MY SON IS A CYCLIST!

I started teaching my son how to ride the bike as early as 2007.  Wow, six years ago!  He is too afraid and didn't become a cyclist back then.  I think a few years ago I had a day or two trying to get him into it but again no luck.  With the most recent attempts, the promise is that I will get him a certain Nerf product.  Maybe that did the trick.  It also helped that as someone who is not gainfully employed, I have the time to take him to the park on weekdays, as opposed to having the time only on weekends, since I usually get home late during the week when I was working.

This time around it took four sessions, according to my son.  I think it was three sessions, but it's his child-brain versus my aging brain, I'll trust his memory.  It was frustrating, as with all things new.  It was like he never learned at all.  At first, he would not even pedal.  Then he did, but only moved a few meters.  Next he moved, but with me holding the seat and the rightmost tip of the handlebar, he would lean into me.  Maybe it's because my son and the nephew and nieces are all older, most just a few inches shorter than me, training them wasn't too physically demanding.  I was able to physically support them without feeling too drained.  It was a little more energy-draining with my son since he's overweight, but I managed.

Little by little, he got better.  I started with letting go of the handlebar and he was able to move along briefly before going wild with the steering.  He's tall enough to just put his feet down to stop.  He wasn't moving too fast so braking was not absolutely needed.  I made sure he knew about braking nevertheless.  He thought he would need a few more days to learn how to start off on his own, but I noticed a few times he just automatically put his feet on the pedals and continue moving.

It was such a joyous moment when I finally let go of both the back and the handlebar and jog along with him!  Some day he and I can go brunning, or biking and running.  Even better would be both of us running, but I take things one item at a time.  He still had trouble turning and was going in circle, clockwise because he didn't know how to turn left.  Then for a while he would only go counter-clockwise.  In the end, he got it, even if he was still a bit shaky.  Then he had a crash, maybe because he got overconfident and was going too fast to chase his cousin LZ, who just became a cyclist last week.  Only a scraped left knee and barely a scratch on the right elbow.  I think my bike got it worse, with a out-of-whack basket and even the bike head got twisted.  He's cool about it all and is eager to resume tomorrow.  I so look forward to some quality time with my son on the few bike paths we have in the area!

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!

The Down Side of Cycling

It has been over 3 weeks since I last went jogging. The right foot still hurts even though I have been doing bicycling only. No impact there but then again it does not hurt as much as before. I probably have to go see a podiatrist.

Substituting jogging with bicycling allows me to go farther from the house and explore the destination's neighboring areas. On foot, I would never visit the Fuhgeddaboutit sign on the border of Brooklyn and Queens on the Belt Parkway. Sure I could drive there but then I would have to find some place to park and walk some distance to the site to take a picture of it. A waste of gasoline, fuhgeddaboutit!

The down side of cycling is that to get to the bike trail I have to go on the road, along side with motorists. In my mind, most motorists are jerks, to put it lightly. A perfectly nice person outside the car can easily turn into a monster behind the steering wheel. Motorists' general attitude is "get out of my way or I'll ram you." I drive a minivan mostly on weekends and the experience usually leaves me exhausted. Being on a bike only makes it worse. I have to be extra alerted about cars traveling parallel to me that are about to turn right into my path. Assuming people use turn signals, that is.

When I drive, I have the radio on or listen to podcasts on the iPod, but not loud enough to drown out the sounds from outside. I need to focus on the road and be aware of the surrounding. When cycling, I don't listen to anything at all while sharing the road with motorists. I cannot afford to. Even with the helmet mirror and the mirror in the handlebar, I still need to turn around when shifting lane or going through intersection. Cars mirrors have blind spots and those on the bike cannot be any better. Once I get to the bike trail, where there are only pedestrians and cyclists, then I can relax with the iPod, but before that, 100% alert!

I used to hate the "new" bike lanes in Manhattan, such as those along Grand Street in Chinatown. The older lanes run along the left side of the parking lane. The newer ones take place of the parking lane and usually reduce the street to just one lane as the parking lane is pushed further into the street. Tough luck for the motorists with the narrower streets but it is great for cyclists. With the old bike lanes, there is a good chance some careless driver, after parking, opening the driver-side door straight into the path of a cyclist. There is also the not-too-unfounded fear of being fatally squeezed between a car on the road and a parked car. Lastly, with the new lane it is impossible to double-park so cyclists do not have to put up with double-parkers. One moment a cyclist can be happily moving along an old bike lane, the next moment he would have to shift into traffic to go around a double-parking car. I love the new bike lanes and hope to someday make use of them if they come to my area.

Coney Island Boardwalk

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The nice thing with bicycling, versus jogging, is that theoretically I can go farther to carry out the exercise. With jogging, I would walk from home to Caesar's Bay shopping area and start jogging from there. With bicycling, instead of slowly pushing the bicycle, I would ride it to the destination. Bicycling should be faster than walking, so the time saved can be put into covering a longer distance, say, to get to a destination further away. Today, that destination was Coney Island. I just found out that Coney Island is about 2.6K from where I live, whereas Caesar's Bay is 1.6K away. That translates to 2K for a round trip.

It was not the first time I visited Coney Island, but rather the first time I was there unaccompanied. I was free to snap photos here and there without being slowed down or slowing down any company I would be with. A big group may be fun to be with sometimes but most of the time I prefer to be on my own, to do what I please.

I started around the Wonder Wheel then went east to the very end of the boardwalk. I totally forgot what this end of the boardwalk looks like. I was there a few years back with two nephews. We did not stop there but went on to the street and all the way to Manhattan Beach before heading back. For me, the goal today was just to reach one end then the other end and back to the starting point. Just my luck, I did not bring a real camera and my cell phone's battery died by the time I reached the western end of the boardwalk, so no photo for that end.

The distance I traveled today was about 8K, again 1K less than the maximum distance I reached with jogging. Oh well, something to do to burn the fat while the right foot recovers...