NYC Quilt: Tour de Brooklyn

More memories from The NYC Quilt.... 

This quilt block was created by a friend who rode the Tour de Brooklyn (roughly 20 miles) with me on June 5, 2005. I did a search for the 2005 Tour de Brooklyn and found this blog written by a participant that same year -- the first year of the ride! The author has some good shots of the ride in progress. (For anyone interested, this year's tour is on Saturday, June 1.)

 The block's creator is an accomplished graphic designer -- but rest assured that he did not ride a penny-farthing. The ride itself was tiring but fun, and in addition to riding down Ocean Parkway, which was closed to traffic, I remember having to dismount to carry my bike up and down stairs at each end of a pedestrian bridge. I also have a vivid memory of being at a stopping point and hearing the click-click-click of multiple riders clipping their bicycling shoes into the pedals.


Later that year, in August, I went on a solo bike ride from my apartment in Williamsburg to Roosevelt Island, a skinny island between Queens and Manhattan. A paved path rings the island, so I decided to check it out. The quiet island has a modern hospital at one end and the remains of an abandoned smallpox hospital at the other. It was hot out, and I hadn't slept well the night before (post-breakup blues). Apparently, I shouldn't have attempted the 12-mile bike ride when I did. Just a mile or two from home, as I rode down a residential street, I crashed my bike. To be more specific, I crashed my bike into a parked, unmanned red car. There were no moving vehicles on the two-lane street. I must have zoned out because I remembered riding and then seeing a side mirror in my way.

Bang!


Even more humiliating was the fact that a man in a van had turned onto the street just as I crashed. As I stood up, adjusted my helmet, and grabbed a sip from my water bottle, he drove by me, asked if I was okay and implied that I should stop drinking vodka while riding. Fortunately, I was only bruised up and not bleeding, so I made it home in one piece.