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Exploring New York City and particularly Brooklyn is my passion and my pastime. As the great Brooklyn author Thomas Wolfe once famously quipped, "It'd take a guy a lifetime to know Brooklyn t'roo an' t'roo. An' even den yuh wouldn't know it all." I have lived in Brooklyn my entire life, and I couldn't agree more. I find that there is no better way to learn about what is going on in New York than by riding my bike through the neighborhoods and stopping and talking to people.
I've loved riding a bike as long as I can remember. I can still recall every inch of the green Elswick racer I was given for my 10th birthday. Hopping on my bike as a kid was the definition of freedom, whether I was pedaling six blocks to the local basketball court, or roaming around the neighborhood looking for spontaneous fun.
Many things have changed since I was a kid. The streets are busier and my hair is grayer, but to me, spending a few hours riding my bike through New York still feels like freedom No matter how busy my schedule, I try to spend a few hours on my bike each week.
Without a doubt, the best bike routes have great food at the end. I like to go from my house in Park Slope to Breezy Point, on the Rockaway Peninsula, to find Kennedy's, a restaurant right on the beach with a fantastic view of the Manhattan skyline. Sometimes I head out through Sunset Park, with its world class Latin food, en route to Bay Ridge and the sublime Shore Road Bike Path, when my reward awaits at Gino's on Fifth Avenue.
Perhaps my favorite route, I love heading toward Williamsburg, up the Eastern Parkway bike path, through Bedford-Stuyvesant, eventually ending up at Carmine's on Graham Avenue. There is nothing better than a Genoa salami hero after an afternoon on a bike!
When I can, I'll bike to events in Manhattan, Queens, the Bronx or Brooklyn, combining a bit of work with a bit of pleasure. (The only place I don't ride frequently is Staten Island, because the Verrazano Bridge still doesn't have a bike path). One of the best rides recently took me across the Brooklyn Bridge and straight up Manhattan through the East Village, Midtown, Harlem, and into the Bronx to a Little League Baseball parade in Pelham Bay.
I love biking to Ridgewood on a Sunday morning, stopping by St Mathias' Church. They hold services in five different languages every weekend, German, Polish, English, Italian and Spanish. It is a beautiful church. I am certain that if it were in a European city, it would be visited by thousands of tourists every year.
But often, the best rides are those with no destination. I like to pick a neighborhood or two and set off in that general direction with no time limit and no set route, that way, it is easy to get lost and explore places I've never been. What I like about these rides is that I never know where I am going to end up.
It is on these rides that I often discover the city's newly developing and rapidly changing neighborhoods. And on each trip to my parents house in Floral Park, as I get purposely lost, I get to watch our inner city neighborhoods come back - each trip reveals fewer empty store fronts on Sutter Avenue than the last trip through East New York.
Starting in Brighton Beach and riding north through Brooklyn, always reminds me what makes this borough so special. As I watch the neighborhood go from predominantly Russian, through a veritable rainbow of ethnicities, to Polish in Greenpoint and the northern tip of Brooklyn, I feel like I've been around the world.
But this journey is not one that can be undertaken in a car - you'd miss the details, the human scale, and the pace of life as you fly by. Even walking won't do - you won't be able to cover nearly enough ground. To really get to know New York, you've got to ride a bicycle.
See huffingtonpost.com/new-york for more New York news and blogs
NYC Bike Maps: New York City's Bike Lanes and Bike Paths Mapped
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Wrong week to be writing a column about taking a bike on a trail.
See, Democrats actually go on a trail for exercise and to enjoy the sights such as the Catskill and Adarondic mountains.
Apparently Republican Governors when they take a hike are interested in different kinds of peaks.
New York is also a state. Don't forget the rest of us, Senator Schumer!
Buffalo, Niagara Falls, Syracuse, Watkins Glen, Watertown...
I can ride three quiet blocks from my house, cross the Grand Island Bridge and ride to Niagara Falls on a bike trail. So I am inviting Senator Shumer to bring his bike on his next Western New York trip and go for a bike ride with me.' There are still a few nice restaurants in Niagara Falls that aren't in the Seneca Niagara Casino. We can stop in for a bite.
Well maybe not because I am trying to get back in shape and I would probably slow him down. Sounds like he does some pretty serious riding.
I do like Shumer, however.
Mead itself in the other direction, stopping for a nice swim. No, I'm not part of the travel bureau. Just a guy to loves to bicycle.
www.unshackleupstate.com
I will go somewhere where the air is fresh and the roads are quiet.
Now, how about getting Congress to fix this ruined economy, ending the wars and getting Health care for everyone?
You have more important work to do, I am afraid.
But the total cost comes when you go outside of your hotel and try to find something to eat, drink or entertainment. It is too much for the average Joe.
If you are rich, then it doesn't matter.
No "failing that, we'll take the public option." No "withering away" of the healthcos.
If you don't change course and give unconditional support to single payer, we will pour energy and money into unseating you in the next primary. You will face the wrath of an aroused electorate determined to replace you for serving the interests of donors rather than voters.
Single payer Medicare For All is efficient, just, and economical. It can cover everyone for less than we pay now for our failed system, trillions less than what we would pay under the combination of mandates and tax-payer paid subsidies you advocate.
How can a much more efficient system, favored by majorities of voters and physicians, be "politically impossible" unless the politicians who make it so are corrupt, bought off by their donor paymasters? Or scared off by their clout - as Joe Biden has publicly admitted?
Enough of this nonsense. Get behind single payer or expect to be turned out of office.
Single payer -- Everybody in. Nobody out. Put private insurance where it belongs -- only for those who absolutely want it.
Thank you senator, but i can't risk biking.... I'll leave that to you, and your fellow senators, to have some fun, on my dime and the sweat of fellow taxpayers... cheers...
Schumer and the rest of these greedy thugs in Congress are so disconnected to the rest of us it is UNBELIEVABLE.
Living the good life off the rest of us!
Oh, I forgot, Rush has already decreed that exercise nuts boost health care costs due to all their injuries.
Congress may be full of "greedy thugs", but that doesn't make you any less self-centered and self-important, huh?
Our group site is here: http://groups.google.com/group/TAEastSideCommittee
and a separately sponsored petition to Close the Greenway Gap, which automatically emails to the Electeds is here: http://globalwarming.change.org/actions/view/close_the_gap_2.
I hope the Senator will put his (possibly stimulus) money where his mouth is and help bikers, as well as those who share the road with them - albeit reluctantly at times - and provide funding for more bike lanes and Greenways. Let's give Safety a whirl.
Don't hold your breath sucker
SHOOT THE FREAK-and we the people-pedestrians, fellow cyclists and motorists alike are the FREAK.Targets for these flying reckless narcissists.What good is a great city and improving bike facilites with appreciative considerate cyclists? Care to go for a ride? Lunch is on me. I am pro bike and a former bike shop owner.
CARR-Coalition Against Rogue Riding.
For the sake of bikers, pedestrians (who will benefit if bikers have their own highway by the river), the environment, midtown congestion (which will soon get worse with Bus Rapid Transit coming to First and Second Avenues, including a dedicated bus lane that will force bikers into the remaining congested lanes), and even drivers who have to share the road with bikers, we need to complete the Greenway NOW.
I did your city century tour a few years ago! What a great ride! NYC rules!
The Senator is correct, NYC is a glorious experience on a bicycle.
Hey bring Kirsten with you but tell her to leave the .22 at home ,the only varmints we have are in Schenectady!
As a Manhattan resident, I humbly remind you that the five boroughs of New York City are economic, cultural and intellectual factories and without us much of the rest of the State would be in MORE trouble; shall we REALLY have a conversation about what parts of the State GENERATES taxes and what parts of the State USE taxes?!? I think not.
While we LOVE the far-flung wilds of the BEAUTIFUL State of New York, the inability to remember that NYC often props-up much of the rest of the State is getting a little tired.
Kisses from Manhattan.
Name three New York counties west of the Hudson.
Recently a steel company wanted to start producing in Western New York but was unable to because it was competing for hydro-power output from Niagara Falls (which is in Western New York) that was instead diverted to places like Brookhaven National Laboratory in Long Island (which is downstate). So please explain, how does Western New York benefit from having its resources siphoned off by a city that I have only visited twice in my life?
And as far as downstate being replete with "economic, cultural and intellectual factories" I can only say that most of the downstater's that I've met have been boorish, ill-informed and arrogant people. I believe the French would call them "sans-gene."
Thank you for your hard work on behalf of New York. I am a fellow avid bicycle rider and see much of all of the boroughs by bike. It is a joy, fantastic exercise, and a nearly free way of getting about our beautiful, oft-congested city.
A favor, if for any reason you might be perusing our comments; PLEASE ask NYC to enforce our rules that preclude adults on bicycles from riding on sidewalks by STIFFLY fining restaurants and messenger services that make the beautiful sidewalks in our city so dangerous. A day does not pass without finding myself jumping out of the way of a bicycle conducting COMMERCIAL activities on a sidewalk. I have approached restaurant owners, managers and individual offenders only to be stared at blankly, as if I was suggesting something that had never occurred to them.
I have seen bikes fly by NYPD many times; the police are as blind to this as are the offenders and the supposedly unaware and unconcerned restaurant owners. It is currently a fine-able offense, to the tune, I believe of $125. Why is this not being enforced? Why are commercial entities allowed to terrorize our sidewalks?
It really is very simple: tires go in the street, feet go on the sidewalk.
Thanks!