It’s been a while since I last updated. And truth be told, with the exception of a couple of longer rides, I’ve mostly been able to only ride locally. Fitness is definitely down from what it was.
With two weeks off on honeymoon I decided this would be an ideal opportunity to try and get some longer riding back in, as well as riding in locations I hadn’t been to before. With the destination of NYC for our honeymoon I began to research the best places to hire a road bike.
Sadly, the rental fleet for most places consisted of only hybrids and mtbs. Not really what I was after. I did however, find one place near Central Park that had a road bike in my size.
Truthfully, it isn’t the best bike I’d ever ridden, having been used as a rental for years and with a Tiagra group set. But, this was the best I was going to get and I really wanted to ride Central Park. So a Trek 1.5 with 9speed Tiagra, semi flat tires and pedals that gouged into your feet it was then.
Central Park is a much better park layout than centennial, that’s for sure. It snakes and undulates in a way that a flat piece of land shouldn’t. Ie, you never feel bored. It’s busy as though with lots of runners and roller bladers also using the bike lane. Cars can also travel at 25mph in two lanes next to you so it gets a little frantic dodging stray pedestrians walking into the middle of your lane, avoiding bike salmon and the horse carriages. Theres about 15 sets of traffic lights and multiple merges with park entrance / exit roads so you don’t have many chances to wind out the legs like you can in centennial.
It’s also frightfully windy for 30% of the loop with straight on head winds that almost push you backwards. There’s also a climb at the north west corner that is deceptively long and steeper than you think possible.
Also impossible to get a good, clean lap. With a heavy backpack on which acted as a wind sock and no cycling gear at all (Tigers, Rapha shorts, t shirt) I wasn’t in the ideal riding attire… Still, I took great pleasure in rounding up and dispatching every roadie I came across, much to the annoyance of one guy in full kit and aero tri bike. Hehehe.
I also braved Manhatten traffic and ventured outside the park. Quite possibly the most dangerous thing I’ve done to date on a bike. However, while I felt close to death I wasn’t abused once - everyone just drives past you without so much as a honk. A complete contrast to Sydney. Basically, you pedal flat out and be as aggressive as possible. I pedalled past some dude in a ute who yelled out “how the hell are you passing me, man?!?” I looked at him, laughed and pedalled on :)
We also spent a couple of nights in the Hamptons on the South Fork of Long Island which also proved to be an ideal opportunity for ridings. Truth be told, the Hamptons are frightfully boring but I pushed for an extra night’s accommodation so I could align our stay to the opening hours of a local bike store which offered rental road bikes. I’d emailed weeks earlier to reserve a rental which saw the owner very helpfully reserve a Trek 2.1 with 105 in my size, Look Keo pedals installed so I could use my own shoes, as well as custom stem length. Excellent, or so I thought.
I turned up to the shop to discover the owner who I’d been speaking with over email was on holidays and the Trek road bike he was referring to was a figment of his imagination with the only rental they had being a dodgy old Specialized Allez, 8 speed Sora, in a size too small, with creaky BB and rust everywhere after being stored under a tarp out the back for a couple of winters. It made the Trek from the previous week seem perfect in comparison. Officially the worst bike I have ever ridden. Not happy.
Still, it was all they had, so after getting them to still fit some Keo pedals and then negotiating on their rental rate I set off.
The Hamptons are dead flat and the hills suggested by some of the local cyclists I encountered offered no more than a slight rise. More rolling hills than climbing. It was a strange riding experience going through farmland one moment, hitting a national highway the next, then finding yourself out the front of $20 Mil mansions. There’s not that much traffic, but what traffic there is around is trying to kill you. Think arrogant snobs in Bentleys that don’t want to share the road with a peasant riding their bicycle, or rednecks in SUV land tanks trying to run over everything in their path.
While the route was flat, it was far from easy. In fact, it was diabolically hard with headwinds from all directions, strong enough to push you over. The South Fork of Long Island juts out into the Atlantic like a finger. Icey cold winds from Europe did their best to limit my progress. Still, I managed to make a Strava segment and KOM it :)
After 3hrs of riding my legs were destroyed. A too small a bike and the head winds had taken their toll resulting in cramps so bad I could barely turn over the pedals. Not the ideal cycling experience I had in mind, but enjoyable none-the-less.
Coming back to Sydney, the first thing I did once I’d unpacked was to take the BMC for a spin. My experiences with the two US bikes has really made me appreciate what I have. The difference in quality of experience between Sora / Tiagra and Ultergra (and even 105) is night and day. I never thought it would be as great a chasm, but it is. It also made me appreciate a good-fitting bike and cycling in Sydney. We don’t have it that bad at all.
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