July 21: Week 2+3 wrapup
Last time I airily ended with "the pace picks up a bit, then there's two weeks in New York", and I can confirm that the pace has picked up a bit and I am in New York. The last week before leaving had a few more workouts but this New York holiday feels a lot like a training camp. With the exception of one day I've been at the gym by 7 each morning, and it's been a struggle: the gym is a Hotel gym which means it has a photogenic collection of weights, plus some exercise bikes. The problem is that there's no fans, just the same air conditioning like every room, so workouts get really, really hot. So hot I've Googled the symptoms of heat exhaustion - I have a little experience with it after a midsummer Dam-To-Damloop race, when it got so hot that they partly cancelled the race after it had already started. I only found that out later; I was a few miles down the course by then. I finished the race but I'd had some symptoms and found that I should have stopped and cool down. So I'm trying to not to repeat that experience...
It's not pretty. By the end of each workout I'm completely drenched in sweat. It's not natural, I didn't get this hot when I was cycling up hills in an actual Spanish heatwave.
Anyway. The one exception I mentioned was Sunday, when I rented a bike and did a 60km loop around Manhattan for a bit of light relief. I took a backpack with water, banana, sandwich, contact info, and all the rest - except I forgot sunscreen.
New York's bike paths are also unexpectedly good! I was expecting almost nothing, but many roads have a cycle lane, and there's some very long dedicated cycle paths around the waterfront. I planned the route using bikepaths as much as possible, because I've been around NY traffic for the last week and I've seen moshpits with more honour and empathy.
From left to right: Trump Tower; the whole street was blocked to traffic. The cyclist’s view; this was unusually heavy traffic. The waterfront was quite nice, some of the time.
Also, "unexpectedly good" was measured against my expectations, which were rock-bottom. The US is so car-dominated so I was half expecting car activists to respray bikepaths into parking lots, or set beartraps along the way. But the biggest problems were that they were often blocked off by construction: once there was even a sign saying "use the road". Actually, the car lobby can count that as an unambiguous win and may even try to claim responsibility.
From left to right: “Use the road” is not the guidance I’m looking for. Nice and straightforward! Until it’s not.
Most of the route was pretty shabby. I heard that the mafia run New York's rubbish collection: I don't know if that's true, but it'd explain why there's so much rubbish around. America also has a reputation for "crumbling infrastructure" and with the exception of the section through the financial district (which smells of money) the path was often rough, in need of repair or just plain crumbly.
From left to right: I think the towers mean this bridge section can be raised. Not sure what this is but it looks great. More odd corners. And more. Beside the river heading back into Manhattan, the weather is noticeably greyer. Concentric arches supporting an overhead railway.
The whole trip took about five hours, and it was good!
I just hope forgetting the sunscreen doesn’t lead to any painful regrets...
