Ride And/Or Die: A (Reluctant) Beginner’s Guide To Biking in Brooklyn
- Kristian Dowling/Getty Images North America
- A dramatic re-enactment.
Verdict
Surprisingly, I’d do it again! Once I find a cheap, decent bike to call my own (donations accepted), I will. Granted, it won’t be as a die-hard bike commuter in full kit so much as a neighborhood-centric dilettante, but that’s really the only hump I was trying to get over in the first place.
It doesn’t hurt that the best trip I had was actually the one I had taking the bike back to Ride, most of which I spent on the Brooklyn Bridge waterfront bike path, and then on Dean street. So, in spite of a few close calls and a lot of embarrassment, I left the whole thing feeling good about it, not embittered and terrified.
I’m also pretty sure I’ll get less skittish with time — a week of learning to bike in city traffic doesn’t stack up to, say, a lifetime of pedestrian experience or a decade of driving, so I can only assume it’s a bit of a process. That, and finding a decent-looking helmet.
Follow Virginia K. Smith on Twitter @vksmith.