What it’s like to ride in the Five Boro Bike Tour
As a member of the vast bike-wing conspiracy, I was one of 32,000 two-wheeling assholes slaying pavement and pedaling my way through the Five Boro Bike Tour.
Starting at the southern tip of Manhattan, I joined the company of loads of New York’s finest cyclists. They were mostly Lycra-bound nutjobs while I was clad in my finest khaki shorts. The route took us up 6th Avenue straight into the Bronx. We were in the Bronx for all of 10 minutes before we turned around and immediately rode back on the FDR. That’s about all the time you need to spend in the Bronx.
We rode over the Queensboro Bridge and things started getting hairy. I didn’t see what happened, but I passed a guy who had more blood on his face than I have in my body. Everything above his neck looked like a crime scene. I was thankful for my khaki shorts, reminding me that I’m not Lance Armstrong and that I have no business speeding over a crowded bridge while surrounded by goobers on bikes.
Making our way south into Brooklyn, we got to ride on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. Normally deadlocked with apocalyptic traffic, cops had closed the southbound side to traffic, so we got to freewheel on a major highway. It was a total trip.
Veering off of the BQE, we pedaled over the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. To the left, the East River. To the right, the East River. In the East River? Jimmy Hoffa, probably.
The ride ended rather anticlimactically in Staten Island, 40 miles from where we started. I filled up my pockets with free granola bars, took the ferry home, and passed right out in bed.