Today was the first truly nice day of 2010. Sure, it only hit the low 50s, but it was gloriously sunny, and it was that day, where everyone starts to come out of winter hibernation to venture outside. I have no doubts that some more wintry weather will reappear before winter is truly over, but today was the first time in a while that it was truly a pleasure to wander around outside. Without a winter coat. Any one of these could be the official “365” entry, but I felt like posting all of them together.
While not the first official snow of the season, this was the first significant one, leaving me to trudge through a foot of the stuff before people cleaned their sidewalks in order to go see the morning showing of Avatar.
I was originally going to use this time and temperature photo as my 365 shot, but I liked the marrochino a bit more. Today was absolutely gorgeous. perfect temperature, low humidity, bright blue sky. It’s the kind of day we only get a few times a year in New York, but it’s days like this that make me love walking around the city.
My allergies are happy that it’s finally raining and washing away some of the pollen that’s invaded the city over the last week (when I left my apartment last saturday morning, the trees were still bare. By yesterday, they were in full bloom thanks to the heat wave earlier this week). The rest of me, however? not so much…
I’m doing the 5 boro bike tour tomorrow, and it’s looking like it’s going to be a rehash of the MS ride from last fall, without the possibility that the sun will come out at some point during the day. Could get ugly.
I was going to try to find some biking rain gear for tomorrow, but if I can’t find anything good, I remembered that I bought a waterproof windbreaker that’s not particularly aerodynamic when I was down in Roatan in January, because it rained every day while I was there. So that’s a backup plan (a backup plan that could result in disaster if it’s windy, but still…a plan). Unlike the MS ride, where I not only didn’t wear rain gear, but I wore cotton leggings under my bike shorts because it was cold out, and they didn’t get dry the entire day. That’s a mistake I won’t be making again!
This past Sunday, I decided to be adventurous and meet up with some folks that I had only previously “met” on Twitter. In particular, brooklyn by bike had organized a ride from grand army plaza to coney island, and since it was such a beautiful day, I decided to join her (and almost 20 other people) on the ride. It was great. I actually biked down from my apartment to grand army plaza before the official ride, so I had 10 miles down before we got started. I also decided to finally experiment with my “homemade” camera mount on my bike, which is essentially just one of those gorillapod tripods wrapped around my handlebars with my canon point and shoot attached. The footage ended up not being too bad, and once I sped it up so that you could see the entire trip in under 5 minutes (and turned the volume way down low so that your speakers aren’t destroyed by the overwhelming wind sounds and our sped up chipmunks-on-crack talking), it’s kind of fun to watch. I was going to set it to music, but youtube has gotten really good at spotting things that need licenses and, well, I’m not creating my own track, so it’s got little to no sound. There are also some still pictures at the end of the group. Enjoy!
UPDATE: new soundtrack added via youtube’s audioscan service. all legal and everything!
and, if anyone’s interested, here’s a map of my trip from the upper west side to coney island. I skipped mapping the trip back to prospect park, since we followed the same route down (having trouble embedding from google maps at the moment, so a static image will have to suffice). Red line was my solo ride to brooklyn, orange is the group ride down to the beach. And I would totally do this again!
Today, I participated in the NYC MS Bike Ride. Altogether, including cycling from my apartment to the start point (and home at the end of the day), I biked slightly over 70 miles. I’m pretty sure that’s the longest trip I’ve ever taken. It was really great, even with the rain soaking me through for the first two hours of the morning, and I made it through the first 30 miles (around the entire circumference of manhattan) in 2 hours (plus 30 minutes at the rest stop). Then we hit palisades state park in New Jersey and it took us another 3 hours to get the next 15 miles. Of course, I’m pretty sure we walked up about 3 miles of hills. whatever. it’s still exercise. The idea that, a year ago, I would have been able to walk uphill for 3 miles (forget biking 70), I would have laughed in your face. So, all in all, a good day. Other than the rain. And the nasty spill I took leaving me with two bruised knees. But…no sunburn, and i hit 35 miles per hour in a screaming ride through the Lincoln Tunnel. That might have been the most awesome thing I’ve ever done. Here’s a map…
Oh yeah, and I raised $600 for MS. That was pretty good too!
[Update 2015] In an effort to reduce the number of holdover pages on the blog, I am slowly (very slowly) integrating albums into the appropriate historical posts on the blog itself. As such, photos can now be found directly below.
I promise I’m not going to do this every day. Frankly, no one wants to read repeated blog entries about just how little I can do every day. But today was exciting – I took my bike out for a “real” ride (i.e., not going in a circle around the park). The plan was to go down to Madison Square, or Union Square, and maybe get a shake at the shake shack. Anyway, I got going down the Hudson River Greenway, and before I even realized it, I was all the way downtown at ground zero. So I tooled around Battery Park for a little while, took some pictures, drank lots of water (it was really warm out), and then got back on my bike and rode all the way home. it was a 13-14 mile round trip, and I was gross and sweaty and desperate to get in my shower at the end, but not “tired”. In fact, my legs didn’t hurt at all. I actually thought at the time that, but for the oppressive heat and humidity, I could have kept going.
This is a really big change from a year ago, when i took my bike to the park and could barely go 3 miles without exhausting myself. That was the day I decided to join the gym.
Plans for the rest of the week? More bike rides, although tomorrow is a personal training day, so I probably won’t be biking around the island. All you can eat sushi tomorrow night with my dad and brother (have I mentioned that it’s kind of weird to have my brother actually living in the city again? good, but weird. I was so used to our regularly scheduled Friday afternoon IM sessions with him on the other side of the world). Tentative dinner plans with a friend from college who I haven’t seen in about 13 years, thanks to Facebook (and yes, I’m totally addicted now).
As far as Friday, I’m currently debating whether to attempt to go get a 3G iphone. I certainly didn’t plan my vacation around the iphone release, but since I’m definitely planning on getting one, it does seem kind of stupid to NOT get one while I’ve got plenty of time to wait on line. Although I’m definitely not going to be one of those people who is already waiting on line…
