The other night I had the good fortune of going to a meetup of bikers and bikers who blog in New York. The evening very specifically was not about the tiresome political wrangling that has been going on in my city over bike lanes. It was about people who just f**king love to bike in New York, and who aren’t going to let anything or anyone stop them from doing it. Bike nurds, as organizer Noel Hidalgo (@noneck) proudly proclaimed.
Presenters included a pretty sweet selection of the city’s many bike bloggers, photographers, and filmmakers, including the most excellent Bitch Cakes, Velojoy, 50 Car Pileup, Bike Blog NYC, Brooklyn Spoke, Bicycles Only, and Streetfilms. (Local bike shop Bicycle Habitat was also there, as was photographer Dmitry Gudkov.)
Not able to make it was Noa Cortes, who runs the NYC Cycle Chic blog — a relative newcomer to the booming Cycle Chic movement spawned by Mikael Colville-Andersen of Copenhagen Cycle Chic.
Cortes sent a video to represent himself instead, and it is such a lovely, peaceful evocation of the joy of cycling that I asked him if I could share it with Grist readers.
In the video, Cortes talks about riding his bike in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, as a child, and how his understanding of the power of cycling has evolved since then.
Now as a young adult, I understanding how great cycling is, not just for one’s health and because of the environmental benefits, but just for socializing and enjoying life. Sometimes I think that transportation politics can overshadow the beauty of just getting on your bike and going about your everyday life. …
It is that simple relationship that humans have with their bicycle that has motivated me to photograph cyclists and promote cycling as an essential tool for living in New York City.
As Cortes says, enjoy the ride.
