Brightest Young Things

Features:

• Bikes in other cities - Williamsburg NYC
• How to / how not to - Lock your bike

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Bikes in other cities - Williamsburg NYC

Recently I took a little biking field trip to New York City which brought me to Williamsburg Brooklyn. Call this well-known gentrified neighborhood what you will, its a great place to scope out bikes and hit records shops like Earwax to find that original pressing of the Spaceman 3 or Roky Erickson record you've been looking for.

All around Williamsburg you'll find lots of refurbished vintage steel frames, and some pretty quality tasteful components like the beautiful stem on the 3rd Ward bike down there.

I dug these what looked like original stock streamers on the Schwinn and this classic low rider.

Williamsburg has about eight bike shops including Landmark Bicycles with a location right on Bedford and a highly visible sign from the bike lane on the bridge. Landmark has some pretty handsomely worn frames on stock.

Apparently not everyone loves bikes in this neighborhood.

Williamsburg is home to Brooklyn's longest bike lanes which runs through every imaginable ethnic enclave—including the Satmars and the ultra-Orthodox Hasidic Jewish sect. In December 09, after many complaints from the Satmars about “scantily clad” female riders, the city sandblasted off a small stretch of the lane; some enterprising bikers painted it back in protest.

Williamsburg Bridge offers a highway for bike traffic over to  Manhattan, not to mention a pretty decent view.

How to - Lock your bike.

New York City is the bike theft capital of the universe,  its estimated that 170 bikes disappear off the streets a day.

DC's theft statistics are not nearly as bad, but in DC or NY leave you bike unattended for too long and it might end up looking like this:

Over in Soho, I stopped into Bicycle Habital to visit Hal Ruzal a near mythical figure in New York bike culture. Hal has a real passion around properly locking your bicycle so watch his popular interweb video and learn:

So you get the basics, lock to something firmly rooted, use a quality U lock and depending on how long your leaving protect your wheels.

If you own a Brookes or another fancy brand seat, you might want to consider some saddle protection pictured above. If you're not up for fashioning one from an old bike intertube and chain you can find seat locks in one of your local DC bike shops.

After meeting or watching Hal Ruzal's video you might agree that he strikes a bit of a resemblance to Keith Morris singer of OFF! and once original vocals of Black Flag.

Previously in no handsies:

• 12/8: No Handsies - Bike Column: Issue 6
• 10/13: No Handsies: Issue 5
• 8/18: NO HANDSIES: A Biker's Guide
• 7/15: NO HANDSIES: A Biker's Guide
• 6/24: NO HANDSIES: A Biker's Guide
• 6/17: NO HANDSIES: A Biker's Guide