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Tuesday, November 4, 2025

Whither Visitors? – Bike Snob NYC


Additional to yesterday’s submit, quite a few you commented that I may have used the Campagnolo derailleur by operating a brief size of cable after which fine-tuning it with the barrel adjuster:

So thanks for the recommendation, however WHERE THE HELL WERE YOU ALL WHEN I NEEDED YOU?

Shifting on, whereas I’ve typically been commuting by prepare lately, yesterday’s climate compelled me to experience the A. Homer Hilsen Categorical as a substitute:

There have been some adjustments since I final commuted frequently by bike. For instance, the bike path on the Henry Hudson Bridge has been upgraded, which improves the primary leg of the experience by roughly a thousand %:

Mainly, this permits me to chop out virtually all of the chaotic Bronx and Higher Manhattan avenue using and takes me proper from my neighborhood to the Henry Hudson Greenway.

Sadly, one other change is that the Henry Hudson Greenway is closed from W. one hundred and twenty fifth Avenue right down to W. one hundredth Avenue:

This required me to climb all the best way as much as Grant’s Tomb:

Grant’s Tomb is known as a result of somebody’s buried there, although I can by no means bear in mind who. Additionally, in case you’re a New York Metropolis bicycle owner, it’s equally if no more well-known for being the venue for the Grant’s Tomb Criterium. Right here’s the Milwaukee at Grant’s Tomb when my son raced it there a couple of years again:

I used to be aggravated that the detour was forcing me go away the greenway and do battle with site visitors, however after I obtained to Riverside Drive I used to be shocked to find there was no site visitors:

So have been the smuggies proper in spite of everything? Is that this congestion pricing at work? May or not it’s that between all of the outsiders who don’t wish to pay the toll and the locals who received’t go away their parking areas except you place a gun to their heads, no one’s driving and one thing resembling order has been imparted upon the streets of Manhattan?

I dunno, however Decrease Manhattan was additionally noticeably calmer than it was the final time I commuted to Brooklyn by bike:

That bike lane was all the time blocked by site visitors, and now there was no site visitors.

Eerie.

I imply it’s not like there weren’t any automobiles, however a better proportion of them have been hanging off of hooks:

See?

And sure, I appeared up the plate:

Holy crap! 23 tickets in 2025 alone and we’re not even midway by means of March?!? That’s one ticket each three days:

Nicely accomplished.

Returning house that night I had a head begin on dusk because of the time change:

However by the point I reached the greenway the solar was retreating behind New Jersey:

And as I drew nearer to house darkness fell and it was simply me and the eerie phosphorescent glow of the odd e-bike:

As for me, I used to be outfitted each to see:

And to be seen:

For I do know that within the span of about an hour using the size of Manhattan at dusk takes you from this…

…to this:

The Henry Hudson Bridge bike path entrance on the Manhattan aspect is so distant that it feels virtually illicit, and after carrying the Homer throughout the footbridge over the railroad tracks and climbing that steep, darkish path by means of the woods I used to be horrified to seek out that the trail was closed:

Till I remembered that was the doorway to the previous path and that the brand new one was open for enterprise:

In all it was an satisfying commute, however at a t20-to-40-ish minute premium over the prepare every approach it’s not one I can all the time afford.

(And no, I’m not getting an e-bike.)

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