Bicycle boys are particular about their bikes—they don’t usually ride souped-up, high-tech, mountain bikes. No Shimano XT derailleurs or elastomer suspension forks for them. More typical is Mr. New Yorker, who rides a polite three-speed, with a basket in back and fenders. The bike should radiate nostalgia. “You have to have a basket for groceries,” said Mr. New Yorker, “your computer and work stuff.” “My bike is definitely like my dog and my baby,” said Kip. “I kind of take care of it and preen it.”
But often when Bicycle Boys talk about their bikes, it’s hard not to think they are talking about women.
“I love my bike, and you can get attached to a bike,” said one B.B., “but the truth is that one bike is very much like another.”
“I had one bike that I went completely over the top with,” said Kip. “It had an aluminum frame, and I hand-stripped it and polished it. Quite a bit. And then it got stolen. I was emotionally devastated. I couldn’t get over it until I got a new bike and really made it beautiful.”
Like girlfriends, bikes are always getting stolen in New York. “If you go into a bookstore for ten minutes, you come out and your bike is gone,” said Mr. Eccles. This, however, is not necessarily a problem, as Mr. New Yorker pointed out.
“The bike pays for itself in three months if you compare it to subway fare,” he said. “One month, if you take taxis.”
The bike can also be a useful prop when it comes to meeting women. “It’s a good way to start a conversation,” said Thad, a writer. “It’s also something to fuss with to alleviate your self-consciousness.”
And apparently it’s a good way to tell whether or not you’re going to get laid. “One time, a woman got mad at me when I proposed riding my bike to her house,” said Thad. “On the other hand, if a woman says, ‘Bring the bike inside,’ it’s very sexy.”
“Whether or not a woman lets you bring your bike into her house is an indication of how well adjusted she is,” said Mr. Eccles. “If she’s anal-retentive, she won’t want the bike anywhere near her stuff.”
But sometimes a bike is not just a bike—and women seem to know this. “One is viewed as a suspicious character. You’re too mobile and independent,” said Mr. Eccles. “And certainly a bit undignified in the end.”
“There is something Peter Pan–ish about it,” said Kip. “That’s part of the reason I don’t take it everywhere anymore.”
“It implies a certain selfishness,” agreed Mr. Eccles. “You can’t give anyone a lift. And there’s a little too much freedom associated with a man who rides a bike.” Mr. Eccles added that, being in his early fifties, there were about ten reasons why he wasn’t married, “none of them particularly good ones.”
It can also imply a certain cheapness. One woman, an assistant editor at a glossy men’s magazine, remembered a date she had with a Bicycle Boy she met at a book signing. After chatting her up, the Bicycle Boy made a date to meet her at a nice steakhouse on the Upper West Side. He showed up, late, on his bike (she was waiting outside, nervously smoking cigarettes), then, after they’d sat down and looked at the menu, he said, “Look, do you mind? I’ve just realized I’m really in the mood for pizza. You don’t care, do you?” He stood up.
“But don’t we have to . . .,” she said, glancing at the waiter. He grabbed her arm and hustled her out. “All you had were a few sips of water. I didn’t even touch mine. They can’t charge you for that.”
They went back to her house and ate pizza, and then he made his move. They saw each other a few times after that, but every time, he wanted to come to her house at ten at night and eat takeout food. She finally ditched him and went out with a banker.
THE CROTCH PROBLEM
Bicycle Boys often make the mistake of trying to turn their girlfriends into Bicycle Girls. Joanna, a woman who grew up on Fifth Avenue and now works as an interior designer, actually married a Bicycle Boy. “We both rode bikes,” she said, “so at first it wasn’t a problem. But I noticed something was kind of wrong when he gave me a bicycle seat for my birthday. Then, for Christmas, he gave me a bike rack to put on the car. When we got divorced, he took the bike rack back and kept it for himself. Can you believe that?”
“Boys on bikes? God, no,” said Magda, the novelist. “Can you imagine what a stinky crotch they have? No, thank you. I’ve been mowed down too many times by men on bikes. They’re all kamikaze selfish pricks. If they have sex the way they ride their bikes, thank you, but speed is not important.”
“Women don’t think riding a bike is sexy,” said Thad. “They think it’s infantile. But at some point, you decide that you can’t go through life giving women a false impression of who you are.”
10
Downtown Babes Meet Old Greenwich Gals
The pilgrimage to the newly suburbanized friend is one that most Manhattan women have made, and few truly enjoyed. In fact, most come back to the city in an emotional state somewhere between giddy and destroyed. Here follows one such tale.
Jolie Bernard used to be an agent who handled rock bands at International Creative Management. Fi
ve years ago, when she wasn’t stomping the globe in her cowboy boots, hanging out with rock stars and sometimes sleeping with them, she lived in New York, in a one-bedroom apartment decorated with black leather couches and a giant stereo system. She had long blond hair and a tight little body with big tits, and when she came home she had a million messages on her answering machine, and when she went out, she had money and drugs in her purse. She was kind of famous.
And then something happened. No one thought it would, but it did, which just goes to show that you can never tell about these things. She turned thirty-five and she met this investment banker who worked for Salomon Brothers, and before you knew it, they were married, she was pregnant, and they were moving to Greenwich.
“Nothing will change,” she said. “We’ll still get together all the time and you can come to visit us and we’ll have barbecues in the summer.”
We all said, Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Two years went by. We heard she’d had one rug rat, and then another. We could never remember their names or if they were boys or girls.
“Hey, how’s Jolie?” I would ask Miranda, who was at one time Jolie’s best friend.
“Dunno,” Miranda would say. “Every time I call her, she can’t talk. The sprinkler man is coming, or she caught the nanny smoking pot in the laundry room, or one of the kids is screaming.”