I’m typing this post with one finger, the pinky, as my entire body is one big cramp. Ok, not really but that was the most dramatic opening I could come up with. What’s the real story? Other than some general fatigue, a mild sunburn on my face, and the tingling in my left hand, I completed the NYC Century otherwise unscathed. That’s not to say it wasn’t challenging because it most certainly was, 55 miles is a long way on a bike.

Oddly enough the first leg was the most difficult to me. The course started at the top of Central Park and went down through Manhattan, mostly on Broadway, to the Brooklyn Bridge. That was generally fine and it was awesome riding through Times Square on a bike. The stinky part was that several blocks of Broadway were in the process of being resurfaced so the road was all torn up and rough. Not too much fun to ride on to say the least, it was like a washboard. I think I lost a filling. On the whole though, riding through Manhattan with very little traffic was a treat.

After crossing the Brooklyn Bridge, the first leg continued through Dumbo and Fort Greene eventually arriving at Prospect Park. This was the second stinky bit, by this point I was getting a little pooped out and I knew the first rest stop was at the park. What I didn’t expect was that we’d have to go around almost the whole park before we got to it. That’s a couple extra miles that I hadn’t anticipated and my low blood sugar wasn’t helping, I was getting cranky. However, I finally made it to the elusive rest stop and refueled with a very warm banana(don’t ask me) and several orange wedges provided by the sponsors.

That first rest stop made a huge difference physiologically and upon leaving it, I began my favorite section of the tour. I have no idea what neighborhoods we went through after exiting the park but we eventually made our way down to the Brooklyn shore. It was there that we entered the Shore Parkway bike path.

To be continued…

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