Doe (fr) cycling in New York
Kennith
cyclists have right of way today in New York, major roads are closed to cars. Our author Sebastian Moll goes every day with the bike, he likes the fight for survival.
There are two words including the New York cycling essential. The short curse: "Fuck you." Only a few days I've again noticed as one of those stupid taxi drivers in the centimeter distance past me roared, just to get me to cut at the next intersection when turning and bring to the unspeakable decision: either to slow sharply or evade, and thus risking a collision with a parked car. I cursed aloud, "Fuck you." Like an echo of the taxi driver replied: "Fuck you." And then he sped off with screeching tires.
am I usually not a very angry person, but as a cyclist in New York, this "Fuck you" usually the only thing one is. There is a desperate Cry of extradited relentlessly, often directed at anyone in particular but to the same anonymous as indifferent superiority of the motorists around you.
It is an unforgiving struggle for survival to drive in New York bike and you get into trouble, if one tries to explain why not only does, but it also finds exciting. Why, for example, the concert of car horns and whistles (to make hotel porters, waiting for taxis, attention) enjoys, as it would be a Mahler symphony, and why they suck in the bouquet of black smoke, meat dishes from exotic restaurant kitchens and rotting garbage, as it could be pure Atlantic air; why is it even in his own way is fun, how to curse a sailor in front of him and be insulted, why is it an unparalleled triumph, all the potholes and suddenly opening car doors despite 30 blocks long not once set foot on the asphalt to set.
Maybe you can explain the fascination this way: I'm totally up in such a chaotic bustle of this city. Biking for me anyway is the only way to understand a city really. I've never seen why people in a car - from the outside world, shielded - to move in a metropolis, or, alternatively, a large underground city as a series of neon-lit platforms should experience, which differ only by the name labels on the station signs from each other. Whether I lived in Munich or Frankfurt, visited Paris or Berlin, the wheel seemed to me always as the best means of transportation.
So it was for me clear that I worried a wheel, when I moved to New York six years ago. Especially since the Manhattan map identifying them as best bike station. The area of the district in which one moves in New York mostly, between Battery Park to the south and the 110ten street in the north, and from river to river is just 10 x 3 km, and on this surface there is not a single collection, for which one a Gear required.
presented from the perspective of the arm first thing differently dar. very first test drive with my pride was for 30 dollars from a junk dealer on the Lower East Side resurrected Schrottrad teach me humility - Manhattan is never designed for cyclists. What I had even thought of? How should the congested city in the western hemisphere also be a habitat for your pedal? The first attempt to establish themselves in New York City Transit, ended in frustration releasing a monthly pass for the subway.
But the thought of cycling did not release me. Finally, there were also bicycle messengers who seemingly effortlessly through the traffic meandered and 40 cases of Times Square booed. It could only be a matter of technique and the "Attitude" - the typical New Yorker "Look out, here I come" attitude that you as the course Coated practice it first. So I tried again. And indeed, at some point the penny dropped. Meanwhile, I also mastered the art for staying with the really slow down the broad avenues of moving vehicles. The frustration has given way to a deep sense of happiness that sets in every time I manage to leave me like a surfer drive through the traffic.
It is, however, in recent years also become much easier to drive in New York bike. The Moloch is the cyclist now much friendlier than he was five years ago. It is now as a cyclist in New York in the trend is ensnared not only on the bicycle and the bicycle fashion industry, but even the mayor himself
As part of its ambitious plan, New York's greenest city in America to make wishes Michael Bloomberg new cycle paths in the five districts can create. At key metro stations large bike racks were installed in Central Park, the city of bikes. And not just today, but once a week in August, a route from the southern tip of Manhattan up to the 72th Road closed completely to traffic.
A surprising development: Ten years ago, the "Critical Mass Rides" - the monthly bicycle demonstrations against the traffic in U.S. cities - Events rampaging anarchists, which ended with mass arrests. Today, politicians are regular as the former presidential candidate Al Sharpton, or the Talking Heads-musician David Byrne in "Critical Mass", the trips have become a social event. And missed a celebrity there is more to getting caught by paparazzi while shopping on the bike - whether it is Madonna and Gisele's Bundchen in Manhattan, the Clintons cycle on the cycle paths around their New York residential suburb of Chappaqua or Barack Obama in his campaign-free weekend with family at Lake Michigan in Chicago.
How much has evolved into cycling in New York from the anarchic to the activity trend is also evident in the fashion of the "Single Speed" wheels. To emphasize the Suicidal their jobs, New York bike couriers began 20 years ago to hunt on bicycles without gears and brakes without the city. Your business trips were to flirt with death - you are either a negotiated admiration when they had back luck with skill and survived a day, or ended up in intensive care. It was - in the spirit of punk - an indictment of the inhuman environment fully utilizing their own health. On weekend, the scene wild race on the road, after which were awarded at a lot of beer cans next to the spectacular victory and the worst accidents and injury. These races are
still are. There are also single-speed bikes in the boutiques of the chic district of Williamsburg, or SOHO to buy. Customers are preferred designers, architects and other style-conscious young urban professionals who dress in the same shops, was recorded entirely in the bike messenger-style. The skill of the couriers to compete with the difficult to control wheels in New York City Transit, you can buy there, however. And given the way the shop owners report that not a few buyers, the expensive wheels after just a few days back. For despite Bloomberg plan New York is not even for as long bicycle-friendly such as Muenster or Copenhagen. It remains an adventure to ride down Broadway, when it's not just Saturday, and Mayor Mike has it blocked for a few hours for drivers. An exhilarating adventure, however. This mix of game and battle, from sports and the transport is addictive. My metro card is in any case has long been unused in the drawer.
