My weekend can be summed up quite simply: cycling, eating, more cycling, more eating, sleeping. And it couldn't have been a better weekend for it! It was amazingly beautiful out.
Saturday consisted of a ride with the NYCC through Connecticut, while Sunday was dominated by the 5 Boro Bike Tour. The tour is a huge extravaganza -- the biggest cycling event in the city. I heard this year's ride hit 32,000 riders!
The route takes you down the southbound side of the FDR, over the Queensboro Bridge, on the BQE to the Verrazano-Narrows and into Staten Island. Basically, the ride is full of amazing views, not the least of which is a sea of cyclists extending for hours and hours. Apparently my parents heard about it on Fox News and I even met a few SU alums in town for the ride on Saturday. (They were riding up St. Nick's and looking rather lost when I led them back to the west side trail -- building up my "helping lost and clueless and out-of-towners" karma!)
The tour is notoriously crowded and somewhat accident-prone given the number of riders packed together. I find it relatively easy to avoid collisions though. It just takes a little care, and I'm not out there to set any land speed records. That's why it makes me nuts when these "hardcore" cyclist types get all cranky about the tour...as though riding in it makes you less of a cyclist! Frankly, I can't imagine anything more empowering than taking over major highways and bridges with seas and seas of bikes. I say the more, the merrier!
The best part of the tour? Finishing it off with a gorging at Dinosaur BBQ. What can I say? Riding is great and all, but guilt-free calorie stuffing, now that's priceless.
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1 comment:
I await with bated breath the update on the last weekend!
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