Nah! He's still huffing and puffing trying to make it to center span. Then we'll get a new thread about disc brake fade when he crashes at the other end.

Fortunately the QB bridge's expansion joints are much easier on bikes than those on the various suspension bridges.

The 59th St bridge is the one I ride the least, and I haven't been over it yet with my device.

And come to think of it, you can probably find it on Strava.

It was a sad verdict for this man
Man Who Died During Five Boro Bike Tour Had Heart Attack Two Years Ago: Gothamist

Of course, the area the man is from lacks much topo.

I've been meaning to download Strava for a while, so this finally gave me the motivation to do it. It's a neat little app, although I can see that it's far from perfect.

For example, some smaller sections of the 59th street bridge climb (going from Manhattan to Queens) are listed at 4 or 5%, while the section for the "full climb" actually shows -2%, which is simply impossible. The data must somehow be confusing itself with riders going the other way (descending) or perhaps the regular roadway for automobile traffic?

These devices aren't terribly accurate on grade. They are slow to react to changes. I'll be halfway up the Manhattan Bridge before it shows the change in grade. I thought Strava used geographic data though. I did a long ride up Mt. Haleakala in Maui a few years ago with a Garmin watch that didn't have a grade sensor but Strava still showed it.

Yes, Strava seems to take various data sources into account for grade, and when you use the phone app it apparently only looks at their own data, and not your phone's input (if it has a barometric sensor). Still, the grading for some portions of the 59th Street bridge climb is wrong (since it shows them as negative), and you would think they have tons of data to work with for a heavily trafficked place like that.

But I also see that several people are either riding on the regular roadway for cars, or keeping their Strava turned on while in the car (some of the record times/speeds are pretty laughable), so maybe it causes confusion because the roadways are slightly lower than the bike path?

I have to say the App is still a lot of fun despite these issues, as it's super interesting to compare my own commuting times and speeds based on the conditions and the bike I'm using.

Thread might be old, but its still one of the first hits off of google. I looked back at some biking data and took averages over two rides on the 59th st QB bridge on a garmin + altimeter watch.

Manhattan turnaround to crest - 81' climb over 0.61mi (3221') - 2.5% grade
crest to Queens turnaround - 115' climb over 0.73mi(3854') - 3.0% grade

I guess it depends on where you measure, but I get 4% grade from Manhattan to where it flattens out, but I think I'm shortening the distance so I only include the steepest part. It is pretty steady in the area I measure.

I wrote to the Administrators of these forums a while back asking when they would be able to return the Date line that used to indicate, right in the thread title, when a thread was started, They said they were working on it, but I still haven't seen it. Until they fix this, we will all be replying to people who may have quit bicycling altogether (or worse) years and years ago!

Hey, it's an old thread - but these are old bridges! I know things shift over time, but probably not enough to materially change the gradients of the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridge bike paths - unless the paths get re-worked / re-aligned. I posted those measurements with rudimentary tools back in 2009; if anyone wants to measure the gradients with more sophisticated instruments and post the results here, please do!

It would be great if posters got an error message when reviving a long dormant thread, saying something like... "No one has posted in this thread for over a year. Proceed anyway?"

That said, for what it's worth, the steepest part of the Queensborough Bridge is at the Manhattan end, and according to my Strava records, it reaches 8 percent grade for a short while I often see people walking their bikes there.

I just measured the steep incline at the beginning of the bridge today (from Manhatten into Queensboro).
As that section usually gives me a good work out.

I was surprised to find the gradient at 5% or 3 degrees.

I used the inclinometer app on Android.

Wow, it's been a minute since I started this thread.

Somewhere along the way I finally got some GPS devices and while I did not do any sort of precise measurement, I have glanced down and read the incline grade on the QBB (the bridge I've use the most for decades now) often enough to say the westbound side is roughly 3-4%. The eastbound on ramp in Manhattan starts out around 6-7% and hits around 8-9% as you pass through that first tower and straighten out towards Queens. From that point it eases significantly, to around 5% and less as you get to the flat section in the middle.

It's worth noting that enough time has now passed since this thread began, that the "thought I'd never see the day" long-awaited repurpose of the outer path on the south side of the bridge has finally happened, to separate bikes and peds (essentially the same set up as the WBB, aside from the extra wide, shared use ramp in/out of Manhattan).

https://qns.com/2025/05/queensboro-b...an-path-opens/