by Sarah Rayner
On May 3rd I had the chance to ride New York 5 Boroughs Bike Tour and it was an amazing way to see the city and surrounding boroughs while doing something I love which is to ride my bike. Four of my friends and I registered in December 2014 for the tour and as soon as the snow melted we started training on weekends and riding to work. We set out on tour bus on the Thursday night and arrived in Queens to our hotel on the Friday morning…traveling by bus for that period of time is only fun when you are with great people.
We had 2 days to explore NYC then on the Sunday we woke and headed via metro with bikes in hand to the start and I don’t think I was totally prepared as there were 32000 cyclists with only 4 start times. There were at least 5 NYC city blocks filled with anxious cyclists ready to start. There was music that filled the air to pump us up, and once we got started it was a very smooth ride. We wore our Canadian jerseys so we could keep an eye on each other and we played Marco/Polo if team mates lagged behind. This really sparked conversation between other cyclists asking us where in Canada we came from and sometimes others would answer Polo to my Marco. The New York Police even rode the 40 miles with us. We did the 40 miles in 4 hours with stops along the way.The ride ended in Staten Island where there was a party with food and music.
32000 cyclist, 5 boroughs, 1 day and 0 cars…it was a great ride going over huge bridges, riding through very cool neighbourhoods with a ferry ride back to Manhattan once done. We had great laughs and great conversation throughout the ride….We will be doing this ride again for sure.
checkout my blog http://www.bukasblog.com