Pickabar Blog

My main means of transportation until I graduated high school was a series of second hand bicycles. I grew up in the suburbs with no car in the family, and with public transportation that involved once an hour buses that stopped running at 6:30. I had plenty of opportunities to go on long bike rides. I rode my bike to work a town away, along highways to hang out with friends several towns away, and on practically every street in Brentwood, LI.

Then I moved to the city and discovered the wonders of useful public transportation and dangerous traffic. I don’t even remember bringing my bike to the city.

Well, after talking to my bike riding friends Jay and Lisa (and nearly killing myself on Jay’s bike in billyburg), I got excited. So last weekend Sarah and I headed over to the local Bicycle Renaissance and I bought myself a new two wheeler. The new pickabar bike? A Specialized Sirrus Sport.

I wound up spending a lot more than I’d intended to for a helmet, lights, locks, pins and other assorted jib jabs that sounded important. I think it’s worth the extra expenditure, since this is going to provide me with another opportunity to have healtyh fun, but it’s definitely a culture shock after having had only 50 dollar beaters my whole life.

I picked up the bike on Tuesday and had a fun, but slightly grueling ride around Central Park. Those hills heading to Harlem on the east side of the park are killer for a noob like yours truly!

Last night, I decided to check out Riverside Park, which is on the western edge of Manhattan. I rode along the bike path up to harlem, where the path would have required me to enter normal streets. Then I rode back down the path past Midtown, past downtown and chelsea…to Batter City and a beatiful view of lady liberty. That’s right, I rode my bike to the tip of Manhattan from the Upper West Side. Here’s my route on GMaps Pedometer…it seems like my route was a bit longer than 18 miles. Afterwards I came home, played guitar for a bit, scarfed down some grub and drifted off to the kind of peaceful sleep that only seems to happen in a crib.

Definitely a great purchase!

 

That’s right, your humble host here at pickabar.com has just finished his first race, the New York Road Runners NY Mets Run to Home Plate. I didn’t win, suprisingly, but I finished with a respectable 28:41 net time…especially respectable considering the heat wave that’s going on right now in NYC. I believe the official temperature was 81 degrees, but it felt closer to 90. Mucho thanks to my fitness guru, Blossom, who suggested we run and then was kind enough to run at my snail’s pace with me instead of zooming off. I’m on top of the world!