Ok… so my daily routine usually takes me to numerous places throughout
the City… sometimes near, sometimes far. Today I had to go to 40th
Street and 3rd Avenue (I live on Spring Street, near 6th Ave.).
Usually, it’s a no-brainer… I just grab my Coker and go (it’s extremely
rare that I’ll utilize public transportation). Today, I thought to
myself… why not take der Uber? My slow speed and high speed maneuvering
has improved pretty nicely, I feel quite stable and comfortable, and I
figured If I had to I could always meander through some side streets to
get there…. and worse case scenario, I’ll be a lot better by the time I
get back (my father used a similar method to teach me how to ski as a
kid… he took me to the top of the mountain on my first run and told me
I’d be skiing by the time I got to the bottom)! On the way to my
destination, I had two UPD’s… neither of them bad, and neither
involving my dropping der Uber. The first occurred on Houston Street
when I was traveling at a modest speed crossing an intersection before
the light was about to change on a rough section of pavement and was no
big deal because the UPD occurred after I traveled nearly all the way
across the intersection. Somehow, I managed to turn off of Houston onto
1st Ave instead of 3rd, which I didn’t realize til I got to 40th
Street. My ride up 1st Avenue was quite fast and at many times I was
traveling faster than the cars, which had to be doing 10 – 15 mph. It
was pretty bugged out because on my way up 1st Ave, I had 5 separate
people say the exact same phrase to me as I went whizzing by. They all
said: “That’s Hot!” Three of them were girls and two were guys. I’ve
had that phrase said to me a few times while riding my standard Coker,
maybe even twice in one day… but never 5 times within 15 minutes! The
2nd UPD occurred when I was headed toward a red light at a relatively
slow speed (for der Uber, anyway). I was planning on banking der Uber
parallel to the cars crossing the intersection, but the area was way
too congested with pedestrians and close passing cars, so I just
aborted… I guess it was really sort of a last minute PD, rather than a
UPD. The highlight of my ride (other than the “That’s Hot” comments
from the girls) was when I was cruising up 1st Ave, one of the cars I
passed in the middle of 4 lanes of traffic was a cop car. After I
passed him, I made my way to the left shoulder of 1st Avenue to
continue my ride uptown (I don’t ride in the middle of traffic when the
traffic is clear enough that the cars are free to go much faster than I
can go). The cop car pulled into the left lane and drove up next to me
with his window down and said: “That’s insane, buddy! You wouldn’t
catch me on that thing for the life of me.” I thought to myself…
working as a NYC cop is a LOT more insane than riding der Uber in
Manhattan… It’s not too likely that I’ll have a gun fired at me (unless
Catboy has his way :eek🙂. The cop had a grin on his face and really
seemed to get a kick out of how fast I was going. The ride home
consisted of a single UPD… or probably more accurately another last
minute PD. Similar scenario as the last PD, only this time I put der
uber into a nice bank, to ride parallel to the crossing traffic at the
intersection… only the road I took downtown (3rd Avenue) has both
north-bound and south-bound lanes of traffic in the section I was at.
As I was in the bank, the car crossing was turning northbound tighter
than the turn I was making, so I made my last minute PD at a decent
speed (slow for der Uber) and landed on my feet a couple of inches
before the car, generating some gasps from bystanders. I should have
been able to lean harder into the turn, bank it around more, and then
circle back (the technique I used on der Uber several times on the way
uptown… since I can’t idle it, and it is not designed for hopping), but
my urban Uber riding has been mostly limited to the bike path up until
now, so I’m pretty satisfied with how I did on my first real “Urban
Attack” through the streets of NYC on der Uber! Harper is right… it is
going to break my heart to have to give der Uber back, but I realize
that I have been EXTREMELY fortunate to have had it for as long as I
have (actually to have had it at all) and I have a tremendous amount of
gratitude and appreciation for being so lucky. I’ll probably cry for a
week or so once it’s gone, though! The good news is it’s
(theoretically) possible for me to purchase a Schlumpf geared 36er now
that they are available on the market. The bad news is that it’s not
(realistically) possible for me to purchase a Schlumpf 36er, being that
I’m currently poor and in debt! Well, hopefully my hard work will pay
off soon and then I’ll be able to afford it. Until, then I can always
dream and think back on these “good ole days” with der Uber!
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HardcoreCokerRider
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