So I got a nifty new bike for graduating from college and moved to a city where most everwhere I might want to go is within fairly level biking distance. This should translate into lots and lots of biking fun with my new bike in my new city – but I’m afraid of several things.
First, I’m afraid to ride my bike in traffic (because of the cars) or on the sidewalks (which is legal where I am, but scary because of the pedestrians). Biking was easy in suburbia because there were rarely other people on the roads and never anyone on the sidewalks.
Second, I’m afraid of my nifty new bike getting stolen, which is just lame when you really think about it. If it gets stolen, I won’t be able to ride it anymore, so instead I won’t ride it anywhere and then it won’t get stolen! You get the picture.
In order to resolve these concerns and start biking more, I think I’ll need to:
1) start riding my nifty new bike just for fun on the trails so I get comfortable riding
2) take a safe urban biking class & possibly get a book or two on safe urban biking to assuage my fears of urban biking
3) get a beater for trips wherein I’d have to leave my bike unattended somewhere
4) (and provided everything else goes according to plan & I become comfortable riding my awesome bike everywhere I go) buy the best lock I can afford for my nifty new bike (NY chain with storefront lock?).
