Silly Goose!

 While riding down the Hudson River Greenway, “Sam” and I had to dodge a flock of geese that strolled into the path.

I say that if you’re going to take up space in a bike lane you should, at least, be on a bike!

A “Guerilla” Bike Share

If you’ve ridden a bike from a share network like Citibike in my hometown of New York, you probably retrieved the bike from a dock by clicking an app or QR code. At least, that’s what I’ve done the few times I’ve ridden such a bike.

The earliest official share programs—like the one started in La Rochelle, France half a century ago (and still running to this day) could not, of course, have operated in such a way because we didn’t have portable phones, “smart” or otherwise, and the technological networks didn’t exist. So, I imagine, operating the share system must have been more labor intensive, and its bikes more difficult to keep track of, than its current iteration.

In my previous paragraph, I wrote that La Rochelle can lay claim to the first “official” bike share program. That is to say, it was the first to be organized and sanctioned by a city or other government. The idea of bikes publicly available to anyone who wants to ride them predates La Rochelle’s program by a decade or so:  During the mid-1960s, anarchists took abandoned bicycles, painted them white and left the Witte Fietsen on the streets of Amsterdam for anyone who wanted to ride them.

It seems that the spirit of that “Dutch treat,” if you will, has been revived in Montclair, New Jersey, only 33 kilometers (21 miles) or so from my apartment.

“Andy,” who would not give his full name, found a few bikes that were being thrown away.  He took them home, repaired them and collected more bikes. He soon had a full garage. 

One day, as he relates, he was talking to a co-worker who said getting to the bus he takes to work was ‘challenging.” “Andy”offered him one of the bikes, explaining that he could lock the bike up before he boarded the bus and hop back on it after returning.

A “Guerilla” bike in front of the Montclair Public Library.

So was the Montclair Guerilla Bike Share program born. It takes bikes from the trash, clean-outs and donors, makes them rideable and leaves them in public spaces where people can unlock them with QR codes or by visiting the website. After riding it, you can lock it in a public place for someone else to unlock it.

“Andy” says he’s improved the stickers and other markings to make them easier to find. He’s also installed trackers on them, which helps to ensure that they’re not stolen and makes it easier to check on their conditions.

I am sure he knows about Citibike and other institutionalized bike-share programs. But I wonder whether he knew anything about the anarchists in Amsterdam who were leaving bikes on that city’s streets a decade before he was born.

First Times, Again

 I’ve never been here before—on a bike.

So exclaimed “Sam,” my new neighbor and riding buddy when we stopped at City Island during our first ride together. I heard it a few more times the other day, after we pedaled the length of Manhattan on the Hudson River bike lane and looped past the Staten Island Ferry terminal and South Street Seaport to the Williamsburg Bridge.

“I’ve never crossed this on bike!”

He also rode “Hipster Hook”—the waterfront of Williamsburg and Greenpoint for the first time. In fact, our ride was his first into Brooklyn and Queens.

He apologizes for riding a pace slower than mind. I don’t mind, I assure him. He, who has asthma, is riding, and that is good. So what if we need to stop so he can use his inhaler? 

More than anything, I enjoy his company: Let’s say that he’s lived a life vastly different from mine and therefore sees things in a way I never could. Plus, I love seeing him experience those “firsts” on a bike. 

I suspect that if we do some of the same rides again, that sense of discovery won’t disappear: He will change as a rider as, I believe, we all do. Besides, I can take a ride I’ve done dozens, or even hundreds, of times and experience something new or anew, whether in my surroundings or my body, or the bike itself—whether I’m by myself or pedaling with a new riding buddy.