Ed's Wild Ride

Last Saturday, Ed met his friend Scott and a group of other cyclists at Penn Station at 5:00 A.M. They spent the next 10 hours riding their bikes to Montauk, a small town 150 miles away from Manhattan. (For the record, Ed thinks he could have done it at least 2-3 hours faster, but he took his time and cruised.) I'll pause for a few seconds to let the sheer lunacy of this sink in.

*                    *                    *

Got it? OK, good. I drove out there with Scott's girlfriend Genevieve to pick up the boys and their bikes. Under normal circumstances the drive should be about three hours, but there was stop and go traffic through much of Queens and the Hamptons, meaning that we spent closer to 5 hours getting there; the trip back was much quicker. To make matters worse, Scott's car is a manual, which Genevieve didn't know how to drive, so I ended up spending all of my time behind the wheel. I felt like I used about as much energy pumping the clutch as Ed did pumping his pedals. (This is a ridiculous conclusion.) And while I was grinding my teeth in standstill traffic, Ed and Scott were rolling through lovely, green countryside and enjoying rest stops stocked with water, Gatorade, and PIE. No one offered me any damn pie. But it was very beautiful, and Genevieve was excellent company and a great navigator. The course ended by a lighthouse on a point with lovely ocean views, and the weather couldn't have been more lovely, though I'd have loved about ten more degrees... I also got to ride on a car ferry for the first time, which was quite exciting. At the end of the course, there were trailers with showers in them for the cyclists to use, so Ed was a pleasant dinner and driving companion instead of being a smelly and salty one.


This was my first time at Montauk, and I look forward to going back again and checking it out further. I'll probably take the train next time so that I don't have to worry about traffic. It's lovely in summer, but I'd like to go in winter, too. People think I'm crazy, but I think it would be pretty fantastic to see snow on a beach. And I'll bet there will be virtually no traffic.