Out of gas

New York by bicycle is unlike any New York I've ever seen. If you haven't done it yet, you just have to take my word for it. On short spurts, you're going about as fast as a car or a non-rush-hour subway, but you're out in the wide-open. If there's a radio on somewhere, if some cat's practicing trombone in a fifth floor walk-up, or whatever, you hear it. If a bakery is just opening, or if someone's car has just overheated, you smell it. And the sense of geography,of how all these disjointed pieces of city make a whole unity. It's pretty fantastic.

Went out to the Kissena velodrome at the ass-end of Queens after work yesterday to see mattio race. (As an aside, I want to bring back the -drome ending and start calling EWR the Newark Aerodrome.) Kissena was a goddamn trek, even with the assistence of the 7 train (I cheated and took the train on the way out). But I brought the Raleigh with me, and in between races, when they called a weather delay on the track, mattio had me fly his wing around the big banked, swoopy turns. The R caught 25mph with extremely little effort, and I quickly came to realize what phenomenal speeds a good rider could get a tight little track bike to on a good velodrome. And mattio did well, getting three second place finishes, looking strong and confident on his new Felt track bike. It was a fun time, and after a few post-race runs around the track on the Raleigh i was feeling dumb enough to feel up to the ride home.

At this point it had begun to rain, but it was a warm night so I hitched myself to the wheel of one of the racers who was riding back to Bushwick. On the long ride that followed, we kept a casual pace and made good conversation, getting lost here and there (it is Queens after all). At about the Brooklyn line, however, I realized that my throat was closing up from thirst. I'd ridden out without any food, water or cash. By the time my companion pulled off in Bushwick, i'd completely bonked, my body running on zero fuel. By the time I was ten blocks from home, I was barely able to hold the handlebars steady. Even today my legs feel like jelly.

It's making me question plans that I had with my good buddy A to try to ride up to the alma mater on a long weekend.
If I'm going to keep this up over the summer, I'm going to need some place to stash a water bottle on my ancient racing bike.