A Digression: NYC cycling love

Ahem. We pause from regularly scheduled garden-geeking for an important message about biking in New York City.

Let's just forget about the fact that when I returned from this particular bike jaunt I was covered in hives. And it's not to say that I don't recognize that what cycling in NYC is really about is traffic: to traffic, in traffic, of traffic. This is merely for those of you who only see potholes, taxis, and red light obstacles or endless laps of a park as what it must be like to be a cyclist in New York. There is something else. On Sunday mornings, for me and Speedy B, its like this:

Starting off from Sunset Park it's down to the promenade bike path, recently redone. On the vista and looming closer and closer is the Great Verrezano, starting point of the NYC marathon.

The path goes under the derriere of Brooklyn, a bit through Coney Island and Brighton Beach. I'll admit, it's a pretty ugly urban stretch (cutting through the Home Depot parking lot, for example). But being Coney Island, there are sometimes surprises. Or pirates. These guys look like they're in lockup after a rowdy Saturday night, eh Captain?

Then suddenly the Sheepshead Bay marina. Turkish restaurants, seaside dining, the creaking of boats in the water, and in the morning, it often has the bright smell of grilled fish. I don't even like fish. But it smells festive.
Then it's out of traffic and onto the bike path, and just as frustration heightens at being so close to the water without seeing it, a bridge. On the left, inches and a very frail guardrail separating the mangled sidewalk "bike trail" from the Belt Parkway. On the right: Behold.


Yes people. We are still in New York City. At this point, I think we've passed into Queens. But New York City.

The biketrail veers off to the Rockaways. And here I can make a gardening related comment: I would love to have these big tall fountain grasses in the backyard to obscure the ugly chain link fence, but fear that they're some kind of invasive species that will take over the neighborhood. You can see why I fear. I think they're 10 feet tall.

And this is a bit of the bike path itself.

Eventually you get to the "Gil Hodges Memorial Bridge". Gil Hodges was a Brooklyn Dodger, I recently learned. It is a main route to the Rockaways. Cue the Ramones. Here's the view from the bridge. All water and waterscape. On the left is the view back towards the city (you can see a bit of the bridge). On the right, the destination: Breezy Point at the western tip of the Rockaways -- you can just make out the sandy tip, my turnaround point.

Out in the Rockaways, its a long stretch of open quiet road, bordered by sandy dunes and ending up in the beach town of Breezy Point. And yes, we are still in New York City.

That's the turnaround point. My Sunday loop is out and back, so it's more glory on the way back, hopefully with a tailwind. But at the end, coming back up the waterfront towards Sunset Park, a great view of the harbor, the bright orange ferries headed past the Statue of Liberty, and of course, the great island of Manhattan. Thirty-five miles round trip.

The poet wrote:

Just as you feel when you look on the river and sky, so I felt;
Just as any of you is one of a living crowd, I was one of a crowd;
Just as you are refresh’d by the gladness of the river and the bright flow, I was refresh’d;
Just as you stand and lean on the rail, yet hurry with the swift current, I stood, yet was hurried;
Just as you look on the numberless masts of ships, and the thick-stem’d pipes of steamboats, I look’d.
I too many and many a time cross’d the river, the sun half an hour high;
I watched the Twelfth-month sea-gulls—I saw them high in the air, floating with motionless wings, oscillating their bodies,
I saw how the glistening yellow lit up parts of their bodies, and left the rest in strong shadow,
I saw the slow-wheeling circles, and the gradual edging toward the south.

(from Crossing Brooklyn Ferry, Leaves of Grass, 1900)