VSP Blog

What’s easy….riding a bike? Well, yes, but there’s more to this story. While on business in New York this week I had an afternoon to kill so I found a half-day bike tour. (Note to self: never forget, riding on fat tires is much more work than riding on skinny tires.)

The guide, a skinny kid who looked like he was fourteen, turned out to be a charming and witty college graduate with a degree in history, and formerly a bike messenger in San Francisco. He managed to talk the New York talk while riding between trucks, over curbs, down paths that said NO BIKES, past fragrant fruit stands and through neighborhoods that used to be very scary. We left from 2^nd between 68^th and 69^th to find a wide, and very gracious, bike path along the water as we headed toward Spanish Harlem and then on to Central Park. The parks were green, the streets clean and the brown-stones (think Cosby show) really beautiful to look at. Approaching what we were told was the busiest street in the neighborhood, and usually not traveled on the tour, we took a quick left and found ourselves from of the Apollo Theater. Music played in the background and we signed huge sheets of plastic hung outside on the walls. Vendors were selling everything “Michael” that can be imagined, and everyone was very happy, including us. On towards Columbia University and then Central Park, the weather was perfect and the adventure was grand. We stopped for pictures at The Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, where reconstruction was completed just months ago, before riding into the park. The spot where John Lennon was shot in from of the Dakota, Strawberry Fields, sunbathers in the park, horses, runners, more bikes, you name it, we saw it. The tour concluded at 5:00 PM during rush hour which I believe should be renamed grid lock. I chose to walk an hour back to the hotel and was happy I did because I feel like I really saw New York, smelled it and felt it.