So on Wednesday I decided to spice up my commute and bike from my house to class the entire way. It would be a 25 mile ride that looks like this:

Armed with some water, my notebook, and a camera I woke up at 5am (the earliest I’ve been up since finals week last semester) and left my door at 6. I kept the following mental log of adventures I came across along the way:

6:00am: Left house in musty 60 degree weather as I made my way across to Yonkers.

6:30am: Rode down Nepperhan Ave In south Yonkers. It was really quiet as no shops were open yet and traffic was minimal, but homeless old people were everywhere, moping around aimlessly. I felt like I was biking through a deserted city of flesh eating zombies. One homeless guy I passed tried to casually break into what he didn’t realize was an unmanned undercover cop car. When he found the doors were locked, he just walked away slowly with his head down in shame.

7:00am: Crossed the Broadway bridge from Riverdale into the very tip of Manhattan, which is just a bunch of trees:

7:05am: All these trucks parked in the bike lanes made biking in them near impossible. Those bastards.


7:15am: Found a dock with scenic view of Hudson river and George Washington Bridge. This is what my beast of a bike looks like:


7:20am: Continued down a dirt path two joggers were coming from, until I came to the end of it which was a hole in a fence that put me right on the Amtrak train tracks. Whooops. Well I had to backtrack a few miles but it was worth it because I came across some sweet graffiti pieces, including a tag by the famous REVS.

7:40am: Found my way to the West Side green way, a two-way bike/walk path that spans the entire west side of Manhattan along the Hudson river.

8:00am: Came across this huge Civil War memorial:



8:20am: Crossed over to east side on 69th and rode through Central Park. Saw a large group of people cheering in a courtyard with bright lights on. It’s the set of the “Early Show!”:

8:30am: Arrived at Hunter College with over an hour until class started at 9:50. Ate a bacon egg and cheese sandwich and sipped on an ice coffee; the perfect reward for a successful workout.

Overall the ride was a great experience and was pretty safe as there was little traffic so early in the morning. It was my first ride into Manhattan, and definitely not my last. After going down the wrong path for a while the entire trip ended up being closer to 35 miles and probably would’ve taken less than the 2 1/2 hours it took me door-to-door had I not gotten lost. The neatest thing about biking to Manhattan was seeing stuff I never would have seen otherwise in a city I’m fairly familiar with. It was also great to not be sitting behind a window and actually biking along the Hudson river for a scenic view. To anyone who road bikes regularly, 35 miles probably isn’t much, but for me it was a step up from just biking around town.

Thus concludes another page in my bike diary. I’ll definitely bike down to the city again a bunch until class ends, maybe even taking different routes. Either way I’ve still much exploring to do in the Jungle that is New York City.

gatherings of epic proportions like this:
(click to watch)

and kids who think they can tour with the bigs guys. Hey is that a guy in a chicken suit?:
(click to watch)

On the topic of bikes, I’ve been biking here in Boston since January and haven’t loved biking so much since sixth grade when I thought I would grow up to become Dave Mira on my BMX. Since I bike to work everyday I’ve spent $0 on cabs/bus/T and it’s great. Not to mention I’ve learned a lot about bike maintainable, after replacing almost all the parts on my current ride. Monthly Boston Critical Mass group rides are the icing on the cake. What can I say, city biking rules.

I’ve discovered the East Coast Greenway effort, basically a collective effort to map a seamless and traffic-less bike route spanning all 3000 miles of the US east coast from the tip of Maine to the bottom of florida. So when I get home I plan to do some serious biking on my free time, at least biking from Scarsdale to Manhattan and back following the greenway routes through New York or local Scarsdale routes others have sketched out on MapMyRide.com.

If you’ve seen me biking and constantly bug me about wearing a helmet (yes, you. Caroline), know that I’m aware of the dangers of getting hit by cars and dragged on the pavement and do plan on making a hair helmet soon.

Oh, and come May 30th I’ll be at Critical Mass, this time in Manhattan. It will be epic.

A gutted Buick turned pedal powered shell gets pulled over and cops charge driver with “operating unsafe vehichle.” The drivers went to court and argued their vehicle was not any less safe than bicycles, horse-drawn buggies or a rickshaw, all of which are street legal.

Well the judge recently ruled in their favor so pedal powered buicks are now legal to drive around Toronto. Huzzah! From a news report on the trial: “the defence made a special point of asking the police officer if he had ever stopped a rickshaw or a horse and buggy. To which the officer sheepishly replied that he had never seen a horse-drawn carriage in Toronto.”

Here’s a video of the drivers driving and getting pulled over (click to watch):

yabbadabbadoooo