Snow

As seen in ... Brooklyn Heights

I have no idea what these guys are doing, but this seems like a really inefficient way to move a car.

As seen in ... Greenpoint

There's nothing like biking down closed streets.

If you missed it, today was the 'Get to the 'Point' 5K run through Greenpoint.

I don't run, but I love all the streets closed to traffic.

For a real kick, try riding the NYC Marathon route before the runners go. It's totally under the radar, but super fun.
No, you don't get to ride across the Verrazano Bridge, but the rest of the route gets closed off pretty early in the morning of the race.

Shame on You Brooklyn Marriott

I know I'm always harping on this, but come on!

According to the Marriott web site, the New York Marriott at the Brooklyn Bridge boasts "1,100 indoor parking spots" - so why don't you use them instead of allowing the bike lane that is the most direct access to the Brooklyn Bridge for cyclists to be abused?

In a neighborhood already overrun by 'special' parking permits for the local, state and federal courts, do we really need 'protected' livery cab parking?

On the other hand ...



With bike lanes like this, who wants to ride in them anyway?

Dash

My trip down to the Rockaways was more exciting than it normally is.
I fell in a pothole, I forgot my map, and I met Dash.

Dash was laying on the ground panting from the heat when I came upon him and his owner about 500 yards from the Canarsie Pier.
The guy wasn't that far from the entrance (and the water fountain) but I figured, hey, I've got wheels and he's got a hundred pounds of dead weight, so I shared some of my bottle with Dash.



Instant Dog! Just Add Water...

Deja Vu All Over Again

I was riding on the Belt Parkway Bike Path down near Canarsie when I saw this...




I was vaguely mystified until about 10 feet later I ran over these...



Then I remembered.

Last year during the NYC Century, I saw exactly the same warning in exactly the same place and did exactly the same thing.
You'd think I might have figured it out by now - SLOW BUMPS means -
DON"T RUN OVER THE EXTREMELY SHARP PROTRUSIONS STICKING OUT OF THE ROAD RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU.

Tearin' Up The Town

I finally met the guys who rip up the street.
Usually I just end up turning onto streets that have been torn up to await a new surface, but today I ran right smack into the middle of it.
It turns out this process is called 'milling' and it's done by contracted workers who when asked know nothing about when the street will once again have a surface that doesn't slice up my tires.
They just do the ripping up.



Lucky for me, I've discovered the many and varied uses for two great inventions; the 'innanet' and 311.

Turns out, the DOT actually posts a schedule of the upcoming work - both 'milling' and fixing in the 'Weekly Resurfacing Schedule'.
I will probably never check this again, but it's nice to know you could figure out what streets were a mess before riding on them. (This requires far more advance thought than I've ever been willing to apply, but it's better than the "Whatever, fugghettaboutit" answer I got this morning.)

Wednesday
07-23-08

2 Paving Crews
11th Ave (New Utrecht to 61st St)
46th St (11th Ave to New Utrecht Ave)
Navy St (Hudson Ave to Nassau St)
York St (Jay St to Navy St)
2 Milling Crews
Senator St (Colonial Rd to 6th Ave)
E 7th St (Reeve Pl to Quentin Rd)
Contract Milling
State St (Columbia Pl to Flatbush Ave)

Thursday
07-24-08

2 Paving Crews
11th Ave (New Utrecht to 61st St)
Navy St (Hudson Ave to Nassau St)
York St (Jay St to Navy St)
2 Milling Crews
72nd St (5th Ave to 12th Ave)
E 7th St (Reeve Pl to Quentin Rd)
Contract Milling
State St (Columbia Pl to Flatbush Ave)

Friday
07-25-08

2 Paving Crews
11th Ave (New Utrecht to 61st St)
Navy St (Hudson Ave to Nassau St)
York St (Jay St to Navy St)
Middagh St (BQE to Fulton St)
Willow St (BQE to Pierrepont St)
Monroe Pl (Clark St to Pierrepont)
2 Milling Crews
72nd St (5th Ave to 12th Ave)
E 7th Ave (Reeve Pl to Quentin Rd)
Contract Milling
State St (Columbia Pl to Flatbush Ave)

Schedules are subject to change due to inclement weather or emergencies. For updated information call (311) Monday to Friday, 7 am to 7 pm.

Ice Cream and Dirt

Reasons to love cycling on a sunny summer day.

Washington Street Cobbles

Cobbles are a (literal) pain in the ass when you're on a bike.

I've been using the asphalt patches on Washington Street to hopscotch my way along this block for the last couple of months, but it's nice to see the stones get replaced rather than the whole street get asphalted over.

I'm not a fan of the strip-mall look that NYC has acquired over the last decade.
It would be great to keep the last few cobbled streets from going the way of the dinosaur.
Broome, Mercer, Peck Slip, Washington ... even bumping along on my butt, I love these streets.

Bike Path Shame

Today was a perfect day for a ride, and Brooklyn was the place to ride - as evidenced by the endless stream of cyclists pouring off the Brooklyn Bridge.

The Bloomberg Administration has worked hard at changing the perception of this city from that of one big traffic jam, to an environmentally and athletically friendly place.

They even took the time to put together a cycle-specific tour of the waterfalls, which judging by the crowds, a lot of bicyclists are taking advantage of.

How sad is it then that two of the major bike thoroughfares in Downtown Brooklyn/Brooklyn Heights, are perpetually unusable.
This scene is the norm for the Henry Street bike path, and the Adams Street bike path is even worse.



(That's a Prius on the end, by the way)

I have lots and lots of problems with the bike paths in NY, but one of them is NOT that they exist.

That after decades of struggle by cycling advocates, they exist to be used as parking for the First Presbyterian Church and the Marriott Hotel, - that is a problem.

Waterfalls

I did a little drive-by this morning on my way to work - and yes, the waterfalls are officially up and running.
The Pier 1 Park wasn't open yet - opens at 10 am today, but from what I could see, it looked ready to go.

I'm not really sure why I'm so fixated on these. Normally I don't have much patience with public art installations, but this one is working for me.
I hopped on my bike, took a detour down to the waterfront, and when I felt the spray blowing off the falls - I was happy.

It might just be that simple.

Urban Hieroglyphics

What do cyclists, and surveyors have in common?
We spend a lot of time looking down at things that other people ignore.





This a small selection of the thousands of enigmatic symbols one finds spray painted onto the streets of New York.
The blue double arrows on the right appeared all over the place just last week.
I never actually noticed any of these until I rode in last year's NYC Century, when, about a week before the ride, these started showing up.



I have come to realize that they mark the roads for everything.
I was just never looking for it.

So, a few days ago, I started seeing these as well -



I don't know about you, but I thought they were freakin' brilliant.
What do you think of when you see this blue glyph?
I think waterfall.
And what do you think of when you think of waterfalls in New York City?

Well, unless you've been living under a rock, you think of Olafur Eliasson's NYC Waterfall Public Art Installation which is due to open in less than a week.

They've been building the scaffolds in four locations around Brooklyn and Lower Manhattan for the last few months, and they've been testing the falls for the last few days.


There's a festival, a temporary park at Pier 1 next to the Brooklyn Bridge, and major goings on all along the waterfront in Dumbo.

The DOT has even put together a plan for a bike tour of the falls - which leads me back to the mystery glyphs that are appearing all over the place.
Just follow the blue arrows for a pre-planned tour of the official waterfall viewing locations.




download the map from the NYC DOT

The Telectroscope

Hullo London. URaQT :)



This steampunk art project proves that it isn't new technology that makes modern communication shallow, it's us.
And you know what? I couldn't care less.



This fabulous thing is the 'telectroscope' and it lived at the Walt Whitman Pier in Brooklyn for the past month. (Sorry, this post fell victim to my flickr debacle, so the installation closed this Sunday)

The brainchild of British artist Paul St. George, there is a whole backstory to this project which can be found at tiscali telectroscope



The short version is that he asks us to imagine that there is a transatlantic tunnel connecting London to New York that has remained undisturbed for a hundred years awaiting the installation of a nineteenth century communication device known as a 'telectroscope'.

Sound familiar?

For those of you who don't know, Brooklyn is home to the oldest Subway tunnel in the world, which was actually 'lost' and remained undisturbed for more than a hundred years until it was rediscovered in 1981. Atlantic Avenue Tunnel

It's pretty amazing. You go down through a manhole cover in the middle of Atlantic Avenue into this perfectly preserved abandoned space.
Go. Do it.





Back to the telectroscope...



Considering how cool the thing itself is, the majority of people looking at each other through it are remarkable only for their unremarkableness. The telectro - helpers have whiteboards on which to write messages, most of which say things like "Hi", "You're Cute!" or "How's the weather?"
On the London end, even the Queen joined in the fun to look through the simulated 'viewer' and wave randomly to passing New Yorkers.
I wonder what she wrote on her whiteboard?
(Photo of the Queen by Matthew Andrews)



Why did I like the telectroscope?
Well somewhere in London there's a couple that wrote this message to me...

"Nice Bike"

Brooklyn Cobbles

Or, why George Hincapie should come train in Brooklyn for next year's Paris Roubaix.



Went for a spin the other day and decided to swing over to see how long it will be before Ikea opens down in Red Hook and we are inundated with all the extra traffic.
It's amazing how quickly you can build something when you really want to - they are almost done with the landscaping, so I'd say it will be open any day now.

I know they say there won't be traffic problems because this Ikea is accessible by mass transit, but first; the closest subway stop is at least 15 blocks away, and second, who actually wants to carry furniture home on the subway?



I'm hoping this Red Hook landmark survives, but chances are if you never went to this bar when this was the ass-end of Red Hook, you won't be going now.

The single most glaring change (other than the giant yellow and blue box store that takes up the entire pier) is that they've repaved the street leading around to the parking lot. Gone are the famous cobbles, replaced by vehicle friendly asphalt.

Cobbles and trolley tracks are some of the more picturesque remnants of old NY that still linger in Brooklyn, and most of the outer boroughs. In the last 20 years, Manhattan has been stripped of much of it's physical history in the name of progress and I've been saddened to see it erased. I still remember the hollow, glass block sidewalks that lined SOHO and the blue slate streets of the west Village.

Lucky for us Brooklynites, not only do we have a lovely assortment of cobbles and trolley tracks that wend their way through DUMBO and Red Hook, but for those looking for the real deal, we've got Industry City.

Industry City is the name for the four million square feet in 10 industrial buildings between 37th and 32d Streets just off the Gowanus Expressway. It's desolate, dusty, and absolute hell on wheels - for those of us on two wheels.



I found an interview where George Hincapie talks about his training regimen and the fact that he sometimes has problems training for the spring classics because of snow.

Well, I say 'Come on over to Brooklyn George! We've got plenty of cobbles, and almost no snow."

A Perfect Beach Day

Now, this is how the boardwalk at Coney Island is supposed to look.



What a perfect day for a ride to the beach.

I wandered on down to Coney Island and basked in the sun for a few minutes before heading down through Brighton to the Belt Parkway Bike Path. The shoreline was alive with early summer fun; picnics, barbecues, and cyclists galore. I thought about heading to Canarsie, but then decided to hang a quick right and cross the Marine Parkway Bridge (AKA Gil Hodges Memorial Bridge) onto Rockaway Beach.



When you haven't ridden a route in a while, you forget the little details.
Such as... When you make the turn down Flatbush to go past Floyd Bennett Field and head to the bridge, don't stay on the right hand side, which is the side you come from and the side you are going to end up on. The bridge is more than a mile away and the tiny, rutted, glass covered path is a pointless obstacle when there is a perfectly lovely bike path on the other side of the road.
Oops, forgot about that.

Also, although I am as guilty as most, there is a reason that the sign asks cyclists to dismount and walk across the bridge.
The path is really narrow. Most of us ignore this and blithely bike across anyway - including me - but I don't try to pass riders in front of me while there is an oncoming cyclist.
Come On Mountain Bike Dude! There were only four people on the whole bridge and you had to pick the one moment in time when we were all at the same point on the span?

Anyway, a short sojourn to the ocean had me in a better frame of mind and I hung out for a while enjoying the quiet that only exists in the off season.
A month from now and Rockapulco will be in full swing.

As seen in...Ocean Parkway

Don't park on Ocean Parkway.
This was the sixth car I saw with a bashed out window as I went down the length of the road.
For you it's a bummer because someone smashes up your vehicle and steals all your stuff. For me it's a bummer because someone smashes up your vehicle and leaves this all over the street. -



Shattered safety glass is hell on tires.

I know you don't really care about my tires so much - after all someone just stole all your stuff, but why not kill two birds with one stone?

Don't park on Ocean Parkway and we'll both be happy.

It was a Dark and Stormy ... Beach Day?

Did the first ride of the season out to Coney Island.

I love this ride. There is something magical about being able to get on a bicycle in New York City, ride for a while, and end up at the Atlantic Ocean.

The sights and smells of a carnival mingle with the breeze blowing in off the sea. Hot Dogs, Beer, Suntan Oil... But there was none of that today. Today was quiet, misty and mysterious. A day where you look out to the ocean and imagine all the people and places on the other side of the fog.

Somedays, I love riding in NYC.

As seen in...Brooklyn Heights

And you thought parking was bad in your neighborhood...

New Path to Tofu

Oooh - Sexy!

Yes, It's the bicycle specific lane on the Manhattan Bridge.
Check it out. Bike icons in both lanes. Woo Hoo.

Of course, I did see about 5 people on foot on the North Path, but who cares. As the weather gets colder, fewer and fewer people cross the bridges any way.

The approach on both sides is suicidal and takes you through some of the worst streets to cycle on, but it's so nice to ride across the river without fear of hitting or being hit by random tourists, kids, sightseers or joggers on the Brooklyn Bridge Footpath.

I love riding on the Brooklyn Bridge, but sometimes the crowds get to be too much. The Manhattan Bridge leads right into the heart of Chinatown, and the best fresh tofu in NY - I only almost got killed three times on my way there.

As seen in...Brooklyn Heights

This Pug has seen more of New York City than most people I know.
He's also got better manners than most people I know.