While I may grumble about it, I very much like where I live. I’m within easy riding distance of the city line and multiple roads and trails that are highly conducive to cycling enjoyment. At the same time, I also have excellent proximity to the New York City transit system, with a subway station mere steps away.
The subway line is elevated up here, and I generally try to avoid riding under it. One reason is that, in the summer especially, liquid is likely to fall on you–I tell myself it’s condensation from the train’s air conditioning system, but it’s just as likely that it’s someone urinating in between cars. Also, the traffic underneath any elevated train line in New York City is a complete and utter shitshow, and morons running into the structure is a near-daily occurrence:
One of the first things you notice when you ride a lot in New York City is that the absolute worst drivers generally have a single Pennsylvania license plate on their vehicles, often crumple a bit to mess with the speed and toll cameras:
I’m not sure why Pennsylvania exactly, but I assume it must be really easy to register your car fraudulently there–and it’s safe to assume most of them are fraudulent, as when you look them up you’ll generally find years’ worth of violations here in New York:
I mean sure, they may commute back and forth or whatever, but pretty much every third car here has a Pennsylvania plate, and the other two just have bullshit temporary ones made of paper:
That’s actually a fairly benign list of violations, though as always I’ll remind you that those are just camera violations and parking tickets, and that any sort of moving violation issued by a law enforcement officer wouldn’t be listed here.
Here’s another excellent Pennsylvania driver I spotted whilst driving on the Major Deegan:
Yes, I realize the irony of taking a photo of a wrecked car while driving, which is not only illegal but highly irresponsible. However, this is the Major Deegan, which hardly moves, and I can assure you I was stopped when I snapped these:
This one only had two violations:
Though they were both for speeding:
As for why I was driving, eagle-eyed readers may have noticed something at the rear of THE CAR THAT I OWN:
As I mentioned on Monday, I have become the custodian of a very large cache of extremely fine bicycles and equipment, which despite what you may think is perhaps more of a curse than it is a blessing:
So what’s so bad about it? Well, obviously the circumstances are lamentable, but besides that is the fact both my time and my space are quite limited, I can’t keep everything where it is now in Queens, and it’s very difficult for me to absorb all of this stuff in order to re-home it:
I have slowly begun listing items for sale here and there, and any proceeds will ultimately benefit a bike organization or two, but in the meantime I will most likely need to schlep stuff most if not all of this stuff up this way and put it in storage or something, and in the photo above I’ve got a couple bikes on the hitch rack, a couple more on the roof rack, and some wheels in the cabin with me.
Now, I don’t mean to turn this blog into “Estate Sale New York City,” but I believe I did warn you that you’d be hearing about all of this equipment as I reckon with it. Sorry, there’s no way around it. And if you’re wondering what kind of stuff we’re talking about here…I don’t even know where to begin, but why not here?
People make a big fuss about headbadges, but sometimes a decal is just as good, if not better:
And yes, of course there’s paperwork;
In those days, mountain bikers were preoccupied with both mythical beasts and nuclear destruction:
This is not to say everything I’m dealing with here is vintage–not by a long shot:
That’s a Kona Raijin by Lynskey, size 19 I’m fairly certain:
With hand-built wheels, of course:
This is just a glimpse of the mountain bikes and frames. There are more. Then there are the road bikes, and the cylcocross bikes, and the components…
If you’re around 6′ and have any interest whatsoever in anything you’ve seen so far, do NOT feel weird or uncomfortable about reaching out, you’d be doing me a favor (not just a favor, but a mitzvah), especially if you’re in New York.
Ultimately these are bikes, and they need to be ridden.