New York inspires trying a Top 10 list

New York is awesome for biking, which may not be apparent since a massive city usually pictured as jammed full of yellow taxi's and skyscrapers. I'm no Letterman, but here's a try at my top 10 list format for today:

10. Tori will ride with me tomorrow, so I knew I had to scout some good stuff - having a mission makes it fun (she's waging war on the cold today, plus shopping).
9. Since last time I was here, the already good bike path and road laneway system has been markedly improved.
8. The bike paths have signs "respect others" and in a few congested spots, simply "slow". Common sense. None of this path Nazi Calgary "let's over enforce this".
7. Sightseeing: a million pocket dogs in little sweaters, miles of beautiful old houses that are "This Old House" episode material, and yes, hedge fund/banker land. I'm not a super real estate gawker, but when the real estate agent sign in the front drive is Sotheby's, they're usually pretty impressive. I just wouldn't want to shovel the driveway on this one, I think it had 3 switchbacks.

6. Basketball under the bridge, better basketball than I've really seen elsewhere. Baseball in the park. Footballs being tossed. Tennis being played. Inline skating. Rollerskating with style. Runners everywhere, fast ones too. Kite flyers. Dog walkers. Photographers. Skateboarders. Tia chi by the river. The "convention" of people who had massively pimped out Smart cars all huddled together. Soccer players. Hackey sackers. The 5 piece jazz band at a bike path corner in the sun groovin' away. The guy selling bike jerseys on the bridge offramp, just cause. Guys beatboxing at another corner. A guy rapping while sitting on a bench, wearing an oversized olive drab utility looking coat while petting a puppy that was in his chest pocket. BMX flatlanders near the raquetballers on an outdoors court complex. People drinking coffee while sitting on park benches and discussing the world on levels that sounded fairly in depth for what you can grasp riding by on a bike, New Yorkers seem to think beyond the bounds of the city a lot (I'll admit that many of this description seemed to be women with fashionable glasses, coats, tight jeans and knee high boots, not that I have an eye for that kind of thing...). The summary of this is that I think I saw every color of person imaginable outside doing so many random activities, much of it in English but also in more languages that I can identify, on a sunny afternoon without bother.

5. Bike style - anything goes, everyone rides bikes. Not just racers in lycra, but fixie riding hipster girls on fixies near the Fashion Institute of Technology to dudes in sneakers, track suits and aviator glasses just cruisin', people in jeans and toe clip bikes given'er, kids, etc. People ride bikes here, not just enthusiasts.
4. Rockefeller center, Times square, Avenue of the Americas, and so much more... awesome. No traffic issues at all, and for the city crossing I did, it flowed well (see below).
3. Thousands of other cyclists. I can count groups of 5's and 15's. I can count many many groups like that, which gets you to the hundreds. When it's 5 hours straight, it adds up.
2. Pulling into the hotel, and the bellman in the black coat that just blew his whistle and aggressively hailed a taxi (aggressive to my perception, probably normal here) looks at me, smiles, and says "man I bet it was just a beautiful day for a bike ride out there" in some sort of deep smiley accent I can only speculate as "Africa somewhere" instead of winding up to say something about not bringing my bike in.
1. 5 hour ride: 8 stoplights. Only one in Jersey, 7 in Manhattan. Kid you not. No rest stops, just uninterrupted pedaling the whole time in the sun. Perfect!