3 Boro Bike Failure

Hi. Remember when I said that I was going to do the TD Bank 5 Boro Bike Ride? Yea, apparently I lied. What I did was the 3 Boro Bike, Walk a Little, Take a Train While it Rains All Over You Ride. God, what a failure. Let's get into in shall we?

Ok, so I stupidly did zero training leading up to this ride. I haven't ridden my bike in ... let's just say it's been a while. And it, um, showed. Solh and I got to Dave's place on Saturday and after playing some video games and generally goofing off with Dave's fambly (hey there Brenda! Thanks for letting us stay in your house, eat your food and disrupt your household. Aren't you glad you don't have Solh stretching in your doorways anymore and me snoring so loud your dogs were afraid? Big hello to Ethan and Eva too [the little ones]! Sorry I don't know how to talk to kids...), we all went to sleep relatively early since we had to get up at butt-stupid 3 goddamn 30 on a Sunday morning. That's just not natural.

The next morning we drove down to the tip of Manhattan and parked Dave's truck over near the Brooklyn Bridge on Front St. After hooking up with the other peeps in our little group (Dave's brother Paul, his Uncle Bill, cousin Patty and friends Kerry and Michael) we made our way over to the start of the ride. We wanted to start just ahead of the bulk of the riders since I understand it's a bit of a clusterfuck at the official start in Battery Park. It was raining a little at this point, not terribly hard, just a light drizzle but it was chilly. Then all of a sudden we see the police motorcycles coming and we're off! Hooray! This is gonna be awesome.


this is our group waiting for the ride to begin. That's Paul pretending
to be "special".

And it was...for a while. The rain was annoying but tolerable, the Keystone Cops aspect of all those bikes was crazy and (at times) dangerous but we're here in New York riding in the middle of the street with no cars around! How cool is that? I was trying to pace myself because I knew that if I didn't, there was little chance of me having enough for the end of the ride. We had sort of agreed that if the rain continued we'd bail on the last portion of the ride and just take the Brooklyn Bridge back over to Manhattan and call it a day. That shortcut would chop off about 8 miles from the ride but it was still 27+ miles from where we started. Did I mention that I hadn't ridden a bike, any bike, in quite a while? Yea, I thought I had.

The first sign that things were not going to go as planned for me was in Central Park. There's a little hill in the park that kicked me squarely in the nuts. I'm not talking about a San Francisco style hill either. This hill is just slightly steeper than your average driveway but it made me get off my bike and start walking. I was so disappointed in myself that I could NOT get up this tiny grade. This is where Dave, Solh and I (they very nicely pulled over to wait for me) lost the rest of our group. We wouldn't see them again on the ride but I'm getting ahead of myself. This is also where the running joke of "The New Low" started out. Here I am walking my bike up this bunny slope of a hill and this tiny woman with daises sticking out of her helmet on a single speed, bright pink beach cruiser with tassels and a basket passed me by effortlessly. "A New Low!" I yelled over to Solh who immediately pointed out the 3 other women with similar bikes who were with the first woman. Sigh....stupid belly.

Our reduced group made our way along the route stopping periodically to get water and to allow my legs to stop cramping up. I had developed a small cramp in my left calf muscle but I worked through it and although I was tired, wet, and really, really slow (I was totally holding Solh and Dave back but they very nicely stayed with me), I was still enjoying the fact that I was out riding bikes with all these people and my friends in the NYC. It was totally cool. Then the 8-year-old kid on the BMX bike doing wheelies zipped past me. A New Low.

And then we hit the first real big bridge. The motherfucking Queensboro Bridge. We had been riding down FDR Drive (which is surreal) when the riders all came to a bottleneck at the entrance to the bridge. This gives you time to notice just how frickin' high up it is. I wish I had recorded this scene. We're standing on FDR looking up at the bridge and all you can see is a river of bikes going over it. It was pretty cool. But goddamn people, that bridge broke me. I started out ok once we got past the bottleneck part but then there was just a steady uphill bit. I got a major cramp in my right quad that just sapped all energy and power out of my leg. It turned into jelly and I could barely walk my bike up that bridge. The whole time I'm walking this thing up, Dave and Solh stuck right there with me. I know I'm a cranky bastard and stuff like that but goddamn I appreciated those guys. They're really great.

Once I got near the center span of the bridge I got back on the bike and took full advantage of my ability to use gravity. I just coasted down the other side of the bridge and into Queens. This was the 15th mile of what was supposed to be a reduced 27+ mile ride. I realized that I wasn't going to make it. My calf was sore and my right quad was on fire. Plus, bike butt. Holy crap bike butt. All that rain was making the bike butt worse...I'll let you figure out the details. I was totally unprepared for rain. Especially this much rain. By this point it had given up the charade of drizzle and mist and had gone completely over to a steady, cold rain. Solh was the only one of us who had real bike-ready rain gear. I had to make a decision and I had to make it quick. Was I going to push through the next 11+ miles to the Brooklyn Bridge shortcut (and then UP and OVER the bridge itself by the way. That in of itself was not a fun thought) or was I going to throw in the towel early? My stupid pride was telling me to push on...but then the guy on the unicycle passed me and I had my newest "New Low".

We cruised into Astoria Park in Queens for a pee break and while sitting on a soaking wet bench under the Triborough Bridge I came to the decision that I cannot go any further. I told the guys that I had to quit the ride and I'll tell ya something...they so could have made this a big thing where I have to apologize a hundred times and they berate me with insults or whatever but they didn't. They just said "Ok" and that was that. We just stopped the ride. Fortunately I had bailed on the ride at a really convenient place. Astoria Park is not that far from a train station so after getting directions from one of the marshalls, we made our way over to the train station a few blocks away.



ok, so they gave me a little grief about quitting..

I was so torn at this point. Once I had admitted that I could not finish even the shortened ride I felt this huge relief (especially since the guys didn't give me a hard time about it) but I also felt like I had let everybody down. Those guys could have easily finished the ride if I hadn't bailed. Ah well. We got on the train and before long we were right at the Brooklyn Bridge. All we had to do was ride a few blocks over to where the truck was parked and that was the end of it. I was so relieved. We got to the truck, crammed the bikes into the back and then walked over to Jeremy's Ale House on Front St. where we got some beers and food while we waited for the rest of our extended group to show up.

Now Dave's uncle Bill is a tri-athlete and an ex-New York State Police Captain. His brother Paul is in great shape himself (he'd completed this ride with Uncle Bill last year) as well as his cousin Patty. Kerry, it turns out had done this 4 times previously. Oh, and although Michael hadn't ridden a bike in almost 5 years, he's a firefighter in Yonkers. So, yeah, I was a bit outclassed. When we got to the bar, Dave sent a text message to his brother taunting him that we had finished the ride already and were enjoying a beer. Now, this was technically the truth but it did lend itself to interpretation. Paul must have assumed that we not only finished the ride as scheduled but had blasted past the rest of them without anyone noticing us. Silly Paul.

Kerry and Michael were the first ones to show up at the bar and our fake story lasted approximately 5 minutes before we confessed that we had failed to complete the ride. Kerry and Michael convinced us to try to keep the story going and make the rest of them believe that we had finished the whole ride. However, it was not long after Uncle Bill gave me the "atta boy" punch on the arm that Dave spilled that we had quit the ride early. Everyone laughed and we had a great time telling stories from the day (Uncle Bill had shredded a tire on the route and this had greatly delayed them so that's why they thought that maybe we had passed them by without noticing).

So, what did I learn? Hmm. Well, I learned that sitting around for extended periods of time does not help you complete a 42 mile bike ride...rain or no rain. I learned that this kind of event deserves some respect. It is not just a leisurely ride on a Sunday morning. Would I do it again? I'm not sure. My butt is still too sore for me to answer that question accurately. And I learned that my friends are really great guys who will stand behind me and help me out when I need it. They will make fun of me ONLY when they know that I'm not actually going to die. How sweet of them. Thanks guys.