Thursday, May 15, 2014

NYC 5 Boro Bike Tour 2014

Sunday, May 4th 2014:

32,000 cyclists, 40 miles, 5 boroughs, 3 bikes, 2 of them folding, and 1 finicky video camera

An hour and 37 minutes of footage (minus ~10-12 minutes of us waiting), condensed into a 17-minute video

The last time Brian and I were on a bike before this was 8 months ago in Paris, in 30 or so minute increments, nothing long distance. Elmer uses Citi Bike daily, but not for super long distances.



We did a leisurely pace, only making two quick stops for me to change/check my camera battery, another two for photo ops (on the Queensboro and Verrazano bridges), and once at a rest stop that was essentially designed as mandatory. From the official start to the finish festival, it took us just under 5 hours, but about 9 hours to complete the entire roundtrip route to the parking garage in TriBeCa.

The weather forecast called for some rain, but other than a brief light spitting, the weather was perfect, except for some strong headwind on the BQE and Verrazano (I was on the first gear for much of that stretch). Actually it didn't rain until just seconds before we were done packing the car to head back home.

Pretty much an awesome experience, and less painful (with a shorter recovery time) than the first one I did back in 2002, also with Elmer.