Five Boro Bike Ride 2019

When I first heard about this bike ride, I knew I just had to go.

"This bike ride" is the Five Boro Bike Tour in New York City. Covering 40 miles and visiting all 5 of the city's boroughs, who can resist?  Especially when you don't have to deal with cars.  That's right, there will be plenty or road closures to accommodate the 32,000 registered bike riders on this, the 42nd annual ride.

I had the pleasure to do this ride with my son Matt, who
already lives in New York City (Park Slope, Brooklyn to be precise).  Months earlier, we registered as team "Appleseeds" (partly because 'A' is at the beginning of the alphabet and the name  easy to find in the team list).  The day before the ride, Matt and family picked up our registration packets where we got our official participant numbers  (mine was #22948).  I'm not exactly sure how the numbering scheme worked, but suffice it to say we were designated to start Sunday morning  in the 3rd wave at 8:45am.

All week long, we watched the weather and it did not look promising.  For days, the forecast for the day showed rain, rain, and more rain for the entire time we were to be biking.  I brought a varied collection of clothing so I could layer correctly to endure the rain and temperatures in the mid 50's.  On the way down, I also picked up some merino wool low cut socks, as I knew soaked cotton on my feet would not be a good idea.  Two days before, at the advice of a more seasoned biker friend, I also picked up a fender for my rear tire to keep the road spray off me.  Thank God for that inspiration as it really did its job well.

On race day, it WAS raining when we woke up and as we headed to the starting line.

Matt and I hopped on the 'G' line, then transferred to the 'A' train to Tribeca in Manhattan.
Manhattan is NYC's most densely populated borough.  We were not the only people on the subway with bikes.

We made it to the start on Church Street. 
Looking downtown, you can see how the tall buildings are shrouded in fog.

Looking uptown, the starting line is still 3 blocks away.

Meanwhile, the riders are dressed lots of different ways:  shorts, pants, jackets, tights, hoods, ponchos. 
It didn't matter, everybody was getting wet. 
While we waited to begin, we took cover under some of that famous NYC street scaffolding.

As we begin, we pass the World Trade Center buildings and the Oculus.  Then it's north on 6th Avenue, stopping briefly at 23rd Street to let cross town traffic pass.  For the most part, we ignored the red lights and just kept pedaling since the streets are closed just for us.  Continuing, it's up past Bryant Park and Matt's office building to 59th Street and onto the winding carriage ways through Central Park.  Many volunteers lined the pathways to keep us going in the right direction and warn us of upcoming obstacles.  There were also cheerleaders and musical acts along the streets to provide entertainment for us.

We exited the park at 110th Street into Harlem still heading north (into the wind).  Finally, we turned east to cross the Harlem River on the Madison Avenue Bridge into the Bronx.  There, we crossed under the I-87 (Major Deegan Expressway) twice before returning to Manhattan via the 3rd Avenue Bridge.  We were in the Bronx for less than a mile, but at least we were there.  On the bridge coming back, Matt unfortunately got a tire caught between the concrete road sections and took a little spill.  Fortunately, the damage was limited to scraped-up pedal.

The first official rest stop was at the 11 mile mark along the FDR Drive.  They made us  dismount and walk our bikes quite a ways for safety sake, but then we were rewarded with fruit, water, and energy bars.

There weren't a lot of opportunities to take photos, and besides, it took a lot of concentration to keep from slipping on the wet road surface or running into others.  At many points along the ride, we noticed what seemed to be professional photographers on the roadside taking pictures.  Sure enough, a few days later, they matched my tag number to an email so I could purchase one of those shots.

Here's what Matt & I looked like most of the ride.  At this point we're crossing the Queensboro Bridge.  This bridge is also known as the 59th Street Bridge, also  made famous by Simon and Garfunkel in their song from 1966 (aka Feelin' Groovy).
This bridge also passes over Roosevelt Island and is served by the famous tram.

So, now we're in Queens, the borough with the largest land area.  We turned north again (still into the wind) circumnavigating Astoria Park.  We skipped the rest stop at the park and took a quick break a while later.  We pass through Long Island City then over the Pulaski Bridge into Brooklyn (NYC's most populous borough).

Matt had actually done some riding in many of the neighborhoods we would pass through next:  Greenpoint, Williamsburg, Dumbo, and the Brooklyn Navy Yard.  Finally, we head off the streets and onto the BQE (I-278, the Brooklyn Queens Expressway).

It's was really kind of weird riding a bike on this highway.  However, even in a car, I'm usually not moving much faster than on a bike.  A little further on, the road actually gets wider and one is exposed as if on a mountaintop.  Unfortunately for us, that's when  the rain intensified and  there was just no place to take cover.   We just got wetter. 

We took one more break before the long climb up the Verazzano Narrows bridge over New York Harbor.  This is the only day of the year when you can ride a bicycle on this bridge.  In a couple of spots on the road surface, they had big plastic panels covering the bridge expansion joints to keep narrow bike tires from slipping through.

Matt got this great photo. Being on the lower deck, we're finally protected from the rain.  You can see one of the main bridge towers in the distance.   

Once over the bridge, we're on Staten Island.  The bike tour festival grounds are just at the bottom of the ramp and everyone turns in to this unofficial "end to the ride".  Well it's only the end if you don't have to get back to the subway in Manhattan.  The festival grounds were clogged with people.  There were some concessions and entertainment, but we opted to complete the ride since it was still raining.  The only exit was over a grassy area that had turned completely to mud.  Yuk!  

From there, it was another 4 miles to reach the Staten Island Ferry.  We were treated to ice cream bars as we walked our bikes through the terminal.

This was Matt's first trip on the ferry.  I think this photo is blurry because my poor camera got a little wet.

Once back in Manhattan, we had to navigate ourselves back to the subway.  But now, we had to deal with cars on the streets.  I'm not sure if it was the warm ferry ride or the extended rest, but riding those next few blocks was the only time I was cold all day.

Once back at the apartment, I realized that I did not pack 100% perfectly.  Yes, my new GoreTex jacket worked incredibly well.  However, I failed to bring extra footwear;  the only pair of shoes I had were the sneakers I wore on the ride itself and these were soaked!  My best solution was to put my dry stocking feet into plastic bags and then put my shoes on for the nearly 4 hour drive home.  Luckily it worked really well!

The only other casualty of the ride was a my rear bike light that was lost along the way.  After all, there were still plenty of bumps on those city streets.

One of the neat things was that there was a mini-transponder on my bike tag, so at the end of the ride, a text message was automatically sent to Betsy with my finish time (about 3h30m).  My bike computer recorded over 44 total miles including the rides to and from the subway.

Becky asked me if I would do this ride again. Without much thought, I answered "Yes, but without the rain."

It was a fun ride and I really wan't hurting much the next day.  Everyone who made it to the festival grounds was awarded a medal to commemorate the occasion,  A nice memory despite the soggy day.