The Hexacoto

A lot of my long-distance rides have been around the city, and I’ve not ventured out of the city in a while. Not on a unicycle, at least. I wanted to ride to a beach on Fire Island, but that was perhaps 60 km and I was not ready for that yet. So I chickened out and chose to cross state lines instead, and head into Connecticut. This is probably the first GPS-recorded ride I’ve done in a year, with the last being my ride into Stony Brook, Long Island, last year around this time.

Here’s a picture of the route I ended up taking; click to see the larger picture. Skip to the end for ride stats.

As always, for such trips, I went packed with supplies!

This time round, I had: a GPS, MP3 player, 1 Milky Way bar, a box of 5 granola bars that I bought for $1, a pack of chilli lemon peanuts that also cost a $1, spare battery pack for my phone, some AA batteries, keys, Nintendo 3DS for the pedometer, 3 litres of water, and my phone.

I started at the Pelham Bay Park station. Although I could probably have ridden from my home, which would have added an additional 20 km, I wasn’t ready for that kind of commitment yet. So the Bronx it is!

I crossed the Pelham Bridge, which was pretty, and everything proceeded to be pretty for the next 10 km or so. I rode past numerous mansion, golf courses, horse riding trails, basically affluence. I saw houses that looked like this.

You know what’s funny? Apropos of its name, this property is on PARK LANE, which is one of the pricey dark blue properties on Monopoly! Also, I broke my max speed ever (I think) and hit 31.4 km/h on a steep downhill! In retrospect I probably shouldn’t have done all the crazy downhill sprints I did because I think that burnt my legs out faster over the course of the entire ride.

I rode into New Rochelle, where I bought some iced coffee and had my first real break. I probably tripled the Asian population by being present there, but it was pretty. Rode past Larchmont, and into Mamaroneck, which was also really pretty. Geez I could probably sum up the ride with “Everything looked rich and really pretty.

Things were slightly less pretty when I rode too far inland (I was supposed to be hugging the coastline and following the train tracks) and I got slightly lost. Thankfully a dog in a car pointed the right way back to the coast for me and things were pretty again.”

I made it into Connecticut! By this point my legs had already cramped up once (just prior to the dog-car meeting) and I was set to cramp up a couple times more in CT because it is so damn hilly. I expected Connecticut to be flat. Guess I should have just ridden into Iowa or Kansas or something.

First Whole Foods sighting, though it seems to be fancier than just regular Whole Foods, and is called Whole Body instead? Whatever Greenwich, CT. I just sat around in the parking lot eating my $1 peanuts and drinking my bottled water.

Once again we meet again, my nemesis: highways. It seems like every time I go on a long distance ride out of my comfort zones, I run into highways. I sit here wonder, “Should I enter and risk actually ending up on some highway?” or is this actually a local road? Thankfully it was merely a tricky local road that looked very highway-ish.

Yay I made it into Stamford, CT, which was where I was supposed to be. Surprisingly the only injury was from my backpack strap chafing my shoulders.

I got to live the true suburban life by hanging out in the mall, drinking Starbucks, and getting chased out of the mall by security. Apparently the Landmark Square Shopping Center is a bit of a grump when it comes to people holding onto a wheel and just sitting in the mall; my friend told me even people holding on to kick scooters and skateboards get kicked out. But push strollers are OK. I don’t know why.

Stamford, and by extension many of the other towns I rode past, is pretty, but that is all there is to it. It really has no character, to its streets. And given by the treatment I experienced at the mall, which is supposedly the crux of what there is to do in Stamford, this town is soulless, glossed over by a veneer of pretty.

I don’t think I could ever live here, dazzled by pretty architecture, but dismayed by inflexible authorities and a lack of celebration of alternative culture. In some sense, it is really similar to Singapore, filled with impressive futuristic buildings, towers ceaselessly piercing the skies and reaching ever new heights, but so lacking when it comes to building life at the ground level. Life and community does not begin in the air but in the hearts at the ground level. I end this ride with this amusing picture I came across at the MacDonald’s, which redeemed Stamford somewhat for me.

Final stats for the trip.

Total elapsed time: 3 hours 45 minutes
Total moving time: 2 hours 45 minutes
Total stopped time: 60 minutes
Maximum speed: 31.4 km/h
Total UPD’s: 1 (Early into the ride next to the horse riding track, as I was trying to set my GPS)
Number of crazy downhill sprints: 5
Number of times legs cramped: 3
Numbers of uphills walked up: 5
Steps counted by the 3DS: About 20,000
Breaks taken: 4