neilfein

Summer Streets is an experiment where NYC is blocking off just under 7 miles of streets for the use of pedestrians and bicyclists. The route includes Park Avenue from 72nd street down to the Union Square area, then taking Lafayette Street down to the Brooklyn Bridge.

I had an incredible time, and I'm planning to go back next weekend and do the whole thing in reverse.

Bruce and I parked in Weehawken and took the ferry into Manhattan. The event was very crowded indeed. The crowds are fun to watch! We saw cyclists, runners, skaters, walkers, families with strollers, wheelchairs, and a couple of horse-drawn carraiges.

At the Brooklyn Bridge, the crowding got even worse. The pedestrian/cyclist walkway is raised over the roadway, with a lane for bikes and one for pedestrians. (This concept is a bit too much for many, many people to grasp, but I digress.) The bridge itself is beautiful in a way that's hard to appreciate by car.

A few of us at bikeforums are riding this Saturday morning on the Delaware towpath, starting at Trenton. Mix of paved and packed dirt/gravel roads. We're going to try to make 50 miles. Email me if you're interested, if I actually know and like you, crash space the night before is doable. 

Ride from Monday. Not sure if this embed will work, if not, here's a link to the map.



And a pic from Middlesex College. The thought of riding on that hilly grass is tempting but it would kill the lawn. Ah, well.

Bike ride in streets and rocks and dirt, 8.9 miles (but more strenuous than normal). So cool!

Best guess as to where I was (a lot of it was offroad and construction in New Brunswick means Google maps is a little out of date): mappy


New Brunswick is to the left, the Raritan River on the right. This is near the end of one of the skinny peninsulas that line the river here.


No, I did not ride down these stairs. These end about 5 feet up in the air (behind me) and I had to turn around. (You can't see this from the other side.)

3 miles round trip, with a guitar strapped to my back. Mappy.

4 miles today, with Bruce. Ride map thing

Then we all made pasta for friday night dinner:


Can't believe tomorrow is Friday.

Since yesterday was so strenuous, I did a gentle ride today (posting this on the 9th, actually, but changed the datestamp for tracking purposes). 25 minutes, 3.5 miles, avoiding touch hills, 3.5 miles. Mappy mappy mappy.

Anyone know a good source for inexpensive bike shorts/pants? The look stupid but are incredibly comfortable.  x-marts have them cheap, but I'd rather avoid those if I can.

9.8 miles in 40 minutes. I'm very achy, I found a lot of hills today. And I bought a glass of lemonade from a neighborhood kid who flagged me down while I was speeding past. Cool.

Mappy

Rode 10 miles or so with Martha - she forgot that she loves bike riding, which is so damn cool. (First time she's ridden in years.) We took it slow - we covered this distance in 140 minutes - a little of it was spent walking the bikes where there was no safe place to ride.

Here's the Map of the route we took. I'll probably get tired of mapping the routes after a while, but it's fun to do for now. I only wish Google maps had a feature to tell you how long the route is you draw. Seems like a silly thing to leave out, so maybe I just haven't figured out how to do that yet.



Lotsa hills today, including a long climb on Cedar Lane in Piscataway -- not too steep, but over half a mile long. (Gave up around halfway through it and walked the rest.)

Damn am I tired, I slept for a couple of hours when we got back. Must get out of the house tonight.

About 2.5 miles. Cool google map route thing here.

The new seat is pretty comfy, but the post isn't quite tight in the collar, need to tighten it. Also need to get my hey keys out and adjust the tilt.

I found my Kryptonite U lock -- LiNaSiB₃O₇ (OH) ? -- hours after getting one of those crappy cable locks. At least the cable lock was cheap!

Today's bike ride, maybe 10 miles.

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&om=1&msid=102560808235390065034.0000011254ae70a83375f&ll=40.499866,-74.429927&spn=0.047253,0.064373&z=14

An excellent night! Rode 2.4 miles into New Brunswick, dropped my bike off for a brake job/tuneup and a new seat. Apparently I need a new rear brake cable. I later walked back, grabbing some dinner on the way and running a few errands.

Must remember to get a bike lock when I pick it up on Friday (I hope it's ready then).

Anyone ever used one of those super-duper ergonomic bike seats? Do they really help all that much with back pain, or are they a waste of money?

It's movie night! This saturday, starting at 6:23pm, we'll be showing 3 films:

Toy Story 2
The Wall
Alien

... as well as trailers, cartoons, and miscellaneous shorts during the intermissions. Therw will be a secret midnight film as well, to be decided on at the time.

If you never got this invite, it's because you don't livein the area or because I'm an inconsiderate bastard. (take your pick.) If you're interested, email me and I'l send you a schedule.

The 5.1 speakers are set up, and they sound quite good. Not great, since I couldn't use the TV speakers as center/dialog speakers -- had to use a crappy bookshelf speaker. And it kinda sucks. (Although I was able to tweak it a bit so it's not as obviously the most tinny speaker there.)

Best music I've heard so far:

The Beatles, Love, DVD Audio
Yo-Yo Ma, Brazil, SACD
Mahler, Symphony No. 3, SACD
The Who, Tommy, SACD

In general DVD Audio sounds better than SACD multichannel sound, but that's probably because I don't have digital multichannel out on my SACD player. (Still sounds damn good, though.)

Still looking to pick up the SACD 5.1 mix of Dark Side of the Moon...

Have created a new community to post ideas for songs and such. (Or for stories, pictures, whatever.) Folks are welcome to post and comment.

The general idea is, ideas here are free for the taking, provided you post the finished product.

http://community.livejournal.com/idea_bucket/

Come and join!

Yesterday, we did quite a bit of housecleaning:

• Cleaned Martha's office/the guest bedroom
  
• Cleaned off the drafting table in my office and folded it up, there's actually room to walk there now.
  
• Shredded a huge pile of junk mail (and overheated the shredder in the process)
  
• Vacuumed the back rooms

Tonight, we do the kitchen and the dining room. Fun!

Need some ideas for a name for a production company for a short Audio Drama, and I'm terrible at coming up with names. Any thoughts? I'd appreciate even bad ideas.

Edit: Please, not everybody all at once... ;)