No Biking: I Missed the Bus

[art at a bus stop. the L train is bad]

Riding the Bus

Did I mention I rode the bus? I forgot to, but it is worth mentioning. Half the time I looked up subway routes on my iPhone and it would say to take a bus to the subway. I would always skip those directions and look for a route without a bus. However, one time I was only given bus options and I decided to try it out. I actually knew what subways to take and they were the G and L train (two highly hated subway routes).

Anyway, the bus was on time, but I was not. I missed the bus, jumped into the street, and waved to the driver. He pulled over and I got on. I then enjoyed a quick bus ride (about the amount of time it would take me to walk to the subway station). Mass Transit may not be the evil I thought it was.

I HATE ALL MASS TRANSIT INCLUDING THE BUS SYSTEM!

On my trip back home the bus was late. Buses suck as well.

No Biking: Day 7

Day 7: The End

The my final day without my bike, everyone rode the subway to work. All four of us decided today was not a day to ride a bike. Almost all of Manhattan realized it was day not to ride bikes in solidarity of my final day without a bike (it could also have been the rain).

Another subway ride, another delayed train. Paying $2 to be late to work is not worth the pain. I think I wasted $16 taking that wretched, ancient, slow system. Two or three times it was delayed. At least once it did not go where the conductor said it was going. I could not imagine spending that amount up every week to suffer.

Enough of this writing. My seven days are up. I want to ride my bicycle!


[want a ride?]

No Biking: Days 5 and 6

Day 5: Black Friday

No work, no bike, no problem (except that it was Black Friday and how was I to get to all the hot deals?).

No shopping for me; all I really did was my laundry, which is a block and a half away. However, in the final walk from the laundromat I lost my headphones. This is not good for long distance walks.

Day 6: Long Walks, No Headphones

Nothing like waking up early on a Saturday morning to go for a 45 minute walk to work without headphones. I brought my camera along to take some pictures of my crash site and the wonderful tourists on the Brooklyn Bridge. I missed a shot of a biker coming down the bridge and yelling at a tourist, who was standing in the middle of the bike lane. Here is what I did get:





[the yellow pole I hit]

I should count how many signs there are to tell people that bikes stay on the right and pedestrians stay on the left (there must only be about 25). I have often wondered if people get confused from the picture of the biker, which looks more like some body with a disconnected head floating between two hula hoops.

That about did it for Saturday. I finished my walk to work and eventually made it back to my apartment. Only one more day without riding my bike.

No Biking: Days 3 and 4

Day 3: I HATE THE SUBWAY

Wednesday, I wake up and decide to take the subway. I check my fastest route and see when the train is leaving. All sources tell me it will be a 33 minute trip including walking to the subway (I walk faster than average people so it will probably take less time).

Walking to the subway is easy. I pay my $2 and enter the station. The display says the next train will arrive in two minutes. I start thinking maybe this is not as bad as I make it out to be. Two minutes pass and no train arrives. Five minutes pass and no train arrives. Eight minutes pass, another train is schedule to arrive, but still nothing. I am starting to remember why I do not like to rely on others to get me places. Ten minutes have passed and the train arrives.

Everything is okay, I am only going to be ten minutes late. When taking the subway are you supposed to schedule your trip with the intent that trains could be delayed? I would hate to waste so much of my life planning for others flakiness. The train is moving and starting to fill up as we continue on down the tracks.

The train becomes a packed house before we dive under the river into Manhattan. I now remember another reason I do not like the subway. I don't like being shoulder to shoulder with other commuters, especially early in the morning when I am half asleep. Lucky for me I have my back against the door so I only have one person inches from me. The downside is this person is watching some Madonna live concert on his iPod nano and dancing. Yes, dancing.

I cannot even describe how I felt at this moment, but I will try. There is a packed train where most people have all filed front to back (to reduce the chances of accidentally making out). Everyone is standing still hating the fact that they are crammed on the subway. Everyone except the one guy dancing to Madonna. He is face to face with another rider. He is dancing like he is on the grind and it is still 1999. And he is two inches away from me. Face to face.



Then the train stops. We are under the East River. There is no announcement. There is a guy dancing to Madonna at 9:30 A.M. I am trapped and I am officially late for work. I hate the subway!

I think I blacked out after all this and the next thing I remember was showing up at work 30 minutes late. Needless to say, I walked home from work and did not take the subway.

Day Four

Happy Thanksgiving! I took the subway again. It only took me three trains to get to Queens. Everything was on time, so I only spent a little over an hour in the death machine. The ride home was much the same, but I am still scarred.

I HATE THE SUBWAY!

No Biking: Days 1 and 2

Day One

Starting out on a Monday is easy for me now; I don't work on Mondays so I usually have little to do (as opposed to last year when I was doing challenges while being unemployed). That being said I only left my house to go to the bar a few blocks from my apartment. Not biking is easy. Day one complete.

Day Two

Day two was the real beginning of the challenge. I actually had stuff to do (work). Biking is the fastest way for me to commute. Biking takes about 15 minutes, while walking would take just under an hour. The subway would be in between walking and biking, but the subway is a terrible terrible place (I have mentioned this before and I will mention it again and again). I have to wake up much earlier to walk to work.

My walk is dull, however I did pass by the scene of my accident that spurred this challenge. Walking 3.2 miles is no problem for me. Working around lots of bikes with nothing to do, is a problem.



I might have jumped on a bike and took it for a spin around the store (the store is tiny and I had my feet on the ground most of the time). First failure of the week. My punishment was walking another 3.3 miles to kickball after standing for nine and a half hours.

Riding my bike would be nice, but this is not too bad. As long as I avoid the train, this will be easy.

No Biking: The Challenge

I have been sitting idly thinking of a new challenge while I wait for my marriage to be finalized. Then, an idea hit me… or a pedestrian hit me… and I hit a railing… and I almost fell off the pedestrian part of the Brooklyn Bridge.


[yellow marks from the Brooklyn Bridge railing on my handlebars and glove]
There is something about riding a bicycle when it is five degrees below freezing and dodging tourists taking pictures in the bike lane; and that something is not pleasant. By the time I got to work the swelling was beefing up my arm and I had some thoughts. Biking is convenient to me about 90% of the time. Not riding my bike would probably make my life a living hell. The nearest subway is a 15-minute walk. Plus, I hate the subway. These things probably mean that not biking would be a perfect challenge. So...

The Challenge
No bike riding for seven days.
Not for transportation.
Not for entertainment.
Not for exercise.
None.

This week will hopefully be good to help me calm down about idiotic pedestrians who have no sense of where they are. In fact, I might even become one of these reckless pedestrians and teach others than riding a bike is something that should only be done in spin class.

Time to hang up my bikes and put away my gear for a week.