#RelationshipGoals: Our #BikeWithBae Winners!

Paolo and his Bae Laura's picture of them smooching on the Manhattan Bridge won our hearts and our #BikeWithBae Instagram contest last month. Read about this cute cycling couple here.

Paolo and Laura's winning #BikeWithBae photo

Everyone's been asking to hear the story behind the ridiculously cute couple who won the #BikeWithBae contest last month, so we're sharing it here! Paolo and Laura are a sweet southern couple who found love in the Big Apple. On weekends you might spot them running errands via Citi Bikeon the Lower East Side or cruising down the Hudson Greenway. They even have a shared photo library with pictures from every year they've dated. Talk about #RelationshipGoals!

Tell us about yourselves! How did you two meet and where?

We are both from the south! Paolo is from Florida and Laura from Texas. We both moved to NYC for school. We met in April 2014 through a mutual friend at a basketball game at Barclays center. We have been dating for almost 4 years!

How long have you lived in NYC?

Laura moved to NYC in Summer 2011 for graduate school and Paolo moved in Summer 2013 for law school.

How long have you been Citi Bike members?

We have been Citi Bike members since Spring 2016, two years and counting!

Describe your ideal Citi Bike date...

We have gone on countless Citi Bike dates! Our favorite Citi Bike date, which we do often during the warmer months, is riding from South Street Seaport, up the West Side Highway to Chelsea Piers, to have a picnic by the water.

What are your favorite routes to ride together?

Most Saturday mornings we use Citi Bike to grab breakfast and go grocery shopping, so you can probably spot us riding around the Lower East Side and East Village. One of our favorite routes is going up Allen Street to Houston, then continuing up 1st Avenue. The bike lane around that area is great! You have your own path so it makes for a very easy ride :)

We mainly ride Citi Bike together on the weekends, but Paolo commutes to work and back every day on a Citi Bike. He refuses to ride the subway for his commute, but he’ll ride the Citi Bike even when it’s raining or snowing!

Finally, tells us the inspiration behind your winning #BikeWithBae picture on the Manhattan Bridge!

We love riding on the East path or West Side close to the water because you have to worry less about the city traffic. The weekend we took the picture we were meeting a friend in Brooklyn for brunch and the F train was down (shocker!) so Paolo suggested to bike across the bridge and get a mini workout before brunch. Since the Brooklyn Bridge is a lot more popular for pedestrians, we decided on the less popular, but just as cool Manhattan bridge. We have a shared album on our phones for every year that we’ve been dating. Each album has pictures from that year of things we’ve done, places we’ve gone or just moments we want to remember. On the way back from Brooklyn, the sun was setting and we thought it was just a great picture to snap for the album that captured what we did that day. Luckily, it turned out pretty cool and was perfect for the #BikeWithBae contest. It also got us excited and inspired to take more pictures so the rest of the day (until the sun went down) turned into an amateur photoshoot on the bikes.

Follow Paolo (@pdejesus1155) and Laura (@laudayz) on Instagram for some serious #RelationshipGoals inspiration.