Note- I published this one on my original blog on
March 4, 2016. I've retained the entire post as it went up on that day
save for adjustments to the footnote method.
*****************************************************************
Hi all,
Good news and bad news- it's the same news (1), actually, just depends on your point of view- Hubway (2) is back and running after a winter break (3).
It is GREAT news personally as signing up in August 2015 was one of my only true successes over the past twelve months- in fact, given how the rest of life played out during that span, I am surprised that I my arm was not clipped off by an eighteen-wheeler while making a hand-signal or that I did not get run off the Mass Ave Bridge (4) by the #1 bus.
So, where to begin in describing my excitement level for the return of Hubway? I get asked an awful lot of questions about Hubway so I'll frame this post as a Q&A using the questions that I would havesarcastically
asked others had they been the ones to first start riding Hubway instead (5).
Q: When did you sign up for Hubway?
I signed up on the first Sunday of August 2015.
Q: Great answer, thank you. OK- why did you sign up for Hubway on that particular date?
I was a bit annoyed, actually, on that particular day- I had spent six of the past twenty four hours driving a car. To be more clear, I drove to and from a wedding in western Massachusetts. And driving is not anywhere close to being among my favorite activities (6).
Generally speaking, anything requiring me to sit for over an hour or so at a time is what I'll call a highly dreaded activity (7). I tried to make the best of it and prepared properly by checking out a few CDs from the library in preparation for the two drives.
The critical moment took place on Sunday morning. I was zooming down I-90 (at exactly 64.999 miles per hour of course) while listening to 'The Suburbs' by Arcade Fire (8). Those who are unfamiliar with the album that once won a Grammy for Album Of The Year should know that the first lyrics of the album are 'In the suburbs I learned to drive' and it kind of goes from there. Plenty of material to make you think about the larger purpose of being behind the wheel, let's say.
Q: So do you hum 'Ready To Start' now when you begin a bike ride?
No. I have more to say, hold on.
The album had been on my mind of late, as well, for I had just finished reading Happy City by Charles Montgomery, a book that, among other topics, describes how city environments impact individual happiness levels. This book quoted liberally from The Suburbs to makesnide little
remarks about how pointless life seems to be when you spend an awful lot of time driving
around and around and around and around (9).
Q: So you think you signed up because of a song and a book?
What? No. Stop interrupting.
One thing that stuck with me from the book was just how much happier citizens of bike-friendly cities were reported to be. Bike riding in places like Copenhagen or Amsterdam were described with the kind of detail that made me want to go and live there the next day. Seeing as how I should maybe try something less drastic than a trans-Atlantic move, I went with the local bike option. I suppose you could say I was testing a hypothesis that emulating what people enjoyed in other parts of the world might be an equally effective solution as moving out of town.
So, anyway- I do not remember the exact moment but I decided on that Sunday morning (feeling vaguely annoyed and having my left knee feel particularly stiff from sitting for so long) that spending three hours of a glorious summer morning 'outdoors' in the way that you do when encased in a rolling metal box required drastic action when I returned to Boston. Investigating membership options with Hubway was going to be my first order of business upon my return.
I found out that Hubway allows trials on a one or three day basis and sells monthly or annual memberships; I was up and pedaling away by late afternoon on that same Sunday on a three-day pass. By early October, I had signed up for a full annual membership after a succession of highly enjoyable trial periods.
There are, as always, some other factors that came into play but I think I'll get into those at a future date.
Q: I heard a joke last week. A pedestrian, a bike rider, and a car driver are at a bar. But I forget the rest.
Does it go- all three go up to the bar to order a drink. The pedestrian steps in behind the the car driver, who is already at the bar, and waits his turn. The car driver, having the right of way, looks in both directions before bustling forward confidently. At that moment, the bike rider zooms past on the right and clumsily knocks over a drink into his lap. The bartender gives the two an exasperated look and moves toward the spill with the intent to clean up but immediately collides with the pedestrian who has, inexplicably, clambered over the bar and is pouring himself a beer. He mumbles something that sounds like 'I thought I could make it' but is drowned out by the car driver who is hitting an air horn over and over while making rude hand gestures. Everyone is kicked out.
Q: Wow. That got out of control quick. Does that 'joke' describe your attitude toward bike riders before you signed up for Hubway?
No- I was describing what I thought you thought. It was your joke.
Q: I'll promise not to bring up any more jokes if you promise not to try and read my mind again.
Done deal.
Q: So, has your attitude changed toward bike riders since you started on Hubway?
Yes. I went into my bike riding experiment with the notion that perhaps bikers were a misunderstood lot (10). Could it be that all those times I was nearly run over by someone zipping by on a bicycle was actually my fault, that there was a new perspective to be had once I had my two feet on the pedals? Maybe zig-zagging through cars lined up at a red light was good for the heart?
Turns out, this is not the case. I think I was approximately thirty-seven hours into my second three-day trial before I declared myself in the '95th percentile' among the city's bike riders. And although I am no math whiz, I think everyone on a bike needs to chill out, just a tiny bit, and try stopping at red lights, avoiding George Costanza style turns across multiple lanes of traffic, and listening to 'Dead Fox' to internalize the 'if you can't see me, I can't see you' concept for passing on the right (11).
At the very least, use the bike lane if you have it to minimize the risk of being hit by a car, knocking over a little old lady, etc. And think of the children- set a good example! Anyway, I guess I have less sympathy for bike riders now than I did a half year ago (12).
On the other hand- it WOULD help if there were more bike lanes to begin with. And, maybe car drivers should take those 'share the road' signs not as friendly suggestions but as what they are- reminders about laws.
And I suppose I could do with a helmet. We are all just doing our best here, folks.
Q: New topic before you anger every possible group of people out on the streets. What happens when you go to get a bike and there are no available bikes on the rack?
It works like anything else where you run out of something you want to get in a preset physical location- you can stand around and wait for the shelves to restock or you can go find what you need somewhere else. I usually just walk to the next dock. They tend to be about three to six minutes apart.
Q: What happens when you ride to a dock and there are no empty spaces for your bike?
It works like a laundromat where all the washers are being used- you can wait for a washer to open up or you can just go to another laundromat. If you have your own laundry setup and this makes no sense- I guess it works like parking a car- if the space you want is taken, you just go to the next one.
Q: If signing up for Hubway was a book you read in 2011, would it have made your silly little first blog post?
Ha ha. Pipe down. Hubway totally changed my day to day schedule and did so in ways that are very surprising when I look back. Once an avid user of the 'T', I found that I went weeks between non-commute trips on the buses or subways. Most notably- I went from late July to mid November without making a single individual red line trip- this statistic would have been unthinkable just eight months ago.
Mostly anywhere I went was within a ten minute walk of a Hubway dock (as in bike rack) and, as it turned out, these docks were so well placed in and around Boston that this meant I could go everywhere via the heavy, slow, and occasionally malfunctioning Hubway bikes (13).
I began doing new things because direct bike trips made many locations easy enough to reach and allowed me to go places that I once rule inaccessible via a multi-stage mass transit trip. Perhaps most notably, I started riding a bike down to volunteer regularly with the Greater Boston Food Bank down in Newmarket Square on their twice-weekly distribution days.
I started exploring the city again, something I had enjoyed in the past but had fallen out of recently. One factor holding me back was my own desire to do things on foot. Walking was an OK option but I preferred strolling about in areas with more open spaces- along the Charles River, down by the waterfront, the park, or along Comm Ave (especially on winter nights, when the lights are strung up on the trees). Unfortunately, this meant that my default walking pattern took me through the same (albeit lovely) locations on a regular basis.
Running was also an option but there is only so much running anyone- even me- can do before it becomes a bit excessive. The year I spent in Central Square saw me run to all points of Cambridge with this spirit of discovery but I found that replicating the same in Boston was not as feasible given how much nicer it was to simply run in those locations described above.
Getting the bikes made exploring feasible again. The most significant excursion I made was along the 'C' line out to Brookline. I think, round trip, this took somewhere between three and five hours. More commonly, I would take an hour or two to explore an area before arriving at my destination and today I have a fairly well developed mental map of Boston as a result.
Q: I see. So the answer was 'yes'?
Hey, I'm talking here! I have speculation to add as well. I think there is a good chance using Hubway helped me with my long-term running injuries.
From around mid-2011 on, I became a regular runner along the streets of Boston and Cambridge. Unfortunately, my significant mental flaw (14) when it comes to being a runner is a tendency to KEEP RUNNING when it would perhaps be beneficial to my long term health to STOP RUNNING.
What using Hubway did was substitute my extra miles at the end of runs that I used to do with many more miles on a later bike ride. In other words, I bet that having the alternative to bike to Davis Square and back in the back of my mind during a run caused me to STOP RUNNING when, in the past, I may have just KEPT RUNNING at a point where each additional step was likely increasing my risk of long-term overuse injury.
Also, Hubway brought me back to doing something I loved doing as a child (15). I think going back to the things you enjoyed when you were young or doing what you naturally gravitate toward is a big boost to individual happiness. But I think more detail on this topic is better saved for a later date.
Q: Wait, Davis and back? Brookline and back? How long are you allowed to ride a bike?
I'll make a cute analogy and see if you can figure it out. If reading this blog worked like riding a Hubway bike, you would be charged $2 once any blog post took longer than thirty minutes to read. If you went to another computer, though, you can pick up where you left off free of additional charge.
Q: I don't get it but I'm sure I could figure this out. By the way, can I borrow two bucks, buddy?
Good point. Let's leave it here. I feel like a bike ride, anyhow.
Back again late next Tuesday AM with part two of last week's post. Have a lovely weekend, everybody, and thanks for reading.
Tim
*****************************************************************
Hi all,
Good news and bad news- it's the same news (1), actually, just depends on your point of view- Hubway (2) is back and running after a winter break (3).
1. I never have any real news, that is 100% for sure.
2. Those who need a quick explanation- Hubway is a bike sharing service that operates in and around Boston. You take a bike from a dock, ride around a bit, and put it back into a dock. Kind of like Zipcar but for bicycles and basically the same as Citibike in New York.
3. If you live in Cambridge, this is actually non-news as Hubway operates year round in that city. Everywhere else, though- Hubway is BACK!
It is GREAT news personally as signing up in August 2015 was one of my only true successes over the past twelve months- in fact, given how the rest of life played out during that span, I am surprised that I my arm was not clipped off by an eighteen-wheeler while making a hand-signal or that I did not get run off the Mass Ave Bridge (4) by the #1 bus.
4. At some point, everyone living around these parts calls this the 'Mass Ave Bridge'- so imagine my surprise one day when I learned it was called the 'Harvard Bridge' even though this bridge a) does not directly connect to Harvard or Harvard Square b) is the fifth closest bridge (rough estimate) to Harvard or Harvard Square.
So, where to begin in describing my excitement level for the return of Hubway? I get asked an awful lot of questions about Hubway so I'll frame this post as a Q&A using the questions that I would have
5. I'm not going to promise that I have been asked all of these questions but the majority are, in fact, real questions I have answered over the past six months about my Hubway experience.
Q: When did you sign up for Hubway?
I signed up on the first Sunday of August 2015.
Q: Great answer, thank you. OK- why did you sign up for Hubway on that particular date?
I was a bit annoyed, actually, on that particular day- I had spent six of the past twenty four hours driving a car. To be more clear, I drove to and from a wedding in western Massachusetts. And driving is not anywhere close to being among my favorite activities (6).
6. I guess I am also a bit against the concept in general from a health/financial/economic standpoint and I am fairly sure that some sort of driving accident represents my best (and probably only) chance of getting into serious legal trouble in my lifetime.
Generally speaking, anything requiring me to sit for over an hour or so at a time is what I'll call a highly dreaded activity (7). I tried to make the best of it and prepared properly by checking out a few CDs from the library in preparation for the two drives.
7. I actually have a lot more fun driving than I pretend here- you can get locked in and really lose yourself in the challenge of maneuvering the car around, forgetting your problems and concerns all at the same time. But it is definitely one of those activities that makes me feel a little worse after the fact than I did when I started.
The critical moment took place on Sunday morning. I was zooming down I-90 (at exactly 64.999 miles per hour of course) while listening to 'The Suburbs' by Arcade Fire (8). Those who are unfamiliar with the album that once won a Grammy for Album Of The Year should know that the first lyrics of the album are 'In the suburbs I learned to drive' and it kind of goes from there. Plenty of material to make you think about the larger purpose of being behind the wheel, let's say.
8. Other albums I ended up with- the most recent Yeah Yeah Yeahs album, something involving Elton John, Nirvana's live album from Reading in 1992, and 'Bad Self Portraits' by Lake Street Dive. My enjoyment of those albums went in that order, as well, and the LSD concert I went to at the end of August was definitely one of the highlights of the year for me.
Q: So do you hum 'Ready To Start' now when you begin a bike ride?
No. I have more to say, hold on.
The album had been on my mind of late, as well, for I had just finished reading Happy City by Charles Montgomery, a book that, among other topics, describes how city environments impact individual happiness levels. This book quoted liberally from The Suburbs to make
9. Two more quoted lyrics from Wasted Hours, one of my favorite songs from the album- this first one was in the book, as well, and I tend to laugh out loud every time I hear it:
'First they built the road, then they built the town
That's why we're still driving around and around'
The second quote may or may not have actually triggered my decision to find my way onto a Hubway bike, one way or another, when I got back to Boston:
'All those wasted hours we used to know
Spent the summer staring out the window'
Q: So you think you signed up because of a song and a book?
What? No. Stop interrupting.
One thing that stuck with me from the book was just how much happier citizens of bike-friendly cities were reported to be. Bike riding in places like Copenhagen or Amsterdam were described with the kind of detail that made me want to go and live there the next day. Seeing as how I should maybe try something less drastic than a trans-Atlantic move, I went with the local bike option. I suppose you could say I was testing a hypothesis that emulating what people enjoyed in other parts of the world might be an equally effective solution as moving out of town.
So, anyway- I do not remember the exact moment but I decided on that Sunday morning (feeling vaguely annoyed and having my left knee feel particularly stiff from sitting for so long) that spending three hours of a glorious summer morning 'outdoors' in the way that you do when encased in a rolling metal box required drastic action when I returned to Boston. Investigating membership options with Hubway was going to be my first order of business upon my return.
I found out that Hubway allows trials on a one or three day basis and sells monthly or annual memberships; I was up and pedaling away by late afternoon on that same Sunday on a three-day pass. By early October, I had signed up for a full annual membership after a succession of highly enjoyable trial periods.
There are, as always, some other factors that came into play but I think I'll get into those at a future date.
Q: I heard a joke last week. A pedestrian, a bike rider, and a car driver are at a bar. But I forget the rest.
Does it go- all three go up to the bar to order a drink. The pedestrian steps in behind the the car driver, who is already at the bar, and waits his turn. The car driver, having the right of way, looks in both directions before bustling forward confidently. At that moment, the bike rider zooms past on the right and clumsily knocks over a drink into his lap. The bartender gives the two an exasperated look and moves toward the spill with the intent to clean up but immediately collides with the pedestrian who has, inexplicably, clambered over the bar and is pouring himself a beer. He mumbles something that sounds like 'I thought I could make it' but is drowned out by the car driver who is hitting an air horn over and over while making rude hand gestures. Everyone is kicked out.
Q: Wow. That got out of control quick. Does that 'joke' describe your attitude toward bike riders before you signed up for Hubway?
No- I was describing what I thought you thought. It was your joke.
Q: I'll promise not to bring up any more jokes if you promise not to try and read my mind again.
Done deal.
Q: So, has your attitude changed toward bike riders since you started on Hubway?
Yes. I went into my bike riding experiment with the notion that perhaps bikers were a misunderstood lot (10). Could it be that all those times I was nearly run over by someone zipping by on a bicycle was actually my fault, that there was a new perspective to be had once I had my two feet on the pedals? Maybe zig-zagging through cars lined up at a red light was good for the heart?
10. They always seemed to be getting snippy little remarks fired at their backs, for example, from pedestrians who were standing in the middle of a busy intersection while crossing against the light or having rude hand gestures made at them by drivers who were likely tweeting their rightful indignation with the other.
Turns out, this is not the case. I think I was approximately thirty-seven hours into my second three-day trial before I declared myself in the '95th percentile' among the city's bike riders. And although I am no math whiz, I think everyone on a bike needs to chill out, just a tiny bit, and try stopping at red lights, avoiding George Costanza style turns across multiple lanes of traffic, and listening to 'Dead Fox' to internalize the 'if you can't see me, I can't see you' concept for passing on the right (11).
11. More song lyrics. This song by Courtney Barnett has nothing to do with riding a bike- you'll just have to look at those selected lyrics above and take them out of context for this to make sense.
At the very least, use the bike lane if you have it to minimize the risk of being hit by a car, knocking over a little old lady, etc. And think of the children- set a good example! Anyway, I guess I have less sympathy for bike riders now than I did a half year ago (12).
12. All that said, I might be entirely wrong on this rant. One of the more surprising things about riding a bike was how much of a hard time I had finding information about what was law and what was etiquette. Just last week, I googled for I think the tenth time- 'how do you make a left turn on a bike'- and, needless to say, the results of the search led to no immediate changes in my bike riding technique.
On the other hand- it WOULD help if there were more bike lanes to begin with. And, maybe car drivers should take those 'share the road' signs not as friendly suggestions but as what they are- reminders about laws.
And I suppose I could do with a helmet. We are all just doing our best here, folks.
Q: New topic before you anger every possible group of people out on the streets. What happens when you go to get a bike and there are no available bikes on the rack?
It works like anything else where you run out of something you want to get in a preset physical location- you can stand around and wait for the shelves to restock or you can go find what you need somewhere else. I usually just walk to the next dock. They tend to be about three to six minutes apart.
Q: What happens when you ride to a dock and there are no empty spaces for your bike?
It works like a laundromat where all the washers are being used- you can wait for a washer to open up or you can just go to another laundromat. If you have your own laundry setup and this makes no sense- I guess it works like parking a car- if the space you want is taken, you just go to the next one.
Q: If signing up for Hubway was a book you read in 2011, would it have made your silly little first blog post?
Ha ha. Pipe down. Hubway totally changed my day to day schedule and did so in ways that are very surprising when I look back. Once an avid user of the 'T', I found that I went weeks between non-commute trips on the buses or subways. Most notably- I went from late July to mid November without making a single individual red line trip- this statistic would have been unthinkable just eight months ago.
Mostly anywhere I went was within a ten minute walk of a Hubway dock (as in bike rack) and, as it turned out, these docks were so well placed in and around Boston that this meant I could go everywhere via the heavy, slow, and occasionally malfunctioning Hubway bikes (13).
13. And highly cool looking, of course.
I began doing new things because direct bike trips made many locations easy enough to reach and allowed me to go places that I once rule inaccessible via a multi-stage mass transit trip. Perhaps most notably, I started riding a bike down to volunteer regularly with the Greater Boston Food Bank down in Newmarket Square on their twice-weekly distribution days.
I started exploring the city again, something I had enjoyed in the past but had fallen out of recently. One factor holding me back was my own desire to do things on foot. Walking was an OK option but I preferred strolling about in areas with more open spaces- along the Charles River, down by the waterfront, the park, or along Comm Ave (especially on winter nights, when the lights are strung up on the trees). Unfortunately, this meant that my default walking pattern took me through the same (albeit lovely) locations on a regular basis.
Running was also an option but there is only so much running anyone- even me- can do before it becomes a bit excessive. The year I spent in Central Square saw me run to all points of Cambridge with this spirit of discovery but I found that replicating the same in Boston was not as feasible given how much nicer it was to simply run in those locations described above.
Getting the bikes made exploring feasible again. The most significant excursion I made was along the 'C' line out to Brookline. I think, round trip, this took somewhere between three and five hours. More commonly, I would take an hour or two to explore an area before arriving at my destination and today I have a fairly well developed mental map of Boston as a result.
Q: I see. So the answer was 'yes'?
Hey, I'm talking here! I have speculation to add as well. I think there is a good chance using Hubway helped me with my long-term running injuries.
From around mid-2011 on, I became a regular runner along the streets of Boston and Cambridge. Unfortunately, my significant mental flaw (14) when it comes to being a runner is a tendency to KEEP RUNNING when it would perhaps be beneficial to my long term health to STOP RUNNING.
14. This is the same 'flaw' that causes phrases such as 'all you can eat Sushi' to catch my eye.
What using Hubway did was substitute my extra miles at the end of runs that I used to do with many more miles on a later bike ride. In other words, I bet that having the alternative to bike to Davis Square and back in the back of my mind during a run caused me to STOP RUNNING when, in the past, I may have just KEPT RUNNING at a point where each additional step was likely increasing my risk of long-term overuse injury.
Also, Hubway brought me back to doing something I loved doing as a child (15). I think going back to the things you enjoyed when you were young or doing what you naturally gravitate toward is a big boost to individual happiness. But I think more detail on this topic is better saved for a later date.
15. In case you are the guy from Memento or are just joining us- riding a bike is what I refer to here.
Q: Wait, Davis and back? Brookline and back? How long are you allowed to ride a bike?
I'll make a cute analogy and see if you can figure it out. If reading this blog worked like riding a Hubway bike, you would be charged $2 once any blog post took longer than thirty minutes to read. If you went to another computer, though, you can pick up where you left off free of additional charge.
Q: I don't get it but I'm sure I could figure this out. By the way, can I borrow two bucks, buddy?
Good point. Let's leave it here. I feel like a bike ride, anyhow.
Back again late next Tuesday AM with part two of last week's post. Have a lovely weekend, everybody, and thanks for reading.
Tim
