10/25/03 Biking Central Park at Night with Brian and Time's Up NY:

I love this photo of myself. I don't know what it is. The ridiculous amount of clothing I seem to be wearing from the puffy jacket to the headband under the helmet? Or is it that I'm taking a photo with a camera that can be seen in the very photo it is taking? Or is it the expression on my face? Is this my Mona Lisa smile? What am I expressing? What do my features suggest? Can the excitement of biking to Circle Line early in the morning for the first time show through? Or is that just the tiredness of being awake so early with a physical activity confronting me? Is it silliness that I convey, considering my overprotective clothing, and the knowledge that I have a silly sailor's outfit on underneath all this? Or am I looking serious, thinking about protecting myself from the 45 degree wind I will create while pedaling, and the need to arrive on time and hopefully be able to park my bike in the Tour Guide room, which I've not really secured with anyone. Am I focusing on the task at hand (taking the photo), or the task at hand (biking to work in the cold)? And what possessed me to make this face and share it later on via the miracle of digital technology? Can the answers to these questions be read from my expression here? Good luck.

The reason I biked to work this morning is the following: Brian and I want to try a bike event this evening together. It involves biking through Central and Riverside parks. We both are getting the e-mail's of a bike organization called Time's Up, and we both took interest in trying an organized biking activity for once instead of our usual "free swim." The event was to begin a little while after I get off work at Circle Line, and so we hatched the plan for me to bike to work, do my tours, and then have Brian meet me at Circle Line on bike. From there we could more quickly get to the Columbus Circle entrance to Central Park, where the event was to begin.

We planned too well. We had extra time between Circle Line and the bike event, so we convinced a cranky pizza man at a pizzeria on 9th avenue in the 50's to let us put our bikes inside his establishment (which was empty save for him and us), so we could sit down and eat without bike locks (which we don't have and don't want.)

Brian HATED that I was wearing rubber bands around my ankles to keep my khakis from rubbing against my chain and picking up grease and getting torn, etc. This is not a fashion-forward solution. I don't care. It also keeps my leg warmer!

The thin pizzeria had mirrors on two close walls, opposite each other, affording me this infinite reflection.

So we show up at Columbus Circle, still about an hour early. Nobody is there. We bike into the park on our own for a little while, hugging the perimeter just in case. It was amazing. I could tell that even if the people and the organization of this event sucked, we'd still have a beautiful time. We then sat near the fountain by the park entrance to kill more time. Finally a few bikes show up from various directions. There are about 7 of us by the time 10:10 rolls around, a good 10 minutes after this is supposed to begin. One roller blader shows up, and bizarrely, I know him from Tisch Talent Guild (an NYU Tisch organization I used to be very involved in)!!! Small world. The dudes that showed up for this were exactly what I expected. Dorks on bikes. Or bike dorks. Lots of reflective gear and flashing lights. No fashion sense at all. All male. Mixed ages. Lots of bike pants and things like that... you know, the serious gear. I was tickled to death. Brian eventually warmed up to the idea of being a total bike dork on an evening when "cool" people are out partying in the city.

All in all, there ended up being less than 10 of us. There was a leader who kind of runs the event for Time's Up. He creates the exact path we take through the park, and we all watched out for each other to make sure nobody got lost. Within 2 minutes, my chain fell off my gears and I had to stop and fix it. It only took 45 seconds, but I had totally lost everyone. I biked forward a bit timidly, and saw the flashing light on a bike up ahead. Someone had held back, waiting for me, and to show me the way. It's a very work-together kind of activity, which is nice. I quickly decided that as I get more experienced, I would do the same as often as I could for my fellow biker. We did totally lose someone for a few minutes, but the trusty cell phone fixed that problem. We biked around the small lake and ice skating rink at the southeastern corner of the park. The air was crisp. The rolling hills and curves made the paths really fun to bike. The fact that there were about 10 of us created a sense of safety in numbers, and also a really fun sense of "flying in formation," which adds some depth to the biking experience.

We came to a clearing. The great lawn. We stopped at the north end to enjoy the view of the city lights on the clouds above.

Looking across the great lawn to the lights of midtown Manhattan. The strong blue light emanates mostly from Times Square.

The guy on the left in the yellow vest is the leader. It turns out, through talking with him, that his day job is in sound production. I told him that I took a great deal of sound classes at NYU. He said, "Oh, well then you must know Chat Gunter." And I was like, "Um, yeah! He was my professor for half of those classes!" Apparently this guy and Chat are close buddies and have worked on loads of things together in sound departments. Even smaller world.

By this point Brian and I were loosening up and enjoying ourselves. The verdict was that this particular route is kind of mild, but that organized bike events can be fun and that we should try more of them. Central Park at night is a beautiful and mysterious place. Many would also add dangerous, but, when in a group, and especially when on bicycles, it seems to put its best nice face forward. It is a bit more gentle to us. And it allows the biker just enough of a sense of security to really take in the city lights, and the moonlight, both from the same vistas within the park. There's a certain quiet coming from the park's core, all the while its perimeter shimmers with the din it holds at bay. The ride also took us across West 96th street and down into Riverside Park... very familiar territory to Brian and myself, even at night. We ended up out at the end of my favorite pier at 70th street. From there we disbanded, and Brian and I headed back downtown along our waterfront turf.

At Vessey street, at the Northwest corner of the World Trade Center Site, they are tonight erecting the major pieces of a new "temporary" pedestrian bridge that will go over West street and help deal with the large amount of foot traffic between the World Financial Center to the right and the new "temporary" Path train terminal about to open (In December) on the bottom level of the WTC basement. We stopped to look for a while and then continued on.