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Here I am getting read to leave for the U-store parking lot at about 3:50 in the morning. |  |
Here's everybody in the parking lot at the Staten Island Ferry. This would be about 5:50am. Although you can't really make out who's who, they are Dave, Michele, Robin, Jonas, Devjani, Tresha, and Eunice. The Sun isn't quite up yet! |
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Robin, Dave, Eunice, and Michele on the Staten Island Ferry. |  |
Devjani on the ferry. It turns out we were there in plenty of time for the 6am ferry by the previous two year's standards, but the crowds were so big that they closed the ferry about a dozen people before it was our turn to get on. We had to wait for the 6:30am ferry. |
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Church Street, waiting for the start. This is probably around 7:15 am. Jonas, Eunice, Dave, Robin, Tresha, and Devjani. |  |
Jonas, me and Devjani in front, Dave, Eunice, and Robin in the back. |
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You might have noticed that Michele is missing from the two previous pictures. It turns out Michele has a bike with "clipless" pedals. He has to wear shoes with cleats that fit into a locking mechanism on the pedal. He can pedal all the way around, pulling up as well as pushing down. He forgot his bike shoes. He had sandals and the clipless pedals are quite small, just big enough to hold the locking mechanism. On our way up Church Street, there were several "bike shops" set up. Michele stopped at one and asked if they had bike shoes - no luck. He stopped at another one and instead asked if they had platform pedals. They did. So he got new pedals and rode with platform pedals and sandals! This is what Michele was doing while the rest of us were waiting at the start. He eventually found us before the start. Another story about the start: It turns out we were right next to a Burger King. I went in and got in the food line for a cup of coffee. Devjani got in the line for the single bathroom. It had both male and female pictograms on the door. Despite the fact that there were only two people rather desultorily serving food, the bathroom line was way longer than the food line. Occasionally I heard applause from the bathroom line; I assumed this occured when someone taking a particularly long time came out. I got my coffee and went back outside. After a while we started to wonder if Devjani would get out before the ride started. We were just about to go in after her when she came out saying that the line was really getting hostile. I mentioned that I had heard applause along with my theory about the applause. She said no, that's not why they were applauding. The applause was for the first time they got four people to go in at once. The woman used the stall, the man used the urinal, and the other two people were to make sure they didn't take too long!
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The view looking north on Church Street to the official start of the ride which is located where the banner (that you can just barely make out) is hanging across the street. We think we were about 6 blocks or so from the start, about twice as far as last year. |  |
And the view looking south. |
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You will notice that the next set of pictures doesn't occur until just before the Verrazano bridge when the ride is almost over. So, what was I doing that I wasn't taking pictures? First some comments: The day was really hot and the ride was really crowded. It seemed like I spent much more time off the bike than on the bike! Everytime there was a slight up hill there were enough people wiped out by the heat that they walked which caused a big enough backup that every body else had to walk. Every rest area spilled out into the street causing a slow down. Also if there were a couple of bars/stores/cafes close together they became a defacto rest area and again spilled out into the street! As mentioned before, we didn't get across until the 6:30am ferry. This put us about twice as far from the start as I had been the last two years. I think the combination of missing the ferry (specific to our group), plus the huge crowd this year (I've heard estimates of 40,000), plus the heat causing people to stop more, plus - I'm guessing here - the need to stop the cyclists more often to allow traffic on the cross streets to pass due to Cardinal O'Connor's viewing, really made things slow! Also there were a lot of crashes - including me! On the whole, I had more adventure than I needed. I crashed in Central Park. I was riding along the right with my hands on the top of the bars (i.e. not near the brakes) when someone in front slowed and moved right - nothing I could do - I was wedged between her bike and the curb. The person that I collided with didn't go down and didn't stop. Bodily harm was only some road rash on the right forearm and some sore spots (hip, neck and little finger). Bike seemed to be in good shape - I straightened the handle bars and put the chain back on and continued riding. Michele and I had been riding together and he saw from the actual crash through me falling down. He didn't see what might have caused the crash. I think I was partly at fault by not being prepared to brake. The person I ran into was probably partly at fault by slowing and moving right. But who knows, someone in front of her may have forced her to do that. What I didn't notice at the time was that the back wheel was knocked badly out of true! The brakes rubbed on the tire in one spot (I think mostly just when I applied them, but I was braking all day!) At about the 20 mile mark there was a big bang and I had a flat rear tire, At this point, Devjani, Tresha, and Jonas were with me so we all pulled off and found some shade. I had made a big point of telling the students before the ride that they should bring a spare tube. They said something like, "gee now we get to see how you fix a flat," and "this can only happen once, right?" So I got the old tube out, inspected the tire where the hole in the tube was, found a little crack, but it was nothing, put the new tube in, pumped it up, and was putting things back in the seat bag with the wheel still lying on the ground when there was another bang and the second tube blew out. Tresha said "Now what? You only have one tube!" I got the patch kit. Devjani looked at the tube and said "Wait, this already has patches." Jonas said "Yes, they come pre-patched." Finally I told her that when I swap out a tube I take the flat one home, patch it, and then it becomes the spare. This time Jonas went over the tire and rim very carefully while I worked on the tube. He didn't find anything. I put the tube back in and inflated to 70psi rather than 100psi. Got the seat bag repacked and the wheel put back on the bike, when I finally noticed how out of true it was. I had to open the brakes so they didn't ride on the rim. Then we noticed where the tube was bulging through the crack we had ignored before, it was about ready to blow again. I let the air out before it could blow. Either Tresha or Devjani said, with great dismay, "How are you going to fix that???" I said, "No problem," and got out a dollar bill, folded it up, took the tire off the rim at that spot, inserted the dollar bill, put the tire back on, pumped it up and it held for the rest of the ride. I'm not sure how long all this took, but we had been in the thick of things and now the pack was really thinned out. We thought we were so far behind we might be forced to take one of those mandatory short cuts. So we basically didn't stop at any more rest stops. About another mile or so and we got to Astoria Park. We walked through but didn't stop for anything and found ourselves back in the thick of things.
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Here I am along the Brooklyn Queens Expressway next to NY Harbor. The tall building in the upper left is actually the two World Trade Center towers on the tip of Manhattan where the ride started. |  |
Devjani along the BQE along with many other riders. Eventually, Jonas and Tresha caught up with us. |
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View towards the Verrazano Bridge from the BQE. Brooklyn is to the left and Staten Island to the right. The breeze blowing across the harbor waters provided some welcome relief from the heat. How hot was it? The official temperature on Central Park tied the record for May 7 of 92oF (33oC). |  |
From the midpoint of the lower level of the Verrazano Narrows Bridge: riders coming up from Brooklyn. This is the biggest "hill" on the ride. I think you gain about 250 feet (roughly 80 meters) from the BQE. |
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Riders headed down the Verrazano Narrows Bridge to Staten Island and the festival at the end of the ride. |  |
Devjani at the middle of the Verrazano Narrows Bridge. By this time Jonas was ahead of us and Tresha was behind (we waited here for her). We had no idea where everyone else was but assumed they were far ahead since we had spent so much time working on my bike. |
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Tresha and Devjani at the festival on Staten Island. Jonas is on the ground behind. He's from Sweden and I think he didn't like the heat very much. We got to the festival sometime between 2 and 2:30. Jonas, Robin and Michele were already there and Dave and Eunice arrived a little later. |  |
Eunice, Dave, Michele, and Robin at the festival at Fort Wadsworth on Staten Island. |
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Devjani and Tresha show off an official Bike New York T-shirt. |  |
Some of the thousands of people and bikes at the festival. The view is towards the ramp coming down from the Verrazano Narrows Bridge. In the far distance are the stage for the entertainment and the porta-potties! |
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More people and bikes at the festival. The Verrazano Narrows Bridge is the backdrop. |  |
Yet more people and bikes at the festival. Some of the tents sold food and souvenirs. We all got something to eat. |
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We left the festival about 3:30 and rode about three miles back to the parking lot by the ferry. Here are Devjani, Tresha, Robin, Michele and Dave working on loading up the cars. |  |
Devjani, Robin, Dave and Eunice getting ready to call it a day. |