The Best Laid Plans

Hi. It’s Laura. 

Happy Monday!

For most of you it is. For me and The Husband, we are just tired. 

We embarked on our plan for the weekend on Saturday morning. We headed down to the Expo at Basketball City on the East Side to pick up our packet for the 5 boro bike tour. Visiting all the booths usually gets me pretty jazzed for the upcoming event. We purchased exactly what we were looking for (almost) including new shirts and gloves for the ride and for training.  

We sampled energy drinks [Editor’s Note: Upon trying 1 drink, Laura had a very disgusting look on her face and says “here honey, try this.” It was awful. She said “I hated it too.”] and new gel fuels. We got bumped into a lot of people who clearly have never been to a pre-event event. You would think they were looking at skyscrapers in midtown the way they were walking aimlessly and with no direction. Grrrr! In addition, the expo was hot with all the bodies. We had our riding packages and our swag, time to go.

 

The plan is first a nap, then dinner. We would normally go out for dinner on a Saturday night but rarely do we choose Italian. We did this Saturday for some extra carbs. We did not eat plates & plates of pasta but we certainly gave ourselves a bit more than we normally would. We are in the face of 40 miles after all.

Although I was not nervous, I was certainly amped and did not want to go to bed. I had the husband up just a little too late on Saturday night.  Sunday morning, we had a little larger breakfast than usual but nothing new. We had laid out our clothes the night before so we threw on our biking duds and off we went. Subway downtown to our start area.

 When we registered for the tour we did it separately, I registered as a fitness rider and the husband registered as a leisurely rider which put us in different groups with different start times. I dropped back into his group so we could ride together, which was the whole point.

 We started in Battery Park City which is a mile from the actual start. Although everyone had a number in addition to their colored start block, the numbers didn't seem to count for anything. People were just swarmed into Battery Park City. When we got off the subway, they were telling all the riders to go into the park, once in the park they were telling us to get in the street. Huh? Whatever. We found an empty space and waited. We were supposed to start at 9:30 but actually got started at 9:00.

 We hit the start line and take off up Broadway. The rules state: slower riders stay to the right, faster to the left to pass, just like driving on the highway. We all know great that works these days on the highway. Grandma gets in the left lane and sits there.  The Husband calls them “Left Lane Loungers” [Editor’s note: If you are being passed on the right, move the f… over].  

My plan, knowing we were starting with slower riders, was to just get in the left lane and go. Yeah right! The road narrows and the people are four across, the road opens up a little and they are five and six across. Grrrrr! Coming up Broadway, The Husband and I had a slight miscommunication. It did not ruin the day but actually help forge a new communication line between us for the rest of the ride. To the husband: Again, I am sorry [Editor’s Note: I over reacted].

 With that out of the way, we head into Central Park (blah blah we ride it every day) and then out into Harlem on our way to the Bronx. We get to 125th and we come to a screeching halt. From 125th St through 137th we walked our bikes along with 100's of other people due to congestion and traffic. Our theory is, that because of the amount of people and the time it took for all of them to get that far, they needed the city traffic to keep moving. We were stuck waiting for a traffic light. Once we got through this it was much better although this took an hour. SO much for my finishing in less than 3 hours. We had covered 12 miles in an hour and a half. Ouch. My normal ride is at least 15 miles in an hour or less.

We stopped at the rest area on the FDR (very cool to ride your bike down the FDR BTW), had a snack, stripped off some layers and went back at it. Other than pockets of congestion, some annoying riders not following the rules, the rest of the ride went smoothly. No break downs, flat tires or fights (except that one incident with the woman riding with a deaf/mute. Seriously he should be wearing a sign that says he is deaf and using the require voice warnings won't work [Editor’s note: If you don’t wear a warning sign that you are deaf, don’t flip off other riders because they don’t know. That is one sign language gesture I do know].

 

Through Queens and into Brooklyn, we hit the last rest area before the end. Right before we enter we see the sign that reads "Mile 24" really? My GPS reads mile 20 and the husband's read mile 19. (he started his at the start line and I started mine in BPC) we leave the rest area and we have 13 miles to go. Fuzzy math at best.

Almost done, we hit the Verrazano which is a long steep climb. I had enough gas left in my tank and needed the hill to be over, so I did a fast climbed out of the saddle then slowed down and waited for The Husband. Once you get over the Bridge, you hit the festival.

 The festival is basically a tourist trap. Buy food, buy gear, buy buy buy and the exit is not clearly marked (almost like a casino). We found our way out and biked and additional 3 miles to the Staten Island Ferry. They packed everyone they could fit onto the ferry so our wait was only about 20 minutes

The Staten Island Ferry holds 4500 passengers and no longer carries cars due to 9/11. Once back in Manhattan, we rode back home the last 5 miles home. The whole bike tour was only 35 miles so we opted to get our 40 miles in and made the ride. Tired, sweaty and sticky we got home. Showers, clean clothes the search for food began.

We decided to hit our local because know it’s usually quiet on a Sunday with good comfort food. Not this day, apparently there was a charity run somewhere and they were all there celebrating. So much for quiet. We stayed, we ate, we imbibed and then we slept.

It was not so much the miles of the ride that hurt since we honestly could do it two hours and forty five minutes at our regular pace. It was the stopping and starting and getting stuck behind slow people. So all of the hours just being out and physical very much aided our 8:30 bedtime last night.

 

Lessons were learned for sure. Our new bikes are incredible, like driving a Porsche on the local highway. If we do it next year, we will either go with a group and rent bikes for easy leisurely ride or ride our own bikes so we can ride with people who ride our speed.

 Overall it was a good day and a good ride. 

Today I go back to regular training and headed to the pool for a 750 meter swim.

 

Thank goodness I don't have to ride today.

Play hard!

Laura