The Longest Bike Ride Ever

I need to start out this post by saying that I am not a wimp. There, now I feel better and can whine for a few paragraphs.

See that happy, smiling face above? I look so carefree, contented and adventurous. Like I'm ready to meet any challenge with calm and fortitude. That's the "before" picture. If only I had an "after" picture--then you'd know what a long, long bike ride it is from Manhattan to the only real beach in New York City.

I also need to preface this story with a note about my cycling companions. My sister Kate, her wife Jess and their friend Anna are probably not human. Only robotic beings would be able to so easily pedal on and on for hours. For them, 100 mile bike rides and participating in Iron Man competitions are leisurely activities. For us carbon-based life forms, leisure normally includes a cocktail and some nominally strenuous activity, like dominoes. In my case, there are only two acceptable times for a person to break a sweat, both of which entail lying on your back. I should have been much more suspicious when these ladies proposed a bike ride to the beach.

My sister lives on 148th Street in West Harlem. Our destination that day was a place called Riis Park, in the same area as Coney Island . At least that was my general impression. Being unfamiliar with the greater NYC metro area, I trusted in the navigation skills of my robotic cycling buddies. As the picture suggests, we did in fact take a train for part of the way. That should have been another indication of how far it was. The rest of the week we had been cycling all over Manhattan because as my sister said "its more convenient than the train." (A sure sign of her robotic programming. There's not much that's more convenient than stepping on and off a train.) Even after having taken the train, we're talking about a 4o mile round trip ride. For a girl accustomed to walking a quarter of a mile to work and back each day, maybe a yoga class if the mood strikes, this was definitely a stretch. We got off the train in Brooklyn, biked down to Coney Island and then just kept going. And going, and going.

So here I am panting in the 99% humidity of a New York summer, cursing under my breath and trying to NOT be the complaining, out-of-shape whiner that I am. Telling my happily-cycling robot friends, "This is great! I'm doing fine!" as I gasp for air. Here enter the heroes of the story, the two things that sustained me on this ordeal: the Russian deli and the shake shack. Tasty Russian deli right off the boardwalk in Coney Island. I think it was called Russian Delight, but maybe I'm just making that up because I was so delighted to be there. Nothing can perk a girl up like a good foreign deli with lots of new foods to sample. There was a delicious cabbage salad that none of thought was cabbage until we tried it. (Kate thought it was noodles, I thought it was onion.) Tasty little plum and cherry fried donuts-things, cheesy pastry pies and lots of other goodies, whose contents I can only guess at. Basically cabbage, meat and cheese, artfully rearranged into lots of different dishes. That was just on the way there. On the way back we discovered the shake shack right there at the park entrance. It was a little roach coach with hot dogs, hamburgers and every imaginable flavor of milkshake. The shake shack special is an unknown concoction of ice creamy flavors. When you ask the nice man at the counter what's in it, he replies, "Just eat it, it's good." Word. Ice cream, I've decided, is the perfect sustenance for a long journey home.

I take it back--there were three things that sustained me. The beach was really beautiful. When my sister told me about this amazing beach, a real beach, in New York City of all places, of course I was skeptical. I'm a West Coast girl, through and through and am a little prejudiced in favor of the unspoiled beaches of Central Coast California. I wasn't expecting much from this coastline in terms of beachy beauty. Coney Island about met my beach expectations--imported sand with crowded tall buildings right behind, ladies smoking cigarettes and tanning their chubby painted toes while gossiping about their neighbors, subway rails running the length of the shore. The real beach was much different. Riis Park is a really long stretch of sand with warm water, not a lot of folks around and cool decaying old building scattered here and there along the way. There was a decrepit old airplane hanger that we passed with weeds growing everywhere and some trees scattered about. Otherwise, there wasn't much to tell you that you're still within the city limits. Just pretty water, soft sand and quiet. My kind of beach. I even went swimming since the water was so warm, something I rarely do in the chilly Pacific.

I am kind a wimp to whine. It was a lovely day.