Riding in the bike lane

Buzzfeed, the Internet fun-stuff aggregator (and the people behind the Kim Kardashian store vigil) have been doing some great original content lately. Sometimes you just have to give back to the web, you know? The most recent example is a YouTube bike tour down NYC's oldest North-South street, starting in the Bronx and ending up in Bowling Green. And since watching a real time video like that would take approximately 5 hours, it's been sped up to fit into a nice 5 minute clip with some funky grooves. We just hope the rider was wearing a helmet.


Kind of makes you want to call it a half-day at work and go biking in this unseasonably warm November weather, right?

Architecture. (Getty)

The Observer was beginning to suffer withdrawal. It had been more than two weeks since Michael Kimmelman filed his last piece for The Times Art Section, after a run of nearly one architecture review a week. We should have seen his latest one coming, but The Observer must admit that we did not.

It is not simply because defining bike lanes as architecture could be a subject open for debate, at least under Mr. Kimmelman’s starchiest-loving predecessor (to be fair, he did write about the Time Square pedestrian plazas) but also because the Gray Lady has not exactly been a friend to the cycling movement, consistently criticizing the godhead Janette Sadik-Khan.

But for Mr. Kimmelman, recently returned from Europe, cycling is almost a perfect conveyance.

I know how this happens from living in Berlin the past few years. I came to love to run errands there on my bike, to take my younger son to the aquarium and just to find excuses to ride through Treptow Park to watch old Berliners dance with hipsters on the riverside veranda of an ancient beer garden.

New York is not Berlin or Amsterdam, but London has lately turned into a bike capital too, in conjunction with a traffic-congestion fee program for drivers of the sort that New York was wrong to reject recently. It’s now common around Sloane Square and Piccadilly Circus to find parents with children and businessmen and businesswomen commuting on bicycles. Safety in numbers, Londoners have discovered: a city reaches a tipping point when biking achieves what Ms. Sadik-Khan describes as an everyday “architecture of safety.”

There we go, architecture, and a special breed at that. Mr. Kimmelman is absolutely right, though. He has sold us once again, not only on the architectural nature of bike lanes but their important place in a vibrant city. Lanes are, in a sense, architecture because like any important infrastructure, they are capable of transforming the built environment, just like any exquisite building.

In a follow-up blog post, we learn of Mr. Kimmelman’s childhood accident, that turned him off to biking for some time. Were it not for the bike lanes, one wonders if he would bike, or bike as much. It is good that he can, and that others are following suit. “On a bike time bends,” he writes. “Space expands and contracts.”

It is a shame more cannot enjoy it.

I am even more surprised by how many New Yorkers oppose the lanes because they drive or because they imagine the lanes are mainly for reckless delivery men. Never mind that those men are often rushing Kung Pao chicken to those same bike-lane-averse New Yorkers, who stiff them on tips if their takeout doesn’t arrive yesterday.

Yet again, Mr. Kimmelman is engaging with public architecture. He will have to assess the institutional, for-profit variety sometime, and we suspect it will be have to be soon. After all, he is running out of city commissioners to confab with, having already spent time with Amanda Burden, Matthew Wambua, David Burney and now Janette Sadik-Khan. Perhaps a review of prison architecture is in the offing? Or the new CityBench? What corner of city life remains unreflected on by Mr. Kimmelman?

mchaban [at] observer.com | @MC_NYC

Samuel Coleman, straightening his so-called “loud” suit after the dance, said he commutes by bike from the Bronx into the city everyday for work. But that never stops his from looking his best.

“I’m always wearing a suit,” Mr. Coleman said. “I love to see women and men dress up to go to work. You hear people in suits say, ‘I’m going to change into something more comfortable,’ but, for me, dressing up is just as comfortable as wearing pajamas.”

In their 19th-century best—blazers, plus fours, loafers and vests abound—the modest crowd of stylish cycling enthusiasts like Mr. Coleman gathered for the Rugby Ralph Lauren Tweed Run Saturday in front of the Rugby store on the corner of East 12th Street and University Place. The day’s participants in the New York City Tweed Run were here supporting not only city cycling, but also the elegance of breeches and junipers.

“I really think sophistication is coming back,” said Mr. Coleman about the event.

Ted Young-Ing, Tweed Run founder and British cyclist, organized the first run in London, England, in January 2009. Mr. Young-In said the event intends to encourage casual cycling.

“My theory on cycling is that you don’t need special equipment. I ride in tweed all the time. It’s safe to do that, it’s fun to do that,” Mr. Young-Ing told The Transom at the run, occasionally sipping from a delicate ceramic cup of tea, naturally.

The “metropolitan bicycle ride with a bit of style” featured live bands, a Van Leeuwen ice cream truck, barber grooming by Murdock Barbers, saddle polishing by Brooks and a Pashley bike raffle to support the World Bicycle Relief. Contests were also held for best-dressed and best moustache, with Rugby gift card prizes. A collection of old-school carnival games, including a somewhat out-of-place “Tip Trolls” booth, were set up across from a table serving tea by Jeeves & Jericho and biscuits by Woolmark.

Jacqui Shannon, Mr. Young-Ing’s partner, said the run expanded to New York because of the city’s growing bike movement.

“New York is phenominal,” said Ms. Shannon, who wore a tweed blazer and dark brown plus fours. “The city has really embraced cycling.”

Bike marshals, along with British members of the St. John Ambulance Cycle Response Unit, led cyclists on a three-mile ride throughout Manhattan. The run’s organizers decided to change the route, which was supposed to circle downtown before crossing the Brooklyn Bridge, because of the Occupy Wall Street protests as well as other events in the city.

“Under advice of the NYPD, we decided to make it shorter rides,” said James Fry, Tweed Run spokesman. The Transom mentioned the situation’s irony—preppy bike riders accommodating the 99 percent—and Mr. Fry responded that the protests were a “really complicated issue.”

Though different from the organizer’s original vision, no one at the Tweed Run seemed to mind. Allan Aughey, who travelled over 8,000 miles from Australia, came to New York for the first time to partake in the event because of what it represents.

“It goes back to a time when grace and good values were highly valued,” said Mr. Aughey, major of Clare and Gilbert Valleys Council back home. Dressed in tweed plus fours and sporting a tidy white beard, Mr. Aughey decorated his limited edition Rugby Pashley bike with a kangaroo toy holding an American flag. “Australia and America, we’re great allies,” he said of the bike.

Mr. Aughey also explained his love for tweed. “Tweed is natural, it lasts longer and is environmentally friendly,” he said with a smile.