Fact: exercise is boring. I know, I know: it clears your mind, gives you an endorphin high, keeps you from dying young, and so on. Still, at the end of the day, you’ve wasted valuable whiskey money on a gym membership so that you can run for hours on a treadmill that takes you, by my latest calculations, nowhere.

This is why I like bicycles. They actually take you places – useful! – while providing you with the toned leg muscles and mighty forearms of a god. Also, if you ride in the city, biking can totally kill you. That’s always exciting.

I’ve just started biking in New York. This weekend, I rode from 125th Street to the South Ferry. That’s right: I traversed pretty much the entire island of Manhattan. You may all bask in my accomplishment now. (Note: I am aware that some people ride much harder, and for much longer distances, than I have. I don’t want to hear from them! Get your own blogs, hippies.)

By the end of the trip, I was sweaty and exhausted, I looked like hell, and I was riding a wave of pure giddy euphoria. This, for those keeping score, makes biking exactly like sex, except for the fact that your bike can’t give you chlamydia. I highly recommend it.

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