’m a easy man, however I’d even go as far as to say that I might simply spend the remainder of my life there with nothing greater than a Clem and a price range of a number of million for a home, which actually doesn’t look like a lot to ask for, now does it? Okay, perhaps additionally a assured passive income stream in addition to free well being care.

Hey, wait a minute! I believe I simply found out how they trick individuals into turning into Democrats!

In the meantime, nearer to (my) residence, I not too long ago discovered myself in Central Park, which is after all the house of the barefoot biking motion:

As you’ll see, the roadway has been freshly re-paved, and once they lastly get round to portray it in 19 years the brand new lane configuration will resolve the battle between walkers and cyclists as soon as and for all:

Sadly, all it’s a must to do is learn this to know there’s no likelihood it’ll work:

There’s completely nothing you’re much less prone to witness in Central Park than a bike owner obeying a sign or yielding to a pedestrian. It could shock me much less to see a chimpanzee driving a pennyfarthing–that’s except the chimpanzee slowed to let somebody cross the roadway, through which case tremendous, then it will be extra stunning…however even the chimp wouldn’t sluggish, as a result of no bike owner of any species has yielded to a pedestrian in Central Park for the reason that invention of the velocipede, which is why they had been banned virtually instantly:

Under no circumstances am I saying that bicycle needs to be banned from Central Park, however I’m saying that portray new lanes and shifting the stoplights isn’t going to do shit.

As for holding e-bikes out of the park as soon as the pilot program ends, good luck with that:

In the event that they ban e-bikes in Central Park completely nothing will change, besides as soon as in awhile they’ll cease somebody and provides them a ticket, after which the sufferer will pen a protracted screed for Streetsblog about how they’ve been persecuted unfairly as a result of their Yuba e-cargo bike means they now not have to make use of an Uber to take their child to ballet class.

Talking of e-bikes, I received excited once I learn this, as a result of I believed perhaps Yamaha was re-inventing the common pedal-powered bike:

Sure, it’s solely a matter of time earlier than some enterprising new firm figures out bicycles don’t want batteries and motors…however it hasn’t occurred but. No, the workaround right here is battery swap stations:

The one simple benefit the bicycle at all times had over the automobile was that it didn’t require a dense community of fueling stations, however I suppose these days are over. I can’t wait till there are battery swap stations in all places, together with on the native mountain bike trailhead. Possibly they’ll even put them trailside! I’d wish to suppose extra battery swap stations means extra e-bike journeys and fewer automobile journeys, however even when that does occur I believe the decreased probability of your getting hit by a automobile is offset by the elevated probability of your getting hit by an e-bike battery truck.

I imply somebody has to steadiness the battery swap stations, proper?