The cool thing about biking though the five boroughs is that you are going over the same streets that you drive on. It’s a totally different perspective when it’s you and not some car engine powering the vehicle. Hills feel like mountains when your legs are doing the work.
From Central Park, we went over the Madison Avenue Bridge into the Bronx. We were in the Bronx maybe a total of ten minutes, just enough to say we did that borough. Then we darted across the Third Avenue Bridge and once again we were back in Manhattan. One borough down, four to go. Just as we were building nice even strokes, all the bikes came to a halt. We were stopped st 125th Street for the car traffic to go through.
This was totally unlike the NYC Marathon. Once the cannon goes off, the clock is ticking and you don’t stop for no stinkin’ cars. Even though I knew it was a bike tour, I kept thinking bike race in my head. When I finally settled down, I was able to enjoy the scenery more, although my competitive side wanted to know how far ahead my friends were.
When we were allowed to go again, we had to rebuild our momentum. We peddled along FDR Drive and went through one of the underpasses. A big red banner hung over the entrance way, “Bikers Use Caution, Expansion Gaps in Road.” As everyone went through the tunnel, instead of watching for the expansion gaps like we were supposed to, we all screamed at the top of our lungs to hear the echo. Maturity at its finest. Of course, I joined in.
When a thousand people are screaming at the same time the echo gets pretty loud. I think the vibration for the echo must have sent powerful sound waves out because it was at this juncture that the first blue bag incident occurred. As Steve was merrily peddling his way along FDR Drive, his demonic blue bag decided to take a nosedive for the pavement. It went rolling along the street and stopped precariously in the middle of the road, just daring
other bikers to run over it.
We carefully darted in and out of bicyclists and retrieved the bag. It’s amazing that no one ran over it, or us. Steve reattached the bag, this time more securely. The bag still had that evil glow. We peddled onward through the rest of the boroughs, finishing at 2pm, which felt like a winning time to me.
By Fran Capo (www.francapo.com), a single mom, comedienne, motivational speaker, actress, voice-over artist, nine-time author, spokesperson, TV host and four time world record holder.
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