Just adds to my gleeful prejudice about car-jail cities.

And Dervala, a couple of people in my office bike to work, and usually they lock up to the base of our loading dock (aka “the porch”), with no ill effects. The office is a storefront, and there’s usually someone sitting right by the windows, if not on the dock itself.

One day someone left her bike on top of the dock, which put the wheels at eye level. A few hours later she went out and found both her tires utterly slashed.

Fuckers, indeed. What makes people so mean?

Now she keeps her (kickstand-free) bike inside, where it adds to the general chaos.

So nurse its wounds D and take real good care of the old blue cruiser until I get to bomb down Flatbush with it once more.

Bike thieving probably makes better sense than rustling cars, at least in New York. A $2,500 bike is small and easily fenced, unless a 90lb woman won’t let it go.

I still think the odds of hanging on to a properly-locked bike are pretty high in New York. Despite my stories of Bloods and crackheads, I feel safer here than anywhere else I’ve lived or travelled (and much safer than I did in Ireland.) Maybe it’s an illusion, but NY feels so benign to me.

Then again, I went to take my new bike to work this morning and the three bikes locked to that lamppost had totally flat back tyres. I didn’t have time to investigate further, but…fuckers.

This bike thieving thing is international. Small towns, big cities. I’m wondering if there is some sort of redistribution network happening. Guy in NY steals a bike ships it to Boston, guy from Boston ships a bike to NY. Though why would anybody really bother. I guess gangs these days are trying to act like real criminals. Too lazy and unambitious to steal cars, they steal bikes. Talk about petty theft. And beating up women. For a bike. I mean what’s next? Breaking into people’s homes to steal their goldfish?

On a more personal note, I have now replaced my (stolen) bike with a 1987 red Bianchi road bike with a white seat. And gues what? It was twenty-five bucks. What’s with that price point?

My friend Tom used to have to replace his bicycle pretty regularly. He swore by Bikes By George on 12th Street, but it sounds like Benny’s are much cheaper. Then again, I think Tom’s theory was that George’s bikes weren’t quite as hot as most others.

My mom’s friend Camille’s solution was to get one of those fancy Brompton folding bikes. She bikes absolutely everywhere, and then folds up her ride and takes it inside. She’s seventy-something and has bad knees. She says, “I can’t walk too good, but I can ride a bike.”

I’ve only had one bicycle stolen from me, and it happened in small-town Massachusetts, not at home in New York. It’s been eleven years, but I’ve never talked myself into getting a replacement. I’m just too chicken—and where would I put it? In the kitchen?

Happy birthday to Ranger Tim!