I Love Riding in the City
NAME: Steve Lee
LOCATION: Brooklyn, NY
OCCUPATION: Editor and Speechwriter
Where do you live and what’s it like riding in your city?
I live in Brooklyn and riding in the city is a microcosm of New York City itself. You have spandex-clad finance types, fixed gear hipsters, granny geared pedicabs, pragmatic 9-to-5ers, basket-toting fashonistas, kamikaze delivery guys and Charlie Brown-headed kids all competing for the same bike lanes, roadways and bike racks. I’ve been door’d by non-signaling taxi cabs, knocked to the ground by oblivious delivery vans and yelled at by jaywalking pedestrians. It’s a battle every day.
What was your favorite city to ride in, and why?
Nothing compares to New York City as a place with such a conflicted soul about riding. We hate bike lanes! We love bike lanes!
Why do you love riding in the city?
I sit at a desk in front of a computer all day. Every morning, I taste the first breath of sunrise as I cross the Brooklyn Bridge during my commute to Manhattan. Every weekend before my wife and son wake up, I can either ride to watch surfers dance across the waves at the beach in Queens or scale the George Washington Bridge to dizzying heights above the Hudson River. Riding in the city is the ultimate stress-management tool.
Or just say whatever you want about riding in the city… Poetry anyone?
Ride with traffic.
