When I lived in Hoboken I registered for this ride a couple of times. It starts Downtown around Battery Park and the group did not start to thin out until Central Park. There are just too many people to make this ride enjoyable - and this was 10 years ago. It gets more popular every year. There are many levels of riders. The road racers run in packs and weave in and out of the families with small children. There are always accidents. It's very easy to ride the route without paying, so that's what I did a couple of times. One year I joined the route at the 59th St. Bridge and avoided the start. One year I rode over the Brooklyn bridge and picked it up from there since my favorite part was going over the Verrazano Bridge. From there I took the Bayone bridge back to Jersey.