Interesting bicycling experience

I forget my keys today. My neighbor was not in nor was the building manager, so I just left on my bicycle towards downtown to do my stuff, thinking that one of them had to be back when I returned.

But then when I got downtown and was parking my bicycle I realized that I can’t lock it without a key. What do you do in the downtown of a city without being able to lock your bicycle?

Initially one may think “not very much” but, actually, I was able to do quite a lot. In fact I only had to deviate slightly from what I might otherwise have done had I not forgotten the keys.

First, instead of going to a beauty store in the mall, I went to one with a shop on the street, and they gladly let me park the bicycle inside the store so long as it was out of the way, away from the entrance. Objective #1: Check! (Oh yeah – finally got that Marc Jacobs purple eyeliner I really wanted!)

Then I wanted to go look for a couple things in Target. Target was easy. Elevator up to the store level and because the store is so big, I just walked the bicycle over and out of the way and left it along a wall. No one really even seemed to notice. In fact when I was leaving I saw another bicycle there. Objective #2: Check!

Then, even though I try to watch my budget, I told myself its ok – its healthy that I’m just out during the day on my bicycle in the first place, so its ok to get a little bit of prepared food. I went to the natural foods store and just walked my bicycle in through the exit doors and left it out of the way against a wall where there was space. I went in and got stuff, sat down and ate and enjoyed myself and left. Objective #3: Check!

And that was my sojourn into the city, into downtown today, without locking my bicycle. Its so cool that most places are able to accommodate a bicycle when necessary.

Maybe some day in the future the city will have some kind of bicycle-rack-share system where you can go to any bicycle rack in the city and have the option to enter your unique pin/passcode and use the integrated lock for a small fee. It would be a neat way to not have to carry those extra few pounds of metal of a lock around everywhere you want to go.