The last hill in the ClimBathon is Eisenhower (16% for a moment at its first pitch; 17% for a moment at its second pitch). As we reach the top, I tell the group, "We are embarking on an area of homes [Rio Vista] each of which is a shrine to excess and an altar to bad taste." They are breathtakingly expensive and even uglier and tackier than they are expensive. We often stop at the one most recently finished that is a study in the grotesque and the riders line up in front of it where we have a group photo taken. Today a woman, clearly with an ownership stake in the place, was gardening out front. As I picked up my phone to take a picture of the group (she would not have been in the picture), she stated it (i.e. I) was rude to take a picture--seeingly of the house.

Our favorite stop at the top of Walnut is for sale again.

https://www.sothebysrealty.com/eng/sales/detail/180-l-828-nym58m/gloria-...

If you are considering the All Class Ride for next Sunday (with the free cookout), please sign up soon so we can get a count for lunch.  Thanks again.

Great menu:

Can anyone recommend a shop that provides bike-fits at a reasonable cost?

Thanks

Take a look at the video we just published on the NYCC's Facebook page... Click here to watch now

Make sure to turn on the volume. Depending on your settings, you might need to click on the speaker icon to hear the sound!

To Richard!

Gil

Nice report, Bruce!

E-hail vehicles are choking our city streets.  If you regularly in the city, you see e-hail liveries without passengers, driving around and sometimes trolling for and taking illegal street hail fares (while not paying attention to cyclists).

Summary and link to report here:  https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2018/07/25/uber-and-lyft-are-overwhelming-ur...

I have posted a ride to the Fort Lee crit taking place this coming Sunday. Here is the web site for the race: https://www.bikereg.com/tour-de-fort-lee-criterium.

This will be a casual ride, up Riverside Drive and over the bridge, then south a few blocks to the race course. We'll decide once there how long we want to watch the race and whether we want to take a run up River Road or just head home.

We're leaving Eleanor at 7:45 (yawn) so we get there when the main events start. 

Sign up for the ride if you want to watch the racing. The nice thing about a crit is that we can watch most of the course from one or two spots, almost like in a velodrome, except it's on city streets.

Jerry Ross

A friend, fairly new to cycling, wants to purchase a bike and develop a relationship with a local shop for maintenance and repair of same. He will not initially be able to do any of his own maintenance. Not a roadie, at least not yet, and interested in a hybrid at this time. He lives up near the GWB. Any thumbs up (or down)? It should be a shop that stocks a quality line of hybrid bikes.

1.

Time: Sunday, July 22, 9:33AM

Place: East Drive in Central Park

Cyclist pours through a red light while a mother and child, who were in the roadway, starting to cross on their green, flinch and step back, out of the cyclist's way. She, the cyclist, is wearing a NYCC racing team jersey.

Note to rider: When you ride without consideration for the rights-of-way of others, please do so wearing a jersey that won't be associated with the NYCC. It reflects on the club and its members.

2.

Garbage truck driver cuts into a line of cyclists.

Me (to driver): "You saw the cyclists?"

Driver: "No. Sorry."

Comment: Per capita, or decapita, garbage truck drivers kill more cyclists than any other driver.

A couple of days ago, returning from a long ride, going south on the Hudson Greenway I passed 2 parents and a daughter going in my same direction. Further up the path I passed what appears to be another child. A bit further on was a prepubescent lad, no doubt a son of the family. Without looking back, he does a quick u-turn to return to his family. 

This is the sort of thing that could have easily gone from a pleasant family ride to a tragedy involving a stranger, from zero to 120 in a fraction of a second. This is your cycling bolt out of the blue. 

Had you been a defensive cyclist going at good pace, you would have passed him wide. But his turn would have taken you out regardlessly. And in the process it could have sent the lad into the next world.