On Monday, the former music producer Scooter Braun shared a video of himself and his girlfriend, the actress Sydney Sweeney, on a late-night bike ride through Times Square. A day later, Kim Kardashian posted a selfie taken by her boyfriend, the British racecar driver Lewis Hamilton, as they biked alongside the Hudson River.
An online debate has been simmering for years over what constitutes an acceptable date, especially if it’s your first as two singles. Some people embrace the idea of a cheap date, like a walk in the park or a chat over coffee, to build connection. For others, it’s dinner or nothing — preferably with a $200 minimum spend.
Is the breezy yet sweat-inducing bike date ascendant? For celebrities, it may feel strange to be out in public without an entourage, whizzing past crowds of pedestrians, but perhaps that’s part of the thrill — the best disguise might, in fact, be no disguise at all.
It’s possible that the couples’ recent joy rides were at least partly inspired by the ’90s nostalgia that suffused practically every frame of “Love Story,” the FX limited series that dramatized the tumultuous relationship between John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette. In recent months, the couple has had their styles picked apart, emulated and pinned on figurative and literal inspiration boards to no end.
One particular touchstone: Kennedy’s penchant for riding his bike around the city, which was so familiar a sight at the time that it inspired a “Sex and the City” column. In 1995, Candace Bushnell broke down the specific types of New York City bachelors who ride bikes, sometimes while wearing a suit, and how this specific mode of transit can determine their success with women. In general, Bushnell found that the “Bicycle Boy” — a subspecies that she said did not include Kennedy, who was exempted because of his “rippled athleticism” — came with drawbacks.
While the men themselves could be smart, attractive, lean and romantic, Bushnell (and several people she interviewed) cautioned that their excessive bike riding could imply a certain selfishness or cheapness.
“There’s something incredibly, er, charming about a tweedy guy on a bike — especially if he’s wearing goofy glasses,” she allowed. But there’s also “a dark side,” she added: “Most Bicycle Boys are not married and probably never will be, at least not until they give up their bikes.”
But for many singles or couples today, especially those with access to Citi Bike or similar bike-share programs across the country, bike dates — and cycling in general — allow them to connect without digital distractions, save money and get active.
Chester Martin, a 33-year-old musician in Brooklyn, is an avid cyclist, currently trying to complete a side quest to dock at every Citi Bike station in New York City.
“I think I’m 55 percent of the way there,” Martin said, adding that he was a big fan of going on a bike date or combining dinner dates with a bike ride.
Riding bikes side by side through the city, he said, is a “slightly more elevated version” of going on a walk. And in case his date isn’t in the mood to ride her own bike, he doesn’t mind putting in extra work.
“The person I’m dating now is of the size where she can comfortably sit in the Citi Bike basket,” he said. “I’ll just grab a bike, she’ll sit in the basket and we’ll go literally from, like, Brooklyn to Manhattan and just talk the whole way.”
For Annique Krause, a 32-year-old hair salon owner in Nashville, bike dates help her wife, who sells antiques and runs ultramarathons, make training days more romantic.
“She’s training for a hundred-mile race,” Krause said. “So we went to an air park and just did laps around where the airplanes take off. It was, like, the perfect little place, and then you can have picnics out there, too.”
These days, Krause said, restaurant dates can feel underwhelming, so she would much rather go on a hike or a walk, which also takes them “away from our technology.”
“It just really turns it off for us,” she said. “And then we can actually enjoy each other’s time.”
Jeff Baker, 41, thinks that bike dates are a great way to observe how courteous a person is on the road, and whether the person views traffic signs as mere suggestions. He bikes often with his husband, usually as one of their main modes of transit in the city.
“That’s one of the ways I know that he is a good partner and a good husband, because if we are about to hit a yellow light, he will always look back to see if I’m going to make that light with him or if he has to stop so we can both go together,” he said.
Gina Cherelus covers dating, relationships and culture for The Times and writes the weekly dating column Third Wheel.
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