Five Boro Bike Tour 2007

Sunday May 7th, *2006*. Robin had just turned forty-three years old. We'd just spent one night in an absurdly expensive New York City hotel in the Wall Street District of lower Manhattan. In the last couple of years we'd learned to do some pretty crazy things for fun. On this vacation weekend we'd spent the night in the city so that on Sunday morning we could arrive early at the start line of the New York City "Five Boro Bike tour". A forty-two mile bicycle ride originating in lower Manhattan and ending in Staten Island just after crossing the Verrazano-Narrows bridge.

For the 2005 Five Boro ride Robin and I had found less expensive accommodations in New Jersey, but it had meant that we had to wake up before 4:00am to catch a very early Staten Island ferry. In 2006 our one night of indulgence allowed us to rise and shine at 5:50am and yet still arrive at the start line by 6:20am. This tactic would put us near the front of the pack and when you're riding through Manhattan with 26,000 other bicyclists it's pretty handy to be near the front of the crowd!

Unbeknownst to Robin and I, the 2006 Five Boro ride would be our last "trouble free" bike tour. The weather was marvelous. We had not trained as much as planned, but we finished the forty-two miles without a problem. The ride had been our first milestone in preparing for a July 2006 bike tour from Niagara Falls to Saratoga Springs, New York (500 miles) in seven days. We would never get to do the Niagara Falls ride. Instead that would become the week of Robin's first exploratory surgery which would uncover the cancer.

Well, fast forward to 2007. Robin couldn't be with us this year - but my brother Corry, my friend Larry and I commemorated the event by riding to the Five Boro tour together. Since the ride finishes in Staten Island, Corry and I each parked our cars at the Staten Island finish line last Saturday afternoon. We brought our bikes onto the ferry and upon arrival in the city we biked to a hotel in Lower Manhattan.

(Corry and I Saturday afternoon)

(Statue of Liberty viewed from the ferry)

Saturday night we met our great friend Luis who took us to his favorite NYC restaurant! Over dinner I showed Luis a slightly worn picture of Robin which I'd brought in my wallet. I had intended to present it to him as a gift, but twenty-four hours in my wallet had irrevocably bent the edges. Noticing the wear and tear I made other plans for the photo.

Corry and enjoyed a quiet Saturday night at the hotel. In the morning we picked up our bikes from the valet parking and met Larry at 7:00am. For the first time in years I wasn't obsessed about getting to the start line early! It was actually quite relaxing to arrive just forty minutes before the start, rather than an hour and forty minutes. It turned out to be a beautiful day for a bike ride!

(Corry, Larry and I - 7am Sunday)

In lower Manhattan as we passed 14th street I looked eastward and could see the Beth Israel clinic where Robin had received her radiation treatments. By midtown (42nd street) I could see the neighborhoods Robin and had walked through for exercise last Fall. The reminders continued right through Central Park where Corry, Larry and I biked past the Children's Zoo.

After Central Park the memories began to change. Familiar sites beyond Central Park were all related to the bike rides of 2005 and 2006. Sites like the Astoria Park rest stop where in 2006 Robin and I stopped to shed some cold weather layers, but we had decided not to stay for long so as to stay ahead of the crowd. Then there was a McDonald's in the Bronx where we'd stopped in 2005 to use the restroom - along with fifty other cyclists. On that day in 2005 the "biker" women had proclaimed that the McDonald's bathrooms were to be unisex - essentially to shorten their wait!

And so last Saturday's ride essentially mirrored what's been going on in my head lately. As I once again grow roots in the familiarity of a daily routine my thoughts and memories of Robin have been changing too. My recollections these days are less about the cancer journey and more of the times before cancer. The fun times, the happy times.

On this year's ride as Corry, Larry and I approached the Verrazano Narrows bridge (and the end of the ride) I explained that we would plan on stopping at the high point of the bridge. I noted that there might be ride officials in that area warning bicyclists to "keep moving, don't stop" but that we would stop anyway.

As it turns out there was no one to badger us when Corry and I reached the top. As I held onto Robin's photo, Corry and I took a look around us at the places we'd been that day (Manhattan, Queens, Bronx, Brooklyn), the distance we'd covered in that morning's ride, and the riders trailing us way down by the river where we'd just been riding ourselves. Then, just about the time Larry caught up to us, I gave the photo one last kiss and let it go off the bridge.

(View of the Verrazano-Narrows bridge from Staten Island)