Thunder and Lightning

The Triboro Bridge is frightening...

So, I went for a ride, and it didn't go well.

By the time I got to Randall's Island, I could see the storm clouds gathering.



Normally, I don't mind riding in the rain.
I don't actively seek it out, and if I'm commuting, I hate it. But on a warm summer day, at the end of a long ride, it can be kind of nice.
Not this time.

The pedestrian/bike path of the Triboro Bridge is a little daunting at the best of times. The construction annoys me. When it's windy, the barrier feels suspiciously low. And when you approach the metal-caged on-ramp and see lightening repeatedly hit the bridge, well then it's time to run away.



Thunder cracked directly overhead, the sky opened up, and I wondered if instead of a bike, I should have built an ark.



So, there I was... underneath the Triboro Bridge. In the rain.



For those of you who have never crossed the Triboro by bike or foot, it can be very confusing. The DOT provides this map, but I get confused all the time, so here's a simple explanation.



There is no direct route for cyclists and pedestrians from Queens to Manhattan or the Bronx. Instead of following the traffic, the path drops you on Randall's Island from all directions.
You need to cross the island and find the correct span for the borough you are going to, making the bridge a two-step process.

I haven't actually taken the Manhattan entrance this year, so I can't vouch for it, but if the ramps are open, they're at 124/126th and Second Avenue. If not, the stairs are at 124/126th and First Avenue.
Alternately, there's the Ward's Island Bridge at 103rd Street and the FDR, which is for bicyclists and pedestrians only. Ward's Island connects to Randall's Island.

The Queens entrance is the stairs at 27th and Hoyt.

The Bronx entrance is the ramp structure at 133rd and Cypress.

Cyclists need to be very careful. The path is broken by steep stairs.
When you see the spray paint telling you to slow down - SLOW DOWN!

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.

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.

The Lazy Cyclist's 2007 NYC Marathon

I heard about a ride that starts at the base of the Verrazano Narrows Bridge and follows the route of the NYC Marathon from a guy that I met during the Twin Lights Century. It sounded great. A quick guerrilla-style spin through NYC taking advantage of the closed streets and festive atmosphere.
I really meant to do it.
But instead, I did the Lazy Cyclist's NYC Marathon.
Need instructions?
Go out the night before. Drink wine (South African - very good)
Wake up late.
Tune in late to Marathon Coverage on TV and miss the start.
Realize that everybody's favorite male equivalent of the 'dumb blond' weather girl - Al Trautwig, is doing the commentary and curse the fates that made you interested in sports that the networks deem worthy of 'wacky Al'.
Turn off the sound and marvel as Paula Radcliffe dominates the women's race from beginning to end.
Feel guilty.
Haul your ass onto your bike and go cheer on some stragglers.
Finish 26 miles in 02:16 - not bad considering the traffic was murder.

Not much going on on Fourth Ave. by the time I got there, but they still wouldn't let me bike on it


Aside from the insanity on Fifth Ave. in Brooklyn, the ride was lovely. The weather was crisp and slightly overcast - technically perfect for riding.
I cobbled together a 'cool weather' riding outfit and set out to do my 26.
Life was pretty good until I hit the shore bike path. There, riding into a nice chilly headwind coming off the harbor, I discovered that my fingers and wrists get chilled where they are exposed, my lips chap, my nose runs, and I get cold crotch. Fingers, lips, nose... these I expected. But cold crotch? Is there such a thing as too well ventilated ergonomically designed sports equipment? Those of you with gender specific bike seats may know what I'm talking about here.
All I can say is, every once in a while, I'd hit a gust of wind, and 'Oh Daddy!' - Yowza, I have got to work that out if I'm going to be riding in chilly weather.

My version of a water stop.


Congratulations Martin Lel, Paula Radcliffe, and the 38,000 runners in this years NYC Marathon. Hell, I can't even run for the bus.

The Psychology of Bunnies

Shhh, Be Vewy Quiet. I’m hunting Wabbit.

The endless miles of the Twin Lights Century made me think about many things (100 miles alone through suburbia will do that to you). Snack Availability, Roadkill, and Bunnies were very popular topics.
I like a good bunny better than most cyclists – probably because I ride by myself so much, and the century provided me with an opportunity to really categorize what made a bunny good and what made a bunny bad.



A ‘good’ bunny is going the same way via the same route at a slightly faster rate than you would go by yourself.
Their bicycle should be more expensive than yours and have more gear attached to it.
(You should feel good to be keeping up with them, not embarrassed to have your ass kicked by the deli delivery guy.)
They should be wearing bright, easily identifiable clothing.
Fluorescent green, electric blue and shiny psychedelic designs are all good. The more unique the better, so that you can distinguish your bunny from other riders and objects the further away from them you fall.
There are few feelings more satisfying than losing your bunny only to spot them a mile or so later as the road curves in the distance. They need to be wearing something bright for this to be possible. White is not a good choice – there are a lot of white things in the world and as you grow tired, you may begin to mistake these objects for your bunny causing bouts of depression and sadness.
A good bunny rides predictably and lawfully.
It’s no use following someone who randomly speeds up and slows down for no good reason, only to blow through six lane intersections while cursing the honking traffic every time they miss the light – unless you like to do this too, in which case good on you both and I hope you don’t believe in Darwinism.
A good bunny does not acknowledge you until one or both of you has reached your destination.
Even if they are alone too, it’s weird to try to form a little temporary team based on a randomly shared pace. I try to keep far enough back so that my bunny doesn’t even realize that I’m there. On a country road, this can mean keeping back a few hundred meters.



And then there were none. The turn off to the 100 mile route spelled the beginning of a long stretch where I saw very few other cyclists.

I need bunnies when I ride long distances. I’m not interested enough in keeping track of my own pace to stay consistent without other riders for context. I start to daydream. I stop and take pictures. I go into a low gear to climb a hill and then forget to switch out of it.
I don’t normally think very much of it. After all, who cares really? But the Century had a finite time limit, and I have to admit, it did stress me out a little.
I really didn’t feel like missing the ferries to go home and end up sitting on the pier in NJ for hours. With that in mind, I figured that I needed to keep pace with at least the slower consistent riders. Averaging 14 mph with rest-stops would get me back in about 7.5 or 8 hours, just in time for the 4:30 ferry home.
I’m slowly discovering how these things work, and I guess the start will always be a little nervous with faster and slower riders all mixed together trying to shake out into some kind of organization. It’s a little hard on the ego, but I am not a 22 mph over 100 miles rider, and those guys are going to pass me never to be seen again.
I picked up one set of bunnies for a couple of miles, and then another set after the rest stop. I got “wheel sucked” for the first time in my life by a guy who had been dropped by his group at a light.
Boy is that annoying. I mean follow me, fine. But don’t crawl up my ass for 8 miles.
Then, at mile 30, it happened. I picked up these two guys in bright blue matchy matchy jerseys, and comfortably slotted in a couple hundred yards behind them. I followed them for almost 40 miles, until they split up at a rest stop and the one I stuck with took a wrong turn. 40 miles with the same bunnies – how cool is that? I saw one later at the last rest stop before the finish, and I almost broke the no contact rule, but I thought better of it. I mean, what was I going to say, “Hey, I was following you for 40 miles, I just wanted to say ‘Hi’?”
My last bunny was more of a buddy than a bunny. The last 20 miles of hills were every man for himself and I was keeping pace with one other guy until that last hill that I just couldn't make it over without walking. This last hill highlighted a basic difference between my philosophy and his; I hate having to walk my bike up hills, but I'll do it. He refused to dismount on the hill and I passed him while he was recovering. He waved me by and I saluted. I beat him to the finish by 10 minutes.



Adding insult to injury. The sign at the top of the hill that I didn't make it over.

2007 Bike New York Twin Lights Century

View of sunrise over Coney Island from the deck of the SeaStreak Ferry, en route to the start of the 2007, Bike New York, Twin Lights, Monmouth County Century. (You'd think with a name this long it would be a bigger ride than it is, but more on that later.)

I don't know why I decided to do this Century - maybe to prove that I could, maybe to see what it felt like to actually ride 100 miles instead of survive the 100 which is how I felt about the NYC Century, or maybe just because the days are going to get shorter and every opportunity for a beautiful ride seems like a good idea.

The day started well. The forecast was perfect for a ride and I made it to the pick up point at Pier 11 with time to spare.

The SeaStreak Ferry runs to NJ year-round, but this route gets busy during the summer when smart city dwellers run away to the beautiful, clean, uncrowded beaches at Sandy Hook State Park. The ferry ride itself was beautiful and relaxing. I chilled out for the 45 minute ride, and even had a cup of COFFEE.

The start was two minutes away from the ferry landing in Highlands NJ. The sun was up. The day was looking grand. All was right with the world.



The longer distance riders all looked pretty homogeneous. Not that there weren't many colors of people, but not that many different 'types'. Everyone was riding a 'nice' road bike, there were one or two exceptions to the spandex, but we stood out like sore thumbs, and the median age felt like it was about 45.

I checked in (again) and went to get my 100 mile cue sheet. Considering how few people there were, it seemed chaotic at the start. The nice man who I asked for the 100 mile cue sheet, kindly offered me a 50 mile sheet in case I wanted to back out. I very nicely declined and even resisted the urge to drop-kick him for patronizing me before 8am.

I set off down the road, a little nervous about riding in a completely unfamiliar area, but that's one of the best reasons to do these rides - they are plotted, planned, marked, and fully supported, so if you run into trouble, you've got help coming.

I arrived at the Oceanport Rest Stop with a group of riders who left at about 8am - and it wasn't set up yet.
OK.
I have no idea what the 7:30 riders did, my guess is they just skipped it. It was only about 10 miles in, so fine.
Got to the Sunnyside Rest Stop - and this is where my memory fails me because they all melt together at a certain point - either here, or at the Shark River Rest Stop they had no water. No Water. I filled my water bottle out of a sink that said "Please, only use sink to wash hands". I'm assuming (mostly because I didn't get sick) that if the water wasn't drinkable, it would have specifically said - "Don't Drink The Water". As it was, the water was warm, I was unhappy, and the rest stops were about 20 miles from each other - out in BF NJ, so water seemed pretty important.
Oh, for those of you who wanted a PBJ - I took the last half they had. Sorry.

Somewhere around the 70 mile mark, I saw my first marshal. He asked me what I was doing so far behind him and I commented that if he was supposed to be sweeping the tail of the ride, I had just left a large bunch at the last rest stop. No idea what that was about. The he asked me how I was enjoying the ride. I said, "Eh".
I thought I was just being cranky at the time.
Don't ask me if I'm enjoying myself at mile 70. Until 50 or 60, I'm usually feeling pretty good. More than 60 miles is where the Century turns into more than the average ride for me and it becomes work. Like a work horse, at about 85 miles, I can smell the stables and start sprinting for home. Between the two, I'm cranky.

The total climb for the 100 is 4,058 feet. Most of that falls into the final 20 miles.



I made it almost all the way to the end and then had to walk the final hill at mile 100 that led past the turnoff to the ferry landing.
There's a sadist laughing somewhere in Monmouth County.

The Twin Lights Century is much much smaller that the NYC Century and I'm not sure if that's the problem, or if that's what makes their lack of preparation even worse. I have much more respect for the organizers of the NYC Century now than I did when I rode it. It's tough to get it together the way they did and the Twin Lights proved that.
I saw one marshal, no SAG wagon, and spent at least a half hour wandering around various rest stops looking for some water to drink, or something that wasn't a cookie to eat.

In the end, I didn't enjoy this as much as the NYC Century, but it was a good experience. It made me think about what I like about biking, and what I'm less than fond of.
I don't like going around in circles. I like seeing new things. I like to focus on a goal. I don't like hills. I like drinking cold water. I don't like mealy cookies. I liked the parkour aspect of the NYC century, I was less enamored with the 85 of 100 miles through suburban NJ.

This has nothing to do with how the ride was organized but man, New Jersey People, what is it with the roadkill? I saw so much roadkill that I'm surprised there are any living things left in Jersey. For a while I was keeping count and making up modes of categorizing the different types, but I gave up at about 35 carcasses and shouldn't a whole deer count as more?

I would absolutely do this ride again, but either I would only do the 30, which is a lovely loop around the most picturesque areas, or I would try to talk someone into going with me. It's just not interesting enough to do alone.

I finished in 8.5 hours including rest stops and missed the 4:30 ferry by minutes.

2007 NYC Century - There I Went

Slow and Steady did not win the race.
But I did finish my first century.

For all my planning and list making, I was too nervous to sleep. I felt the beginnings of a cold coming on on Friday which I promised myself I could have later if it would just go away until after Sunday. Instead, it put me in bed for most of Saturday which made it really difficult to get to sleep (as opposed to bed) at a reasonable time.
I awoke before my alarm, walked my very confused dog, picked up my carefully prepared bike bag, and then decided to ride to a different subway stop because mine is a little lonely at the best of times, and I don't count 5am as the best of times.
I was already running late - and I hadn't even left Brooklyn.
There were a bunch of cyclists on the platform, and many more on the train. I ended up in a conversation with a guy on a mountain bike and no helmet who said he was going to ride the 100. He was very polite, and kept insisting he didn't need a helmet, so I gave him some safety pins for his number and wished him luck.
By the time we all managed to haul our bikes up and out of the subway, it was 6:15 am and I was not feeling too happy with myself. Considering how little sleep I got, I could have been there by 5. Starting on time didn't seem too much to ask.
I got myself a cue sheet, stuffed it in my trunk and took off with a bunch of other late arrivals.
My first surprise was the long swoop down Riverside Drive. I don't know why I thought we were going through the park, but obviously, we weren't.
I wish I'd taken a picture of Times Square at dawn. There is something refreshingly sleazy about Times Square when it is empty that the tourists and the Disneyland gentrification have stolen from it over the years. Sort of like catching the prom queen on her early morning walk of shame.
The early parts of the ride were frenetic and full of moments of panic. I was riding with people who were much faster than me, and the effort it took not to get dropped at every light was making me wonder how I would finish the 100.
A lot of the people starting early seemed to come from bike clubs. Lots of hand signals and yelling 'Clear' and 'Passing'. Endless clicking in and out of clipless pedals at stoplights. I'm not used to riding in a group, so the argot was both strange, annoying, and oddly compelling. Fairly quickly, I was joining in - pointing at holes, signaling turns, and motoring along a little faster than I would have gone on my own.
Ain't peer pressure grand?

Crossed the Brooklyn Bridge as the sun was rising, curved around through Dumbo, and then off to Prospect Park.
The route through Brooklyn is very familiar to me, so I settled down a bit and found a more natural pace. I was getting passed a lot, but I no longer felt like I was getting 'dropped'.
I peeled off to use the rest room at Coney Island and for one shining moment had the early morning world all to myself. I didn't remember there being a generous number of bathrooms at the Canarsie Pier, and I just couldn't face the long lines. Ate bananas one and two, bemoaned the lack of things NOT made of chocolate, recognized a couple of people from the subway, and took off toward Queens.
The section through Queens was the least familiar part of the route for me. And now I know why.
I hate to say this. It's really quite rude. But...
I never want to see Queens again.
The ride into Flushing was beautiful.
In all my years in NY, I've never seen the Unisphere's fountains turned on. It is an awe inspiring sight. Flushing is about at the halfway point on the 100 mile ride, and I felt pretty optimistic about my chances. Brooklyn had seemed easy, Manhattan went by so fast, it was barely a memory, Queens would pass into the Triborough Bridge, and I would only have the Bronx to finish.
Oh, no, no, no.
Queens sucked.
Forest Hills. Jackson Heights. Richmond Hill. Are you seeing the pattern?
From Flushing to Alley Pond Park and back again to Astoria, all I did was ride up and down, up and down. Hills, hills, hills. I hate hills.
My lowest moment came in Alley Pond Park, where after what felt like miles of hills, I was finally flying down a long, steep, downhill to the rest stop, when I saw riders struggling back up the hill toward me. I realized at that moment that every foot I descended I was going to have to fight my way back up, and I crumbled inside. Things were starting to hurt, the day was getting hot, and that Godforsaken corner of Queens felt like the end of the earth.
I decided to call my family and friends to inform them that I would now be living at the Alley Pond Park Rest Stop - because there was no way in hell that I was getting back up that hill.
One powerbar later...
I decided to leave.
There's no use living at a rest stop where you have to wait on line to get a banana, and I was in no mood for a line.
So I took off toward Astoria in hopes that getting back on a recognizable route would perk me up.
Some parts of the ride back across Queens were lovely. There are stretches of waterfront promenade that are breathtakingly beautiful. However, there are also seemingly endless stretches of hilly, asphalty, sun beating down on you, cars trying to run you over, semi - suburban streets, that I am not likely to revisit anytime soon.
I arrived at Astoria park and was heartened to see some familiar faces. - Not that I actually knew any of them, but I kept finding and losing the same basic group of riders. - The bunnies to my tortoise.
Ate bananas three and four. PBJ number one and orange number three. Was momentarily confused by the sign that said, "55 milers - 5 miles to go. 100 milers - 28 miles to go. 75 milers - (scribble out) 28 miles to go."

Huh?
I rode this part of the route on Monday.
It goes over the Triborough to Randall's Island, across to the Bronx, and then East across Bruckner Boulevard. I thought the 75 milers had been riding with us up until this point and were almost done.
Confused.
Maybe delirious.
Went over the Triborough, which didn't back up as badly as I expected, but I think it probably sucked earlier in the day given that you have to carry your bike up and down three sets of stairs. Onto Randall's Island, and then - across the pedestrian bridge to 106th street?
Wait a minute.
This isn't how it's supposed to go.
But there are the green C's.
Pointing North.
Right smack into a Saint's Day Parade.

So, off I went, across the Willis Avenue Bridge and into the Bronx.
I really enjoy riding in the Bronx. There are some bike paths that are true hidden gems. But I was not enjoying myself this time. My back hurt, my left hand was going numb from clutching my handlebars too tightly, and all of a sudden, I developed a blinding, shooting pain in my knee every time I had to put pressure on the pedal to grind up a hill.
My odometer said 90 miles. I was almost home.
I fought my way to Van Cortland Park, dreaming of Advil and cold water. Ate bananas five and six, and orange number four. Compared odometers with a guy who got lost in Queens and somehow managed to shave three miles off the route. I was going to make it.
The volunteers were giving advice and pep talks. "Last rest stop before the finish in the park. Remember to use the rest room. Only eleven more miles to go."
WHAT?
My odometer read 96 miles.
How was that possible? Maybe my odometer is set wrong and I just never noticed because it's a cumulative discrepancy. Oh God. Riding 10 miles in pain is one thing. Riding 17 was way too much. ...But I had already done 6 of those miles. I only had 11 more to go. ...I was so close...How could I give up now?

That little voice is really annoying sometimes.

I saddled up and took off.
This time, there were no groups to go with. We were stretched out too thin, and the faster riders were already done.
I know this part of the ride really well. Which is a good thing, because, going up a hill in Washington Heights, I had my first mechanical failure of the day. My chain slipped, and I tumbled onto a parked car. Some nice marshals made sure I was OK, and I hopped onto the back of their group and let them lead me back down to the park.
110th Street seemed like a foreign land. Bright and crowded, with blaring music and daytime park users. It was like crossing the international date line and landing the day before you left.
I saw the guy whose classic Italian racing jersey I had admired in Bayridge, and the kid who I passed in Flushing riding what looked like a food delivery bike, complete with metal basket. There was the 'hotter 'en hell' chick who left me in the dust at Alley Pond Park, and finally, the guy in the green t-shirt who I saw for the first time at 5:30 in the morning on the subway platform in Brooklyn. Just then, I felt that I knew them all.
I stood for a moment the the afternoon sun and wondered if it had all been a dream.

A Little Hell, A Lot of Heaven

Oh Wow.


I set out to find the South County Trail again.
I keep hearing that the Putnam Trail is in fact paved and passable on a road bike, but considering the mini - disaster that was my last attempt through Van Cortland Park, I decided to give up on that for the moment. I skipped riding through the park entirely and stayed on Broadway heading north.
I think I can honestly say that the stretch through Yonkers is the most miserable I've been on a bicycle, without actually falling over. The traffic is terrible on Rt 9. It's all buses and potholes and cobbles and exhaust and then - hills. Hills, and hills and more hills.
I think I've mentioned that I hate hills. I'm not a triathlete. I'm not in training for the tour de Georgia (don't even get me started on that name). I ride for fun and because it's a great way to explore my surroundings. Ok, I mean there is a great deal of personal satisfaction in achieving goals and feeling healthy and strong, but I don't go looking for things to climb over.
Up and down, up and down, the wind whipping into my face off the Hudson. In the words of the inimitable Bob Roll, I was "Doing the PaperBoy".
I forget who he was describing when he said that, but unlike me, I think that rider bonked while climbing an alp.
I thought about bailing out, but I knew I'd just be pissed the whole way home.
Long story short, I found the entrance to the South County Trail at Barney Street in either Yonkers or Hastings - on - Hudson. It runs right between the Saw Mill Parkway and Saw Mill River Road - and it is heavenly.
Paved, shaded, tree-lined, smooth, picturesque and a complete and total surprise to me. In classic Bike Dummy form, I used to live about a third of a mile away from this path when I got out of college - and Friday was the first time I ever saw it.
I felt like I could go forever.
Unfortunately, I got a late start, so I started to lose the light around New Castle. I had just enough sun left to take a slight detour around part of the Croton Reservoir, dive down to the Mount Kisco Metro-North train station, and head home.

view across the reservoir to the
Brooklyn Botanic Garden Research Center at Kitchawan

If anyone knows of a more pleasant way to get to the trail head from NYC, I'd appreciate hearing about it. I'm not even sure where it starts on the southern end.
To see my route, click on the map to go to bikely.com.

“I'll never look like Barbie. Barbie doesn't have bruises.”

You have to whine really annoyingly and be wearing torn fishnets when you say this, just like in ‘Sid and Nancy’. Or you could just be me.
I don’t even have a drug habit or doomed affair with a rock star to blame. I just fall over a lot.
This time I didn’t even fall down. I fell up.


I was riding through Van Cortland Park in the Bronx for the first time and like many of my experimental expeditions, I got lost.
Van Cortland Park is huge. At 1,146 acres it is New York City's fourth largest park. It is home to the country's first public golf course, the oldest house in the Bronx, a protected wetland, and the borough's largest freshwater lake. I know this because I passed all of these repeatedly as I tried to find the entrance to the Putnam Trail and my chosen route into Westchester.

View Larger Map
It turns out, most of the trails in Van Cortland Park are not paved. It turns out that now that I’ve looked online, the Putnam Trail is unsuitable for a road bike. I think I’ve mentioned before that the NYC Bicycle Route Map sometimes feels like it was drawn by someone who wants to kill all cyclists, well I don’t want to sound unappreciative, but sometimes they really are out to get you.
Following the NYC bike map, I’ve encountered more closed roads, closed bridge crossings, and listed bike trails that aren’t bikable than I thought possible. It’s really making me want to put together some kind of online clearing house of up to date route information so that we don’t all have to go through this. Hmmm.
Anyway. As I biked in ever more frustrating circles on gravel trails, I finally dropped my chain. I was at the base of a commanding set of steps that lead up to the Van Cortland House Museum and I thought that might be my best bet to find actual pavement and maybe a place to fix my derailleur too, so I hefted my bike up onto my shoulder and started the walk up. About half the way up, I tripped, fell on my bike, and to add insult to injury, punched myself in the nose with my own handlebars.

Some days I just shouldn’t get out of bed.
Am I the only one who can’t ride a bike without bashing some part of myself on something? At this time of year, how bruised are you?

Less than a month...

I just figured out that the NYC Century is in less than a month. I know this comes as no surprise to people who
a: have been training for it, or
b: can read a calendar, but I, apparently don't fall into either of those categories because it came as a shock to me last weekend when I realized how little time I had left.
So in classic Bike Dummy form, I chilled out on the pier for a while with my dog and a friend, had some coffee, read the paper - and then decided to go for my 'long ride' of the week.
It's hard for me to plan rides. Everyone in the NYC area seems to go on the training ride up to Nyack on the Jersey side of the Hudson. I'd love to do that sometime, but my schedule's sort of crazy and I don't know any other cyclists who want to do distances, so at the moment, that means going alone.
The thought of cycling by myself through unknown parts of Jersey freaks me out. It's like traveling to a foreign country where I don't know the customs and can't speak the language. At least in most of NYC, if I run into a problem I can hop on the subway and get myself home. Once I cross the George Washington Bridge and start heading north I get visions of dark misty roads, with me holding my crooked wheel in one hand, a flickering flashlight in the other, calling out softly into the dark..."Hello?...Is there anybody out there?..."
So I decided to go the other way.
My first stop was Red Hook. I've been reading a lot about how quickly the IKEA is going up on the waterfront down there and decided to take a look at the 'progress'. Without starting a blog war about development, I will say that I wish as a city we would look to our own historical examples of expanding the beauty and enjoyment of our extensive waterfront, ie. the west side promenade and bike path or the Bay Ridge shore parkway promenade and bike path, instead of forgetting the examples of our waterfront failures, ie. the west side promenade's 125th street detour under the highway to avoid the Fairway Supermarket, or the shore parkway's ignominious end in the parking lot of Kohl's department store just before it reaches Coney Island. Can't we make a plan for public use of the waterfront BEFORE we give it all away to big box stores? I'm not arguing against IKEA, I'd just like to see the possibility of continuous public loops around the waterfront. Every new store that builds at the water increases the probability that the greenways of the city will remain isolated from each other.
OK, stepping down off of the soapbox.
So, Red Hook. I went down around Fairway and tried to get up near the IKEA, but there were roadblocks and the streets to get around the other side are all cobbles, so I decided to leave that for another day. For those who don't know, Rocky Sullivan's, the long-lived east side Irish bar lost its lease and has moved down to Red Hook.
If any of you thought you still might find a real estate 'bargain' down there, I suggest you revisit that. Red Hook has been bought and paid for.
It's a great neighborhood, but possibly better for walking than biking. The street surfaces are way too uneven for it to be pleasant on a road bike.


Next stop, across the mouth of the Gowanus and onto Third Avenue.
Third Avenue is pretty gross to bike on and normally I would avoid it altogether, but it's the quickest way between Red Hook and Bay Ridge where I was going to pick up the shore parkway bike path. The saving grace of Third Avenue is that you are riding under the Gowanus Expressway, so on a hot day it's shaded.
I didn't see much visible damage in Sunset Park or Bay Ridge from the tornado that touched down earlier this week. They've done an amazing job of clearing most of the downed trees and branches already.
The view from the Veteran's Memorial Pier in Bay Ridge is one of my favorites and on Saturday it did not disappoint. The refinished (until the bridge) bike path is smooth and usually uncrowded. Even with the headwind, it's a great place to let rip for about 2 miles before the surface gets crappy again. The next 3 miles are cracked, bumpy, narrow and occasionally covered in broken glass, but the view is lovely, and the alternate would be Cropsy Avenue (which bites).
The end of the shore parkway bike path is an example of one my favorite urban planning snafus - greenways that end at malls. On Saturday, it was the site of some kind of indeterminate demonstration that involved some megaphones and people milling about.

I went online after I got home and discovered this:

DATE: SATURDAY, AUGUST 11, 2007 NATIONAL MARINA DAY
TIME: 11:30 A.M.
PLACE: Bay Parkway and Gravesend Bay (near Kohl’s
Shopping Center): The entrance to the Bensonhurst
Promenade along Gravesend Bay

PROPOSED WASTE PLANT CHURNS UP THE FIRST EVER
FLOTILLA IN BENSONHURST ON NATIONAL MARINA DAY

ASSEMBLYMAN WILLIAM COLTON VOWS TO FIGHT THE PROPOSED
SOUTHWEST BROOKLYN WASTE TRANSFER STATION BY LAND AND
BY SEA WITH LAUNCHING BENSONHURST=92S FIRST EVER
FLOTILLA PROTEST SPECTACLE

AS BOATERS WILL CONVERGE IN THE WATERS OF GRAVESEND
BAY IN A SHOW OF UNITY, PROTESTERS WILL GATHER ON LAND
OVERLOOKING THE BAY TO CONDUCT A SIMULTANEOUS
DEMONSTRATION OPPOSING A PROPOSED WASTE TRANSFER
STATION SLATED TO OPEN IN BENSONHURST

Point#1 - Who knew there was a national marina day?
Point#2 - I must have blinked, because I totally didn't see a flotilla of anything.
Point#3 - I'm sorry that I did miss the flotilla, because it was probably really cool.

To see my route, click on the map to go to bikely.com.
For part two of the ride, tune in tomorrow.

Your Mileage May Vary....

I'm saying it out loud.
I am going to try to ride the NYC Century this fall.
I've never ridden a century - I've only ridden over 50 miles in a day once, and that was during this years 5 Boro bike tour, which as many of you may know is more an exercise in patience than it is exercise.
I've been trying to train for longer distances, but it's been challenging to find the time every day to get out and ride.
I understand that the willingness to train is what separates those that do from those that don't, but it's still tough when you are looking for blocks of time sometime before or after working at a job with very unpredictable hours.
I don't know about you, but I've got things to do. I've got a dog that needs walking and a house that needs cleaning and friends that need beer drunk with them ('need' may not be the correct term in the context of beer drinking).
Saturday is bike riding prime-time.
This week was complicated. I had a thing on Tuesday night, another thing on Wednesday night, a birthday party on Thursday night, The Police concert at MSG on Friday night, and then my company picnic in Dix Hills, Long Island on Saturday. (I know, the world's smallest violin is playing for me.)
I was going to miss my long ride of the week, and for those of us with minimal motivational skills, that could be disastrous. So Saturday it was.
I broke out my NYC bike map, bought a Nassau and a Suffolk county street map, and decided to go for it. At 40 miles, it's not much longer than my regular 'long' ride up to Inwood and back along the West Side Highway bike path.
It would be an adventure.
Saturday morning came too early thanks to after concert drinks with my friend Jenny, and the weather was promising to be hot. I needed to hit an ATM. I needed air in my tires. I needed to leave.
After much dithering, I finally managed to get on the road pointed in somewhat the right direction.
Now, I've got no idea how to get where I'm going other than the driving directions that everyone was given, but I figured how hard could it be? I know next to nothing about Long Island, but exit 51 off the Long Island Expressway should be easy to find. Right?
Turns out, this is actually correct. The Long Island Expressway access road is very easy to ride. It's not particularly scenic, and the cars are shooting past at about 70 mph in many sections of it, but for the most part, it cuts across the island in an easy to follow straight line. Except when it doesn't.
The hardest part of the ride was figuring out how to get out of NYC and how to find the access road again whenever the highways intersected. I ended up on a couple of 'death roads' that are marked as bike paths on the NYC bike map, but that's par for the course. I'm convinced that there's a saboteur who wants to kill all bicyclists working for the department that makes that map.
At the end of the day, I arrived 2 hours late and jumped in the pool fully dressed. Water has never felt so good.
Now, if someone could just find me a better way from Brooklyn out to Long Island, I'd be really grateful.
To see the route that I took - click the map below to go to bikely.com