Sunday in New York

With the time zone change and the daylight savings change, my body is a little confused on issues of time. I got in late-ish and went to bed at 1am when all was said and done. But it wasn't the "spring forward" 1, it was the regular 1. Breakfast came to the room at "the new 8", and I was out like a light. I ate and went back to bed, slept in till 11. I don't know if I was really needeing sleep or what, but it felt great.

After that it was 2 more phone interviews, and a little discovery channel while I got ready to ride.

I didn't bother with a map, I can find my way around well enough by now. It was windy but nice, and I started with a trip on either Madison Avenue or Avenue of the Americas up to Central Park. I love riding in New York, you can feel in minutes that this place is busy, courteous, always on the go, full of history and culture, and that the world is a better place with New York doing it's thing. Faces in Calgary are pretty homogenous. Here there's people from 20 different countries on every street corner. It seemed very New York-ish that only 4 blocks from my hotel I came to a stop light where on my left was a Rolls Royce and on my right was one of those pedal trike things with a guy selling flowers, ice cream and pretzels. The remainder of the vehicles were of course yellow cabs and delivery vans.

Did the loop around Central Park and saw the populace out enjoying the day, so many people seem to get along so well doing so many activities. There's bike lanes, walking lanes and rollerblading lanes. But nobody uses them! Everyone just does their own thing and they look out for people. Most of the signs say "please yield" and "be courteous" and so forth. Sure beats directive rules like being pulled over at home by the RCMP for riding two abrest. I cut west toward the Hudson. I was off a little on the streets to get myself efficiently to the path along the river, but I wasn't really aiming for the fastest route.

From there I was pushed by a tailwind up toward the George Washington bridge. That was the first 500W+ climb of the day, it's steep.

Crossed the bridge and started riding north towards Nyack. Depending on who you're talking to, it's sometimes confusing if they're saying Nyack or New York. Accents can run thick here.

The road was beautiful, temps were nice. Only issue on the road was twigs and bark in the bike lane - pretty foreign at home, but considering the road is half canopied by trees, it goes with the territory.

I wasn't keen to stare at my Powertap, but I pushed hard on every hill.

All in it was a great cycling day, and I don't think I'm alone in that opinion. It was cold and rainy yesterday, so there were lots of riders out. What's lots? My best honest guess is that I saw a thousand riders. I was leaving town at the time a lot were returning, and there's 12mm people in NY. A thousand would be 50 groups of 20. I'm sure I saw at least 25 groups of 20, a handful of larger groups, and then 1's and 2's and 3's and 10's galore. Wow.

I did make it to Nyack, which is small and quaint. I'm not sure what really goes on there, but they seem to make hay on the weekends selling antiques to ladies with long fingernails in BMWs/Rovers/Volvos/Benzs/Audis/Saabs/Lexus'/etc. There's a log ot big mansions along the parkway to get there, and it seemed fitting that one of the first modern glass buildings in town was a plastic surgery clinic.

Some of the best intervals of the day were during the last 10 minutes of riding. I exited the paths at 52nd street and started cutting east across town. At the first light an elderly Chinese guy on a 50cc scooter pulled up next to me. We drag raced to the next light, no match for me! Problem was, scooters don't fatigue. We did the same thing for 12 more blocks until park avenue, at each light he'd pull up and say "very good, very good" in thickly accented English (the r's weren't working well). The hardest was the 3 block stretches without lights where he could slowly keep winding the little engine up. We'd be the first off the line at any light (little vehicles just go around the sides to be the first at lights), and pedestrians finishing crossing on the other side would watch and point to their friends, too funny.

My stomach was empty before this started, but my mind was off it enough that by the time I got back I was nearly bonking.

After showering I walked 3 blocks to find a restaurant. I passed 11 I think. Some mom and pop looking Italian place tugged at me, but I resisted walking into the first opportunity. I was even closer to an "American-Japanese Beef Art House", but out of the corner of my eye I spotted... Mexican. The guacamole came to the table with 4 flavours and crushed chilis to spice it. The 3 ceviche appetizer might have well been the first three stairs to heaven. I had giant shrimp encrusted with chipotle sauce and flakes. Chipotle and I tend to get along well together.

All in I did 4 hours of riding. Looks like a lot of calories burned. I spent about 15 minutes above 400W in a dozen pieces, which is the ass backwards math trying to capture "going hard on hills" - the whole interval thing. Rest of it I tried to do sections of 300W and also tried not to drop below about 240W unless I was coasting or such.

The MacBook Air is proving to be a great travel companion.