Saturday, June 09, 2007

City Riding is Like a Video Game



Riding in the NY IS SO FUN!! Video game action. You've got to maneuver through the streets with cars all around you, pedestrians coming at you from all sides, dudes pushing falafel stands in the bike lane, pedicabs (bicycle powered cabs), all while rubernecking to the left and right to view all the sights.



New York drivers are not that rude, they are just really aggressive. In Chicago and elsewhere around the country (especially on the west coast), if you inch into an intersection, and get in front of a car, they will always stop, with different levels of resentment, to let you pass. They don't want to hit you. Here, you can inch in front of a car, and they just keep coming. You have to back off or get out of the way. So, it's not as easy to run red lights here.



Yesterday we rode the whole length of Manhattan from the lower east side, before the numbered streets begin, all the way to 185th street in Washington Heights, the neighborhood at the tip of Manhattan island located above Harlem.



We got lost at one point, and ended up in the Bronx. How do you get lost on an island and end up getting off the island. Well, I don't really have an answer for you. But when your friend (Shawn)



who is new to NY is leading the caravan, and gets directions by asking "which side is the water supposed to be on" and the answer is the left, and we are on an island surrounded by water on both sides, you know you will end up in the Bronx...the south Bronx. we asked some policemen there, where "Broadway" was, and they point back the way we came, laughing.



"white kids gettin lost in the Bronx" ha hahhahhaaa. They gave us excellent directions, and we got back on track.

So yesterday we got to ride from Brooklyn to Manhattan to Harlem to the Bronx (accidentally) back to Harlem and then up to Washington Heights. On the way back, Shawn and I rode along riverside drive on the west side of the island and got great views of the George Washington Bridge and Jersey Shore.



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