D5 NE Center of the World

Miraculously, and literally answers to prayers, we woke, plugged in the batteries – at least 2 of the 3 – and the bike worked. Draining the water out of the “dry” bags we used for the batteries, and running the blow dryer most of the night, helped. We were on our way from Lindon, NJ to Elmsford, NY.

The route wasn’t exactly direct. We went to Staten Island first – over a huge bridge which I tried to convince Gloria was like riding up a mountain (didn’t work) – then over another bridge into Jersey City, then on a ferry to Manhattan, and finally up the Hudson into the state of NY.

Everything is big – except the distances between state borders – in this part of the world. In fact, we crossed more borders in a week then we did in two months on the Great Divide. Back to big. The bridges are massive. The boats (ships?) are as big as buildings. The buildings are so big and endless that it seems unbelievable that people are truly behind all those little windows. And if there really are people behind all those little windows, there’s no way they are all doing anything useful.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Riding in NY is surprisingly pleasant with regards to cars. After crossing the Hudson and getting off the ferry – somewhere in NY – we began riding down the path. Sometime later, a security guard yelled at us to walk our bikes. We then realized there was a bike road about 20 feet from the place we had been dodging people. Oh well, we weren’t locals.

Surprisingly, riding in this overpopulated city is quite pleasant. After going up the coast a couple miles – on the wonderful bike road – we cut “inland” toward Central Park. We figured if we’re in NY, we should see Central Park. I know others go for the big buildings – but they were all pretty similar. Gloria thought CP was a little green rectangle of grass with some trees around the edges. That is until we road from one end to the other – albeit with a few hundred other people – and she realized it was pretty and impressive. Interestingly? there are no bathrooms that we could find, but there was enough privacy in the trees that I was able to mark my territory.

I have to say that the most likely thing to kill you, while riding a bike in NY, is not a car. It is other people on bikes – especially e-bikes. Everyone has an e-bike it seems and like everything else in these parts, they have big batteries. Big batteries means lots of power and they just blast past you and even a lot of the cars. I did almost run into one car driven by a crazed mom picking up her kid at school. I just honked, like everyone else, then smiled.

Amazingly, after heading north out of the city, on the Empire State Trail (the one we would be following for about 250 miles) we were on a beautiful trail. We followed it for about 15 miles upto Elmsford enjoying a perfect temperature, very few people, and a beautiful forest. The crowds of the city were quickly forgotten although it really was interesting and fun to go through Manhattan on a bike.