New York can be a major pain in the ass, which is why people here are always complaining, but once you get out of the city itself the riding is pretty good:
Especially at this time of year:
I don’t need giant mountains or plastic gravel bikes or multi-day excursions. All I really need in life is a singlespeed and a little time to ride it, and I shall want for nothing else:
Though I’ll go ahead and add a second gear to that “singlespeed” anyway, because why not?
Speaking of Rivendell, there’s a new model coming and the presale starts tomorrow:
Rivendell have not specifically asked me to mention this–they never ask, and if anything would probably prefer it if people didn’t associate them with me–but I’m doing it anybody since these things seem to sell out quick.
Besides changing leaves and people coming at you with lulavs and etrovs and asking if you’re Jewish, another sure sign of fall in New York City is the coming of our eponymous marathon. But don’t try riding the course this year:
Because the organizers are cracking down:
I’ve never done the pre-marathon myself, because apparently it’s lots of different types of people having fun, and I have absolutely no tolerance for that sort of exuberance:
I’m really only comfortable riding alone or with other people who are scowling, which is why I spent so many years as a bike racer.
Of course, as a former New York City bike racer, I know something that this article doesn’t address, which is that runners and cyclists here have always been mortal enemies. For as long as anyone can remember, the Century Road Club Association, which is the city’s largest bicycle racing club, and the New York Road Runners, who organize the marathon, have fought over Central Park, the proving ground for the city’s many monied type-A recreational athletes. Just imagine thousands of corporate types waking up at dawn to run and ride in the park before a long day of Microsoft Teams meetings and you can only imagine the conflicts. No doubt the Road Runners, who long to crush the cyclists once and for all like those little paper cups they drink from, see this as an opportunity to deal them a crushing blow.
Then again, cyclists really do have an uncanny ability to ruin things for themselves. You’ve got to figure at least some of these riders are Freds who see an opportunity to bag Strava segments, and according to the article one of them managed to hit a pedestrian last year. Then there’s Rapha, who brought 200 people to last year’s ride:
What could be more Rapha than leveraging an unsanctioned word-of-mouth ride, overwhelming it with a bunch of people on Canyons, and ruining it for everybody?
Still, not being able to participate in the informal group ride you’ve been doing for free is better than paying lots of money to do a huge charity ride, traveling hundreds of miles to get there, and finding out it’s been cancelled:
Apparently the “traffic management contractor” screwed up the date and didn’t show up:
Or, as they say in Australianese…
I had to read this at least three times. At the very least I’d have hyphenated “stuff up.” I can figure out “date stuff-up” from the context, but “date stuff up” just sounds like a variation of this:
Come to think of it, that’s pretty much exactly Rapha showing up at a ride.