With no fanfare a bike room opened in the basement of 475 Riverside Drive, the Interchurch Center.

Bikes now have their own bright room. (Thanks, I think, to the Rockefeller Brothers Foundation and Bike New York who have both moved into the building within the last five years.)

Bikes used to live in a corner overshadowed by the exhaust fumes of the cars. The bikes knew they were second class citizens to the cars. Heck, I knew. And I didn’t really want to admit tell my bike.

The bike racks were in a dusty corner. On more than one occasion, I bumped my head against the fire alarm and knocked my shin against my pedal getting the bike in or out.

I know I shouldn’t anthropomorphize my bike any more

— the way I anthropomorphize ice cream

https://mbcoudal.wordpress.com/2011/02/12/public-school-rules/

or my creativity https://mbcoudal.wordpress.com/2011/02/15/good-enough/.

Bikes aren’t human. They don’t get crushes on other bikes as I’ve previously reported.

See http://runningaground.wordpress.com/2010/07/15/damn-you-gary-fisher/

But I can’t stop. My bike is my child. As my real children get older, I still have my good old bike. It will live with me always. It needs its own room. As a teen it needs privacy. But, as a parent, I still need know what it is doing in there.

Like children, biking in New York City has grown up without me noticing. Mine used to be one of a few bikes in the basement. But now there are more than a dozen — more fun for my bike to play with.