'Round Manhattan: The 2007 MS Bike Tour

Thirty, sixty, or a whopping one-hundred mile routes. Thirty miles.

October 14th. About a month after returning from Europe.

Fifty dollar entry fee. Ouch. But it's charity.

Minimum $75 fundraising. Yikes. But it's charity.

Check in time: 6:30 a.m. Ugh, that means leave the house by 5:30, and find a garage that wil take my car with a bike on the back -- even though I'd be removing the bike and rack, this could present an obstacle.

I waffled for half of October, scanning the website now and then, reading the rules, and of the many rider perks. Amusingly, it was the promise of post-ride massages that tiped the balance. That, and a friend who observed that "sometimes the things that are really worth doing are hard to get to" when I mentioned the parkng dilemma.

And I needn't have fretted about the fund-raising aspect: friends and family rose to the occasion to the tune of almost $600 in response to my emailed entreaties.

The thirty-milers waiting for the start.

As it happened, I wasn't able to do any training for three weeks before the ride, the result of a bike malfunction followed by a sailing weekend. So the day before I set out on the Old Croton Aqueduct for a warm-up. It wasn't a great ride. The Aqueduct is a rough trail bisected by many streets with curbs, so you have to stop and start over and over again. I nearly fell avoiding a sink hole, a result of beng clipped to the pedals. At the end of my ride, walking the bike up the steep hill that I live on, I did fall down for the same reason. Fortunately on grass. Unfortunately, in view of many of my neighbors' windows (including people who'd given me donations for the ride the next day. Very smooth.)

I sleepily installed rack and bike on the car at 5:30 Sunday morning and headed for the city. On the west side in the 60s I looked for a friendly looking garage (well, I looked for a space on the street for about thirty seconds. But those are rare in Manhattan.). I spotted one around a corner, making it less obvious to the thousands of other bikers. The security gate was down. I sat there outside for a minute smiling up at the security camera. A side door opened and an attendant leanded out. I lowered the window and said "I'm taking the bike off."

He studied the car for another minute, then opened the gate. Under his watchful eye I removed the bike and rack, stowing the latter in the back seat. A few minutes later I was gliding down 11th Aveue in the company of other riders with numbers on their bikes, helmets, and chests just like me. We were all looking for the starting area in the pre-dawn chill.

Soon enough I was amid a crowd of other thirty-milers in our starting area, a block back from the real start where the sixty- and one-hudred milers were massing. But nobody showed any signs of inferiority. On the contrary, as I got a bagel from the free breakfast a volunteer asked how far I was riding.

"Only thirty miles."

"ONLY thirty!"

Yeah, it was cool to be cool.

After a few speeches, warm up stretches, and the national anthem delivered over a massive PA system, we were off. Sort of. Picture the start of the New York City Marathon – you've seen it on TV. Okay, this was nothing like that. We were about 5000 cyclists, not 50,000 runners. But the same principle applies. After a minute we were started moving sowly. After five we were able to pedal, not push with our feet. Twenty blocks later the peleton had spread out enough that we could reach our desired speeds. I started passing people, no speed demon, but comfortable at about 14 mph when I'm fresh.

They described the thirty-mile ride as "flat." Fortunately I knew that "flat" doesn't mean "flat," it means a few gentle hills. Like the one coming out of the tunnel and up onto the elevated FDR. I geared down and down and down until I was pedaling fast and making slow progress, but progress nonetheless. Most importantly I did not stop. I rode up every single hill on the entire ride.

On up the east side we went, cyclists from the rear overtaking me, me overtaking slower riders who started in front. Just before the U.N. I saw, or rather heard, an accident between three bikes – members of a team who'd just passed me slip streaming one another in a long line.

At mile 12, an hour out, I stopped to remove a layer and sip some water. Soon we were directed off the highway and onto the streets of Harlem. North and north we went, under the elevated subway. And then a traffic marshal was directing us to the rest stop. Mile twenty? All ready? The woman riding beside me breathed "Oh thank you Jesus." I saw that there was one more hill to get there and wasn't so sure about her relief. But I rode up it.

I bypassed the porta potties but got water, a banana, and some radio station hand-outs. After a brief photo op I followed the continuous stream of riders makng their way through the rest area and back onto the route. Only ten miles to go.

Up onto the West Side Highway we went, the road I'd driven in the dark four hours earlier. As I passed under the George Washington Bridge a man caught my eye miming taking a picture. I pulled over and photographed him and his friends, and then he took my picture in exchange.

The final six miles were alternately easy and tough. The small hills seemed stepper, and I couldn't maintain my previous average speed on the flats. But in no time I heard a man on a megaphone directing us thirty-milers to the finish line at pier 94.

The MS Ride "Great Lawn" in Pier 94: relax, stretch, and eat.

I know the charity is supposed to be the point, and the ride raised a million and a half dollars, including my – our – contribution. But its importance for me was as a milestone in my newfound fitness regime. I can ride a bike for thirty miles in under three hours. I rock.