Urban Adventures & More

This is stupidly obvious: if you want to do a dual monitor setup with the NVidia GeForce 8500GT, all you have to do is use a VGA input for one screen and a DVI input for the other. I tried using a DVI splitter to put both on DVI, but that’s not how it works! It’s analog + digital. Simple.

As an aside, why can’t the Nvidia linux driver do Twinview for my two graphics card (Nvidia 6500 and 8500GT)? Windows can!

On Sunday I did the century bike ride. The basic route was as follows:

• Start at Central Park north. Bike west to Riverside, then south along 11th Avenue, 9th Avenue, and on over the Brooklyn Bridge.
• Bike West, South and East to Prospect Park. This was the first rest stop (15 miles).
• Next, we went west through Sunset Park, and then east and south through Bay Ridge (along the Belt Parkway), Sheepshead Bay and on to Marine Park, which was the second rest stop (30 miles).
• We went south over the Gil Hodges Bridge into Far Rockaway, and then north again over the Cross Bay Bridge. We continued in a pretty straight shot all the way up to Kissena Park and the Velodrome in Queens. This had the 3rd rest stop (60 miles).
• We hooked east into Queens through Cunningham park (a little path through the woods!) and then west again along Jamaica Bay and the Grand Central Parkway (we were passing all the cars stuck in traffic), and then past La Guardia airport and on to Astoria Park. The fourth rest stop was there (80 miles).
• Finally, we went over the Triborough bridge. This was a huge bottleneck because every route, all 5000 people, went over the bridge, and it has a half-dozen stairs on the bridge itself. We got off the bridge and I got a flat. It took 45 minutes and 3 tubes to fix it.
• Back on the road, we did the last loop through the South Bronx, east to Soundview Park, then a quick north and west shot adjacent to the Bronx Park (past the Bronx Zoo and Botanical Gardens), and then into Van Cortlandt Park. The last rest stop was here (mile 96).
• Finally, we went south through Manhattan over the Broadway Bridge and then through the Harlem River path and along streets back to the starting point. We were welcomed back by cheering women holding signs (mile 104).

I had been really anxious about the ride, since, as faithful readers will know, I had only done 65 miles prior. Furthermore, I had anxiety about my bike, since my choices were between the much lighter fixed gear I have been riding exclusively for months, or the much heavier 10-speed. My decision was clinched when I said, “the fixed gear hurts when I start and stop a lot and on hills.” Chris said, “You’re going to feel a heavy bike on hills and when you have to start a lot.” So, I did it fixed. I had to draft Chris a bunch, particularly along the water when we were going up hills with a headwind. However, my biggest problems from the training, fatigue and knee pain, did not come to pass; I could rest during while drafting, took more breaks, ate a ton at each stop, and drank much more water (actually sports drink) than usual.

Quite fun: two days hence, the only memories I have of it are good ones. Next year in Jerusalem!

I went up to Boston last weekend and did another training ride, this one on Labor Day (see my previous post on my New York ride). My perspective on geography there, at least in the southern part of the city, is that you can get a pretty good ride in without thinking too hard about the route just by picking a direction and turning around when you get to one of the circumferential interstates. Last time, I used I-95 as my boundary; this time, it was I-495. The route was very simple, which is good, because I didn’t make a cue sheet nor bring a map.

Continue reading…

Last Thursday I took a ride to help me prepare for the upcoming NYC Century ride. My route was as follows.

Continue reading…

In reply to my previous post, Park Avenue South and then Park Avenue proper is the least unpleasant option. It’s only two lanes below 42nd, which is probably the biggest determinant of comfort. I go left at 42nd and up Vanderbilt Avenue, then right at 46th and back onto Park. This section is wider, but there’s so many cars pulling up to the curve and turning that nobody really has an opportunity to pick up a lot of speed like on a wider, staggered-light street. They should put a bike line along the median and get rid of one lane of traffic. I also rode all the way cross town to the Hudson path on a different trip; this was slow and unpleasant and added 5-10 minutes to my ride, which is a big percentage increase.

I have an excellent downtown route. Yesterday I made it to 25th & Lex from my house on the Upper West Side in 19 minutes, stopping only a handful of times. I go down Columbus Avenue to 77th Street, where I make a left and get into the park. I then take 7th Avenue south through Times Square (shitty, but I want to stay near Broadway. It’s really not so bad: it takes maybe 3 minutes to get through) — it would be awesome to go from 59th to Times Square on Broadway instead, but note that you’ll have to avoid the pedestrian plaza by getting on 7th at 46th or 45th.  At 42nd, I go left and get back on Broadway. Then at Herald’s Square, I go down the extended sidewalk on 6th, cross 34th on the east side of the street and then ride in the gutter against 6th avenue traffic to get back on Broadway.  Then it’s smooth sailing again down to 26th, where I make a left, go to Lex, make a right, and done!

The beautiful part of this route is that at no point are you really being overtaken by cars. The Columbus Avenue section is downhill, so I can keep a pretty good pace. The 7th Avenue section has proven quite empty (since 7th starts below the park!), so most of the time I have the road all to myself. Broadway is shunned like the plague these days and has a separated bike line – you have to be more wary of pedestrians walking wherever they damn well please.

I’m back in New York again, and I’m trying to take my bike everywhere. It’s a little different from Cambridge, to say the least.

I’m at school in Midtown on the east side, and live on the Upper West Side, so my natural route to school is to go through Central Park, down 7th Avenue through Times Square, down Broadway, and then cut east a few blocks at Madison Square. This is a pretty nice route, as the street portion of the ride is through low-volume areas, some even with good bike lanes. (However, the separated path in the 30’s is unusable, since it is basically an extension of the sidewalk.)

The trip back home is not so easy. The 40’s and 50s on almost every single uptown avenue are terrifying. I have ridden on 3rd, 6th, Madison, and 8th, and every ride has near misses. I will give Park a try today, I think, although the lack of staggered lights makes me nervous. Also, 2-way traffic means lots of people zooming across my lane without looking for bikes.

My question is, is there are a way not to risk death on the way home without diverting to the Hudson River Bikeway (an exhausting diversion)?