Cool and Good people is hard to come by, I've known Nabil for a very short time here in NYC before he recently moved to California. My first impression of Nabil is - What? What's your name? oh okay,, yeah that... I'm really bad with names, especially if your not in my phone or communicating with me on a daily basis, lol, I gave up and start calling him BILLY. lol I figured he didn't like it so I started to make some effort in remember his name. Thanks Nabil for the Write up!! NNR Fam!!
More to come from Nabil - a former New Yorker
NNR
Believe it or not I learned how to ride a bike without training wheels when I was two years old. Sadly.. I got it down and moved on to the next thing. I hadn't gotten back on a bike till about two years ago.
At the time, I was snowboarding, that was my thing! Up until two years ago that was my addiction.
And the story begins.
It was spring 2010, snowboard season had just finished; I was sitting at one of my favorite coffee shops, Greogory's Coffee on 24th and Park, when this barista stole my focus away from my laptop.
Time passed and I got to know her more and more, I learned that she road and my curiosity began to unfold. All she had to do then was suggest I get a bike..
A week or so later, I stopped by a bike shop only to look at some bikes and get an idea of what I really want. I saw a nice Baria single speed; test drove it, next thing I know I bought it.
Now, it's was about 7pm, I'm in downtown Manhattan, and have this bike, and I need to get home, 17 miles away. At the time I had no idea that I could hop on the LIRR with my bike, so I saw my only one option, ride home. I hadn't road a bike for about 10years and I got on that bike and road that thing home for 17mi. The adrenaline experienced on that ride home was all it took. I became so attached to my bike that it was all I could really talk about for months. I was using it more than a utility, it became the resolution to just about every problem I had.
I ride now because it is truly the only attachment to so many good things I experienced in life. I have met so many great people through riding that up till this day do their best to continue that relationship though overcoming substantial challenges with a core built on riding. The riding scene has such a great community to offer all over the world. I've been involved in so many other activities, and the sense of communion that riding has to offer is like no other. It seems cliché to say it, but the people involved really do their best to make riding a way of life.
NNR is more than nevernotriding. It’s feeling out of place when you're walking to a bus stop and feeling bored out of your mind while you're on it. It's wondering why you decided not to ride while you’re stuck at traffic light in NYC traffic.
Now I know my story isn't based on a lifelong attachment with riding, but I'm sure I'd be able to tell that story in a few years.
Life's so much simpler on a bike flying down a damp hill at some ridiculous speed without brakes, and then you notice the intersection at the bottom. :p
Nabil El Bakhar
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