I stepped off the boat on Saturday, extremely happy with our results: We were sitting with a commanding lead in first place. I felt confident my team would keep it up tomorrow as I wouldn’t be sailing with them because there was some more important things to attend to.
During the race, I had half a bologna sandwich with a little horseradish sauce and some Diet Coke. Little did I know this would be the last meal I would have until well after the Five Boro Ride.
I raced to the car after a quick stop to shake a few hands and get some well-earned thanks from our competitors. The ride back to NYC was uneventful, but my mind was racing. In another car, the LIPF jerseys were being transported from CT to NYC. The passes were in a backpack in my apartment.
I was tired, a bit salty from some ocean spray and in desperate need for a shower. No time for that.
When I got to the apartment, we transferred the jerseys from one car to another, ran up grabbed the backpack, printed off two forms that I needed to make sure everybody received their jerseys, and hopped back into the car double-parked outside.
It was off to the east side to grab the first of three bikes, disassemble them, throw them in the trunk, and get them to my office downtown. I stopped at Jenny’s to get her bike, then to David’s to get his bike. It was very important to me and Jenny that his bike went on the tour with us.
When I ran into his apartment, I was overwhelmed with emotion. I was repeating over and over how wrong this all was. I shouldn’t be running around at this pace; I shouldn’t be taking his bike out of the apartment. I was pretty sure that the last time his bike left the apartment, it was in his own hands to meet me outside of his apartment for a bike ride. It just wasn’t possible to keep my eyes dry at any point during this.
A friend of mine was having a birthday party that night, and I really wanted to attend or at least say hello. I took a few minutes out before I headed downtown to stop up, say hello, and have a cursory beer to toast her name day. I was covered in bike grease and dressed like a bum. Oh well.
Then it was back on the road. I looked at the clock, and I had been awake for roughly 18 hours so far and wasn’t close to being done. We made a beeline for the financial district, where I hoped beyond hopes that the building to my new office was a 24-hour doorman building—otherwise, this running around was for nothing. Thank god it was.
I dragged all the bikes back out, reassembled them, pulled out a floor pump, and started filling bike tires. Our tires were flat as pancakes, having not been ridden since our last ride together. A security guy was getting on my case about where I parked the car. I was less than courteous to the rent-a-cop. It’s funny to wonder how most people would react if they only knew the kind of day you had thus far.
Three trips into the elevator, and the bikes were stored, the passes somewhat stowed, a box of bike jerseys waiting for some bodies. The amount of stuff in my office looked somewhat akin to the mess right after you open your presents on Christmas morning. Two bikes, some shiny new stuff, a couple boxes, and a ton of paper strewn about.
I was beat. But I couldn’t stop yet. I thought about food. I thought about food a lot right around now, but we needed to get the car back to the garage. It was about midnight at this point. Only 6 hours to go before I would wake up and do it all over again—head back down and meet twenty people who I hoped would actually be at the intersection.
Sleep did not come easy. I sat about in bed for a long time, just thinking about how we got here in the first place. How this tragedy has created a second day job for me because while I think I did everything I could have I really truly believe David could/would be alive if only a few things had fallen to fate differently. It was a troubled sleep at best.
Par for the course, whenever I set an alarm I tend to wake up about fifteen minutes before it goes off. I headed downstairs and realized I completely blew my normally-OCD self who prepares whatever he needs the night before so I can wake up and go. It was a mad scramble to find all my biking stuff and my Camelback. I needed to bring a tool to change out David’s pedals for some regular ones so Jenny could ride the bike. In the end, I was glove-less, my helmet’s lining was falling out after years of use, and my regular sunglasses were nowhere to be found. I neglected to apply my usual layer of sunscreen, which would literally burn me later that day.
I was out the door twenty minutes later, certain I had forgotten something, but it would have to do because 25 people were meeting me in fifteen minutes.
We made it to the meet-spot right on time. I was up in the office, dragging the bikes back down the elevator. The girls were helping me hand out the passes and jerseys. People who hadn’t ridden a bike in years were acclimating to the operation of the newfangled technology. And we were off! …or so I thought. What’s that they say about “just like riding a bike?” I don’t buy it.
We made it about a 1/4 mile, and it was a dead stop. A bike walk: “take your bike for a walk” kind of day. The sun was supposed to come out, but it was nowhere to be found, and once we did get riding, it was everybody for themselves. Within four pedal strokes, a pack of twenty was groups of one-to-three people spaced out over hundreds of yards.
You would pedal your way through the crowds and see a hint of purple here, a little bit there, and then gone for the next thirty to forty minutes. I was able to chat a bit with each of the riders throughout the course as I picked my way through the crowds. Little smiles here and there, somebody yelling out, “LIFE IS PRICELESS!” or, “Nice tie on that jersey!” One person called us the “Tie Guys”—at least the jersey design was getting some attention.
It was rewarding. We made it about 25 miles into the mandatory rest stop, and everybody miraculously re-grouped. That lasted all of about four minutes ’til we restarted, and it was back to status quo. I grouped up with Chris at this point, editor for The Active Times, and he and I decided to have a go at the crowd and make a high-speed sprint to the next LIPF stop: a Mexican restaurant called Pedro’s somewhere in Brooklyn, which I now know to be located at the intersection of Jay and Front Streets. But until that point, I had told everybody to meet at a place that only I knew what it looked like… it had a really painted-up wall, and people will be drinking outside. I saw a lot of skeptics in my group.
We hustled through the crowd as if it was our job, and finally I was stretching my legs a little bit. We probably did 7-8 miles at a good clip keeping us above 15-17 mph. Stitching through the human traffic of bikes was keeping my mind going at a good pace, but all the time, I was thinking about when David and I would just barrel through traffic during our routine rides and how fun it was for us both when we caught up to one another at a stoplight. I remembered him disappearing during our last Five Boro together, only to find him eating a taco at Pedro’s. Up to that point, I would just ride straight through and never stop. Since that time, I’ve always stopped for a bite and beer. I mean after all, it’s a ride, not a race…
Within about fifteen minutes of pedaling with Chris, he and I moved several miles ahead of more than a thousand people. We were having a beer and posting up in front of Pedro’s, scanning the audience for other purple-tie shirts and corralling them into the rest stop. We provided beers where we could, but the service, as always, was overwhelmed. You’d think by now they would realize that about 30,000 people are going to be passing their establishment, and it might be a good time to add a few people to the staff rotation, maybe order a little more beer, and get those tacos flowing. But it’s not my business, so to each his own.
We hung around here for a bit, and smiles and stories of the ride were shared by all. I was in awe when I actually saw how many people were riding for us. How many people loved David and were doing their part to keep his spirit alive while we tried to make good on some very bad circumstances.
People started peeling off to finish the ride, but before doing so, we got this great shot against Pedro’s wall, which contrasted nicely with the jerseys. The “back of the pack”-pace cars started showing up and announcing that if you weren’t in front of them, you were no longer in the tour and subject to traffic and cars.
I started shooing the riders in front of me to speed it up as they were getting caught up in real traffic and large support buses, which for the inexperienced rider would be wildly intimidating. So I played blocker a few times and got our group up and ahead of the Five Boro clean-up crew.
I knew the last part of the ride was the most challenging and also the coldest. There was a stiff breeze coming from the water, providing a lovely headwind, and from there it was straight shot to the Verazanno Bridge. A mellow hill climb, if you ride—Mt. Everest if it’s your first tour and haven’t put more than five miles behind you in the last year or so.
I put my smile on and gave some words of encouragement to my riders, trying to provide some guidance about when to shift, when to stand, and mostly lied that they were almost there.
For those of you who don’t know, the Verazanno is a windy, cold lower-level ride to the finish that is devoid of any sunshine, and the only time it is good is when it is raining because it provides a little protection from the elements. Other than that, it is just a three-mile baby climb on worn out legs, and all I was thinking was, “Just wait ’til they figure out they have to ride back to the ferry to get home.”
We eventually made it, and somehow in a sea of bikes and jerseys our group found a means to get back together. We decided it was best if we just got on our way to the ferry and find ourselves some warm food and a couple beers. The wind was kicking up, the sun was hidden behind some cloud-cover, and we were a boat ride away from being done with the tour.
Everybody was shivering with a sunburn, which is not the best feeling. Outside of a banana and some water, I had still not eaten since the bologna sandwich the day before, and what usually takes about two hours complete was going into its sixth hour.
We made our way to the ferry, and people surprisingly were still smiling. Arrival at the Staten Island Ferry port on the Manhattan side provided us access to amazing gusts of wind, which hit you right to the core, and it was off to Ulysses for some beer and Sheppard’s Pie.
We all said our goodbyes and made our way back to our daily lives.
I made it back to my apartment a little after 8:00 p.m.—my sunburn lines on my arm a precursor to the pain I would feel in the morning. I hopped right into the shower before it had a chance to rear its ugly head and was asleep as soon as my head hit the couch. But before my eyes closed, I thought of my little brother that day on the ride and the time we shared riding our bikes together. I thought of all the rides we had taken together and the discussion we shared while pedaling about.
I will miss those days like nothing else because that was the time when we were completely free to do whatever we wanted and to go wherever we chose. We shared a ton of adventures on our bikes through the years. It is shame I will never have the opportunity to ride with him again.
As much as I am in awe and proud of all the people who volunteered their time for David, for me, and for the Foundation, even twenty people couldn’t make up for the times he and I rode together.
I fell asleep trying to count all the times we rode, from our first ride as kids—me on my Huffy and he on his Kent—to the last ride where he just couldn’t get over the demons that were tearing at his brain.
David, I miss you more than you could ever possibly imagine. I am going to do my best to try to enjoy my rides, but I know it will NEVER be the same without you.
