PINOCCHIO

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ELLIOTT:
So.. photo of new wheels please
Yesterday at 6:08pm · Comment · Like · See Wall-to-Wall

CHARLIEROBERTS:
complications
Yesterday at 8:56pm · Delete

ELLIOTT:
How so?
3 hours ago · Delete

CHARLIEROBERTS:
The bike shorted out three times after i bought it,
I returned it and he's looking at it.
It is something to do with not knowing when a new battery is fully charged?

I got stuck in the middle of Central Park. Ugh....
He's going to call me today after much testing.
29 minutes ago · Delete


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Saturday afternoon, I cab to a bike store on the upper east side that specializes in electronic bikes. It is the only store in Manhattan that sells them.

Whenever I push hard with my feet and legs, that is peddle so hard that I use all of my strength, I am weakening my legs.
This has been happening more and more.


So I stopped riding my bike. I've been taking cabs which I really hate. I get no pleasure out of rollicking around in traffic, clogging up the roads, the cab driver's dismal mood, the fishing through the wallet for the appropriate tip.
All of this brings me down.

So I'll buy an electric bike.

These bikes can both be peddled and also have a throttle which allows them to go up to 20 miles an hour.
Their batteries can sustain a ride of twenty miles before having to be recharged.

This is also (apparently) how my OWN muscle power works. I can move about and walk. But I need a day to restore after too much sustained movement. My muscles (like the lithium bicycle battery) need to be recharged.

On Saturday afternoon, I cab to York and east 84th. (cab ride about $17)

I kind of like it over there. The neighborhood feels like Manhattan circa 1985, the hoopla of building and over population hasn't found it's way there (yet). Its tree lined streets with sleepy (kind of fancy) apartment buildings, elegant townhouses, boring delis and dated Chinese restaurants, bring to mind the remote, old family, elite New York. The New York in Woody Allen movies.

This bike store on York and 84th is crowded with gorgeous folding bicycles, electronic bikes, and motorized scooters for budding movie stars.

TOYS!

Everyone should indulge in these adult toys.


I try out 5 bikes.

I zoom around the east-side neighborhood. Because it looks like you're riding a simple bicycle, and because the battery is silent, it feels like your cheating, or you're pulling off an elaborate magic trick for the neighborhood... Or you're an actor in a movie, a movie that requires you to ride a bike, but you're a weak peddler or you have a star-sized ego that dictates you not exhaust your legs peddling all day, so the props department has rigged up a bike for you to make it appear that you are vigoursly biking, but in actuality, your legs are flacidly spinning, allowing you to delight in the sunshine and leafy neighborhood.


On returning from one test drive, I meet two dudes that are electric bike fans.
These are thirty-ish men who carry themselves like nerdy outsiders in junior high.
They both own electric bikes, they have come back to this shop to take advantage of test driving OTHER electric bikes.

These guys are nerds (but are also real guys). I feel the need to be accepted by them and to make sure they don't find out that (although I am a nerd too) I am a fey complicated nerd with no real interest in electric bikes. I am here out of necessity.

I am Pinocchio meeting two odd characters that are going to whisk me off to an adventure that will get me into trouble.
If I hang around with them, try to get on their good side, I will be turned into a donkey.

The last bike I try, one of my new friends insists that I try,
"Dude, you won't be disappointed"
the last one I try, is a hot sexy muscular toy that Brad Pitt might tool around in, on the back lot of Paramount.

__________________________________________

I decide after lengthy cellphone conversations with Elliott to get the big stable (white) more lady like one.

It's called "The Elegant".

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On Monday I go back and buy it. After a little lecture on its workings, after laying out my American Express card, after the salesman Burt, patting me on the back, and sending me on my way with a paper bag full of tools and a bike map of New York City, the "Elegant" breaks down three times within one hour.

Jondon picks me up in his SUV at 97th and Central Park and we return the bike to the shop at east 84th and York.