The Big Apple

I had two options for Spring Break this year. Option #1 was to tag along with Brandon on his adventure to Georgia or save some dough, stay home and get a bit of rest. Not being one to to turn down a good nap, I packed up the leg warmers and booties instead of shorts and tanning oil and drove back home for the week. All was not lost though. Much good riding was to be had. Thursday was the first ride in shorts of the year. Turned out 102 miles around Berks and Bucks Counties.

Yesterday was another good ride. Matt and I took a tour of NYC on mountain bikes. Having never really been exposed to city street life, I was looking forward to it. We left early to miss traffic and were parked by 8am, on the bikes at 9. With no real plan of attack for the day, we zig zagged all over the city hitting all the major sites at one point or another. Statue of Liberty, WTC, Times Square, Yankee Stadium, Wall Street, and my personal favorite: downtown Harlem and the Bronx. I like weaving in and out of traffic too. Its crazy, but somehow, you never feel in danger. Red lights quickly became merely yield signs and the buses priceless drafting partners. The game of the day became apparent as soon as he entered the city. Within 5 minutes we passed 3 Starbucks. I got pictures in front everyone that we saw, and we weren't even looking that hard, nor did we get a chance to hit the first three that we saw. My guess: there's over 50 of the dang stores in the city. Every last one of them full too. Who is drinking that much coffee? The one thing that we planned on checking out that day turned out to be a letdown. The Highland Park Mountain Bike trails that had a race last spring, the one that Harlan smashed up. They weren't quite what we expected. They seem like they would make a pretty good circuit race, but keep in mind, they're mountain bike trails in the middle of Harlem...

The sun rises on our new home for the day

The classic picture that they put in math books and stuff Central Park shenanigans
If you have the newest issue of VeloNews handy, flip to page 81 and check out Kyle's appearance. You can see me too, but you better have your glasses handy as well. I'm about 4 pixels big in bright orange just behind Jurekovik's head.

The rest of the week will still be low key, just a good amount of riding and sleeping. Thursday I'm going to take a recovery day and head up to Pocono's with Jake. It'll be a chance to get the kayaks out on the water and shoot some guns. Funness.