I Love Riding in the City

NAME: Doug D
LOCATION: New York, NY
OCCUPATION: Part time messenger, part time food delivery

Where do you live and what’s it like riding in your city?
I live in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. In my neighborhood I feel safer riding my bike than I would if I were to be walking all the time. In Bed-Stuy I ride past the Marcy Houses every day and once I was punched in the head as I was riding just two blocks from my house. But my street has a bike lane so that’s good, and they just made it better by making it begin about ten blocks sooner. I do most of my riding in Manhattan or North Brooklyn while I’m working.

What was your favorite city to ride in, and why?
NYC is good and evil at the same time, lots of different areas, surprising how much can be found here. In Manhattan the congestion is good, drivers don’t have tons of space to get stupid. But some of the streets are in bad repair so it’s not always a smooth ride. But the city has repaved a lot in the last couple years so it’s much better than when I moved here. I’m from Dayton. There the streets are smooth but the drivers suck really bad. In NYC riding is great, I see lots of friends on bikes all the time.

My favorite place to ride isn’t a city at all, it’s the mountain passes throughout the Eastern Sierra Nevada’s. Sonora Pass is my favorite road I’ve ever ridden, it’s like a roller coaster through the mountains. Tioga Pass, so fast, I’ve hit 70+ mph it’s 12 miles to the top—1h:15m up, turn around, 14 minutes down. There are so many great roads out there. Monitor, Ebbetts, Kingsbury, Mt. Rose highway. Westgard pass starts at 4000ft and goes up to 10,000ft. Smooth, quiet, clean and beautiful, almost no traffic.

Why do you love riding in the city?
It’s where I live. I roll my bike out the door in the morning and ride all day till I get home at night. And NYC is the best place for bike polo.

Check out www.hardcourtbikepolo.com

To participate, answer the following:

NAME:
LOCATION:
OCCUPATION:

Where do you live and what’s it like riding in your city?

What was your favorite city to ride in, and why?

Why do you love riding in the city?

Or just say whatever you want about riding in the city… Poetry anyone?

Email your responses (along with a high-resolution photo) to jeff@urbanvelo.org