Dispatches from the Staff
1:05 pm | Thursday, Jun 19th 2008
THE 5-BORO BABES CYCLE NEW YORK CITY
Posted By Judy
What Do you get when you have four crazy, strong, energetic and excited women headed to New York City, three of them for the first time, planning to ride their bikes on the streets of the Big Apple with 30,000 other cyclists?? THE FIVE BORO BABES!
I had wanted to do the “Five Boro Bike Ride” for 9 years, ever since riding through the city in 1999 as the culmination of a coast to coast ride originating in San Francisco—but something always interfered. Two years ago, I became friends, through my sister, with the woman in charge of the event. After several invitations which I couldn’t accept due to obligations with Bike, Walk & Wheel Week in 2006 and because I was out of the country last year, she sent me shirts and caps. Last December, we had lunch together in Florida, and she told me that if I ever wanted to do the ride, THIS was the year—she might not be doing it next year. She encouraged me to invite as many friends as I wanted, and we would all ride on the FRONT LINE as her guests!!—WOW—who could turn THAT down??
So, we all made our way to New York independently that first weekend in May—my good friend Carolyn Paris, who loves a new adventure as much as I do, and who made her first trip to Paris this time last year to hang out with me for a week, Michelle Windmoeller,good friend, home-schooling mom of two of my piano students and fresh from a month in Equador with her kids attending language school (she had returned 3 days earlier), and my dear friend and biking buddy Quinn Pratte, also a home-schooling mom (of 6!) who used to be my neighbor.
Quinn, with the help of Walts, shipped her own bike to a bike shop in New York. The rest of us rented bikes through a group set up by Bike New York and were pleasantly surprised when we arrived at Hudson River Pier 84 to pick them up—we all received well-fitted brand new Trek bikes! Although we all had made individual lodging arrangements—Carolyn & I with friends, Michelle at a hostel and Quinn at a hotel, we all rode our bikes to Quinn’s hotel near our starting point, and had a bunking party the night before the big ride. However, after parking the bikes, we needed FUEL, so we hopped the subway back up to the upper west side, met up with my friend and roomie Mary, and went to “Patsy’s” for an incredible pizza and pasta feast. Patsy’s is an Italian restaurant across the street from the apartment Mary and I occupied for the week. There were a llot of people waiting, but the hostess took one look at us, asked if we were all there (Yes!) and seated us immediately—with this kind of luck we knew it was going to be a great adventure! Tired and well-sated with food and wine, we emerged back out on 74th and Columbus to pouring rain as we caught a cab back to the hotel.
We were up by 5 a.m. and pedaled through a dreary and overcast dawn several miles to Battery Park where all the “marshals” were to meet. As we were searching for our group, a man asked us which group we were in—we answered “Mazzi A” . He was obviously shocked (Mazzi a is the lead group of the entire ride—no one is allowed to cross their front line, and they maintain a speed of approximately 15 mph) and exclaimed “How did you manage that? You have to ride FAST to be Mazzi A!” We just smiled, said “yeah”, and walked off. We soon found the group, met Bob, our captain, got our vests, and picked up coffee and bagels. Around 7:15, we all headed out to our various starting points. The excitement was absolutely palpable. I have NO CLUE where our group actually was at our starting point—somewhere on Church Street, but at 8 a.m. sharp, there was a countdown, and we were OFF!
The Tour allows participants to ride car-free through New York City as part of the largest recreational cycling event in America. The journey starts in Lower Manhattan. We headed north through the heart of Manhattan to Central Park and continued on to historic Harlem and the Bronx, returning south along the East River on the FDR Drive. From there we crossed into Queens and then Brooklyn, where we took over the highway before making the thrilling climb up--and down--the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge to Staten Island. The views were absolutely mind-boggling! The route is 42 miles, mostly flat except for the bridges There were police and marshalls blocking all cross traffic and we were all held up for 45 minutes at Astoria Park while security moved ahead and we refueld with turkey sandwiches and sodas.. They also had plain clothesmen along the way checking riders for bracelets and vests and pulling out any “bandits” (non-registered riders who hop onto the route). Our group pedaled onto Staten Island around 11:30 or 11:45—3 ½ hours after starting including the 45 minute hold up—I guess we did keep a pretty good pace!.
There was a huge festival/party on Staten Island –lots of food, free chair massages, lots of vendors, samples of drinks, snacks, and of course, 30,000 cyclists! Mazzi A had our own little fenced in area where they gave us shirts, caps, lunch, and a place to safely park our bikes. After exploring and taking part in the festivities, we pedaled over to the ferry terminal and turned in our rental bikes. We were on an upper level and when we looked down, there were cyclists lined up for the ferry as far as the eye could see—YIKES! We had been told by my friend Beth (the tour director) that we needn’t wait in any lines as long as we wore our Marshall’s vests, but the masses were a little intimidating. We ducked into the ferry terminal right there, took an elevator down several floors, and then started down some steps to the ferry—just as a security guard came running down the hallway yelling “STOP—YOU CAN’T GO THAT WAY!”. Michelle looked at him and said “We’re MARSHALLS and we’re supposed to go this way”—he looked startled and said “Oh—OK.” She looked at me and said “Wow—I’m wearing THIS vest at home!” So onto the ferry we strolled!
Back in Battery Park, Quinn cycled over to her bike shop that was going to ship her bike home, and we decided to walk there. MILES later (after getting lost a couple of times) we finally found her, then all went out for a bite to eat and something to drink. After toasting great friendships, wonderful memories and a fabulous ride, we headed our individual directions, meeting up several more times during the week for shows, meals, tours, etc…and absolutely agreeing that we want to do this ride again!
Follow this link for a fun video of the ride:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1boNfItEcH0
And this link will give you more info on the 5 Boro ride as well as interactive maps and photos of the ride
http://www.bikenewyork.org/rides/fbbt/index.html