Bike Hugger 

As a former native Brooklundian and longtime cyclist, I was doing this back when I rarely ever saw another cyclist on the road. That was back before Brooklyn was considered cool. It’s hard for me to think that where I come from could possibly be cool even now. Can see say FUGGEDABOUDIT?

Here are a few of my favorite memories of touring Brooklyn by bicycle. There’s the day I found a fresh mafia-hit dead guy on Fountain Ave., which is the road the garbage trucks took to the city dump ironically named “Fresh Kills”.

On another ride I found about 50 beheaded parking meters “in the bushes” (that’s what we called the general landscape) in Bergen Beach near the Belt Parkway. I carried one back home under my arm while riding my bike a good number of miles back home, and I still have it sitting right here 30 years later.

I actually got my first job in my chosen profession, though wholly unqualified at the time, because it was during the transit/subway strike and people couldn’t get to work. I could get there though. I rode my bike (1974 Raleigh Super Course. Red & White) through sleet and knee deep slush, across the Brooklyn Bridge, to the McGraw Hill Building in midtown Manhattan. I had packed a change of clothes and a towel in a garbage bag. I was so wet and cold to the bone, like a man tossed overboard from a ship in a winter storm. Storm battered, I sat at a desk and was paid $100/day (lotta $ at the time) for a couple days to be a semi-warm body.

There was zero bike traffic anywhere. I rode all over NY state and rarely ever encountered another cyclist. At the time I could not have imagined that I would have such an influence on American culture.

Dude that’s an awesome story.