Brr...

Okay, I'm pretty sure I ordered a nice sunny day for Memorial Day. I think I have the receipt around here somewhere...

Anyway. It started out pretty sunny (at around 7 in the morning, mind you), but turned overcast and gray equally quickly. This wouldn't have been so discouraging if I hadn't decided to bike to Queens this morning. I was aiming to take the Triborough bridge into Ward's Island and then across to Manhattan, which in theory would've been a very nice ride, indeed. Except, I forgot my map. So, I made a few wrong turns, ending up in the malodorous section of East Williamsburg (I'm sure this is where the bodies must be buried...) and then somehow, miraculously finding the Pulaski footbridge to cross into Queens. After that, I blindly circumnavigated across via Vernon Road all the way up into Astoria. I passed the legendary Queensbridge section of town -- made famous (or infamous) by sparring rappers KRS-ONE and Marley Marl in the late 1980s. Or at least, made famous to me due to the fact that I listened to rap songs like "South Bronx" wherein KRS-ONE derides Marl for being from Queensbridge. As far as I could tell, it was the cookie cutter NY project with a park down beneath the Queensboro Bridge. Not terribly remarkable or particularly derision worthy. Maybe it's a sissy project (or was back in the 1980s)... Anyway, I was expecting Astoria to be somewhat interesting, either architecture-wise or something. But it just reminded me of far off stretches of the west side of Chicago. Again, completely unremarkable. A lot of somewhat decay bound buildings and shops with signs that look like most other parts of the further out sections of Brooklyn. For my money, Greenpoint had better architecture and storefronts. Of course, I was getting a bit chilled at this point and so ended up looping back to what I had mistakenly thought was the Triborough Bridge. It was actually the footbridge to Roosevelt Island, NY's answer to planned communities. The bridge itself dead ends into a parking garage. How convenient! I'm not sure if this is the only way in or out of Roosevelt Island, but it's kind of spooky. The bridge itself looks like someone upchucked a vat of Pepto Bismol. There's something unnatural about pink bridges. I headed from there to the Queensboro Bridge. A fairly long steep incline greets the bicyclist until it levels out and finally drops you at about E.60th or so in Manhattan. I took another stab at the east side greenway -- it's much better below E. 45th or so, and headed home. So far, I can definitely say that the Brooklyn Bridge is not the best bridge to bike. It's wooden planked, highly trafficked and not terribly wide. All of the other bridges I've crossed seem to be very low traffic and sufficiently wide for that. I recommend using the Manhattan Bridge whenever possible if you have to cross into Brooklyn at the Brooklyn Heights interchange.