I profiled Janet for my Streetsblog feature last month. Janet first started riding a bike in New York in the late 80s, when she was one of the few cyclists bold enough to brave the wild streets of Manhattan. It was an adventure, but certainly not for everyone. After living in Minnesota for a few years, Janet returned to New York and founded a commercial real estate brokerage firm. The city was becoming increasingly more bike friendly, and Janet embraced biking in a more relaxed, utilitarian way that was not really possible before.
Janet’s work usually takes her from her office in the Village to various properties in Midtown South. Her old Bridgestone is usually the fastest and always the cheapest way to get to her destination. And it’s not lost on her the impression she makes on clients when she arrives for a meeting by bike. Her customers are often people who never really considered biking before so she makes a conscious effort to at least get them to entertain the possibility.
She’s something of a bike evangelist, and she has a few converts under her belt — often people who never considered biking before. She tries to show them what she has discovered — that a great number of their trips in the city can be done more quickly and cheaply (and more safely than ever before) by bike. She certainly influenced Michael, who runs streeteasy.com and is one of her customers. Janet says she’s “at least 50% responsible for getting him to bike (it was an easy push)”. Michael’s main form of transport used to be a motorcycle, though now he favors the bike. He likes not worrying about parking and knowing exactly when he will arrive at his destination. His ride is a shaft-driven biomega bike that he purchased at Adeline Adeline.