It's Never Too Late To Learn To Bike In NYC

Gihan Arjomand, an Upper East Side resident who's originally from Egypt, said she wants to learn so she can ride with her daughter. Photo: Amy Pearl

Nearly 1.6 million adult New Yorkers have ridden a bike at least once in the last year, according to the Department of Transportation’s latest numbers. But last week, that number went up by at least a dozen.

To kick off Bike Week here at We the Commuters, we went out to Roosevelt Island to meet a group of adults learning to ride a bike for the first time.

Bike New York — which also holds youth classes, and stages the annual Five Boro Bike Tour — provides a full curriculum of free adult cycling classes, from “Rules of the Road” to “Winter Biking.” But last Tuesday morning, it was all about the basics.

“This is my first time ever — I’m 45, and I’ve never done this in my life. I’m freakin’ out,” said a student named Meri. (She declined to share her last name.) “I grew up in old Bushwick, which is now 'nice Bushwick.' But, we weren’t allowed to have a bike, which is why I never learned.”

In 2018, 1,669 took Bike New York’s Adult Bike Skills 101 class. So far this year, almost 600 students have taken the course. And while each student’s backstory and motivation for learning to ride, one theme stood out: New York City natives, be they 25 or 65, grew up in an environment that wasn’t safe for cyclists, let alone those just learning to ride.

“I think because I didn’t grow up in a suburban area, the idea of biking was pretty scary,” said Valentina Pedersen, who was born and raised in downtown Manhattan. “But now, a lot of my friends have Citi Bike, and they go to and from places on them, and I’m always like, 'Okay, I’ll meet you there.' They go together, and it seems fun.”

Students ranging in age from their 20s to their 60s showed up for a free class from Bike New York, which provides the bikes and helmets. Photo: Amy Pearl

While riding on city streets is a distant concern for those just learning to ride, the idea isn’t as daunting as it might’ve seemed a decade ago. For one, Citi Bike — which students mentioned over and over — enables spontaneous riding for New Yorkers who don’t own a bike. And it’s the consensus among cycling advocates that the more bikes we get on the streets, the safer the streets get for bikes.

"The likelihood that a given person walking or bicycling will be struck by a motorist varies inversely with the amount of walking or bicycling,” wrote public health research Peter Jacobsen in 2003. “This pattern is consistent across communities of varying size, from specific intersections to cities and countries, and across time periods."

Listen to James Ramsay's report on WNYC:

Barry Fagan, a veteran instructor who’s been teaching the Bike Skills 101 class for eight years, acknowledged that most of the students in last week’s class aren’t thinking about commuting just yet.

“At this stage, they’re deathly afraid of the cars,” he said. But Bike New York does offer a bike commuting course for adults. And the students we met didn’t lack for ambition.

“I’m 60 years old, and it’s been a long time since I’ve been on a bike, and I registered for a triathlon in August,” said Gloria Morales, a Williamsburg native. “And you have to bike 11 miles, so I figured I needed to get practice on how to navigate, and how to even use the gears. This class is a great resource, because I’m afraid to ride a bike in the streets, and this is helping me get more comfortable.”

Gloria Morales, a Williamsburg native and an avid runner, is now learning to bike (and swim) in order to compete in triathlons. Photo: Amy Pearl

The other common thread that ran through the class: All the students were women.

“It’s typically 90-plus percent women in the class,” said Fagan. “Honestly, I think it’s because guys don’t want to ask for help.”

Magdalena Lazare, a 30-year-old from Crown Heights, said she wants to eventually commute by bike. "I want to explore my city more," she said, "and biking is the best way to do it." Photo: Amy Pearl

“I didn’t get a bike growing up as a kid — my mom is from Haiti, so I guess they just don’t ride bikes back home,” said Magdalena Lazare, a 30-year-old Crown Heights native. “Then as I got older, I kind of didn’t want it, because I didn’t want my friends to see me learn to ride a bike at 10, 11, 12. But as I got older, I said, okay I’m a grown-up, I just need to let go of the ego of being a grown-up who doesn’t know how to ride.

“We slow ourselves down thinking we can’t do something, and we often think we’re the only ones,” Lazare added. “But there’s a group of people here who have no idea how to ride a bike, just like me. When you think you’re alone, just trust that there are people just like you.”

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