My name is Roman. I am not your average cyclist. Matter of fact, I’m fairly new to the sport. Cycling for me started as a hobby and evolved into a lifestyle. My life motto is to make the most out of each day. Don’t sit at home. Go out for a spin.
Cycling in New York City can be stressful. The city itself is huge and the population is even bigger. We have the morning traffic, the commuters getting to work and the weather that changes quickly. All of it can hit you at any given moment and discourage you from even getting on your bike. With that said, I would rather ride my bike than sit at home whenever I can. The cycling culture here is strong. There are over 100 miles of bike lanes throughout the city. If that doesn’t fancy you, go over the George Washington Bridge and have the entire upstate New York and New Jersey area to kill your legs.  If one doesn’t like the west of the Hudson River, no problem - head east. Montauk lighthouse in Long Island is about 140 miles from Brooklyn, where I live. This will for sure satisfy your mile cravings.
Most memorable rides are probably the most painful ones. There is something you can’t erase about them. I’ve done tons of centuries but what differs each one from the other is how much pain I went through, how many hills I climbed, how many speed limits I broke and how much I pushed myself to the point that’s not imaginable to me at the moment. I have many friends that race and they are always training. Putting together a group ride is fairly easy. We all have a similar mindset. Go fast, go far, push hard and pull harder.
For me, bicycling opened up the world around me. With the pain that comes from pushing yourself on the bike, I wanted to capture also the beauty of the experience and surroundings - the beautiful pain. Started with an iPhone, then came the GoPro. Now I never leave my house without my compact camera. In addition, I purchased another camera for work. Click after click, edit after edit, you now can see most of my progress online.
My advice for young photographers, is to keep shooting. Practices makes perfect. You will learn things about yourself. What you like, what you don’t. What type of editing you enjoy applying and so on. You can’t get worse. It’s like writing. You only get better the more you do it.
