…when you’ll leave the house empty-handed and come back with a free bookshelf. I saw this on the side of the road on my way back from the post office. I had just run out of space for my poetry books, so it was a serendipitous find.

(Part 2 of an occasional series. Here’s the first installment.)

From The Packet Boat (my Xtracycle)

From The Packet Boat (my Xtracycle)

…happy that when the apocalypse comes, I’ll have a head start because I already get around by bicycle.

An updated version of my bicycling poem “this two-wheeled life” will appear in the next issue of Boneshaker: A Bicycling Almanac. I’ll post details here when it comes out, which will likely be in October.

Poet Alan Casline rides the sardine bike in Belfast, Maine. Photo by Mark O’Brien.

Click for Super Sardine Size!

I bike past this sign every day on the way to the post office. Today I finally took a photo of it:

…and waiting for the bus.

From Crossing The Brooklyn Bridge By Bicycle

• After a week riding the Dahon Speed D7, getting back on my Xtracycle today felt like riding a sofa bed. On the one hand, it has the most comfortable seat in the world. The Dahon’s isn’t bad, but the seat on the Packet Boat is like a La-Z-Boy recliner. On the other hand, the Dahon weighs 27.6 lbs and my Xtracycle weighs about 60 lbs. The difference is, shall we say, noticeable. On the other other hand (the “Beeblebrox” hand), the Xtracycle is so stable that it feels like you could take a nap on the Snapdeck and it would keep going on autopilot.
• The Dahon performed extremely well during my trip. It fit easily on the bus, unfolded and folded in seconds, handled the Manhattan and Brooklyn streets like a champ, and even did fine on the ridiculously hilly ride I took in State College, PA, over the weekend. Highly recommended.
• This was the first time I’ve gone away from home and taken a bike with me (other than when I first moved to Albany and was commuting back and forth to Rochester to see my family). I was pleasantly surprised by just how darn useful the bike was the whole time I was in NYC. I went to a jazz show on my bike, ran errands, conducted interviews, got from one transportation mode to another — all by bike.

So. Much. Fun.

I love biking in New York City.

Tonight I biked from Manhattan’s Upper West Side to the Village to see jazz drummer Tyshawn Sorey’s New Quartet with John Escreet, Aaron Stewart & Taylor Ho Bynum. The ride was 70% on a dedicated bike path, 25% on bike lanes and 5% on the regular, unlabeled street. Who needs Amsterdam and Copenhagen? (The show was fantastic, too.)