Social Workout

Overheard

Men in Bike Shorts

It's an art show in Greenpoint. Not at a gallery, but in someone's apartment. "Friends showing friends' art," says the organizer. The apartment fills up quickly. Two guys, stand in the living room crowd talking. One, an indie music engineer dressed in black, describes the bike ride he took earlier: Across the Brooklyn Bridge, up the West side, over the George Washington Bridge, through the Palisades and back. Sometime he rides to the Cloisters too. It's gorgeous, he says, and with the weather cooling down, the paths and roads aren't crowded. He rides a bike he saved up to buy when he was 15. It was his dream, but then he never rode it. The bike stayed hung in his garage for 14 years. When his last city bike was stolen, he called his mom and asked her to send it to him. He couldn't afford to buy another bike. "She sent the receipt too," he says, rolling his eyes." What does he wear to ride in the cool weather someone asks. "I wear bike shorts, but the sort that are attached to regular shorts on the outside," he says. "And then these leggings." Why the need for the floppy shorts? "I can't do the full spandex," he says. "No way."