This year, as my fellow veteran Five
Boro Bike Tour riders know, is a little different. Now some of those
differences have obvious potential benefits (i.e., staggered start
times to prevent bottlenecks) but Bike New York has also made a lot
of other changes to this great event – some of which I would have approached just a
little bit differently.
For instance, this year, Bike New York
started a lottery system for tour entry, so instead of a
first-come-first-serve method, I had to pay a nonrefundable fee of a
few dollars for my lottery ticket – just like tens of thousands of
others. I assume this was done to subtly make a bit more on the
transaction but more importantly to make it easier for people who have
never done the tour before to be able to do it. Another way this
could have been done is to provide a registration date for newcomers
separate and earlier from that of the start date for veterans – and
the veterans, who are presuably kept track of via addresses, credit
cards and e-mail addresses in Bike New York's computers – when they
pre-registered, they are automatically enrolled (whether they make it
in the tour or not) for a really cool prize drawing, which would give
them an incentive not to pretend to be newbies.
I can also guess why they didn't mail
out the packets this year (with vests, the little magazine, and rider
numbers). They wanted to save money on postage, but in the survey
they did last year, they also probably learned the folks weren't
spending a whole lot of time at the Festival at Fort Wadsworth.
Personally, I felt that problem had to do with logistics: at the
festival, there's a road between the scattered exhibitor booths and
the food. If they put several small free food and drink stations
among the booths (climbing the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge into Staten
Island can make one fantasize about such things) they probably would
have the proper traffic for the exhibitors.
But by making someone go to Manhattan
up to three days before the tour to visit Bike Expo New York does
give valuable traffic to Bike Expo New York. The thing that niggles
me is that I worry that doing this may reduce the diversity of the
tour. When I ride the recumbent down to the start line, I often see
cars parked here and there with bikes being pulled off of Thule racks
– cars obviously driven from far away on the morning of the tour.
Because I live in Stamford, which is practically the sixth borough, I
can get in and out of Manhattan in the days before the tour
relatively easily. If someone is coming from many states away (or
even different countries) and has limited time to spare, they may not
be able to do the tour at all. I know they can use proxies to pick up
their packet, but still.
Also – and here I'm scraping the
bottom of the well of complaints – is the way Bike New York did the
packet pickup itself. I got an email from them (as I know many of you
readers did) that read in the subject line: “TD Bank Five Boro Bike Tour Proceedures at Bike Expo New York” I know they spelled the
word 'procedures' wrong in the email - and that's not what I'm complaining about. They spell it right on the web site and I
have speling and grammatical errors in this blog awl the time. It's the use of the
word. Getting your gall bladder removed. Having your stomach stapled. Colonoscopies. Those are procedures. The subject line could have been
a bit cheerier with: “Countdown to the Five Boro: How to pick up your tour packet at Bike Expo New York!” or something like that - not a complaint; more like a pet peeve.
Finally, you have to bring a copy of
the rider number email they sent you (and a photo ID) when you pick
up your packet. I haven't had my computer hooked to a printer since
George W. Bush was in office – not that those two things are connected –
but they should have either allowed people just to bring a scrap of
paper with their rider number on it or a cell phone screen shot of
the email to show to the packet pickup people. And – now digging
into the earth's crust underneath the otherwise shallow well of
complaints – is they need to follow the example of banks,
Marshall's department store and homeland security checkpoints: one
line, many registers. When I arrived yesterday afternoon, I was put
into a line that was, according to one volunteer, a little shorter
than the others. But I felt like I was waiting longer than I was.
So those are the negatives I've found.
Here are the positives: after you pass through the first set of
lines, the system makes sense because you're instructed to enter a
line that corresponds with your rider number, so yesterday afternoon
I picked up my packet quickly, easily and in an exchange of smiles
with a great volunteer at Bike New York.
Also, if you're within half a day's
drive to Manhattan (whether you're trying to pick up your packet for
the Five Boro Bike Tour or not) Bike Expo New York is actually quite
cool. Don't let the unassuming hall at Basketball City fool you: inside it is a cyclist's Nerdstock.
I got there by riding my Dahon Matrix
(which doesn't get to ride in the tour but is still the best bike I
have for short-range city travel) to the corner of South Street and
Montgomery street by heading from Grand Central terminal to the East
Side Greenway, which runs near FDR drive. It was a short and pleasant
ride that took me right to the bike valet parking provided by
Transportation Alternatives.
Then, inside Bike Expo New York, you
can make a beeline to the packet pickup area by walking to your
immediate right and following the easy to read signs hanging
overhead. Once done, you get to mingle with some nice people and
great exhibitors including Rolling Orange Bikes, World Bicycle Relief, Worksman Cycles (why they don't have one of their excellent
ice cream cart bikes or quad cargo bikes at their booth is a mystery
to me), Metro Bicycle Stores, Momentum magazine, Zigo and their cool
baby carrying tricycle, Montecci, Bike Friday (I told them both about
Folding Bike Week) and others. Vaya Bags, which makes panniers,
messenger bags and other nice products with recycled sailcloth and
old bike tubes, also has a booth with some of their products for
sale. So if you don't bring a bag with you to put your Bike Expo loot
in, you can buy one there.
So, I know that a lot of people may be
grumbling at the changes to this years' Five Boro Bike Tour, but if
you can get to the Bike Expo New York or knows somebody who can, make
sure you head to Manhattan today to check it out. I will be spending
today caring and feeding the museum piece I'll be riding at the tour
on Sunday, so I will see you then.
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