I have a bike!

Okay- so I cheated a tiny bit. Instead of rummaging around through the array of parts from the community bike project, the very generous Amber volunteered to give me her bike to play with. She was going to donate it to the bike project, but instead I decided I should give it a home with all its limbs before someone at the project disassembled all its parts.

It’s very different from the bike I’ve been ‘practicing’ on. This bike is a road bike, as opposed to the mountain bike I was riding earlier in the summer. This means, the tires are tiny (how in the world are those tires going to balance my entire body??), and the handle bars are more narrow to create a more streamline feel (I’m going to pretend I’m a piece of paper refusing to fly away with the wind).

Other than getting used to riding a new bike, there are a few things that  need to be done. The bike only has a front brake, and I need a back brake. I’m already working tremendously hard to learn how to brake accurately (bias the back brake over the front brake, completely stop before dismounting, etc), so it’ll be nice to get those back stoppers.  The bike is also in a fixed gear, and I have the option to mount a derailleur (or two) and give a little more oompf when I need to get on those hills. Other than that, there is nothing I absolutely have to do on the bike. I’m just excited to start biking around the city.

And 4 days later…

I rode my bike to school! I had anticipated to work on the bike after classes at the Bloomington Bike Community and I reckoned it was necessary to actually have the bike when I did the work that needed to be done. So after my helmet was strapped on, Scott and I began the trip NOT on tenth street. I only live about 1.5 miles east of SPEA on 10^th, but there is nothing more reassuring to hear that there are paths I can ride that do not involve crossing the bypass and construction haven. I ventured through the ‘hills’ of Bloomington, the zooming cyclists (without helmets!), and the slight bumps on the road that seem to appear just when I’m a foot away  and aren’t so slight  when I have to go over it. However, I did manage to follow stop signs and hit a couple of posts to avoid crashing into people or the ground, but other than that, I remained unscathed. And I feel pretty good about it.

I did not make it to the bike project today but I will be there on Wednesday (and probably subsequent Wednesdays), as I have been in the last couple of weeks. Find me there!

Inspirations

Billboards in NYC for the launch of BikeNYC.org in July 2012

Day 1: Volunteering

On Wednesday afternoon, I dove right into the bike community project by disassembling my first bike. Their mentality: if you can take apart a bike, you can build it back together again. So wheels were taken apart. Wrenches were turned and dropped (thankfully not on feet). Time was spent looking for the fitting hex keys. Various other tools used to turn, crank, and jiggle to disassemble the bike to its bare frame. Success was measured through bike grease smeared all over my hands at the end of the day.

I will attempt to volunteer at the shop weekly to pick up as much bike knowledge as possibly before assembling my bike.  But I’m still going to do my homework before then. I turned nuts but why was that nut attached to that bolt? That cable came from where? Hopefully I can get a solid bike background before I go back and really understand what I’m disassembling. Until next time, bike grease. 

Personal Project: Becoming a Biker

Whenever someone asks me where I’m from, I can proudly say I’m from New York City. But growing up in the city meant that I walked everywhere… and biked nowhere. “Hi, my name is Mary and I’m from NYC, and I don’t know how to ride a bike.” So as my personal project, I will learn how to ride the bike, and to get there, I will be apart of the Bloomington Community Bike Project.

If the Statue of Liberty can ride her bike, so can I

I have ridden a bike before in my life. I biked for fun when I was about ten years ago, and then I stopped. The last time I got on a bike was actually in May to see if I can incorporate another form of exercising. Yes, it has been about 13 years since I’ve sat on a bike seat, but it can’t be that difficult. Like everyone says: “It’s like riding a bike”. Well, for me, it was NOT like riding a bike. I fell off. Multiple times. Scars to prove it. I was running out of knee skin.

But now I’m back and more determined than ever to become a biker.  First stop, the Bloomington Community Bike Project. The project is a completely non-profit, volunteer run organization that allows anyone to ‘Earn-A-Bike’ through volunteering, or ‘Buy-A-Bike’. I will attempt to earn a bike by putting in a minimum of three volunteer hours in the shop, while learning everything bike-related, and at the end of those hours, I will get to build my own bike! There is a lot of anticipation to actually build a structure that can transport a person from one place to another. So I’m very excited to start learning and putting pieces together. Now just to get past the fear of getting back on the bike…. I am and will be as resilient as those little kids with the training wheels and kneepads. Except I won’t have a 4-wheel bike and I will be more than 3 feet off the ground. But I will be resilient. Stay tuned for the bike learning, building, and riding, and not falling!

"We're Going to Need Bigger Shoes for Those Feet"

We’ve all heard about ecological footprints. We’ve all done the surveys. In college, I was over three planet Earths. Currently, as a grad student, I’m 4.1 Earths.  But how can that be? I consider myself as a sustainable person. I would like to believe I’m doing my part in conserving whatever natural resources the world holds, but I still need 4.1 Earths. But I live in New York City! I don’t own a car and I take public transportation everywhere! I became a vegetarian (okay, pescetarian) a month ago! But 4.1 Earths? That is still 3.1 more Earths than the world has, and I’m not the only human being living on it. And sadly, I am actually conscious about my impact on Earth. How will this number differ if I actually did not care, not one bit?

As Wackernagel and Rees explain in their analysis of an ecological footprint, city developments are “among the most spectacular achievements of human civilization”. But place a glass dome over an urban region, and the population will disappear within a few days. So no, simply by living in a city does not mean you are ‘off the hook’ on being sustainable, as many would like to believe.  “I don’t own a car and ride the subway everywhere, therefore I don’t need to do anything else. “ Wrong. New York City residents still have the option to purchase cars (in fact- my family just bought their first car 2 months ago), we can still buy our gala apples that were grown from New Zealand, and we certainly can fly to anywhere in the world from any of our THREE airports. Simply by living in one of the largest urban areas do not necessarily deem an individual to be very sustainable, nor should New Yorkers stop striving to become someone even more green.

Imagine NYC is this mini-terrarium...
(terrarium made by twirlingbetty, a fellow blogger) 

On a broader level, how does New York City think it is doing in sustainability? A quick search on the NYC’s sustainability indicators, show that NYC has sustainability targets for 2030, and it is currently on the trajectory to reaching those targets. Some city goals include ways to create more affordable and sustainable city housing and neighborhoods, ensure New Yorker’s living within walking distance to a park, and clean up all brownfields. While my personal project may be to eat no meat, and others to purchase less or eat more locally, the city also has their own sustainability goals. Although NYC is viewed as fairly sustainable, globally, everyone has to do their part to encourage a more effective and efficient use of current resources. That might mean New York City has to find methods to clean up their brownfields and perhaps use it as residential land space. After all, Staten Island is one giant landfill, and has a population of almost half a million people. Creative ways to use a past dump site? Yes, please. Tax deductions for greenroofing New York City buildings? Why not? Competitions to design micro-apartments to downsize lifestyles? Perhaps. There is no reason why New York City and its residents should not continue to strive to be more sustainable, because like me, while 4.1 is low, it certainly does not mean perfect.