Just in time for spring and its much-hyped Ballroom reopening, The Jane Hotel is now offering complimentary black Urban beach cruisers to all guests. Patrons can hop on a bike, peddle on over to the West Side Highway, and if they close their eyes and feel the breeze on their faces (while managing to avoid the traffic/dumpsters/Hudson River), it's almost, almost like being on the strand in Malibu. -
The Jane is just the latest hotel from same group that owns The Bowery Hotel and the Maritime to get bike perks: the ones at The Bowery Hotel get red Schwinns, those at the Maritime, fittingly, blue. The thought of unpracticed tourists teetering around the city on bicycles is enough to make taxi drivers around the city gray, but the hotels do provide optional helmets. It seems doubtful that the image-conscious patrons of The Jane would opt for helmets, so perhaps, just in case, a Blessing Of The Bikes is in order--good thing it's next Saturday.
The concept of borrow-able bikes is relatively novel in New York, and limited to upscale hotels, however many European cities, like Berlin, Copenhagen and Paris have bicycle programs which allow citizens to utilize bikes, often for free. The bicycles are distributed throughout the cities and can be rented for a returnable deposit. Some American cities are looking to implement similar programs--Boston and Chicago, but, alas, not New York. Guess we'll have to settle for buying our own, or spending lots of time at The Jane.