Monday, August 9, 2010

Summer Streets

NYC Summer Streets is another reason why I love New York in the summer time. Every year for three weekends in August the City shuts down Park Avenue from 72nd Street all the way down to the Brooklyn Bridge. This means no cars! The avenue is instead surrendered to bicyclists, tricyclists, unicyclists (seriously) roller bladers, skateboarders, runners, walkers, young people, old people, children, pets, you name it. Riding down the middle of the street surrounded by all these active people on a beautiful summer day with no cars in site, is like living in an alternate reality. My favorite is when the light turns red, and everybody stops to let the cars cross through. When the light turns green, it's like the Tour de France. I put my head down and pedal as fast as I can to get in the lead.

Este and I were feeling so good, breathing in the fresh air and getting some much-needed excerise. Our downfall came when we hit the Whole Foods-sponsored picnic on block 25. Free food! We dumped our bikes to the side and pushed toddlers and grandmas out of the way to get in line for the free lemon sorbet, cantaloupe salad, yogurt, cheese, iced coffee, carrots, Cliff bars, and smoothies. Really, how harmful can it be if the food is healthy and you're wearing Spandex? Sufficiently stuffed, we had to walk our bikes out of there to give the food some time to digest.

A half block later, we found a free outdoor Zumba class. Young girls were suggestively swinging their butts from side to side and working up a sweat. I wanted to get back to the biking, but Este naturally claimed he needed more time to digest and that this was a good place to take another break.

So maybe it wasn't the greatest workout, but we had a fun time and enjoyed all the festivities. I'm planning to buy some blinders for Este (the kind they give horses) so hopefully next weekend we can make it all the way to the Brooklyn Bridge!

1 comment:

  1. I can't believe you guys didn't do the free Zumba class!

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