I bought a new bike about 2 months ago. And it’s changed my life in so many positive ways. I’ll just let David Byrne describe the feeling of biking, since he says it best:

There’s an exhilaration you get from self-propelled transportation — skateboarding, in-line skating and walking as well as biking; New York has good public transportation, but you just don’t get the kind of rush I’m talking about on a bus or subway train. I got hooked on biking because it’s a pleasure, not because biking lowers my carbon footprint, improves my health or brings me into contact with different parts of the city and new adventures. But it does all these things, too — and sometimes makes us a little self-satisfied for it; still, the reward is emotional gratification, which trumps reason, as it often does.

My bike is a cyclocross bike so it’s good for road riding and light off road riding. I’ve fallen in love with setting out in the morning knowing I’m going to ride 60 miles or so, not having any idea where my bike will take me. I call my bike “The Freedom Machine.” I don’t own a car, so getting out of NYC can get quite expensive. But that’s no longer. If I want to go to the beach, I jump on my bike and head to Fort Tilden. It’s a 45 mile round trip ride and takes about an hour and twenty minutes each way. If I want to head up to the mountains, I ride up the west side of Manhattan, head over the George Washington Bridge, up the Hudson River Road, and then I’m in Norman Rockwell country. This photo is from my last trip up north looking down on the Hudson from Storm King park.

My bike has completely changed my experience in NYC. The more I explore in and around this city, the more I fall deeper in love with the greatest country in the world, NYC. You’ve got the best of both worlds, the city and the country. But, unless you have a bike, the country is just so far away and so expensive to get to.

If you don’t have a bike, get one. And enjoy.