As requested by Tony, here's a non-sped up version of one part of my bike commute. This is through the prettiest part of my commute: Fort Greene, Brooklyn.
It's somewhat bittersweet, since I lived in that neighborhood for a couple of years, and still miss it a bit. Gotta love the tree lined streets and lovely architecture.
The side of the road that has the bike lane seems to be pretty random. How do you safely bike in the city if you haven’t been on that route a hundred times? How do you konw when to weave all the way across the city street to get to the correct side for turning to getting into a new bike lane that is on another random side – looks crazy and dangerous!
totally not scary.
When you start, you stay in bike lanes, avoid busy streets, go slow, etc. As you get more confident and aware of traffic patterns you figure out the margins of how to bike safely but more efficiently.
It’s not different from learning to ski or dance or a lot of other sports.