5 boro bike tour

May 6th. The 5 boro Bike Tour. I started my day with only four hours of sleep. Yeay. I also started my day without allergy medication. Yeay again. At 6:30 am I drove to my friend Nim’s house in brooklyn. We rode our bikes down to Dunkin' Donuts for a healthy pre-ride breakfast. After that we jumped on the D train to get into manhattan. Two years ago I did the ride from staten island, but I had to wait for the ferry, in the rain for 2 hours! I didn't want to do that so the train was a good call. So we got off the train at Grand St. and stop to buy a bunch of bananas. They give out bananas, oranges and water along the route but sometimes they run out, so we brought our own stash. Heading down canal st. we saw the bike tour going up 6th ave. Not wanting to join yet, we headed up west broadway. A couple of other riders joined us up to west 4th. On the train Nim realized he didn't take his allergy medicine either, so after joining the tour we stopped a couple of blocks into it, to get some Claritin D in Duane Read. After we took our meds, I headed into Starbuck next door for a pit stop, and grabbed a cold double shot on the way out. Now were ready. Nope! Nim was cold and had to put his long sleeve shirt back on. So there we were on w8th., missed the start, and not really caring about this thing. Now a painful ride uptown. This part is not fun.Not physically painful... There are way too many riders, riding way too slow, making me mad. And it was at this point that I remembered, why I didn't do this last year. We got too frustrated so we cut across town to broadway and made our own route. A couple of other people followed us, but it looked like they were not from NY ’cause they were freaking out. I actually felt safer riding with the cars than on the closed off streets with the other cyclist. Then into central park. Also, not fun. It's seems like most of these people got there bikes the day before. Constant gear shifting, all you hear is clicking, and me yelling, "STOP SHIFTING!! JUST PEDAL!!!!" The second half of the ride is alot better, 'cause I guess I passed most of the slow riders. We took our time during the second half. We stopped to stretch, toilet and banana. 3 1/2 hours of actual pedaling time for the 40-mile trip. I felt the same way I did last time I did it. It's fun to pass all the people with their fancy cycling outfits, and yelling at all the slow riders, but it's just not worth it. This is a very cool event, for the fact that you can ride your bike on many roads and bridges that you can't usually ride on. And that people come from all over to ride through the five boro's of the greatest city in the world. I guess I’m just lucky that I call it home.
-Andy