Stacy

If you liked Summer Streets then you'd probably really enjoy (drumroll) The Tour de Brooklyn, The Tour De Queens, and the 25 mile route on the Tour de Bronx, which are all sponsored by Transportation Alternatives.

cpf_carrot

Don't know what all the complaints are about but I started maybe 3 blocks from the starting line and by the end I was zipping through the crowd at a pretty decent clip. Only walked a couple times and besides that it was hella fun.

I was that weaving ******* on the orange fixed with blue bike clothes and a Nalgene pack.

bettybl

Did anyone see a pink Hello Kitty bike and pink helmet with a wicker basket on the front? That's not me nor do I know her, but I was searching for 5 boro pictures on flickr and came up that picture and thought that was a cute setup. I'm pretty sure she would have caught people's attention.

bettybl

Darn, Tour de Brooklyn is already full. I wish they would hold a Tour de Manhattan too even though it is basically the 5 Boro cut shorter. How does the 500 spots on June 7th work (wondering if I can possibly still ride if I don't make the 500 cut). And how do they know if you're registered? I don't see the people wearing bibs or stickers.

Stacy

I got a heads up on Facebook last week that the Tour de Brooklyn was almost full. Until then I didn't even realize registration was open. If you're on Facebook just become a friend of Transportation Alternatives and you'll receive invitations to all of events.

Once you're registered for a ride TA will send you email confirmation. There's usually a check-in at the starting point and people do receive stickers but I don't remember ever seeing anyone turned away.

cc_rider

Yep. And from Astoria almost to the the Verrazano I managed to stay within sight of it.

Did the cheater start from south end of Central Park. Was going to wait for the pace cars to go by but when they hadn't gotten there by 8:15 and lots of bikes were already streaming past I just started. Nice and uncrowded. We got held at the bridge into the Bronx for over 10 minutes to let the leaders of the tour get ahead of us. Had a 40 minute wait at Astoria and I ended up near the front of the pack when the ride resumed. Over the Verrazano about 11:40, out of the festival before noon and back in Manhattan just after 1:00.

Weather for the ride was Ok. My $5 rain shell did its job. My body stayed dry, but my legs and head were soaked and I was carrying 2 extra pounds of water in my shoes.
The rain didn't bother my tour ride, but it messed up my site seeing and lunch plans afterward. Raining so hard back in Manhattan that I just headed up the West Side Greenway To Riverside church where I was parked. Had to console myself with a nice hot lunch in Edgewater.

cc_rider

Missed that one, but on Kent Street I saw a bicycle cop hit a curb and take a hard spill. Don't know if he was hurt, but his partner and a couple of marshals were right there to help.

FrankieV

Except for the obvious (rain) the tour was great.
I was a Masi (front riding) marshall so I couldnt really see what was going on where the bulk of the riders were.
Even though the numbers were small at the front, there were plenty of spills.
Mostly caused by the knuckleheads who need to be riding with or ahead of the marshals thinking that if you can pedal real fast your a good cyclist.
Until they try to maneuver a tight turn with people all around them. That's when they take out 3 or 4 people.

Besides that, there was so much enthusiasm considering the cold wet weather.
The thing was that as long as you were pedaling, you were wet but warm.
Stop pedaling and the chill started to get to you.
There was something really strange at the start of the tour.
We looked up 6th avenue and there were what looked like hundreds of people cycing IN FRONT of everyone including the cops and the pace car.
It looked like another tour in progress ahead the the 5 boro.
Don't know what that was all about except that by 135 st. they were all corralled in and held until we passed them.
There were hundreds of people waiting at other key points to jump in too. It just seemed a little out of control this year.

I thought i was smart wearing my nice Goretex cycling jacket but I see, from other posts, that I would have been even smarter with a fender.
I had so much grit on my jacket I could have started a sandpaper company.

Air, you looked pretty comfortable at your post on the bridge.
Not sure if you recognized one of the "hello Air" as coming from me.

Air

Heard ya, didn't see you though! I heard my name from a bunch of directions - you guys go by so fast when I'm standing on the side. Damn cyclists

And yeah, I love being on the bridge. And the megaphone.

Stacy

8:15 at Central Park West? I didn't leave Rector Street till 9:15. We got held up in more places than I can remember. Never even saw Astoria and didn't get to Brooklyn Bridge till 1:30. I think it was about 3 pm by the time I reached the Verrazano. I think I caught the 5 pm ferry back to Manhattan.

The route runs up sixth avenue which is only three short blocks from my apartment. Next year I'm cheating too.

DSchlichting

[QUOTE=FrankieV;8854785]We looked up 6th avenue and there were what looked like hundreds of people cycing IN FRONT of everyone including the cops and the pace car.
I/QUOTE]
Yeah, well as the lead police car was coming down 135th, I got a radio call from them to hold the riders following at the Madison Avenue Bridge corral.
(before the front of the ride comes, the right side is open and a corral for bikers; the left side is opened only when the lead cars arrive)
It seemed like 10 minutes until Masi arrived, and the riders were beginning to back up onto 135th, but all should have been in order as you crossed into the Bronx.
Seems like the lead cars left without coordination with the Masi captains.
Oops.

DSchlichting

Very bizarre traffic flow in northern Manhattan. Usually, we get waves of cyclists for 3 hours. In this case, very heavy solid flow, not even disrupted by the parade crossings.
And then it just quit at 1100 and the SAG teams arrived at the Madison Ave. Bridge. Usually they arrive in the 1130-1140 range.
A lot of people bailed (who could blame them?) and you could see very heavy flow into Manhattan on the Brooklyn Bridge and many of these on the ferry TO Staten Island, presumably to get their cars.
Overall, a very good natured crowd . . .
well, there was the guy who got annoyed with one of my marshals because he did not patch his Slime filled, snake bite punctured tube fast enough . . .but there has to be one of those.
For me, an uneventful ride to SI, arriving at 2PM, and back to Manhattan at 3:30. Rode back to Great Neck, so 86 miles for the day. As they say, the most dangerous part is the trip home, in my case, taken down by a loose dog on the 73rd Ave bike lane, but made a good thight/hip/shoulder landing. Owner was like :why are you so angry . . .?
Now for the bike clean up . . .

Air

Oh man - seriously? Not a good way to cap off any day

I got a few people who shouted snide remarks since I was in their way. Did ya hear the megaphone cause everyone else did. Meh.

sedanman

Yes I saw her. Agree it's a cute setup.

Avatar

Hey, G, did you hear what I said as I passed by?

Avatar

A lot of reckless marshals and riders on this ride -- as usual and to be expected. I yelled at quite a few of them. It would be pretty bad if I clotheslined one of them by accident for not saying something when passing so closely. It was fun riding in the rain. There's really no point in starting super early because you end up getting quarantined in Astoria Park anyway. Except for the part when you end up walking your bike up 6th ave instead of riding it.

island rider

For you Marshalls out there...

I was riding with a guy who ate it on the BQE. No serious injuries, but this was starting a downhill in an open spot and everyone was picking up a bit of speed. There was blood and he seemed to be in shock, so we made him wait for the medics to get checked out.

His crash was caused by his front tire getting caught in a seam between two concrete joints and stopping. Needless to say, the forward progress of his body did not stop and the result was as you would expect.

While waiting there for him to get cleared, another rider went down in the exact same way, so we decided that someone should warn people to stay clear. This resulted in two of us, dressed in dark colors, standing in the middle of a downhill section of the BQE and waving people away from the dangerous section. When it got too dangerous for us, we would retreat, and inevitably someone else would suffer the same fate. No less than 6 riders in the same exact spot and manner in the course of about 30 minutes.

The police officer stationed 50 feet away said that this happens in that spot every year.

I understand that there is a lot of rough road out there, but is there some central database of danger zones that this can be added to? Putting two traffic cones out there on the seam would have prevented all of this, and would probably prevent it next year.

The other question is, what is the instructions to the Marshalls for things like this? During this time, some occasionally stopped to see if everything was ok. The people who stopped were nice enough, but did not seem to serve any purpose other than asking if everything was ok. I don't know what would have happened had this occured out of sight of the police officer, but as it was we had to wait about 1/2 hour for the medics to get there. Given the fact that this was rapidly turning into an emergency ward (6 down, one woman was taken to the hospital), it seemed that the Marshals should have had a plan for addressing an emerging danger spot, rather than continuing on their journey.

I understand that this is an overwhelming undertaking, so don't take this the wrong way, just curious and wondering if there is a way to help avoid others getting hurt in the future.

Air

Hey Avatar - great seeing you! We got to ride soon, been too long!

There was one marshal that luckily only took out himself but it could have been worse (a little past Grimaldi's in Brooklyn near that downhill and then sharp left); cut the corner too sharp trying to pass everyone and slid out. Good thing he had his helmet on, saw his head bounce off the ground and then off someone's wheel.

Air

Island rider - I'll pass that on.

The BQE is tricky to marshal for a lot of reasons. Typically there are teams that are responsible for areas. If an area is in the middle of no where then it becomes really hard to station one person there (bathrooms, other support, etc...). Traffic cones wouldn't give someone enough time to react and they'd be knocked over pretty quickly though they may be able to cover it up. They do a run through with the DOT but there's always parts that can't be patched but are tricky (expansion joints on the FDR is another spot I'm thinking of).

I almost went down on some of the metal grates at the exit for the approach to Shore Parkway, really wanted to grab my wheels.

pgoat

Thanks for that shout Stacy.

Queens residents - you'll have the chance to pre-register for your borough's ride - official reg. starts May 26th but PM me if you want some info on pre-reg to lock in your spot.

pgoat

speaking of - where are the photos, folks? Any links?

DSchlichting

Indeed, there is a database of this information that should be maintained by the supercaptain for the area and passed on to the captain for marshal deployments. I do this for my 2 teams after a winter route inspection, and we do not normally have these surprises. However, it is not so easy to evaluate such issues on a highway as you are not able to get a close look beforehand (and driving it does not help)
Air is correct, in that due to sheer size, Brooklyn is very difficult to handle, especially if there is a high no show rate for marshals --after all, marshals stay home in the rain as well as riders. One of my teams had 23 out of 25 show up and the other had 5 out of 10.
In the event of a crash, a marshal's job is to expedite the flow around the accident, call for appropriate help and get the bike onto the SAG. If these duties are secured, you do not need more marshals congregating.

bettybl

Not many photos yet. I just did a search on flickr.com for "5 boro bike 2009"

bettybl

If the Queens starting point is arrivable by subway alone, then I think I will be joining. Queens is so hard to get to w/o a car.

Stacy

Try
5 boro bike tour
five boro bike tour