For the Love of Bikes

We had a thunderstorm in the city yesterday which helped break the heat a little — tomorrow is slated to be in the low 70s. If I had my druthers, I’d ride a bike to work. At a startup I used to work at, a bunch of guys on our tech team would ride their bikes to work, and when they arrived, they’d exclaim, “Who needs coffee, when you have adrenaline!?” (Brogrammers.)

But I don’t own a bike, because I’m afraid of having it get stolen, and I’m mostly afraid of being hit by a car while biking in the city because I’ve had friends who have been hit by cars while biking in the city! I do love a good bike ride in the park, or along the Hudson River, which is why I’m actually looking forward to seeing the city’s new bike share program roll out next month, and am happy to hear about the news that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority is considering allowing subway and bus riders to use their fare cards to check out bikes.

Hopefully it won’t become a disaster like what happened with the bike share program in Paris where 80 percent of the city’s first 20,600 bikes were vandalized, damaged and thrown into the river, or stolen to be sold on the black market. Seriously, what is wrong with people?

Photo: Flickr/neotint

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