I finally got my ass out of bed early enough on Monday morning to ride my bicycle to work. It was my first time navigating the route on my own and I found it to be much easier and less stressful than I had imagined. It was so enjoyable that I've now done it 4 days in a row! And so far, no accidents of any kind (though a few near misses but none that were my fault!).
My route begins south of Prospect Park in Brooklyn and ends at Rockefeller Plaza in Manhattan and is about 10 miles. I ride up through the park, cut up Union St. and then meander on over to the Brooklyn bridge. Then I dart through some traffic, swerve around some jay walkers, jump over a gaggle of baby carriages and then wait forever for the light to change at West Street before hopping onto the Hudson Greenway. Once I'm on there, I'm golden. And if I'm lucky, I only have to stop a couple times for either pedestrians or those new NYC Duck tour buses (I was really hoping those would stay in Boston and not expand to nyc). Then it's up 48th St. where it's a mine field of pot holes and people darting out from in between cars. Luckily, I have prime parking right in front of my entrance and I can even keep an eye on my bike from my window above (my basket is NOT a garbage can, thank you!).
Cycling in the city is much like playing that game whack-a-mole. Except you're the mole. And, instead of a soft mallet, you're dodging steel boxes that weigh a ton. Still, I'd rather be outside riding my bike than stuck on the subway with my nose crammed in some dude's armpit and having to listen to obnoxious pop music the person beside me is blaring from their ipod.
I hope to keep this up and make it a regular thing. It's just so much more fun! The view over the bridge in the morning is incredible, the flowers blooming along the Hudson Greenway smell so refreshing and I'm tricking myself into exercising along the way. Pretty darn awesome. So, why did it take me so long to do this? What was I waiting for?
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