03/29/20 – Cycling in the Time of Corona
By now I should’ve been in France furnishing our new vacation home. Instead, we are stuck in New York City. At least we are in the comfort of our apartment. #FirstWorldProblems
Although New York is in lockdown, au contraire to France, we are still allowed to engage in outdoor activities – in solitude. Now that the streets of the city are mostly traffic-free and largely void of tourists and locals alike, cycling here is actually a pleasant activity. The cause of this, however, is far from pleasant and it is getting worse by the day. Although I don’t miss New York’s aggressive drivers and oblivious pedestrians, let’s hope it will be over soon.
This period in numbers:
124 km – distance cycled
1903 – year the Tour de France, the most famous bicycle race in the world, was established
20 – times cheaper to maintain a bicycle than a car
1% – of all trips in United States made on a bicycle; in the Netherlands it is 30%
13 – lbs the average person will lose in the first year of commuting by bike to work
500,000 – price (USD) of the “Butterfly Bike”, designed by artist Damien Hirst and auctioned off at Sotheby’s
1,000,000,000 – bicycles currently being used all around the world, half of them in China