To Manhattan By Bike.

The distance from Park Slope in Brooklyn to Midtown Manhattan is about 8 miles. Traveling by bike provides a constantly changing panorama and dangers.

There are less travelled streets in Brooklyn leading to the Manhattan or Brooklyn Bridges. Any bike rider can tell you that the newer Manhattan Bridge bikeway is much safer and leveler. My route took me past the new Barclay Center in downtown Brooklyn, now nearing completion. Soon thousands will converge to watch pro basketball games there. But to any lifelong Brooklynite, nothing will replace the nearby Ebbets Field. Today I chose the Brooklyn Bridge because I needed the bike path along the West Side Highway.

On the bridge were many hundreds, maybe thousands, of tourists walking across and taking pictures. The roadway is divided in half, split between crowded walkers and a few bikers. This seems outrageous to meon the few occasions I walked, but totally appropriate whenever I'm peddling. On the Manhattan side, you're back on the streets until you hit the bike path. At any time you could easily be doored, whether here or in Brooklyn, almost insuring immediate death from a passing vehicle and the end of this blog. A simple bike ride requires total alertness and vigilance, like a vulnerable creature in the wild. Sometimes there are white lines on the street showing a safe harbor for bikes, and usually you can expect to find double-parked vehicles adding to the dooring danger.

If you survive to the beautiful bike path next to the West Side Highway or the protected companion route up First Avenue on the East Side, you will feel like a salmon that has survived the upstream rapids back to your ancestral spawning grounds. At this point, you can finally relax and truly enjoy the pleasures of a New York City bike ride. I always breathe a sigh of relief, feel a little gratitude to the Mayor and Transportation Commish for championing the expansion of City bike routes, and thank God for my survival. You don't need to travel to the Himalaya Mountains to feel the thrill of putting your life on the line.

Miles of pleasant biking on level terrain lie ahead. Eventually these paths will link and it will be possible to go entirely around Manhattan Island. That day is approaching. Already my wife and I have gone up the West Side to the George Washington Bridge. Next time we'll go all the way to the Cloisters. I keep a catalog in my head of lots of places to stop along the way for food, sightseeing, and rest. The best part are places to eat, starting with Chinatown and hitting every ethnic neighborhood along the way. For me the best sights are ships in the harbor or new building construction all over Manhattan and Downtown Brooklyn.

The best part about going by bike, besides the exercise, fresh air, and ever-changing panoramas of people-watching, is the ease of parking. When we went by car, parking was next to impossible. However, there are parking sign poles everywhere, so parking is readily available everywhere. The most curious thing is that the total time it takes to go from Brooklyn to Midtown by bike, across a bridge, isn't much longer than the time it takes by subway. I have never figured out how this can be so.

The trip back home repeats all the thrills and chills of the outbound journey. Usually I pedal home, but occasionally if it is late at night, bad weather, or it's past rush hour and I'm lazy, the NYC Transit System is happy to transport me back to Brooklyn. Subway riders treat bikers and their bikes with total indifference provided the cars are not crowded.

I've been meaning to look up how many calories one burns per hour with this activity to gauge how this activity heps with my diet. Somehow I think all of the treats and snacks I manage to consume along the way from the ravenous appetite I generate results in a net weight gain rather than a loss. But I sure sleep well whenever I do this and, for those who crave adventure and are not afraid of dying, recommend you try this for yourself. Beginners should definitely consider launching with a Sunday morning ride, when the reduced traffic will make this trip much safer and pleasant.