I’m in New York 🙂 I finished crossing a whole continent on a bike, from the Golden Gate in San Francisco to the Brooklyn bridge in New York !
As expected this was a short trip today. I left quite late, when the chances of rain in New Jersey were the lowest. By any chance I would then arrive late morning when it wouldn’t be raining in New York. And I escaped rain again ! Really lucky with the weather all the way 🙂
I stayed on US27 up to Elizabeth (a town name :), then switched to gps guidance. It was supposed to be tricky entering the city on a bike. Adventure cycling maps stops you far away and puts you in a train but that’s no fun. I wanted to finish on the bike !
And after Elizabeth indeed it was a maze through industrial areas, left, right, with no apparent logic. But I had switched to the east, and at 11am, I got my first glimpse of the island buildings ! Including the new World Trade Center.
Lots and lots of trucks in the area, very insecure. I crossed the first bridge over the Passaic river on the sidewalk. No one ever uses it I guess, it was overrun by plants 🙂 The next one had no sidewalk, so I hurried cautiously, while still blocking a white truck for a couple miles ! It followed me quietly through Jersey city.
I was still aiming directly for the WTC. Jersey city is wider than I thought, a lot more than thin Manhattan anyway 🙂 And then here I was, by the Hudson ! I’d made it, just a few more miles. Even the sun was showing up 🙂 I stopped for lunch, right by the Goldman Sachs building, one of the 666 gates with hell.
Going over the Hudson is through a ferry, whenever no plane wants to make a landing here anyway. Bikes are not really secured on the ferry, I was a bit nervous watching it dandling a meter away from the water, with no barrier.
But we touched down on Manhattan, New York City, state of New York, 17th and final state of the journey ! I went directly through to the Brooklyn bridge, only a mile and so, or two kilometers away. Going around after the bridge was actually longer 🙂
Well here I am now, hardly believing what I just did. Still, this is the end of the trip (save a victory lap all around the island). The volley of daily posts will end now, even if it became a habit after all this time. I’ll be staying a week in New York, with a couple more posts to do, like a list of figures and achievements / memorabilia (most frequent sandwich, best roadkill, readings and music…), and probably some notes about learnings.
And one about “what now ?”. Although I won’t be starting another such trip right now, I’ll certainly do another one soon 🙂 I just looked at the Danube river, 3000kms from Germany to the Black Sea, 1k more probably starting from Paris to Amsterdam and then along the Rhine. But I wouldn’t do it alone this time, certainly with a car and other people like the Chinese group did 🙂
Biking Bad 