Well, it was fun but should have been called the Five Boro Bike and Hike Tour. This year they broke it into three groups of 10,000 each. Not understanding that we described our "level" as "recreational" since we planned to just cruise along the route for fun. Little did we know that put us in the losers group - average speed described as 6 mph
. We didn't follow the tips for bypassing the start because we met some friends who were also in the losers group and wanted to meet at the start. In the event the actual average speed was a little over 10 mph but that included some long stretches on free ways where we able to cruise at about 17 mph. In north Harlem there was a mile long walking bottleneck that I understand resulted from EMT vehicles closing off a bridge after a woman crashed her bike and injured herself. As a consequence the tour organizers routed all of us losers away from a 5 mile loop in Queens to get the Tour back on track. If I had known the city and the route better I could have crossed the tip of Manhattan and skipped the bottle neck entirely.
This is not a tour I would recommend for anyone wanting a real ride but fun and interesting if you understand what you are getting into and don't mind. Disclaimer: we probably won't do it again unless someone else talks us into joining them. Here are phone shots of my wife and our riding companions at the start and a random shot in Brooklyn.
