Tour de Gotham
Have been wanting to post some NYC content on here. I'm here for 5 weeks exploring the city and editing projects that I shot in August. It's been an amazing experience so far and I'm sure it'll just get better as I'm here longer. Being a country mouse Colorado this whole NYC thing is a bit crazy but today I really felt like I was getting into my groove here. Took the camera along to document it all against the backdrop of some pretty intense 9/11 events going on.
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Strava file here:
http://app.strava.com/rides/21652184
Starting out from the house. Out neighborhood is pretty cool, lots of cobbled streets.
Fancy SoHo buildings.
Big buildings downtown. I started out by heading south from our house to the Brooklyn bridge to begin my crossings of the "three bridges to hipster-ville", aka the three bridges that go between Manhatten and Brooklyn/Williamsburg.
This is the Brooklyn bridge. All the bridges are divided up into lanes for bikes or people. As you can see it actually works pretty well.
Brooklyn Bridge.
Looking back into Manhatten from the middle of the Brooklyn Bridge. It's really amazing how far into the city the bridges stretch on each end. They have to gain all this vertical before they go over the river so boats can go under them so they start 8-10 blocks into town on each side and you cross city for the first and last 30% of them.
Crazy way of life. I thought the cage pattern of the fence nicely summed up how I felt about that.
This is on the Williamsburg bridge. Less picturesque than the Brooklyn, but a better ride. The bikes get a separate deck like this and the pedestrians get a separate one on the other side. There's a train in the middle and cars below both. Pretty crazy affair.
This is mid Williamsburg, which is kinda considered the hipster capital of the world. Super bike friendly though as you can see with the big bike lane running up the street. Actually I'd say 80 or 90% of the ride today was either on bike paths of painted bike lanes.
Looking back at the Empire State building from Williamsburg. After this I crossed another big bridge, the Queensborough Bridge, back across the Harlem River into Manhatten. A few crazy blocks later and I was in Central Park.
Did two full laps of the park, at 6 miles a pieces. It's a pretty magical place. Huge, and the road through it is great riding. No cars allowed, twisty and rolling. Definitely the best riding within in the city if you want to just cruise and not worry about traffic and craziness. I hung out on a bench and watched the world go by.
The closed road through Central Park.
Heading up the Harlem River. I'm way north now, 100 something street.
Wild urban landscape.
Cool little boathouse. Getting near Columbia University at the north end of the Island.
This is in Inwood Park. It's on the very north end of the island and has this awesome twisting confusing series of paths like this one.
Bike shot at a little railroad crossing.
The Little Red Lighthouse. Wonder where they came up with that name…
This is heading back south along the Hudson River Greenway. The bike path on this side of the island is really dialed. It was nice to finish with it today because I didn't have to do any navigation. Big parts of today's ride were in places I hadn't explored before so I was having to stop and consult the map tons. I have this super cool iPhone app called BikeNYC that overlays the good bike routes on google earth so I can use that to navigate everything. Plus the gps puts a blue dot on the map where I am so it's pretty much navigating with perfect information. As a map person I absolutely love it, and can really appreciate the fundamental change it creates in exploring a new place.
Back in the apartment. I just snapped this out the window from my desk. NYC is an amazing place.
Starting out from the house. Out neighborhood is pretty cool, lots of cobbled streets.
Fancy SoHo buildings.
Big buildings downtown. I started out by heading south from our house to the Brooklyn bridge to begin my crossings of the "three bridges to hipster-ville", aka the three bridges that go between Manhatten and Brooklyn/Williamsburg.
This is the Brooklyn bridge. All the bridges are divided up into lanes for bikes or people. As you can see it actually works pretty well.
Brooklyn Bridge.
Looking back into Manhatten from the middle of the Brooklyn Bridge. It's really amazing how far into the city the bridges stretch on each end. They have to gain all this vertical before they go over the river so boats can go under them so they start 8-10 blocks into town on each side and you cross city for the first and last 30% of them.
Crazy way of life. I thought the cage pattern of the fence nicely summed up how I felt about that.
This is on the Williamsburg bridge. Less picturesque than the Brooklyn, but a better ride. The bikes get a separate deck like this and the pedestrians get a separate one on the other side. There's a train in the middle and cars below both. Pretty crazy affair.
This is mid Williamsburg, which is kinda considered the hipster capital of the world. Super bike friendly though as you can see with the big bike lane running up the street. Actually I'd say 80 or 90% of the ride today was either on bike paths of painted bike lanes.
Looking back at the Empire State building from Williamsburg. After this I crossed another big bridge, the Queensborough Bridge, back across the Harlem River into Manhatten. A few crazy blocks later and I was in Central Park.
Did two full laps of the park, at 6 miles a pieces. It's a pretty magical place. Huge, and the road through it is great riding. No cars allowed, twisty and rolling. Definitely the best riding within in the city if you want to just cruise and not worry about traffic and craziness. I hung out on a bench and watched the world go by.
The closed road through Central Park.
Heading up the Harlem River. I'm way north now, 100 something street.
Wild urban landscape.
Cool little boathouse. Getting near Columbia University at the north end of the Island.
This is in Inwood Park. It's on the very north end of the island and has this awesome twisting confusing series of paths like this one.
Bike shot at a little railroad crossing.
The Little Red Lighthouse. Wonder where they came up with that name…
This is heading back south along the Hudson River Greenway. The bike path on this side of the island is really dialed. It was nice to finish with it today because I didn't have to do any navigation. Big parts of today's ride were in places I hadn't explored before so I was having to stop and consult the map tons. I have this super cool iPhone app called BikeNYC that overlays the good bike routes on google earth so I can use that to navigate everything. Plus the gps puts a blue dot on the map where I am so it's pretty much navigating with perfect information. As a map person I absolutely love it, and can really appreciate the fundamental change it creates in exploring a new place.
Back in the apartment. I just snapped this out the window from my desk. NYC is an amazing place.
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