5 Borough Bike Ride

[DANSPANK]

I have to say that it was a great ride today. A lot of the gossip spoke about having to walk half of the time, too many riders, lots of opportunity for crashes and stuff but I really didn't find it too bad.

I rode from my house at 6:30 this morning and froze my boobies off getting to meet the rest of the group I was riding with at the WTC PATH stop. The initial plan was to group together there and join the race just up from the start to get ahead of the casual riders. But the official start ended up being probably half a mile north of the WTC PATH station on Church Street so that shot our idea out.

The organisers started people off in groups which definitely helped with the clogging. We didn't get rolling until probably gone 9am, more than an hour after the official start but we were just standng arounding chatting so no big deal.

Once we got rolling we really only stopped a few times. Yeah there were busy sections to slow down at but for the most part the pace was pretty alright.

We stopped for a coffee in Long Island City. The line for the toilet in Macky Ds was loads shorter than the official rest areas so that worked.

One of my buddies got clipped on the front wheel and went down and another endo'd into a guy who'd completely stopped suddenly to get a water but that aside we didn't have any injuries. Ride details:
http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/2662945
Quite where 226mph comes from is beyond me. I thought I touched 175 but didn't know I broke the 200mph barrier...

So, if you're thinking about the ride for next year then give it a go - it seems to be more organised than people have said in the past.

 

[DANSPANK]

And don't forget the fruitcakes you meet along the way...

 

[ArmyOfNone]

nice to hear it was not a disaster...and judging by those pics it could have been lot worse.

 

[Allamuchy Joe]

Glad you had a good ride. Like I said, I've done it in the past and it was a zoo. People rollerblading in the middle, people not holding their lines in turns, stopping in the middle of the pack, etc. Oh yeah, and the irate bums yelling at us was fun.

Now I recall most of that was in the first 10 miles of the ride. After that, it cleared up a bit and you had more breathing room. It definitely is interesting to ride with those huge buildings on both sides of you in Manhattan.

What type of bike did you end up riding?

 

[Joe S.]

This was the 3rd time i rode this, and this year was the worst yet as far as delays... It took an hour to move 8 blocks on 6th ave, and apparently there was some sort of parade trying to cross the bike tour Nothing like standing there and watching parade floats cross in front of you... and there was another problem with the ferry at the end, we waited almost 2hrs... It was a nice ride when we actually got moving, it just didn't seem very well thought out this year...