Five Boro Bike Tour
May 7th, 1989
A few years after I was out of college. I'd spent about a year and a half on the road working 12 hour days, too much time drinking beer, and generally NOT exercising much at all. I needed to get back in the workout groove and I was looking for something aerobic and a little less impact than running. From the time I started college until I moved to Phoenix in the spring of 1990, I played racquetball. I played a LOT of racquetball and a lot of tournaments. A bunch of the guys I played with just happened to be into cycling as well, which was probably one of the catylists for kicking off my modern cycling thing. After coming back to the main base in the spring of 1989, I was shipped out to Philadelphia to work and train some people at the company's facility out there. At the time I went out there, I was prepping to ride in the 1989 BAK (Bike Across Kansas), so I took my bike along so I could get some mileage in and not get completely creamed when I arrived at the Colorado state line to head east. Attempting to ride a bike in Philly (even in the suburbs) was a bit of a death defying act in itself, but I tried my best.
One of the Philadelphia engineers was a guy named Scott, who had been out working with us a few times and was generally a great guy and fun to hang out with. Scott was a home grown Jersey boy who counted at least one New Year's Eve in Times Square amongst his adventures. He also liked to ride, and I think it was his suggestion that we all sign up for the Five Boro Bike Tour, to be held in New York City in the first week of 1989. The morning of the ride (a Sunday) we drove up super early from Philly into the city and parked somewhere just north of Battery Park at the southern end of Manhattan. The ride started and ended (and still does) right there. The city was dead when we got there to stage for the ride, and we had our pick of streets to get down to the start down by the park. We were soon lining up with 30,000+ of our closest cyclilng friends!
Here's the map for the 2012 version of the Five Boro Bike Tour.
The gun went off and we slowly headed down the street. It was jam packed for a while, until things sort of broke up a little. We'd brought bagels for breakfast, and we pedaled down the street munching bagles and kicking our feet left and right while singing "New York, New York".
Scott (waving) early in the ride.
In mid Manhattan we had a bit of a traffic jam in front of Radio City Music Hall. I was okay with it, as it gave me a chance to take a couple of pictures.
Typical view from the ride. We're in a pretty spaced out part of the crowd, but if you look up under that overpass ahead, you can see the sea of bike helmets. Yikes!
Headed north thru Manhattan, we passed the iconic Twin Towers of the World Trade Center (RIP).
They had a rest/snack stop in the Queensbridge Park, below the Queensboro Bridge (aka 59th Street Bridge - made famous by the Simon & Garfunkle song Feelin' Groovy).
To get to the snack break, we had to ride up and over the Queensboro Bridge, a huge bridge that spans 3724 feet. I seem to recall a bit of climbing to get up and over this one as well.
A shot of me and my trusty Schwinn Varsity bike paused on the Queensboro Bridge with the East River in the background.
Not a clue where this picture was taken (this was over 20 years ago!), but this is a typical shot of the ride. Very cool that the course is completely closed to traffic.
One of the most amazing things about the event was the vast array of two wheeled vehicles people were herding through the 40 mile ride. I remember see bikes that literally looked like someone yanked them out from under a pile of leaves under a porch to take on the ride. Rusty, wobbly, it didn't matter. They were all having a great time!
Passing the Brooklyn Bridge. We didn't go over this one. This is one of the oldest suspension bridges in the United States. It was completed in 1883 and spans 1595 feet over the East River between Manhattan and Brooklyn.
Another shot of the Brooklyn Bridge going by on the right. Hard to miss the World Trade Center from just about any point in the ride as well.
The last bridge we went over, the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge between Brooklyn and Staten Island. This bridge has a span of 4260 feet in it's center and was the longest suspension bridge in the world at the time it was completed in 1964 (it lost the title in 1981). It has been the starting point of the New York City Marathon since 1976.
Lousy side shot of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. Because of thermal expansion of it's steel cables, the bridge is 12 feet lower in the summer than in the winter. Just a little known fact... :-)
Okay, so we all ride thru Brooklyn and down across the Varrazano-Narrows Bridge onto Staten Island. That leaves you down south across Upper New York Bay from Battery Park, so we had to queue up to take the Staten Island Ferry across the bay to Battery Park and the end of the ride. The Ferry has been running since 1905 and makes it's deliveries back and forth 365 days a year and 24 hours a day. This is everyone waiting in line to board the Ferry.
Leaving the Staten Island terminal.
A recognizable sight from the Ferry ride. Give us your tired, your poor, your huddled bike riders...
Inside the ferry. My friend Val (on the right) and another guy that was a friend of a friend (can't recall his name).
Chilling out on the half hour ride back to Battery Park. 40.9 miles in the bag!
The crowd back at Battery Park. You can see the Staten Island Ferry (barf yellow - center right) behind. From here, we had to get back on our bikes and ride back north up the streets thru Manhattan to get back to our parking spot. The catch was, by the time the ride was complete (mid to late morning), the city was awake and we had to battle the traffic all the way back to our spot. Probably would have helped if we hadn't been riding up one-way streets the wrong way...
It was a blast, though.