Of Bike Tours and Breezes

Rounding the bend at Owl’s Head Park, on Leif Ericson Drive, in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, yesterday, a miraculous meteorological event occurred. Or, at least, it nfl throwback jerseys felt miraculous to the thirty-two thousand riders, myself included, in yesterday’s forty-two-mile Five Boro Bike Tour. The temperature had wafted above eighty-five as we entered the southbound half of the Gowanus Expressway in the early afternoon, and the line of smoggy cars rolling in the other direction did little to help. None of us smelled pleasant.

Thoughts of what lay ahead were even more unnerving. At an earlier pit stop, snacking on bananas and raisins, I heard two men in racing tights discuss the horror that awaited as we turned that bend in Bay Ridge: the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. It was the race’s final test: a steep, seemingly endless incline. The Verrazano marks the start of the New York Marathon, and this tour follows much the same route, in reverse. In both races, the Bronx gets short shrift. Riders cover about fourteen miles in Manhattan and Brooklyn, eight in Queens, three in Staten Island, and a couple on various intra-borough bridges. The Bronx got what seemed like a few hundred feet. In and out, like a visiting ballclub on an East Coast swing.

I first spied the Verrazano’s twin peaks while trudging past mile thirty in southern Brooklyn. Around the same time, a fellow rider—not from these parts—exclaimed that we had, in fact, reached the end. But nfl jerseys what she took to be the Verrazano was merely a bump over the Gowanus Canal. I pointed out the real bridge, many miles away, and she frowned: “You had to tell me now?” She was going uphill, and her pace slowed.

But back to that meteorological event. A soothing cool ran from my sore quadriceps up my sore back to my sore neck and down through my sore elbows. The sudden southward turn, facing open water, had brought an immediate dip from eighty-eight degrees to what felt like fifty-eight. There was no evidence of a breeze up to this task, though there must have been one. The cycling gods had simply offered one last reprieve before hell.

We swung inland and circled back to the bridge. The crosswinds high above the Narrows kept the temperature cool, but many riders stopped early in the climb—some out of pain, some to pull out cameras. Police were present, yelling through megaphones to “Stay on your bike.” One presumes they worried about cyclists planning to jump off more than their ride.

The middle of the bridge, the highest point of cheap nfl jerseys the ride, felt triumphant. The rest was anti-climactic. Staten Island was marked by a quaint coastline where no one bothered to stop for photos, and pubs offering two-dollar pints where many did. The tour ended on the Staten Island Ferry. Beer was served. Back in Manhattan, it was hot again.