FrankieV

Hi SD
Sorry to hear about your spill early on (can't remember the wooden bridge)
I was the marshall between you and the female marshal (Heidi).
A pigeon spooked the 2 people who weren't in the paceline ahead of us which caused the first guy to tap his brakes.
It was a very effective paceline fighting the headwind.
Luckily we were just letting up on our speed since we had just come over the top of the hill.
The young lady was pretty shook because she hit her head (helmet).
We rode with her for a few miles and she decided to take a train home.
The other marshal escorted her to the train and I continued on.

SourDieseL

Thanks for the update Frankie! That was a pretty serious crash I'm surprised both you and I didn't eat it with her also. I don't remember how tight the line was held but I knew I was looking a head enough to see her go down then brake to get around and eventually stopped. I am though grateful that the 4 of us was smart enough to even start a paceline, that head wind was seriously tough and the leading road into the bridge was long with a gradual grade, not that we wouldn't be able to hammer it ourselves solo, it just made riding in a group a bit easier to say the least.

Anyways, I hope Heidi is ok!

billm45s

I just registered with this forum and wanted to add how wonderful yesterday's ride was and how all of the volunteers were excellent. I did the 75 (actually 86 mile) ride on my hybrid commuter bike and there were more than a few moments when I wanted to trade for almost anyone's road bike.

Living in Brooklyn, I have biked most of the course before on solo rides around the City. The Cross Bay Blvd headwind was not all that unusual, other than it was a steady headwind. I find it often has a basic direction but then can swirl a bit becoming a crosswind and then changing direction.

For the person who wiped out on the Carrol Street Bridge, I couldn't understand why we went up Carrol with the cobblestones and the old wood. There are a number of better crossings earlier, or we could have avoided teh canal and come up Dean to 3rd or 5th Avenue and then turned at Carrol up to the Park.

Most of the riding I saw went very smoothly, other than a woman falling on a sewer grate as she slowed for a light. Luckily she was going so slowly that she was more embarrassed than hurt. I was happy to see that 20th Avenue in Astoria was repaved, as I was up there in the last two weeks and part of it was torn up waiting for the asphalt to be laid.

Like many of you, I also hate the Tribourough Bridge and those *&^% stairs. The real crazy part was watching the person on a fixie without brakes use his hands to slow and change the direction of his bike just before he reached bottom on Randall's Island. Any time I am Queens and heading to Manhattan I use the 59th Street Bridge or just go back to Brooklyn. It was funny once I went over the pedestrian bridge into spanish harlem, I didn't see markings or look at my cue street and this group of, I think, mostly non-New Yorkers, followed me and I just went down 105th to Park and then up to 111th.

A great ride and all in all on my hybrid I felt pretty good leaving Central Park at 6:40 and after some rest stop food and over a 160 ounces of sports drinks and water later arriving back at 2:50.

Bill

akcapbikeforums

Fortunately, we didn't see anything approaching a wreck.

We did, however, see 22 broken umbrellas!

It started innocently, my wife saying something about seeing a third broken umbrella... and this was well before reaching Bleeker Street. So then we made a sport of it and started counting -- sometimes there would be two or three in a garbage can.

The buddy we rode with has a thing about giving every ride a theme -- as if "All of New York" isn't a good enough theme. Naturally, we'll always know this as The Broken Umbrella Tour!

All I can say is, it must have been a helluva rainstorm the day before!?

hkboy313

it was an excellent 1st time experience, im definitely wanting to do this again! biked all the way to the 86th with cc_rider then routed on my own to the 100 finish line, its a great feeling to know i did it. chatting with some people who lived in texas too! 1st time, beautiful weather, im so lucky to have this forum and good friends! i hope to have more chances to meet yall. (+pgoat!)

pgoat

Wooot! go, man go!

we'll hook up for a ride soon, for sure.

mcgreivey

Carroll Street Bridge:
Seems like there were at least two crashes there: the one SourDieseL was in, and the one I was in (since they sound like different events). I was one of the first in a group to reach the bridge, and the bumps of the cobblestones jarred my taillight loose, which alarmed people behind me,who fell on the slippery (oiled!) wooden bridge surface. I didn't go down, but 3 or 4 or 5 people behind me did. I used to live in the neighborhood, so I was familiar with the bridge. I call it the troll bridge. When the neighborhood was less attractive than it is now, that bridge was still somehow picturesque. There probably should have been marshals stationed there telling people to slow down as they approached it.

Re: markings:
I really didn't see them. I didn't actually understand what I was supposed to be looking for until the ride was almost over. Perhaps a sign at the start telling the less keen-witted what the markings looked like would have been good? But I was riding with a skilled cue-sheet reader, so nothing bad came of my ignorance.

We made the wrong turn at the Knapp St turn and followed the bike path. It just looked like the right place to go on a bike, I guess. We rode 2 miles or so until the crosswalk at ... what's it called there? Flatbush Ave or Marine Bay Blvd? and realized we hadn't seen Knapp St. so we turned around and went back. I looked at the map later and figured out that we could have ridden "inbound" on that bridge (is it the Cross Bay Bridge?) and we would have been on Flatbush. No harm done, though--just 4 more miles added to our trip.

All around, a great day.

I love the hummus-in-pita sandwiches at the Astoria rest stop.

Re: the sports drink: It was fine. It did the job. It was free. I can't complain. And it tasted loads better than the water I made the mistake of filling my bottle with at the water station in Central Park (I perhaps over-cautiously didn't taste the water at Marine Park; the water at Astoria was totally fine).

We ended up riding a few tenths shy of 60 miles. Cool.

Thanks to the volunteers...though the cheerleaders at the end at Central Park could have at least pretended to look a little tired themselves. [tongue in cheek]

cc_rider

Congratulations. Glad you made it all the way.
You were a good riding partner. Thanks for keeping me on track. If I had been on my own I probably would have taken detours and played tourist, probably would have spent more time taking pictures than riding.
As it turned out, I ended up riding over 100 miles after all. Finished the "75" mile route with 88 miles on my computer. Since I'd be at 90 miles for the day anyway, and after a break at the finish, my legs were still good and I decided to go for it. Did two laps of Central Park and rounded up to a century.
Great time. Great weather. Missed riding through Times Square in the early hours, but seeing something new (West End Ave) was fine, too.
I had planned for a NY Century to be my first century, but I didn't expect it to be this year. I hadn't been doing the longer rides this year and had done only two metric or longer rides. Everything came together and it worked out.

Sorry to miss you, pgoat. Glad you had a good ride.

hkboy313 - Good luck with the new job, and good luck with the license exams.

pgoat

thanks - hope to see you out there on another one soon.

akcapbikeforums

We had the same experience with the water: the Central Park hose bib water tasted pretty... er.. flavorful. Skipped the water at Marine, and actually went for the sports drink at Astoria Park, which was aok.

mcgreivey

I just noticed an ambiguity in my earlier posting...

The [tongue in cheek] was meant to come before the (parenthetical) about Astoria water. The Astoria water was totally fine. Not nasty like the Central Park water.

(Just want to be clear, in case any ride organizers are reading this.)

NightHawkHat

I had a great ride. My only complaint was that I often had only a vague idea where in the city I was. Queens is a big place! I understand why they don't release cue sheets early, but it would be nice if the cue sheet included a map so riders could see at a glance which neighborhood they were in.

For anyone who wants to see this after the fact, I drew the route in Google Maps: https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?cd=20...233c577c8&z=11 It's nice to see where I went.

Papa Tom

>>>> My only complaint was that I often had only a vague idea where in the city I was.<<<<

Funny you should say that. As a volunteer at Astoria Park, I was quite surprised when at least half a dozen cyclists - all native New Yorkers - asked me what boro they were in!

v70cat

The map is great and it confirms that it long way to the Kisena Park rest stop, maybe next year we could have a rest stop in Forest Park?

NightHawkHat

One reason I took the time to put this year's cue sheet onto Google Maps is that I definitely want a map in my hand for Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx when I ride this century next year. I can't read a cue sheet w/o my reading glasses, which naturally I can't wear when I'm riding. I would have to pull over. This is why cue sheets more than a page long are useless for me. (Less than a page I can hold in my head.)

If I have the map, I can see at a glance where I am and anticipate where the route will zig or zag. It will be vastly easier.

Also, the ride would be much richer if the riders knew what they were riding past. I was surprised to see in Google Maps that we rode past what used to be the site of the Polo Grounds stadium (in upper Manhattan). It would be nice to know things like that in advance.

One last gripe: is it REALLY such a breach of cue sheet security to not hand them out in the morning when we get our bibs? It would be so useful. I was standing around for 20 minutes waiting for the ride to begin. That would have been the perfect time to review the cue sheet. Instead, I only get it when I'm pulling away, which is precisely the time I can't look at it.

SourDieseL

Regarding the cue sheet, I honestly didn't even use it the whole ride. It ended up being a sweat sponge in my jersey pocket. The markings on the ground and the groups I rode with were all good enough to signal back turns, stops at lights, clearing cross roads, and identifying car back. Felt nice to ride with solid groups and knowledgeable riders. The only real issue I had with the whole ride was crossing the wooden/cobble stone bridge in the morning in brooklyn where I wiped out. I felt like that could have prevented with a marshal at the foot of the bridge warning people to slow down. If I had known I probably would have slowed down before going up on the bridge and slowly coasted over it.

FrankieV

Thanks for that map.

As a riding marshal I would be asked what areas of the boroughs we were in.
I was familiar with all of Brooklyn and Manhattan, but most of Queens and the Bronx are foreign lands to me.
I was lucky enough to ride through the Bronx with a Bronx native and got an expert tour of every area we rode through.

Lots of riders were asking how far it was to the Kissena rest stop.
It was a bit longer than usual but when you think about it, you can stop and rest anywhere along the way.
As long as you have two full water bottles and an emergency snack, the distance between rest stops shouldnt be a problem.

spdrcr5

This was my 2nd NYC Century, the first one I did in 2006. This one was so much better than the last one I did. The roads were so well marked, only missed 2 turns and caught the markings out of the corner of my eye as we passed by. Love riding in the City, especially early mornings with very little traffic.

If anyone saw any of the 7 people with Long Island Chapter TNT jersey's, that was the group I was leading.

The only complaint that I had about the rest stops was the mechanics were not equipped to do anything other than fix flats and adjust derailleurs. One of the guys I was riding with broke a spoke as we passed by Nathan's. I stupidly decided not to ride with my multi-tool and couldn't retrue the wheel for him. Every rest stop we would ask a mechanic if they could just true the wheel so it wasn't as wobbly as it was, they didn't have any tools! We ended up riding the 86 mile route... I mean the 75. lol

Had planned on doing the 100, but my left leg was not having any of it that day. Too many cramps to even attempt the Bronx. Will do it next year for certain.

v70cat

I wish we had another ride this Sunday.

vincentnyc

tour de bx. is next month and it is free and sponsor by the same ppl for the century tour. try that.

pgoat

I might do some laps in CP if the early AM weather is nice...also chk your PMs

mcgreivey

Yes!

Chacal

People will often ride the route after the fact, simply following the route markings or using the cue sheets or both. I plan to do this in the Bronx, as I only did the 75 mile route on the day of.

v70cat

I never saw so many flats, my guess is that a lot were due to pinch flats relating to low tire pressure and hitting bumps.

cc_rider

Yeah. Lots of flats.
But I only saw 3 falls this year. Two were failure to unclip in time, and one was avoiding a pedestrian who turned and stepped in the way.