I headed to New York with my Brompton in tow.However, I had some trepidation about cycling in NY. After all, New York is a pioneering city in cycling, known for its messenger culture. Unlike Japan, cycling on the road is strictly enforced. Additionally, bikes follow the opposite rule of riding on the left side. I had ridden a road bike in Hawaii before, but this is New York, the greatest city in the world. It would be strange not to feel a bit nervous. This time, accompanying me to New York are Karen-chan, the runner and cyclist Karen Maruyama, and a friend who was a renowned cyclist during his university days. Originally, Osamu Suzuki was supposed to be part of this group as well, but for s […]

Bike New York, to be held on Sunday, May 3, 2020, is a ride event that will take cyclists around the five boroughs(boro) of New York State: Manhattan, the Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn, and Staten Island. This is why it is called the “Five Boro Bike Tour” in the U.S. mainland. Although little known to the Japanese, the event is of a very large scale with more than 30,000 participants from all over the world. The course is 40 miles (about 64 km). The course is closed to traffic, allowing visitors to drive at a leisurely pace. This article introduces the highlights of the course, which is full of attractions that New York City has to offer.

After cycling through Central Park and becoming impromptu New Yorkers, we had our next plan ready. We decided to go shopping in SOHO by bike. When traveling in an unfamiliar city, you often rely on the subway, buses, or Uber. However, this makes it difficult to take detours or get a good sense of the city as a whole. That’s why we decided to explore Manhattan by bike this time. I brought my Brompton from Japan, and my friends decided to rent Citi Bikes, a bike-sharing system with stations all over the city. That aside, there was something we had to do as impromptu New Yorkers: Have bagels for breakfast. It has nothing to do with bicycles, haha. New Yorkers and bagels go hand in hand, r […]