Welcome to NYC

Yep its been a while since a post by me, nothing bad happened, just lost high speed access(summer job ended) and the connection is worse then dial-up at home now, thanks to the wonderful cable company and the internet providers. You really cant do anything with 14.4 speed, thankfully we are not paying for that.... Anyway as I mentioned, I think, I was in NYC this past weekend for various goings on, seeing some exhibits, Summer Streets, visiting the High Line Park, and the Tesla motors store. A good trip overall if not hot. There was one thing I experienced for the first time though, a pedicab. Yes, you see them all over Europe and they are around times square in NYC, the pedal taxies. It was really good, my parents and I managed to squeeze into the back of one and we were off, now our driver was one of the lucky ones with a front mounted electric assist, but it was only slightly noticed, except for the whine of the regenerative breaks turning on at the lights. One interesting thing did happen in the 4 blocks we took it to Grand central, a large tour bus, you know the big coach ones, pulled right up in front of the bike and stopped on an angle, making our driver screech to a halt, with full re-gen whirring. If he was going any faster or we were a single cyclist we would have been coach smush. The idiot knew we were there, he drove right past us, yet didn't have the care to pause for 10 seconds and let us make it past where he wanted to stop. I think it opened up my parents eyes to the ever present dangers of cycling in a car based society, more so then anything I ever say would, I think they better understood the things that cycling planners are working against. I got a picture of the number to call on the back asking “how's my driving” so will need to do that as soon as I can, cause his was reckless and down right crap. NYC is making progress, especially for the recreational cyclists, but for the commuters, for the people making their living on the bike, as messengers, as taxi's, as vendors, they know the true horror of cycling in NYC, and their lives are not improving nearly as fast. NYC is the only city in the US where the majority don't even own a car for christs sake! I would hate to try that in LA. I give my best to them all, (and an extra large tip) because these are the true hero's on the road, and they know where the problems are, yet are too often ignored by those making decisions.

I will be posting again, regularly, as I gain high speed access again, I have a bunch of infrastructure pictures from NYC, as well as from the High Line Park, which will be going up in the coming weeks, and looking ahead I am going to start training with the hopes of cycling ~130 miles round trip up to Montreal for the weekend in October, I can do ~75 in a day but that was on a bike more designed for on road cycling, then my current mountain bike, and that was when I was doing a5-10 miles day commute. Did I mention I want a new bike now too?

NYC Pedicab Association

Thanks to PRI The World's photo stream for the picture Really good show if you have not listened to it.