Cycling The Globe

Distance: 119.3 km
Ride time: 6:31:16
Average: 18.3 km/h
Max speed: 47.2 km/h
Total: 40800 km

Another big day on the bike in this beehive of people that is New York. After breakfast Steve drove me to the train station. I would be taking the train from Long Island straight into Manhattan where Steve picked me up the other day.

After arriving at Penn Station I lifted the Bianchi up the stairs from the Underground, and suddenly I was right there in the middle of the craziness of Lower Manhattan! Cool!

I slowly rode, mostly on the sidewalk, up to Times Square between Broadway and 7th Avenue. On this trip I’m spending 98% of my time on the country side and in random villages – but right here it felt to some degree like I was in the center of the whole world.

I asked a friendly couple from Argentina to take my photo before I continued towards Central Park.

Riding through the park was nice – plenty of other people cycling and jogging away from the otherwise crazy Manhattan traffic.

After leaving Central Park the more glorious part of the cycling day was over. Not that I’m only interested in seeing the shiny parts of the places I pass through, but the traffic got even more crazy as I cycled through Bronx. In the day I felt safe enough here, but I’m not sure you would want to be walking around alone at night.

Even a 19 million megacity like New York comes to an end at some point, and before I knew it I was in the state of Connecticut.

I have some good friends who have been doing an incredible job helping me finding places to stay on my ride through the States. Most importantly Dan from Florida and Paul from Chicago. What they have been doing is pretty amazing since I have only payed for 3 nights of accommodation since I came here on the 4th of July!

Tonight I was aiming for the small town of Ansonia where Dave W1CTN had invited me to stay. Including the train ride into NYC and the crazy traffic getting out again, I was pressed on time to make it to Dave’s place before darkness. I made it with a few minutes to spare.

Dave and his wonderful wife Nancy had invited a number of family members over for a big dinner – among them Peter who is originally from Denmark. What a great group of people, and what a nice ending to an action filled day on the roads of America!