But it was a great ride!
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42 Miles of Bikes and Only Bikes! Every year, riders come from across the country and some 20 countries around the world to experience the magic of New York City by bike. photo credit |
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| The 5 Boro Bike Tour is 32,000 bike riders on a 42 mile car-free bicycle ride around NYC. Tickets $385/person. In 2011, the tour sold out in one day! Read More |
First we started in Battery Park in Lower Manhattan~that's it to the far left-all the red trees
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| View of Lower Manhattan from Staten Island |
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| View of Lower Manhattan from Brooklyn Heights Anchored by Wall Street, in |
We rode up 6th Avenue through Midtown Manhattan
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| View of Midtown Manhattan at night |
Midtown Manhattan is home of:
Then, on this first Sunday in May, we rode through part of Central Park in full bloom.
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| Central Park Bigger than the typical city park, but then, almost everything is bigger in Manhattan. Central Park is roughly 2.5 miles long (from 59th St. to West 110th St.) and .5 mile wide (from 8th Ave. to 5th Ave.). Read More |
After Central Park we went through Harlem to 135th Street.
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| Harlem is home of the Apollo Theatre on 125th Street Read More |
After traveling 15 blocks in Harlem, we made a right, and crossed the Madison Avenue Bridge so we could ride through streets in the Bronx.
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| This photo was in Mott Haven, but not the only amazing Graffiti I saw that day. |
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| 5Pointz Building Read More |
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| 5Pointz Building Read More I did not ride past 5Pointz, but I did pass much other cool graffiti on the route.
The Bronx is home of Yankee Stadium, NY Botanical Garden, Bronx Zoo, and Co-op City.  | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
On an island in the Bronx lies a city within a city. Its 15,372 residential units, in 35 high rise buildings and seven clusters of townhouses, make it the largest single residential development in the United States. It sits on 320 acres (1.3 km2) but only 20% of the land was developed, leaving many green spaces.
After the small taste of the Bronx, we took a different bridge back to Manhattan, rode past the Upper East Side on the FDR~along side the East River~and headed towards Queens.
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| Our first taste of open highway. It's too cool riding on a closed FDR freeway that once held me in tight traffic! |
Next, we were off to Queens by crossing the Queensboro Bridge from Midtown Manhattan to Queens
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| Queensboro Bridge |
The island in between Midtown Manhattan and Queens is called Roosevelt Island. Read More
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| Typical residential street in Queens |
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| Forest Hills Queens |
There were plenty of jobs before the event and on Tour Day for the over 1,500 volunteers that participated in making the Tour all the more enjoyable. To all volunteers: Here is a big 'Thank you' of gratitude from the 32,000 participating cyclists!
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Part of the BQE (Brooklyn Queens Expressway) was closed just for us! It was really cool zipping down a freeway that I had waited in hours of traffic on before. I know the riders in the back did not have the same experience of 'zipping' like I did :) I wonder how many New Yorkers were cursing our bike ride because they could not use the freeway? |
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| View of Brookly Heights from Lower Manhattan |
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| Greenpoint Brooklyn |
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| Willow Street Brooklyn |
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| Park Slope Brooklyn I showed you all of this housing in Brooklyn to give you an idea of how 2.6 million people in 71 square miles can actually fit. The housing is beautiful and Brooklyn has so much charm, good food, culture, and very interesting people, too! Brooklyn has long been a magnet for immigrants, and many ethnic groups dominate particular neighborhoods. It's truly similar to what is shown on television. One side of the street is one neighborhood and clearly the other side of the street is a different neighborhood. Brooklyn contains dozens of distinct neighborhoods, representing many of the major ethnic groups. For me, personally, I would not wonder around in many neighborhoods without being invited and knowing exactly where I was. I would also not be travelling alone-I would be with company that was welcome in that particular neighborhood. But that's just me... |
Just before heading out of Brooklyn on the way to Staten Island...
I decided it was time for a nice long break! There were 5 pit stop areas for people offering rest areas, plenty of snacks, drinks and restrooms along the route. Everything was complementary; bananas, snapple, water, granola, raisins, etc. I ate 3 bananas that day! lol :) On the way into the park I didn't really know what park I was entering, I just knew it was the last official pitstop available and definitely time for me to take a break. I had stayed ahead of the pack for the prior 5 hours and knew at this point I was still way ahead of finding myself in bottleneck traffic to make it to my final destination. Anyway, after my nice rest I headed out of the park through the opposite end of the park of where I had entered. Well on the way out, I realized that I had been in that park before! It was the park that I waited hours in while my son went into Fort Hamilton a few times. As he was getting weighed in and doing paperwork and physicals to prep for USCG, I would 'hang' in the lovely park next door. I then realized that was how come my 30 minute break was so enjoyable~because I had special memories with my son there.... Or, maybe it's because it was the first time I had taken a break in riding for over 5 hours... Either way,
I was on the homestretch to the Verrazano Bridge to take me home to Staten Island.
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| Sign is current & that's the Verrazano Bridge in the background photo credit |
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| Brooklyn (top) Verrazano Bridge Staten Island |
On the other side of the Verrazano Bridge from Brooklyn was Staten Island. It was so cool to ride on this bridge because the rest of the year this bridge does not allow cyclists. I pulled into a full-blown festival with entertainment, vendors, food and drink. The first thing I did was stop and have a bottle of Chocolate Milk of all things! After I left that booth I turned around and reached down because I had found a really great pair of riding glasses on the ground! Very well made, good-looking, and not a scratch on em'! As I held the glasses in the air and yelled "did anyone lose a pair of sunglasses" I was hoping for the response I got; which was a few sarcastic remarks from peeps that wish they were the one who found these bad ass riding glasses. But since there were no takers--they were mine! Next, I took my happy self to the port-a-potty which didn't seem as disgusting as usual-maybe my new found treasure had my spirits up just high enough-and just outside, as I made my exit, I ran into my next surprise of finding a $20 dollar bill on the ground right in front of me! hehehe It was a great ride with two little goodies at the end. The next day I rested my body all day and the day after that made a two hour run. All good stuff.
I hope you enjoyed my post on the 5 Boro Bike Tour that I did on Sunday, May 1st, 2011. It was a great time and an amazing experience and I'm glad that I got to share a piece of it with you....