NYC BICYCLE
“I could go anywhere, be anyone, as long as I was on a bicycle.”
Halimah Marcus might be persuaded to give up this significant object… but we’ll need your help. Read the following nonfiction story, then SUBMIT YOUR PERSUASIVE RESPONSE HERE.
When I was a little girl obsessed with horses, I named my bike Thunder and pretended it was an animal. Since then, every bike I’ve owned has had its own personality. Some are rugged and durable. Others are quick and stylish. The Miyata has always been elegant and stubborn. I got it (her?) when I was living in Philadelphia after college, where the subway closes at midnight and runs on a x and y axis, leaving out entire quadrants of the city. As a result, the best way to get around was by bike, which also happened to be the only way to keep up with the punks and hipsters I wanted to be like. Bike gangs—we called ourselves ironically, or maybe aspirationally—weaving in and out of traffic between buses and cars. But despite struggling to keep up, I felt powerful and strong. Like I could go anywhere, be anyone, as long as I was on a bicycle.
The guy who built the Miyata (a friend’s boyfriend) meticulously removed all the brand stickers and sold it to me for $100. By then I knew enough to appreciate the slim double-lugged steel frame and the internal wire casing and the downtube shifters. But it has always been too big for me and the gearing has never been practical. The Miyata fell out of use when I moved to New York, once I learned to navigate the comprehensive (24 hour!) subway system. Living in a fourth floor walk-up didn’t help. I last rode the Miyata—which, writing this, I realized I never named—when De Blasio told New Yorkers to avoid the subway at the beginning of Covid, a commute that was documented in the Grey Lady herself. The lede: “Halimah Marcus’s bike had been collecting dust for five years.”
My neglected Miyata didn’t go back to work for long. Shortly after Covid hit, I moved to the Hudson Valley, where I rarely go five days without clipping into pedals. I’ve always had a couple of bikes going at once, and in the last few years I’ve purchased two more, the first time in my life I’ve experienced up-to-date technology like a carbon frame, tubeless tires, and hydraulic disc brakes. When the total number of bikes in my stable reached five, my husband suggested a “one in, one out policy.” So I moved some old bikes in the basement, hoping he would forget about them. Rather than a belonging, a bike seems more to me like a pet. It’s no coincidence: cycling transforms a human into a superior creature, more elegant, more efficient. Who would want to get rid of that?
So before she goes, if she goes, I figure it’s time I give the Miyata a name: the Grey Lady. Elegant, stubborn, classic. Not perfect, but dependable and timeless.
— HALIMAH MARCUS
Please SUBMIT YOUR PERSUASIVE RESPONSE HERE.
You can commune in person with this object (and 10 others) at solo exhibits in Kingston (NY) from August 15–September 1, and at a group exhibit — at Camp Kingston — from September 3–10. The object essays will be read aloud, and the most persuasive responses announced, at the GIVE IT UP project’s wrap-up party (open to all) on September 10. Join us there!