Love Story, My Bicycle

• Posted on 29th November 2018
• in Entertainment, entertainment books, Love Story, Video Editing, Video Production, Video Production & Editing
• by Ben

---

While Waiting for Elizabeth is branded as a love story or a video production book it could be called a “never act your age” book. I’ve been told to act my age for as far back as my teens and have continued into my eighties profoundly refusing to do so. Riding my bicycle all over Manhattan is but one example of this syndrome.

Here’s yet another story that didn’t make it into the book.

When Video Casting Source – my unsuccessful attempt to create a video version of The Players’ Guide – opened in February of 1991 I either took the subway or got picked up by my erstwhile partner in his Buick for the trip to West 46th street.

A few months later it occurred to me that the trip from the upper west side to midtown west would be an excellent bike ride. Elizabeth and I talked about it, I went to the local bike shop but the prices started around three-hundred bucks which was too much for my budget at the time.

In June Elizabeth was visiting a friend in the country and called me from K-mart telling me that she saw a good looking bike for ninety-nine dollars. I asked her to buy it.

Brief excerpt from Waiting for Elizabeth:

Sunday night she showed up with a bright red Huffy and Monday morning I rode it to the office. I had not been on a bike since our old three-speeds were stolen twenty years before and I was surprised at how bumpy the ride was, even in Riverside Park. Then I hit 72nd Street and traffic. Oy veh! It seemed as though cars, trucks, busses and – most surprisingly – pedestrians all had me in their sights. The other surprising thing was how quickly I adjusted and became comfortable riding with the traffic. And the trip only took twenty-five minutes. And I got some exercise.

Thus began my love affair with biking New York that continues to this day. This is my fourth and favorite bike.

Now we get to the meat of this essay.

About four years after the acquisition of the Huffy, at sixty-two or three, I was still riding five days a week (at 83 a bit less because I closed my office) but Video Casting Source having died a painful and expensive death, my office was now near Union Square. This was a longer ride so I was getting even more exercise.

Late one afternoon, leaving for home, I was on the elevator with my bike and another guy got on. He asked if I rode it to work every day and I responded in the affirmative. He said that he used to until he got too old. I inquired as to what that age was and he said, “fifty.” I contemplated an arrogant riposte but as the elevator neared the end of its descent I decided that it would be unkind to flaunt my age so I made some innocuous, friendly remark and left it at that.

So my point?

Lots more fun tales to be read when you click here and get Waiting for Elizabeth.

Tags: Bicycling, New York City