2012 Five Boros Bike Tour

Well, last Sunday was the Five Boros Bike Tour in New York.   Kathleen & I made a long weekend out of it, and went up Thursday afternoon.   We stayed at a nice little studio apartment in Harlem courtesy of Ali (the tenant) and www.airbnb.com.   We spent the weekend wandering around Manhattan, here is Kathleen working out where to eat on the computer in the Apartment.

We spent Friday and Saturday wandering around NYC including a visit to the High Line Park, a former railroad bridge system that has been re-worked into a park.

 Then a great lunch at Pastis restaurant in Chelsea.

Sunday morning rolled around and it was time to get it together and head out to ride the tour.  Here is Kathleen adding special secret powder to her water bottles.

Here's Kathleen ahead of me heading down St. Nicholas Ave towards Central Park.  We learned our lesson from last year, this year we opted to pick up the front end of the ride at the top of Central Park instead of riding down to Battery Park in lower Manhattan and waiting around forever like last year.

We met the front end of the ride and joined in, here is a gospel group serenading us as we passed through Harlem.

A little while later we crossed over the river into the Bronx, the drummers were there playing us through as well.

Here is one Kathleen shot of me (in the Mapei jersey) turning the corner towards the bridge back to Manhattan, we were only in the Bronx for about a mile.

We got onto the FDR Parkway and headed towards the Queensboro Bridge to Queens.

Here's Kathleen following me in Queens.

We hit the first rest stop at Astoria Park, lots of food & drink available.

We were so at the front of the ride that we had to wait here for the road to get closed ahead of us.

But then we were off.

 Through Queens we went, then over this bridge into Brooklyn, if you look ahead you can see the phalanx of Police motorcycles and cars leading the way.

We breezed through Brooklyn.

Then onto the Bronx-Queens Expressway.

Which led us to the Gowanus Expressway.  This is where it all went wrong last year, leading to us bailing on the ride, but this year being at the front end of the ride, it was easy.

Next up was the great unknown (since we didn't do it last year due to bailing on the traffic jam before this), in crossing the Verrazano Narrows Bridge to Staten Island.  I am pretty sure that this sign isn't up all year :).

 It was a pretty steady grind of a climb up the bridge, but the view from the span of New York Harbor was totally worth it.

Then we bombed down the other side to the last big rest stop of the day on Staten Island.

 There was a photo thing set up that you could get your picture taken with the bridge in the background.

 Then we were off again, here we are waiting for the escort to get the streets closed in Staten Island so we can head off to the Staten Island Ferry to get back to Manhattan.

 A quick 3 miles through Staten Island.

Then a 20 minute ferry ride back to Battery Park.

 At Battery park the flowers were blooming with the Statue of Liberty in the background.

 We headed up the West Side Greenway towards home, but took a little detour into the heart of Manhattan to swing by Bryant Park so I could do a little site survey for an upcoming show. Here we are headed up 6th Avenue.

 Then we cut back over towards the greenway on 45th street, which ends right where the Intrepid lives.

We continued up the greenway to 135th street where there is a community garden.

Then had to climb this hill back up to Harlem.

Once we got to the top we found ourselves in the middle of some sort of parade.

But eventually we made it home, here are the bikes resting after a long day's ride.

Due to our clever strategy, it was only about 1:00PM when we got back.  Here is our ride map for the day, pay no heed to the mileage at Map My Ride, it counted the mileage on the Ferry, the real stats are 46.4 miles at an average of 16.5 miles per hour for the day.  We got cleaned up, then took the subway down to the Upper West Side for a big breakfast at the West Side Diner, then wandered around the Upper West Side for a while. We went back to the apartment, then over to Spanish Harlem to Ricardo's Steak House for a great dinner. This morning we got up a little late, got packed up and checked out of the apartment and headed home. It was a great break from the work grind, we both really needed it.