MY OWN TOUR DE BROOKLYN

Many events were on my calendar yesterday.  Transportation Alternatives had its Tour de Queens while Bike New York had a Learn To Ride class for kids at Brooklyn Bridge Park.  So many choices!  I volunteered at Tour de Brooklyn before and thought about also helping out at Tour de Queens, but I didn't feel like making the long trip to Queens.  So I rode my bike to Pier 5 of Brooklyn Bridge Park for the kiddie bike class.  I had my own tour of Brooklyn, even though most of the trip was along Ocean Parkway, a route that I have become very familiar with these days that I ride the bike a lot.  It was more like tour de South Brooklyn.

I was worried that my help wouldn't be accepted since I didn't attend some orientation class for trainers.  I had a conflict that day, July 1, when I helped a club member move.  It turned out the training could be done on the spot.  Let the trainee learn to balance first then the actual pedaling can come later.  I recall how my back ached when my young niece learned to bike, because she used a kiddie bike so I had to bend down as I pushed her and the bike.  No need with that using the Bike New York method.  The technique sure worked as by the end of the day we had 100% success rate.  Happy biking, kiddos!

Gowanus Canal, Brooklyn's own Superfund site, polluted from years of abuse by nearby industries.  Not nice to look at, but worthwhile to know.

Pop-up pool in Brooklyn Bridge Park, perfect for the hot days!

Basketball, au naturel.

AT&T StreetCharge, free solar-powered charging station, with connections for iPhone 4/5, USB, and micro-USB.

A Ferry Too Far

The last portion of the New York Bike Tour occurs when the cyclists cross the Verrazano Bridge for Staten Island. A friend told me of the V Bridge's steep incline but I found out it was not so bad. It was a long climb for sure, but not too steep once the lower gear was in use. After the bridge, it was the Festival in Fort Wadsworth. Cyclists were congratulated for completing the tour, but then it's not really over. There's still another three miles to go, to get to the ferry for the trip back to Battery Park in Manhattan. Silly me, there is only one route for the Staten Island ferry but somehow I thought we would just board the ferry right there by some waterfront location right next to the Fort.

New York Bike Tour was the first event that I participated in with someone waiting for me at the finish line. It was a nice day so the wife and the in-laws decided to hang out in the Battery Park area to wait for me. We exchanged phone calls a few times to get an idea where I was. It got me a bit excited to get to the finish line sooner, which means I would have to cover that last three miles fast. Combined with the letdown that Fort Wadsworth was not the end of the tour and we had "haste make waste". Last but not least, whereas I am familiar with most of the route, Staten Island is the one of the boroughs that I rarely visit. It made the last 3 miles seem longer. All these unfavorable conditions culminated with the pothole incident. So there I was, speeding along to get to the ferry quickly, on a road that I was not familiar, pop came a pothole in the road. The cyclist a few feet in front of me on the left pointed out the pothole. Then my wife's call came in and I made the mistake of answering it, leaving only my left hand to control the speeding bike. I think if I had both hands on the handlebar, I could have made a hard stop just short of the pothole. But I only had one hand on the bike. I cannot remember what happened next, just that I found myself sitting on the road, the bike's neck twisted somewhat. I had a scrape here and there but when I got back on the bike I realized I also had a nasty bruise on the left hand, in the thumb area. I continued on with the tour and finally made it to the ferry, waited a long time for the next ferry, napped for part of the long ferry ride, and finally back to Manhattan. Moral of the story - just like driving a car, don't ride the bike and talk on the phone, unless you have one of those ugly bluetooth headset.

Can you tell it is a bruise? If not, you have contusion confusion... Talk to the hand!

Let The Bike Tour Begin!

After what felt like hours, it was finally time for me and the mass of people and bikes to move. We traveled up Church Avenue, which then turned into Sixth Avenue, all the way up to Central Park. Maybe because there still were too many cyclists bunched together so that we had to watch out for the riders in front of us, instead of taking in the scenery. It was not until around 23rd Street (Chelsea) that I started to look around at the surrounding. I missed the Barnes & Noble in the area. Before there was MacHeist, with its amazing Mac software bundle, I would occasionally pick up a copy of Macworld UK or MacFormat just to get the software that came with the magazine, not necessarily from this particular B&N. The software was never the latest version but they worked fine. Further up north I saw for the first time the pedestrian mall at the intersection of 34th Street and Broadway. I used to have time after work to go around to see what changed but nowadays it's just commute to work then head back home.

In Central Park we had to dismount to walk our bike. Years ago I used to do volunteer work for the Central Park Conservancy and knew the park well. It has been so long I didn't recognize the area that we passed through, although I'm pretty we went along the western bank of the Harlem Meer. Like the NYC Marathon, to make the event 5-boro, a small part of the Bronx was included. A reversal of the Marathon, we crossed into the Bronx via Madison Bridge and re-entered Manhattan via the Third Avenue Bridge. At long last, the bike route entered a highway - the FDR Drive South. No vehicular traffic, just us cyclists. I took my first break to have some food and get my water bottle re-filled. It was great that instead of passing out water in paper cups, or worse yet, plastic cups, the volunteers poured water from 1-gallon jugs into our bottles. Just a bunch of big jugs to recycle afterward, less garbage to pick up.

Alas, the ride along the FDR was short as we soon hit the exit for the Queensboro Bridge (or 59th Street Bridge for those Manhattan-centric people, no thanks to Simon & Garfunkel). Again, it was time to dismount and walk the bikes slowly off the FDR, wait for traffic on York Avenue to clear before we can get onto the bridge. So long, Manhattan, the next time we were back in Manhattan it would be at the end of the Tour.

A short stay in the Bronx. Hurry up and wait for vehicular traffic to clear. The Third Avenue Bridge is in the distance.

FDR Drive South is clear of cars, from around 100ish Street down to 60-something Street.

Waiting to get off the FDR to traverse the Queensboro Bridge, seen here in the distance.

Five Boro Bike Tour

I have decided to sign up for the Five Boro Bike Tour (FBBT) this year. The event will take place on Sunday, May 2 and registration will be accepted 10 A.M. February 1. Blasted, I thought it would be 12 midnight so that, as a nighthawk, I can easily stay up another hour and be the first few to sign up as the new day rolls in. According to Bike New York's web site, it is a popular event and the 30,000+ spots get filled up quickly. I will just have to take my chance...

The ride is 40+ miles, which I think I can handle. The trip to Brooklyn Bridge, over the Bridge, then back home, that I did last weekend totaled about 24 miles. I suppose another 16 miles or so won't hurt. I don't recall being very tired, especially in the legs, after the Bridge trek, so the FBBT should not be a big deal.

I look forward to taking part in a traffic jam and enjoying it. My past two encounters with the FBBT were not pleasant at all. The first one, even if I am not that sure if it was the FBBT, was when I got stuck on the BQE around Flushing Avenue. I was near an entrance ramp and saw people backing off it, slowly, to get out of the jam. Some MTA van did the same so I thought it would be safe to imitate. No such luck, at the ramp entrance, a few NYPD patrol cars were waiting to direct us all to pull over to help them fill their quota for the day. Some Hasidic Jews on the sidewalk were trying to tell us not to come down, but I think by the time we saw them it was too late. Sure it was wrong to go backward into an On ramp, but when a whole bunch of people were already doing it, and the highway is packed with cars, I think the proper thing for the NYPD to do would be to be there to direct traffic to safely get out of the jam. Instead, they decided to shoot the fish in the barrel. What they did was akin to going to a disaster site to ticket damaged cars at the site. While they were at it, perhaps they could go onto the highway and ticket all the idle cars for having idle engine for more than x minutes. It disgusts me when the government treat its citizens as cash cows.

My second encounter with the FBBT was not as bad, but again it involved a traffic jam. It was Mother's Day and I was with a group of cars trying to get into Fort Hamilton to celebrate the occasion with a picnic. Big mistake! I knew that the NYC Marathon begins in Staten Island so that in the afternoon the Brooklyn side of the Verrazano Bridge would be back to normal. What I didn't know was that the FBBT ends in Staten Island, with the thousands of riders using the Verrazano to get there. It took me about two hours to finally get to the picnic.

I worried that this year's FBBT would coincide with Mother's Day, but luckily it will be a week before the event. Have bike, have good health, still can afford the $60 registration fee, I have no reason not to participate in the event!

Law-Abiding Cyclists?

Yesterday I made the trip from home to the Brooklyn Bridge, AND back. It was not the first time I rode to the Bridge, but it was a first to get there and back both by cycling. The trip took over four hours but it was not because I was a slacker. Along the Belt Parkway waterfront it was nice and free of traffic but beyond that I had to slow down to watch out for traffic. Even when part of the trip was along Second Avenue, which was quiet for a weekend day. Once I crossed the Gowanus Canal, it was all slow-going. Some streets still had bike lanes but the streets were narrower, too. Some street had no room at all for a bike and a car to share the road and I had to hurry up to get through it. Somewhere along the line I even had to ride on the sidewalk. That's the case with New York City. It is simply not possible to obey the law 100% of the time. You are on a bike lane then all of a sudden it ends and you are faced with a narrow street or a busy one with lots of traffic. You either ride on the sidewalk, go against traffic, or bite the bullet and go with the flow.

On the way back, I faced a similar scenario at the intersection of Third Avenue and Prospect Avenue. I could risk going with the car through the narrow passage below the Prospect Expressway, or go the wrong way on Third Avenue, on the sidewalk.

I hope whoever planning the roads for NYC take cyclists into considerations. On that note, it seems Bike New York is a good organization to promote cycling. I will start getting involved with it through its Bike New York Tour, a 42-mile trek through the five boroughs of New York City, then follow up later with other activities.