BMXmuseum.com Forums

The ride is scheduled for July 9th with a meet time of 10:30 AM to 11/11:15 AM. That's just over a month away - 4 weeks from tomorrow. Mark your calendars. I hope we get a decent turnout this year, like we did last year. I know the date was a tough one for some and I'm sorry that some of you can't make it. I'm going to plan for a May ride next year and I'll get that figured out later this year and make it a solid consistent date from year to year (like the Philly ride).

We will meet at the same location as last year to make it easy for everyone. It is at South Street at the intersection of Peck Slip, near a bar called Paris Cafe. For those of you using GPS, the address is 119 South Street, NY, NY...that's the address to the Paris Cafe which is right on the corner and adjacent to the middle parking lot. There are two parking lots located right along Peck Slip (see the attached pic) for those arriving by car, with the 2nd right between Pearl, Water, Peck Slip and Beekman Street. This location is also accessible by Subway (Chambers St. station for the J & Z line, Brooklyn Bridge/City Hall station for the 6 line are both the closest to the meet point, but there are others as well) and near Path Train stops for those coming from nearby Jersey City. As previously mentioned, the price for all day parking is around $25 at most of these lots.

You can see the intersection of South St. & Peck Slip at the bottom right hand corner of the image.


Satellite image with the parking lot and cars clearly visible


Satellite/3D view


Here it is zoomed in via Satellite view, where you can clearly see all of the cars from both lots (forming a backwards P):


NYC Subway map


Since this is the densely populated NYC where even the parking lots can be bustling and busy, we are not planning a Swap meet. Let's plan to meet from 10:30 AM to 11 AM, with a plan for the ride to start at 11:15 AM. It will be the middle of July, so dress for some hot weather as it could be in the mid 90's then. The last 3 days it has been in the high 90s here in the city and it's only early June.

The route is yet to be determined, but it may be similar to last year's with the exception of the bridges (unless a lot of riders want to do that at the end of the planned ride). The goal of this ride is for us to get together and have some fun riding our BMX bikes, old school style, meeting new and old friends and talking trash! lol For some, it will be a treat to see the city for the first time in a way never experienced by them before. I really hope to see a lot of you previous NYC group ride attendees, as well as some new faces.

I saw many badass bikes last year and hope to see plenty this year as well. I had joked that this will be a One Piece Crank ONLY ride, but that's obviously ridiculous. I just ask that you all make sure your rides are in top working condition. This is a ride after all, not a show, so no last minute builds of carpet/beauty queens for this ride. Last year there were a lot of stops due to the large group, mechanical issues and what not. I know this is sometimes inevitable, but please do a solid check of your ride the day/night before. I'm sure I speak for everyone when I say we want this to go very smoothly! bring patch kits for possible flats and hopefully someone will have a portable pump. There are many bike shops in the city, but I'm hoping we can avoid them.

Also, since it is the Big Apple and we won't always stick to bike lanes, it can get a little dicey, so I don't recommend bringing kids or significant others who are not good or frequent riders. It won't be a sprint, but the heat can take a toll when having to stop every few blocks to let the inexperienced riders catch up. As the ride organizer, I don't feel good about leaving people behind, but we really don't want to make as many UNPLANNED stops as we did last year. I'd like to keep a nice flow with stops at planned locations (including food). If you plan to bring a young or inexperienced rider, you do so on your own accord and I cannot guarantee that we will babysit. As parents, you know your children and their abilities, so please (realistically) keep that in mind and use your best judgement.  

If you are coming from some place out of the way and need some help figuring out the best way in, shoot me a PM and I'll try to help as best as I can. I'm born and raised here in the city, so I know it pretty well. wink

some of you Jersey boys should work it out to meet up at Penn station together (or the ferry that some of you used last year). Then you could all ride down to the meet spot. I also suggest you take Broadway down to the meet spot as it crosses the island of Manhattan diagonally while working it's way south. To get to the meet spot, you would have to turn left once you hit City Hall. As you can see from the Subway map above, the N & the R subway lines split just above City hall and the N veers to the east (the river) and just parallel to the Brooklyn Bridge which will be just a couple of blocks from the meet point.

here's a route map for bikes from Penn to Peck slip.


Once you're veering around City hall and the car entrance to the Brooklyn Bridge, you can make a slight U turn at that first intersection in front of the entrance (has a white dot on this 3D depiction), instead of riding all the way down Park Row like it instructs. You'll be turning left off of Broadway at the lower portion of the image where there is a red dot and the words New York. Then you take a right then the U turn and you can see the finish point at the top of the map image (Point B), which is Peck Slip and you can see the cars of the first lot.


For anyone wanting specific info on possibly meeting up at Penn Station (from the west side Ferry point) and riding down together, please see the below map and route with description.



There's a small alternate park with a box ramp and some other rail type obstacles (no quarter pipes). I figured we could stop there at the tail end of the ride for a little jam session. You can see pics of the park in last year's thread:
http://bmxmuseum.com/forums/viewtopic.p … 20&p=7

I think that about covers it, but I'm sure I left something out. Can't wait to see you all for the ride!!!
Marcus