2024 NYC 5 Boro Bike Tour
May 10th, 2024 by Mr. C
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It’s been a hot decade+ since I last rode the NYC 5 Boro bike tour but that changed last Sunday! The ride was exactly how I remembered it, same route, most of the same rest areas plus a few new ones and a few challenging spots in the ride! The scattered start times of the assigned 6 waves seemed to have eliminated a lot of the bottleneck in the tour especially in the beginning leading up to Central Park.
The ride was pretty smooth despite it being a little chilly, windy, and rainy especially during the 2nd half of our ride. It started raining pretty steady just before we hit the Queensboro bridge which was about 15 miles into the tour and lasted to the end all the way to the Staten Island Ferry. If you rode in waves 3-6, there was no way to avoid the rains. If you rode the first two waves, you may have stayed dry if you were a quick rider.
It’s always surreal to be riding on the slab highways in the city where only cars roam. It was nice riding with a large group on the FDR drive, Queensboro bridge, BQE, & Verrazanno Bridge. It was totally a bicyclist takeover! The areas that had some steady incline included the 59th street Bridge, several stretches on the BQE leading up to the Verrazanno, and the Verrazanno bridge itself! Boy it felt good blasting down the bridge at the end to the finish line!
A nice touch of this 5 Boro tour was the addition of handing out a commemorative medal at the finish line! Not sure when the Tour started giving out souvenir medallions at the end to the riders but they never had that prior to 2010. A little web searching brings up finishing medals first appearing in 2016. In total, the mileage of the tour was a little over 40 miles with the ride back to the Staten Island Ferry. There was a 30-45 minute wait to catch the ferry back to Manhattan which wasn’t bad compared to past years IMO.
One main reason why I stopped riding the 5 Boro Tour was because of the cost. Over the years, the registration fees started to creep close to triple digits and now in 2024 it’s basically $150. I won’t ride the NYC 5 boro bike tour consistently anymore but I do think it’s a great experience and a must do at least once. It’s just a great way to see NYC. That being said I’ll definitely make an appearance again on this ride especially when introducing & accompanying friends & family on the ride! This year I rode with my nephew on his first time on the tour and he loved the experience so much so he will get his daughter on the 5 Boro bike tour next year! I hope you enjoy some of the photos and video that I captured on the ride! Salute, I’m out!
Tags: 5 boro bike tour, bike ny, bikeny, biking nyc, new york city, nyc
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