Bike Blog

I got a late start going to Thursday at the Square tonight because I had a sudden onset of nausea when I left the frigid air of my office and hit the thick heat of the outdoors. At least I think that’s what made me feel sick. I stopped at my friend Paul’s house to rest for a little while, and then I felt better, but for a while there I thought I wouldn’t be able to go out and ride the bike taxi tonight. But I did feel better, and Paul and I grabbed some eats at Mighty Taco and then I went home and got my bike taxi to go downtown.

I got downtown later than I usually do for Thursday at the Square–about 8 p.m.–and right away it was a weird night. A bunch of drunk women wanted a free ride because one of them was celebrating a birthday. I wouldn’t give them a free ride, but they offered to pay for a ride down to Chippewa. Yes, I work for tips on the bike taxi (something I’m thinking about changing), but technnically, I wouldn’t call it a “free ride”. After riding them four blocks down to Chippewa, one of them handed me two one dollar bills. Nice.

A little later, some drunk guy was holding his very large dog up so someone could take a picture of its–well, a picture of the underside of the dog–and as I rode by, he plunked the dog in the seat of the bike taxi. That poor dog, with such a–mean guy–for an owner. Anyway, I was concerned the dog would either fall off and hurt itself or its nails would tear through the vinyl seat of the bike taxi, so I told the guy to take his dog off, and he wouldn’t! So I yelled at him, well, not really a yell, but I used what I would call my substitute teacher voice. It seemed like the dog was on there a while before this guy finally took him off. The seat was muddy from the dog’s paws, but I didn’t find any tears in the seat.

I did meet some nice people though, so it wasn’t a total loss for the night. I gave one woman who was walking with a cane a ride, but her husband walked, which was funny. I offered a pregnant woman and her husband a ride, and I would have given her the ride for free because it was too hot for a pregnant woman to be walking all over town last night, but they said no thanks. I feel bad for pregnant women in this heat.

This is a bit of a rambling post. I saw my friend Scott on Main Street, nowhere near the concert, so I wouldn’t normally be there, but someone had a ride in that area, and he crossed the train tracks and asked to borrow my phone to call Paul. And when Paul answered, he thought it was me because his caller ID said my name. I saw Paul and Scott later, too, just walking around. I also saw a few other people I know, and a few people I recognized as former passengers said hello. Buffalo is, in general, a friendly town.

A few people, as usual, offered their business advice and encouraged me to open up franchise bike taxis and get a few other people working for me. They must think I’m piling on the money when I work, but I’m not. Most nights, I ride between 15 and 25 miles, and half of that is easily just riding around looking for passengers. If there were two or more bike taxis riding around, I don’t think there would be enough paying passengers to keep us all busy. But no one, in their drunken enthusiasm for this new business, thinks of that.

ride distance: X miles
weather: warm and muggy