Bicycling
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Much like we did last year, my brother and I rode for breast cancer awareness. The ride was organized by Two Wheels One Planet, a bike shop in Costa Mesa, California, although there were scores of other rides organized throughout the country that day.
As cynical as I am about these kinds of charity rides, riding again this year gave me time to reflect on how another year has passed, and our mother, who has had cancer twice is still with us. Maybe we didn’t find a cure along our twenty-plus mile ride, but I did find that I am grateful that my mother (and everyone else close to us) is cancer-free for another year. I also got a chance to ride a bike in a different state.
Charity Ride in Costa Mesa
Like most charity rides of this distance, this ride wasn’t what I would call a challenge. It was great, however, for families and beginners to ride on a beautiful day along a lovely course for a cause. Almost the entire ride followed a bike path that surrounds a bay and then we proceed to another bike path running parallel to I-405. There’s a climb or two but nothing requiring any great effort.
Like last year, I rented a bike instead of shipping my own. But instead of renting from a bike shop, I used Spinlister, which I have never used before even if I have listed my own bike there for rent. Last year’s bike was a beautiful red steel Serrota with Dura Ace components. It was overkill for this ride. This year, I got something a little less upscale: a late-1990s Cannondale alumninum frame with Ultrega components, which cost about $50 for the whole weekend.
Coast Ride to Carlsbad
Knowing that a ride like this would be a bit ordinary for me, I lobbied to have my brother do a ride elsewhere, such as one in Ventura that included a 75-mile route. Such a ride would be more up to par for my weekend riding habits and he could still ride about 25 miles. My brother made the point, however, that riding in Costa Mesa would allow him to take his wife and son to Legoland, a mere 55 miles to the south in Carlsbad, after the ride. Each member of his family has a season pass so they go quite often. But having moved out of California a couple of years after the park opened in 1999, I had never been, and this seemed like a good opportunity to finally visit. My parents joined in the fun, too.
Since I had such a nice bike, I planned a route to meet everyone in Carlsbad. My mom thought I was crazy to ride that far, and my brother and dad both insisted that I load up the bike and take a ride with them. But I wasn’t having any of it and responded with my usual wise crack, “if you know a better way to get to Legoland, I’d like to hear it.”
After riding twenty-two miles with my brother for breast cancer awareness, I hit the road at about 12:45 PM towards Carlsbad. The ride was about 60 miles, from Costa Mesa, to our hotel in Vista, a few miles east of Legoland. My route followed PCH most of the way, and the route was beautiful. There was a highway to the left, a beach to the right, and miles of open road ahead of me.
Another thing that was a treat on this particular ride was the condition of the roads. Aside for a few rough patches here and there, they were in great condition. I finally had the confidence to glide down those hills with my hands off the brake levers and take some photos on the bike.1
Part of the ride went through Camp Pendelton. Marco, who rented me the bike, informed me in advance that I needed ID to ride through the military base, which I thankfully packed. When I presented the guard with my New York State ID, he noted that he was from New York. Sayville to be exact. I told him that I knew where that was. Of course, I only know that town because I’ve ridden through a few times, most recently over Labor Day weekend.
As I expected, it was not a flat ride. There were plenty of rolling hills along the way but no serious climbs. For most of the route, I was riding at about 18-20 MPH, which I almost never do, and I didn’t stop for lunch. My only stop was to gnaw on two energy bars and refill my water bottles at mile 30. Part of my hurried effort was because I was trying to arrive not much later than the rest of my family, who were all traveling by automobile piloted by lead-footed drivers.
Initially, I had planned to meet my brother, nephew, and sister-in-law at Legoland’s Brick or Treat night, which meant I should arrive not much later than 5:00 PM. However, the event sold out so I just headed to the hotel and had my parents take me for a much needed beer and burger.
After eighty miles of riding through unfamiliar roads, it was nice to revert to an old treasured cycling habit.
Are you looking to do an epic ride around New York City, such as on Route 9W, Long Island, or Westchester and the Hudson Valley? Did you sign up for a ride around New York City and need to rent a bike? You should rent mine!
It’s a great Cannondale CAAD8 with Shimano 105 shifters, front derailleur, and crankset. The rear derailleur is a Shimano Ultrega. The gearing is for road riding (39/53 and 12-26, if you care to know such things.) The 56 cm frame size is good for someone between 5’9″ and 6’2″. The saddle is a Brooks Swift, and the pedals are Look Keo. It comes with two bottle cages, a saddle bag with some tools, a small pump, and a Garmin mount on the handlebar.
Please supply your own helmet, water bottles, cycling computer/GPS unit, and pedals if you don’t use the Look.
It’s available on Spinlister for $50 a day, or $250 a week.
The above links to Amazon are affiliate links. If you buy something through those links, I will earn a commission fee.
August 2014 was a really weird month.
While it was one of the most emotionally difficult months of my life, it was also one of most pleasant in terms of weather. The first weekend of August started with some rain, but after that there was only one rain storm that interrupted my month on wheels. The weather was so perfect that I only rode the subway six times in the month of August. Back in the days of the Fun Pass, I would do swipe that card six times in a single day.
Because I was keeping track of my swipes for the month, I thought I’d share my trip record.
| Date |
Ride |
Trains |
Why I didn’t bike? |
| Aug 2 |
Woodside to Vernon-Jackson |
7 |
I had returned from visiting my uncle in Riverhead with my mom, and I took the LIRR train back. |
| Aug 12 |
8th Street-NYU to Broadway, Astoria |
N |
It was raining so I left my bike at NYU and went to my friend’s apartment in Astoria, where I was couch surfing. |
| Aug 13 |
Broadway, Astoria to 8th Street-NYU |
N |
I had left my bike at NYU and it was still raining. I rode back in the evening. |
| Aug 23 |
Vernon-Jackson to Woodland |
7 to 4 |
I rode with Andre to Woodland to start the ride to the Peekskill Brewery. I rode the subway for the purposes of a bike ride. |
| Aug 23 |
Grand Central to Vernon-Jackson |
7 |
Andre and I took Metro North and from Peekskill so we took the 7 train back to Long Island City. |
| Aug 29 |
West 4th Street to Sutphin Blvd-Hillside Ave, Jamaica |
F |
Again, I rode the subway for the purposes of a bike ride. This was for the ride to Blue Point on Labor Day weekend. |
Keep in mind that I have been without a home for almost of all August, so it’s not like I spent days at a time at home or just putzing around Long Island City (which I miss doing a lot). I also didn’t go away except for two days over Labor Day weekend, which did account for one of the swipes. Finally, I have been traveling a lot more than usual around the city. I didn’t track my rides, but except for August 1, 2, and 30, I rode a bike every single day in August.
September is only a week old, and again, I have been able to avoid the subway entirely. So far, I have zero swipes for the month. It really shows how mild and dry this summer has been.
As part of my ongoing mental therapy-by-bicycle, I called a friend and fellow cycle club member to join me on a ride from Huntington, Long Island to Orient Point and then back to Greenport to catch the 6:11 PM train back to New York City. Having ridden to Montauk more than a few times in the past, I always wanted to reach Orient Point on the North Fork, and yesterday was as a good a day as any to do that with yet another eighty degree day with low-humidity.
We started in Huntington because there was a direct train from Penn Station, it would put us close to New York State Bike Route 25A, and it would make for a ninety-mile ride. Once we got out of the train station, we quickly found ourselves on suburban roads with some signs of the farms we would see throughout the ride.
Long Island has a reputation for being very flat, but we found that there were a good number of hills between Smithtown and Riverhead. We even encountered one of the most storied climbs on Long Island, East Broadway, which leads from Port Jefferson to Belle Terre. It was a challenging hill, but I managed to climb it through the “sit-and-spin” method and I didn’t need to get out of the saddle. I reached the top before Brian did, and that allowed me to snap a photo of him reaching the summit.
He looks as tired as I feel.
By about 65 miles in, Brian wanted to rest for a minute so we stopped at Hallock’s Cider Mill, a roadside farm stand in Laurel, where they had some very delicious preserves.
And a pretty awesome blueberry crumb pie that rivals that other pie place on the North Fork.
Towards the end of our ride, we found that the one of the best views along Bike Route 25 was at East Marion Orient Park, a place so magical that people can apparently walk on water.
Even with all our rest stops and all the photos we snapped, we reached Orient Point just before 4:00 PM.
I was a little disappointed with the view, but that’s probably because I didn’t scout the route beyond reaching the Orient Point ferry to New London, Connecticut.
We turned back from Orient to Greenport to get our customary beer and burger in town there and to catch the 6:11 PM train. When I was last in Greenport last month, I tried to go to the Greenport Harbor Brewery for a taste, but it was closing so I didn’t get any beer. This time, we had enough time for a flight.
We finished the day at First and South, a pretty good place at the corner of First and South in Greenport with food and prices that rivaled what I found at Birdsdall Inn in Peekskill.
A 100-Mile Loop Around the City Would Be Too Hard
The ride came together over the last couple of days because I had other bike riding plans for this day. Sunday was also the same day as the NYC Century, a ride I first did in 2003, as my first century. This year, I had volunteered on Saturday to get a free entry to the ride.
As I kept thinking about the ride and the route, which is largely the same as it’s been for the last decade, I felt that it would be too emotionally difficult to ride it. It would have reminded me of the first time Sarah and I rode that ride together in 2007. At one point, she fell off her bike around mile 20 and wore a bandage on her knee for the rest of the day. It was her first long-distance ride, and I remember she was bonking with six miles left on the 55-mile route. At Astoria Park, I offered her some encouraging words: “Sarah, we have only six miles to go. That’s the distance between your work and my apartment. You can do that, right?” She then agreed that she could and gave me a big hug. I remember seeing a woman passing by who witnessed this tender moment between us. Her reaction to this moment made me realize we had something special. Sarah ultimately held on to finish the ride, and I was really proud of her. I was also inspired that my support helped her on that day. It was the first time my words picked up someone like that, and I wanted to feel that feeling forever.
By midday Saturday, however, I decided I couldn’t very well ride that route. It would be too emotionally difficult to get through that ride, thinking about how happy we were on that first of many other rides we did together.
For now, it appears, that I need to make some new memories.
My god, what would I do without bicycling? I’d probably have to go on some kind of medication.
My friend Nicole recently lawfully wedded Tom, although their ceremony won’t be until next spring, and they have decided, like any good married couple should, to get the hell out of New York. They will be relocating to Southern California.
As a last hurrah here in the Empire State, they planned a Labor Day weekend in Patchogue, Long Island, where they currently live, with beer at the Blue Point Brewery, bowling at the local alley, and a Saturday BBQ. I was lucky enough to be invited to this weekend of beer, bowling, and BBQ, and, like the cycling glutton that I am, I decided to add another b-word to the mix. I would bike out to Patchogue.
My route from to Patchougue was almost identical to the Ride to Montauk, except that I would only be going one-third of the distance, about fifty miles. It was a train-assisted ride because I had a doctor’s appointment in Manhattan that morning so I was figured it would be easier to start in Jamaica, shaving off some junk miles and to also bypass some Labor Day weekend traffic. I took the F train to Sutphin Blvd and biked south on Sutphin through Jamaica Center onto 109th Ave, then to 137th St, and onto Linden Blvd (which has bike sharrows). After that, I crossed Merrick Ave, which is very familiar to those of us who do the 150-mile Ride to Montauk route, out of Queens and onto Nassau county.
The rest of the route was very familiar to me. I’ve now ridden it twice and have marked it at least four times. It’s one of those routes that I can almost do without a cue sheet.
Since I was not riding very far today, I was able to stop and look around a bit more than usual. I hadn’t realized how pretty the neighborhoods were once we get past Valley Stream and off Merrick Blvd in Lynbrook. There were a few times I wasn’t sure where I was supposed to turn, but thankfully the route marks from the Ride to Montauk, including the ones Andre and I made in May, were still there.
Another nice aspect about this particular ride is that I had time for a leisurely lunch about half way through. I noticed a sandwich shop in Amityville that looked good and, boy, did it deliver. Here’s a recommendation for KJ’s Heroes in Amityville. Delicious!
The rest of the ride was a breeze, and I, of course, stopped to see my favorite swans in Argyle Lake in Babylon.
Once I got past Babylon, I picked up the pace. This seems consistent with my previous experiences on this ride. It gets easier the further east you go, except for those hills in Montauk.
I arrived in Blue Point at 4:21, nine minutes ahead of my estimated time of arrival. However, it worked out perfectly because as I rolled into the parking lot, my friends were walking in from their car. Talk about timing!
And, of course, I did get a beer or two.
Thanks to my friends, Nicole and Tom, and good luck out west. I really admire your courage to take a plunge like this. I hope to do something like myself in the near future.
Remember how Andre and I rode to Peekskill last fall along both the South and North County Trails in Westchester?
We did it again this past Saturday. The two of us had a free day because we’re both kind of over softball, and I insisted that we ride because I needed a break from life. My new counselor agreed that it would be best that I get out and do fun stuff, such as play softball and ride my bike, to take my mind off how hard my life has been for me lately.
We got a late start because Andre insisted on making breakfast, but it was worth it.
We decided that our best bet was to take the subway to Woodlawn in the Bronx, and catch the South County Trail from there. It was an nice ride, despite fighting a pretty steady headwind most of the way. When we arrived at end of the South County Trail in Elmsford, I remembered that we could break-up the flatness of the ride by heading up Payne Street, east of Route 9A.
For those who aren’t familiar, Payne is one of the steepest climbs in Westchester, maximum grade of 12%, but I swear that must also be the average grade. Andre did really well going up, and I was only about a half minute behind him. That was pretty good because the last time I had to stop and take a breather about ¾ of the way up. When I joined him at the top and was still panting heavily, I asked him, “Hey, can we stop at a gas station to get some water?” He asked where we could find one, and I replied, “oh, there’s one at the bottom of the hill we just climbed.” Andre had not realized that climbing up Payne was completely unnecessary because just as soon as we went up, we were headed back down the same hill. Sorry, dude.
As usual, we left the trail in Yorktown Heights. This time, however, we took a different route that would put us along the Croton Reservoir. There was some climbing, but for the most part it was a nice ride with lots of rolling hills and some exhilarating downhills. There were also some pretty views of the reservoir.
As I had not taken this route before, I didn’t realize that one of the roads, Montrose Station Road, is closed.
After reviewing some alternate routes, Andre and I decided that we would just attempt to ride through the closed road anyway. “How bad can it really be?”
It’s bad! The road is closed because it isn’t an actual road. It isn’t even a gravel road. It is more of a river bed with tire-shredding rocks along the way.
We attempted to ride this with our road bikes but quickly realized that we were in store for a 1.6 mile hike, in bike shoes, along a very rocky road.
After arriving where the “road” intersects with Washington Street, we cruised downhill for another couple of miles and, voila, we were in Peekskill!
Although it’s not unusual to see bicyclists at the Peekskill Brewery, there were so many bikes hanging outside of the brewery this Saturday that it will only be a matter of time before the Brewery will look like the Runcible Spoon in Nyack, a popular destination for cyclists from New York City who ride up 9W and anger the residents of the Hudson River towns along the way.
If Peekskill is really going to be the new Nyack, the brewery is going to need a bike rack, too.
https://twitter.com/juanomatic/status/503275014733701120
After a long day on the bike, powered by nothing more than Andre’s breakfast and a Clifbar, I had a pint of my new favorite beer, a pork confit sandwich, and a delicious pickled vegetable plate.
That was all paired with some bittersweet memories, too, because the last two times I was at the Brewery, I was with Sarah.
Andre and I hopped on the 5:35 train back to the city and were both in good spirits upon arriving at Grand Central Terminal, even after my customary train nap between Croton-Harmon and Spuyten Duyvil.
And like every other bicyclist in New York City, I’m sure we’ll be back.
Last year, my brother and I rode in the fourth annual Trek Breast Cancer Awareness ride in honor of my mother, who has twice beaten breast cancer. Although the ride is national, individual bike shops organize rides in their cities. Last year, we rode from Two Wheels, One Planet in Costa Mesa, California, as that was en route from my brother’s place to Legoland in Carlsbad.
I wondered if the ride would happen again this year, as I longed for some pleasant memories, so I checked their website.
I not only saw that this year’s ride will be on October 11, again over Columbus Day Weekend, but also that my brother and I are in the photo that the shop features on their website.
We’re at the front of the pack. I’m wearing a grey t-shirt and riding a red Serrotta that I rented upon arriving in Southern California, and he’s right behind me decked out in a pink t-shirt and socks.
I talked with my brother, and we will very likely ride again, provided I can find an affordable flight over that weekend. Since it looks like that I won’t be riding in the Hilly Hundred this year, which falls on the same weekend, and I really want to ride with some family. There’s another ride in Ventura which not only includes a 10-mile and 25-mile route, but also a 75-mile loop to Santa Paula. My brother prefers to ride in Costa Mesa so he can go to Legoland again after the ride. If it’s miles that I’m after, I guess I could bike the additional sixty miles to Carlsbad and meet him there.
There’s been a lot of road milling and repaving going on lately in South Williamsburg, particularly on Driggs and Berry. Many bicyclists have noticed because we cross those streets along South 4th Street, a vital access route to the Williamsburg Bridge. As I biked to the bridge this morning, I rode over a small but thick pool of tar. Predictably, the sticky tar covered portions of both my tires.
Before I rode over the bridge, I tried to get as much of the tar off as I could. As anyone who rides regularly knows, the tar would pick up any bits of glass or sharp rocks and hold them there until one of them punctures my tube. But because I like to travel light, I didn’t have anything to remove the tar. I had to use my hands.
As a UCSB alumnus, I know full well that the best way to remove tar from your skin is to use a bit of baby oil. You don’t need much, just enough to dilute the tar. Since there’s a drug store on nearly every block of this city, I stopped in to a Duane Reade and picked up the smallest bottle I could find. For $1.09, plus tax, I had my solution at hand, so to speak. Rub a quarter-sized dollop of baby oil into your hands and the tar comes right off. Be sure to have a cloth or paper towel at hand to clean up the mess.
A friend of mine suggested that I could use gasoline.
That might be good option, should this happen again, except for two reasons:
- Where can you find a gas station in Manhattan? There are almost none left.
- Sure, I would have been free of tar on my hands, but now I’d have gasoline on my hands. How do I get that off?
Besides, with baby oil, my hands are clean and moisturized. And they’re soft as a… well, you know…
NYC DOT and the Rockaway Waterfront Alliance is organizing a free bike tour of public art in Rockaway. The ride takes place this Sunday, August 3, beginning at 9:30. Unlike yesterday’s forty-mile EPIC ride from Greenpoint to Rockaway along the Brooklyn waterfront, this ride is only six-miles long.
This is a great way to see Rockaway!. It is a public arts festival that MoMA PS1 is staging at Fort Tilden, not a musical about the seaside peninsula. It is open now until September 1.
Less than two weeks remain for the Brooklyn Greenway's annual Epic Ride. This year's route goes from Greenpoint, Brooklyn to Rockaway Beach. The forty-mile route is a preview of what could one day be a complete recreational route along the Brooklyn waterfront.
The Scenic Route: Greenpoint, Brooklyn to Rockaway Beach via the Brooklyn Greenway
A significant part of the route already hugs the coastline, especially the greenway runs along the Shore Parkway and another large section of greenway east of Sheepshead Bay towards Howard Beach. However, some part of the route runs along Third Avenue, a major artery with lots of high-speed automotive traffic, from Red Hook to Sunset Park.
Yesterday, the organizers distributed a ride guide and a route sheet to registered riders. For those who want to see the route, download a PDF turn-by-turn sheet, or download a GPX file, I drew the course on Ride with GPS. You're welcome to download the route, but don't be a douche and “pirate” the ride. Please register and support a good cause.
