Bike New York 5-Boro Ride

Total for this ride: 72.3 miles

Total for this year: 430.3 miles

Started out at 6:00 a.m. from Fort Lee, NJ, and crossed over the George Washington Bridge into Manhattan.  I got over the bridge OK, but I had no idea how to get from the walkway access ramp to the Hudson River Greenway, which I hoped would take me to the starting point of the ride at the southern tip of Manhattan near Battery Park.  I asked a guy (?) who was headed up the ramp on his way to NJ if he could give me directions.  All he could say was "it's not easy...".  While I was talking to him (?) another guy came by on his way into NY.  I asked him if he was going downtown.  He was.  I asked him if he minded if I tagged along.  He said he was in a hurry.  I assured him that I just needed to be pointed in the right direction, and if I couldn't keep up he should feel free to drop me.  With that we took off at a pretty good pace through the streets of upper Manhattan.  I kept up with him long enough to find out that he was supposed to be working as a marshall at the ride, but he was really late - he was supposed to be down at the starting point (still a good 13 miles away) over a half hour earlier.  After about 10 minutes of flying down nearly empty roads, I felt like I had my bearings (at least I knew I was headed south) and let my guide pull away.

I rode on by myself for another 20 minutes or so, then decided I should start working my way over to the Greenway.  At one point I noticed a group of four cyclists wearing the green bibs that indicated they were registered for the ride crossing my path up ahead.  They were headed toward the west, so I assumed they were on their way to the Greenway.  I pulled up along side and asked if they knew the way.  They weren't really sure, but thought there was an access point up ahead, so we pressed on until we finally found it a short time later.  Once on the Greenway, I was set.  It was just a matter of riding until I reached Battery Park.

I arrived near the starting area at just about 7:00.  It turns out that even though I arrived a full hour before the planned start of the ride, there were so many people there ahead of me that I couldn't even see the official starting line.  My group would have to wait right next to the former site of the World Trade Center until the thousands of people ahead of us were given the green light to go.  Knowing that I was going to be there a while, I ate the breakfast I brought with me (two bananas and a couple of Fig Newtons), took some pictures of the crowd, and chatted with some of the other riders - a cop from Rockaway County, a couple of guys from Syracuse, and a mother/daughter team from somewhere in the midwest.  The ladies were nice enough to offer to take my picture for me.  It was a decent shot, but thinking about it afterward, I wish I had posed like I had when I had my picture taken last time I waited for this ride to start - seven years ago in May 2003.  Oh, well...

At long last, our group was released to head for the starting line.  Of course there were still so many people that we couldn't actually ride - we all walked several blocks until we got there, crossed under the banner, and were on our way.  Almost immediately people started crashing around me.  Most were due to collisions, but in one case a rider apparently walked out into the street to take a picture of the masses of bikes as they rushed toward him.  One of the guys one one of these bikes apparently didn't see him and narrowly missed taking the photographer out.  Even though he avoided a major collision, the bike still grazed the guy with enough force that his camera went flying out into the middle of the street and broke when it hit the ground.

We were actually able to ride for a few miles, until we reached Central Park.  Once we got into the park, everything ground to a halt, and we were forced to walk a significant portion of the way until we got back out onto the city streets.  It just so happened that Dad called me while I was walking along with the crowd, so we had a nice chat until I was finally able to mount up and ride again.  Even though there were minor delays and bottlenecks throughout the rest of the ride, none of them compared with the backup in Central Park.

The rest of the ride was fairly enjoyable, considering that I was constantly riding in a crowd.  The weather was perfect for riding - blue skies and temps in the mid-80's.  It made for some spectacular views of the city and I took tons of pictures along the ay.  I met up with a colleague, Brett, in Astoria Park.  He was in one of the first groups to leave and had arrived there before me.  Fortunately I was just arriving in the park when he called, so it was only a matter of minutes before we connected.  We rode the rest of the route together, making only one stop for water near the Verrizano Bridge, late in the ride.  We crossed the bridge and coasted into Fort Wadsworth on Staten Island, where the end-of-ride bike "festival" was being held.  It would have been nice to stick around for a while, but it was wicked crowded and we both decided it would be better to hit the ferries, head back to Manhattan, and call it a day.

Well, at least call it a day after my 15 mile ride back into NJ.  Once I got back to Battery Park I had no trouble finding the Greenway - there were hundreds of riders using it to head back north.  However few of them were going uptown as far as I was.  By the time I could see the GW Bridge again, there was only one group of four riders still going in my direction.  Within a few blocks they too were gone and I was on my own.  I knew getting back onto the bridge was going to be a challenge.  Not knowing how long it was going to take me to find the walkway, I decided to take a break at Grant's Tomb, eat my last snacks, drink some water, and emotionally prepare myself for what might be a protracted search.

After resting up I continued north on Riverside Dr., looking for the bridge access.  I was passed by one cyclist - a guy who never unclipped from the pedals at stop lights but who preferred to show off by doing trackstands until the light changed.  I asked him if he knew how to get there.  He said he was looking for it too (but was apparently not interested in having me join him in his search).  A second rider came up from behind.  He too was searching for the access, but this guy was more inclined to search with me.  At one point it became clear that we were north of the bridge and needed to get off Riverside and double back.  We started up a steep narrow ramp (which was under construction) on 180-something St.  I decided it was time to stop and ask a local for directions.  My companion continued on.  So near the top of the ramp I found a couple of local lovelies who knew I needed to be on Cabrini.  So I headed over to Cabrini.  It was there I found another guy - an older guy wearing the green bib - who was pushing his bike up a hill on the sidewalk.  I asked him if he was headed over to NJ on the bridge.  Fortunately he was, and better yet, he actually knew how to get there.  I asked if he would mind if I followed him, and although he wasn't much of a conversationalist, he didn't mind me tagging along.  Were it not for this guy, I might have searched for hours.  As it was, by taking me down a couple of one-way streets the wrong way, I was back on the bridge in a matter of minutes.

Glad as I was to finally be back on the bridge, I still had one more ordeal to endure before getting back to the hotel.  It was only about a mile from the bridge to the Doubletree in Ft. Lee, but for most of that mile I was going to have to ride against traffic on a one-way street.  I decided to stick to the sidewalk for most of the way, but for the last quarter mile or so there was no sidewalk - I needed to go against traffic on a one-way ramp with no shoulder.  Given the volume of traffic there was no way I was going to try to ride it.  I hauled the bike over a guard rail, and walked it along the ramp back to the hotel.  I arrived at 5:00 pm - a full 11 hours after I left that morning.  It was a long day.