Escape From New York
Climbing off the George Washington bridge we descended a drive into a state park, Palisades Interstate Park on the banks of the Hudson River. Cycle tracks, paths I mean, not tyre tracks. The sign said helmets were mandatory, we didn’t have any so put our cotton caps on. It was such a relief to be able to relax after six and half hours, 50 miles of urban riding, fully laden and the start of our 3000 mile ride across America.
My research had shown that one of the hardest aspects of overseas bike touring when arriving by plane is travelling to and from the airport. We were not looking forward to riding out of John F. Kennedy airport and through New York City. Other people had done it so I knew we could if we really had to.
The flight was fine, customs and immigration were trouble free much to my surprise. I think the customs hall supervisor wanted to get us and our large bike boxes out of the way as soon as possible . He approached us as we walked towards the exist channels. "What do you have there ?"
"Bicycles" I replied
"Where are you going ?"
"We are going to ride across the country to California" I explained coolly, not even considering that this may sound absurd to folk in New York.
"Are you in part of a large group ?" the officer asked,
"No just the two of us" I said.
He then took our forms, signed them and ushered us past his colleagues to the exit.
So far so good, now we had to unpack and assemble our bikes ready for action. Since my box was large, my bike took hardly any effort to make it road worthy. Paul's took longer and he had trouble getting his rear rack fitted properly. We rolled outside and, as we were getting our bearings an airport Cop approached us, I thought we were going to get arrested for a breach of some crazy law concerning airports and bicycles ! He was interested in our bikes especially Paul's Eddy Merckx. We took the opportunity to ask him where we may spend the night. "Stay away from the city after dark" he said and pointed out a State Park on Long Island where we should be able to find a place to make camp for the night. I cheekily asked him if he could give us a ride out of the airport - he couldn't ! . Paul's rack fell off again, he got pretty frustrated with it, I calmly took charge of the spanner and fixed it for him.
We managed to get out of the airport and found ourselves on the Van Wyke Expressway, an eight lane highway, I don't know if bikes are allowed there or not ! After seven miles, severe 'speed' wobble, intense heat and Paul's panniers falling off we stopped at Burger King for a drink. We decided then to abandon camping and stop at the first motel we saw which happened to be right next door. That evening we repaired Paul's rack and he discarded some excess luggage. The motel staff couldn't really help when we asked the best route to New Jersey by bike. First they thought we meant motor cycles, when they learnt we were on bicycles the said "Don't bother . How about stealing a car and ditching it once in New Jersey ?" They even offered to steal one for us ! In the end they gave us their map and wished us luck. We planned a route with alternatives, in case bicycles were not permitted on some of the bridges, our routes avoided The Bronx and Harlem. Departure time was set for 5:30 am to avoid the traffic and the bad guys.
Off we went along Rockaway Boulevard towards Rockaway Beach, it’s not far, not hard to reach, we could hitch a ride to Rockaway Beach, but at this time of the day there was no traffic. Past the famous fun park with it’s wooden ‘coasters, we were heading to the end of the peninsula, I really hoped that the bridge to Brooklyn would take bicycles, at this time of the morning I was prepared to ride anyway and take the chance. I didn’t tell Paul that we may have to go all the way back to the motel if there was no way forward. We were OK we pedalled across the bridge to Brooklyn and headed directly towards the Verrazano Narrows Bridge to see if it had a bike track. All we really saw on the streets were early morning delivery men, it wasn’t too bad a ride at all. The start of our transcontinental journey would have been different had we crossed over to Staten Island, we’d still have had to have to get off that island to New Jersey, the question of bikes and bridges would rear it’s head again and our ride to Niagara Falls would have taken a different route. We arrived under the Verrazano with it’s access road high above us, it is huge, no steps up to it. Bicycles are prohibited on this bridge as far as we could tell, it is after all an Interstate Highway, so we pedalled around the western side of Brooklyn towards the Brooklyn Bridge. I didn't relish cycling over this bridge with it's rush hour traffic. As it turned out we came across a commuter jetfoil which could take us from Brooklyn to the Battery, Manhattan. With the assistance of the ticket collector we tied our bikes to the handrails and took a seat indoors, it was nice to have a rest. It gave us a splendid view of The Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. The yellow Staten Island ferries, this was great, New York, New York.
One of the crew gave us details of another ferryboat which could take us to New Jersey thus avoiding cycling through Manhattan at all. Riding from one ferry berth to the next gave us our first real taste of New York and America, yellow taxi cabs, and police cars tearing around, exactly as it is portrayed on TV, I could hardly believe I was there. The Weehawken ferry arrived after a twenty minute wait but they wouldn't carry our bicycles. We'd have to ride to the George Washington Bridge which we were pretty sure had a cycle track. Why were we sure I don’t know and I don’t know what we would have done had we not been able to cross it by bike.
The ride up the West Side required intense concentration. It was a hot day, heavy traffic, unfamiliar roads and lots of opportunities to take a wrong turn. We commenced this journey at about 09:30am, the city was awake, this is the city that doesn’t sleep so I shouldn’t have been surprised. “Gee, you guys are serious” shouted a courier as he nearly rode into us. I think he was impressed with our touring loads. Route checking was tricky, lots of roads, lots of signs, a small scale map. We stopped to get our bearings, I looked around to see where we were. “World Trade Centre” said the brass plaque. I looked skyward, twin towers, yup. We found a road that headed uptown, 10th Avenue, Amsterdam Avenue all the way to the bridge. It was a quiet road from what I remember but we dare not stop for anything. We’d heard all sorts of horror stories about New York, Cagney and Lacey always seemed pretty busy so there must be plenty of bad guys here. I’d heard stories about bike hi-jacks when stopped at lights, in no way were we going to leave our bikes outside a café. We pedalled on passing busy roads leading to the Holland and Lincoln Tunnels, I wished we could have used them, though I could imagine how unpleasant they would be by bike. For some reason I though New Jersey would be easier; for us it was, since we arrived on the edge of the conurbation but had we arrived at Hoboken or Weehawken as we’d intended we’d still have had miles of urban or industrial roads to travel. We had to carry our bikes up some steps to the bike track on the George Washington Bridge and it was some relief to have left New York behind. I regret not having spent more time there, we should have planned to stay in the city for a few days before heading out.
