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In 2021 I bought a shitty 80s road bike for about $300 from this guy named Richard who lives in Ditmas Parkā I wrote about him here. This purchase sparked a love for biking that has become a borderline obsession ever since, and after validating that this hobby wouldnāt be short lived, I finally upgraded my bike last spring.
There are a dizzying amount of factors when it comes to selecting a bike, but at some point I caught the bikepacking bug from this lovely Instagram page @genosac. Their account is just a couple of people in Minneapolis who go on these weekend camping trips while riding through national forests, and they upload perfectly soundtracked edits that just radiate good times. Itās infectious.
I spend 95% of my time in New York City so Iām not sure how much bikepacking Iāll actually end up doing, but I ended up getting a āgravel bikeā / āall terrain bikeā from a smaller East Coast brand called Crust. The exact model is a lighter steel frame called the Lightning Bolt and a friend (@photo.realism) helped me pick out components + put it all together. I have it pretty decked out, but thatās nerd stuff that doesnāt belong here.
I love it, itās my baby, and Iāve already put close to 500 miles on it since May. Iām constantly looking forward to my next ride whether itās a 20 mile rip before work, a 10 minute errand ride, or an all-day beach adventure with friends. It gets me outside, keeps me in shape, gets me with friends, and shows me parts of the city that I probably would have never went on foot.
My loud nā proud love of cycling has led to many a friend catching the bug as well, so let me know if you need any help or have questions. Iād love to pay it forward.
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Been obsessed with the idea of backpacking and I've hardly even camped before. Maybe it's the escape or maybe it's using my body to get somewhere far away, I'm not sure. All I know is that I'm totally fixated on my goal of biking from NYC to Montreal next year. It's 432 Miles and it'll take around 5 days. This account is a little more silly & fun, but fuck, these guys look like they're having a good time. Makes it feel less headass cycle guy core.
Oct 25, 2023
One time I went on a bike ride from Boston to Newport, RI, and it was honestly one of the best times of my life. I remember setting out and being nervous about whether or not I'd be able to make it the whole way. I was pretty new to biking in general and had never created my own route before, so I ended up riding along a lot of highways and paths that definitely weren't made for my bike.
I wrote a new journal entry each time I went through a new town and stopped to take a picture of everything that I thought was pretty, which was nice because you can't always stop to do that in a car, and I feel like it made me take closer note of everything that was going on around me and everything going through my mind. No detour had to "make sense." I was just biking.
I met so many different people who I still think about every so often. My two battery packs and my phone died multiple times, so I had to pivot and find somewhere to stop. I met a woman at the CVS who let me use their picture station because they have all the cords you need and her daughter ended up being one of my classmates. She told me to make sure to call my mom and let her know where I was, and we had a really nice conversation.
It kind of felt like I was in the Truman Show because I don't think I ran into a single person who wasn't nice to me, and we always had something to talk about because everyone wanted to know why I was biking 80 miles. It was mostly because I was bored, but I also wanted to visit a friend. It was pretty spontaneous, and I was underprepared, but I have so many good memories from that trip.
My friend's girlfriend was working on getting her sailing license, and she took us on a sunset cruise that was hosting a bachelorette party and a golf club and we all drank so much champagne and just talked. We went to his local bar and talked to every single person in there. I met a guy who would only let us play darts if we threw them while his hand was on the board, and he ended up getting us drinks the whole night.
Before then, I had never been around that many people who were just genuinely interested in getting to know each other. I had always fallen into just having a specific group of people that I'd open up to and be myself around (which is fine and valid), but it wasn't really until then that it kind of clicked that I was kind of hiding "myself" or all the versions of "myself" that I could be and closing myself off from meeting people who I could get along with or share things in common with, and I carried that feeling the entire way back and met even more people. I stopped at more restaurant's and food trucks to eat alone, and I felt comfortable; it wasn't lonely, and I wasn't afraid to ask someone to take a picture of me or to ask where they were from and just talk.
This post started as something completely different in my head, but I said all of this to say that biking definitely changed my life for the better. I want to bike further, and I want to bike with my friends, and I want to see more things on my bike. Some of my favorite memories from the past 5 years happened while biking. My mom thought it was crazy to spend $450 on a bike, but if you take good care of it, it can last for years and I'm gonna use the same bike to plan a trip cross-country with an Amtrak rail pass this summer.
If you've been considering it, I HIGHLY suggest buying a bike.
Mar 30, 2024
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Idk why I only got hip to this method of transport as my primary one this summer as this is my 4th year living in New York. I was notoriously 30 min late everyday to any class before 12pm in college or any class I didnāt care about purely because my method was train or bus then train and Iām one of those people that always just thinks they have 20 minutes to spare when it takes so long for them to put a perfect outfit together and they then negate breakfast every morning. I was often late to morning shifts of retail jobs for similar reasons or the bus just was late late lateā¦ Or Iād oversleep so much going to class didnāt even seem worth it.
But now. I realize. If I had just taken a fucking bike. I really wouldnāt have been the latest girl in the world all these years. And I love biking; itās literally how I survived lockdown. my daily routine was get high all day and ride my bike around my suburban hometown to different locations and keep smoking (until this led to an actual psychosis.)
perhaps I was intimidated by nyc chaos. I will admit electric Citi bike is not for the faint of heart. Iāve almost gotten hit numerous times. And once somewhere around Times Square on my way to the JT concert, a strange man with a high quality camera took a picture up my skirt? Hopefully it was blurry as I was going the speed of light but idk. so many of the docks are broken which may cause insurmountable frustration? And there was one time this summer I went to 5 different stations and every dock all of them were dead and it felt like the electricity system was conspiring against my ability to meet my friends at Mott Street Eatery.
Regardless. Iāve felt safer transporting myself at night without the fee of an Uber. Iām more often at time. I feel like Iām flying. Ive gotten to reconnect with my passion of the bike ride. I love to whip around with my friends who equally love biking. And I feel unstoppable.
My dad wants me and my sister to invest in collapsable helmets but that feels embarrassing like borderline voyeuristic - and Iād have to really commit to the bit as I bike probably average 4x a day now. he says young people avoid safety precautions because we have huge ego. Considering the amount of accidents these fast ass bikes cause: he has a point.
Live love laugh electric Citi bike. Itās an art you should master. I have a need for speed.
Oct 7, 2024
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this site is pro sincerity
Dec 15, 2023
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tomorrow PI.FYI launches to the public
this project is the result of thousands of hours spent coding everything from scratch after I got laid off six months ago
no thiel-bucks or weirdo outsider money, just a pure desire to make something fun and true to Perfectly Imperfectās day one goal of helping people find new things from real human beings, not algorithms or AI
a pure labor of love that Iāve been quietly plotting for two years and itās completely self-funded from my (rapidly) dwindling savings account
so thank you for coming along for this weird ride š«¶ let's see where it goes
Jan 21, 2024
Feb 2, 2024