What Bike New York’s Not Telling Us About the New, Improved Five Boro Bike Tour

It was the last day of lottery registration for the 2012 Five Boro Bike Tour—the annual event in which thousands of cyclists enjoy the thrill of cruising, albeit slowly, along carless roads, including the East River Drive and the Verrazano Narrows Bridge—and Bike New York, which runs the tour, had emailed me once again to remind me of the fact.

They sure wanted my $6—a nonrefundable fee just to be in the lottery—but they weren't going to get it.

Bike New York billed their new lottery, which would-be riders could enter from January 17 through February 7, as a “more fair and equitable chance of participating” than was the first-come-first-served system of the past that last year shut out anyone who didn’t bother to enter on the day registration opened. They even claimed to have instituted it because of “popular demand.”

But the brilliant thing about the lottery is that there’s no limit on the number of would-be riders from whom Bike New York can collect those $6 fees.

The tour is capped at 32,000 riders. Since that figure includes riders for charity who are required to raise a minimum of $750 and VIPs who pay $300, presumably the lottery slots will be limited to somewhat fewer, say, 30,000. If the lottery attracted 60,000 entries, that’s an extra $180,000 for Bike New York—not exactly chump change, though lottery losers may feel like chumps when they get their rejection emails a few weeks later.

In media coverage, Bike New York has disingenuously presented the lottery as a positive incentive to attract bicycling tourists. “The new lottery system will be promoted locally, nationally and abroad,” wrote Lisa Fickenscher in Crain’s New York last November.

But the truth is—and Bike New York hasn’t said a public word about this—out-of-towners did’t need the lottery, as long as they joined the right tour or meet-up group.

Velo Quebec Voyages is offering up to 200 cyclists who sign up before March 9 packages starting at $585 that include participation in the tour.

Last December 23, tripsite.com announced as Breaking News! “We have scored tickets for the 5 Boro Bike Tour in NYC and have reserved some rooms!”

In January I learned from a friend about a group in Virginia that had been promised guaranteed registration if the leader could pay Bike New York registration money for at least 20 riders by Friday, January 13. Twenty-eight of them signed up.

Last weekend, when friends from Boston said they had gotten in, I found myself wondering how.

The Five Boro Bike Tour has come a long way from its origins in 1977 as a day trip for 250 riders, sponsored by American Youth Hostels, to give high school students practice in bike safety. And its fees have come a long way as well, nearly doubling from $42 to $80.88 (including a required service charge) between 2007 and 2011—and now adding a fee imposed on local lottery losers as well as winners.

It seems that Bike New York has a new vision for the tour, not as a grassroots event, filled mainly with New York cyclists, but as a destination for affluent tourists—folks who can afford $550 for a two-night minimum at the Marriott New York Downtown, the only lodging recommendation listed on the organization’s website.

In his history of the tour on the Bike New York website, Steve Bauman concludes “the Tour has become a much-beloved springtime tradition for its participants—yet it still retains the simplicity and friendliness of the first ride.”

It’s just that the registration process is a little complicated and unfriendly—especially to locals.

Disturbing words

From The Immortalization Commission (p. 235) by John Gray:

The end-result of scientific inquiry is to return humankind to its own intractable existence. Instead of enabling humans to improve their lot, science degrades the natural environment in which humans must live. Instead of enabling death to be overcome, it produces ever more powerful technologies of mass destruction. None of this is the fault of science; what it shows is that science is not sorcery. The growth of knowledge enlarges what humans can do. It cannot reprieve them from being what they are.

Jerusalem, Fare Well

My rush seat for the last performance of Jez Butterworth's amazing play was at the stage left end of the very first row, close enough to get sprinkled (or baptized) from the big tub up front--and almost too close for comfort as bodies hurled through the air in the opening scene.

In the beginning, gales of laughter seemed to greet practically every line of dialogue, but eventually the audience calmed down. I'm guessing I wasn't the only one in tears at the end.

At the curtain call, after an eloquent appreciation of all the folks who brought us Jerusalem, from the producers to the Americans in the cast to the backstage workers and the unions who represent them, Mark Rylance left us with this benediction: "For the days when you want to stay and you have to go, or you have to stay and you want to go, I hope the play will make you feel less alone."

Mystery green

What is it?
I still don't know.
The folks I bought it from at the greenmarket last month didn't know--though if I remember right, they compared the flavor to spinach--and it isn't to be found in any of my cookbooks.



It resembles puntarelle, but the stalks are thinner and the flavor much more delicate.





I sauteed the greens with olive oil and garlic, added a little cheese, and filled an omelet with them. They were a little chewy but delicious.

Eating Sunshine (or something else to do with basil)

After weathering the winter on my windowsill in fine fashion, growing from little more than a sprig in a miniature plastic pot to a leafy bush, which has twice produced enough pesto for a pound of pasta, my basil plant is on its last, spindly legs.

I don't get it--shouldn't it be thriving, now that it's summer and the west-facing picture window in which it sits is filled with light much of the afternoon?

Jim suggests that the plant may have gotten more out of the lower winter sun than the higher summer rays, but I'm not persuaded.

Still, there are leaves left, and some little ones coming on.

And many days, I pick a few, tear them, and add them to yogurt and a cut-up banana--something I first tried in February, when it felt like eating sunshine.

It still does.

Animal Sightings

Birds (and some people) do it--and it's not falling in love

On an Upper East Side street, headed for the Met,
Jim spots a Blue Jay, baby bird in its mouth,
snatched from a nest.

The Jay drops the baby, then swoops around,
coming back for the kill.

Oh, look at that bird! says mom to daughter,
seeing the Jay,
but not what it's up to.

Jim tells them.


Weeks later, I'm thinking we have more than a few Blue Jays in Congress, prepared to sacrifice the young of their fellow citizens to feed the appetites of bigger, richer birds.


Head Dress

Sunday, post-dim sum,
we pass a guy carrying a cat on his head,
leash dangling from collar.

Man and cat cross Canal,
keep going.

I wonder who trained whom.


Seen on a 10-minute truck ride

through John and Kristine's place
in the U.P. of Michigan,
last morning of my visit:

three sandhill cranes flapping,
ten deer a-leaping.

They know it's not hunting season.

Black Watch

There's a reason Black Watch, from the National Theatre of Scotland, is back at St. Ann's Warehouse for the third time in five years. As many have written, it's a play that powerfully captures what it's like to be a soldier at war--a play not just for our time but for any time in which young men are sent to fight for their country.

These particular soldiers are from Scotland's famed Black Watch regiment (in which ancestors of several of the actors in the current cast served)--but their mission, as part of the coalition forces in Iraq, is not exactly what they signed on for--and what they experience there is something the rest of us need to hear.

Black Watch is at St. Ann's Warehouse, through May 8. It may be sold out by now, but odd's are, it will be back.

St. Ann's Warehouse
38 Water St.

718.254.8779

http://www.stannswarehouse.org/