{"id":278,"date":"2008-06-18T22:38:19","date_gmt":"2008-06-19T02:38:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mauraweb.com\/blog\/?p=278"},"modified":"2010-08-22T19:42:03","modified_gmt":"2010-08-22T23:42:03","slug":"bernice-runs-for-her-train","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mauraweb.com\/blog\/2008\/06\/18\/bernice-runs-for-her-train\/","title":{"rendered":"bernice runs for her train"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wait, I was going to tell you about bicycles<\/a>, wasn’t I?<\/p>\n

I’ve wanted a bike for a while.* For green reasons, health reasons, fun reasons. But I haven’t been able to get myself to buy one. Partly it was a money thing: when we were on our eXtreme library school budget it didn’t seem properly thrifty to buy a bike. But there are other reasons too.<\/p>\n

* I had a bike in college, but I didn’t use it for transportation as much as for health\/fun rides along the lake between Hyde Park and the Loop. It’s a beautiful ride (and easy, too). But then the bike didn’t fit into the Uhaul when we moved east after college, so it lingered in the Midwest until Jonathan’s stepfather finally gave it to Goodwill (with my blessing!).<\/p>\n

Reason #1: Can’t seem to find the time to go to a bike store. This is kind of lame, but bicycles are complicated and expensive, and it seems like it would take several time-intensive trips to a bike store to get one. I guess if I really<\/b> wanted one I would make the time, right? Which leads me to…<\/p>\n

Reason #2: See above re: complicated. I have a hard enough time doing maintenance work on the house and the car — it’s just not something that interests me. And I would feel bad about spending money on bike tune-ups when I could (theoretically) DIY.<\/p>\n

Reason #3: What if the bike gets stolen? Would I have to get 3 million locks? What about the seat? I see some bikes with no seat — are they stolen or taken away by their owners for security reasons?<\/p>\n

Reason #4 (possibly the most neurotic reason, certainly the most important): Brooklyn streets are full of cars driving recklessly. And, for that matter, they are also full of hardcore cyclists biking in a hardcore manner. I am not the world’s most graceful person. Reckless cars + hardcore cyclists + 1 klutzy cyclist who hasn’t really ridden a bike in nearly two decades cannot possibly = a good, safe commute.<\/p>\n

But it’s getting too hot to walk every day. And it would be nice to have the commute be a little shorter, thus freeing me up to not take the subway home.<\/p>\n

Enter: my new xootr<\/a>! 0 learning curve. Can be ridden on the sidewalk. 100% fun. Also 100% dorky, esp. when I wear my orange helmet<\/a> (yes, I know this is blue, but they don’t seem to have orange anymore). Jonathan said: “you look as cool as if you were riding a Segway<\/a>.” And he’s right!<\/p>\n

Just to really drive the dorkiness home, yesterday on my way to work I passed a little boy who exclaimed to his mom, “wow, cool!” Yes, even the first graders think I’m cool. AWESOME.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wait, I was going to tell you about bicycles, wasn’t I? I’ve wanted a bike for a while.* For green reasons, health reasons, fun reasons. But I haven’t been able to get myself to buy one. Partly it was a money thing: when we were on our eXtreme library school budget it didn’t seem properly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[46,47,54],"class_list":["post-278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-bike","tag-commuting","tag-scooter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mauraweb.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mauraweb.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mauraweb.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mauraweb.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mauraweb.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=278"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mauraweb.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1314,"href":"https:\/\/mauraweb.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278\/revisions\/1314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mauraweb.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mauraweb.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mauraweb.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}