Ride On

We brought bicycles to NYC. For Mr Y. this was a great idea. For me, not so much.

Mr Y. loves to grab his bike when he is in town and ride over to Central Park, dodge between all the marathon runners, then jump onto Riverside Drive and head up to the George Washington Bridge. Twenty six miles later he is back at the apartment happy to know how easy it is to get around NYC, or even make a dash over to New Jersey, on his favorite mode of transportation. Seems this is a bike friendly town. (Considering almost every restaurant uses bikes as their only method of home delivery I'm thinking that's a good thing.)

My bike riding stays confined to bike paths, no city streets where a NYC taxi cab and I dual it our for space. My one foray out on my own bike over Memorial Day took us to the East River esplanade, up over a pedestrian bridge to Randall Island, and to a wonderful bike/walking path under Hell's Gate Bridge. It was a great ride that took us by pretty maintained flower gardens, picnickers, and the chance to witness the shake down by the NYC police of a harmless looking guy also out for bike ride on the path. (No clue what that was all about.)

When my sister and her family came to town a few weeks ago we headed for Battery Park, picked up rental bikes as part of a tour package we had all purchased, and spent the day riding up the Hudson River side of the island. It was a glorious day, the path is flat, you have the cityscape to view, a nice little restaurant along the path to stop at for refreshments, the Trapeze School at Pier 40, and eventually you make your way to the George Washington Bridge. The nice thing is there are bike rental kiosks along the path so you can drop your bike off at those points and not have to return them to your original rental location.

Biking will never be my preferred method of getting around but at least NYC makes it a pleasurable  touring alternative. Ride on!

Yes, it's true. There really is a trapeze school along the path and there were trapeze artists, or aspiring trapeze artists, working on their skills the day we rode by.