It’s been relatively quiet on the pages of Velospeak as I’ve been on the road over the last week. An invitation to visit a lighting manufacturer in New York allowed a day in the Big Apple with quick stops at several museums including the New Museum to have a look at the Jim Shaw show and MoMA to see both the Picasso sculpture show and the Warhol show. In between, I was able to try out, for the first time, the Citi Bike program to navigate the city. New York City is a glorious place to ride a bike with all the bike lanes lining the avenues, and the Citi Bikes make these paths accessible to most anyone. The system is relatively easy to use, and within a minute of activating the screen, I was on a bike ready to explore. My first stop was the Rapha Cycle Club for a visit with Tim Johnson. Rapha was hosting an informal early morning breakfast with the pro, and I couldn’t resist the opportunity to check out the club. Crossing Manhattan on the bike was a pleasure. The bikes are typical for this type of program, easy to set up, and easy to ride. They are not speed demons in any sense, but they will definitely get you from point A to point B. Having an easy option to ride in an urban setting such as NYC is a dream, and the program here seems to work as well as the program in Paris. I only had two issues, When I locked up the bike after the first ride. It turned out that I didn’t properly engage the bike, so it still registered as being on loan to me. A quick call to the program rectified the problem, and I was able to rent again. The other issue was discovering the rental stalls were all filled with bikes when I arrived at the New Museum. But after a quick look at Google Maps, I discovered another station around the block with plenty of space. Citi Bike makes it a pleasure to explore NYC, and I suspect if I were a resident, and if I could adapt to real weather, I would be a year round user of the system. For now, I will patiently wait for Los Angeles to get on board with a similar system.
I’ve included a few random shots from the trip, including one of LSI, the company hosting the excursion. They are in the Hudson River Valley, so I was also able to check out nearby Dia:Beacon. Captions will explain things further.
On the way to the Rapha Cycle Club
A view across the street from Rapha
Tokyo Bike, directly across the street from the New Museum
Totem Stereo 1970, Mario Bellini MoMA
Dan Flavin, Dia:Beacon
Lighting Services Inc.