Yeehaw, baby! I finally rode into New York, and it's true - riding in Manhattan is easier, and arguably safer than riding in New Jersey. I rode in for my first New York Critical Mass, having been self-disenfranchised of my home Crit Mass in San Francisco.

It was pretty exciting riding in. It's almost three miles from my parents' house to the New York side of the George Warshington Bridge, and from there I found my way to Riverside Drive which just goes down, down, down through the streets from 178th to 72nd St. It really isn't by the side of the river, the West Side Highway is closer to the river, and apparently there is a path that is literally river side that I wasn't able to find my way to. Will look for it soonly.

At 72nd Street, I headed east towards the center of Manhattan, and when I got to Broadway, it felt really familiar, <thinking>72nd and Broadway, 72nd and Broadway</thinking>, and then I looked closely at the shop on the corner whose fascade was covered with scaffolding - is it? It was! It was Gray's Papaya, my favorite hot dog stand in New York. For $2.75, you get two yummy hot dogs and a choice of a tropical fruit drink. Of course I had to stop for dinner.

From there I continued east to Central Park, realizing how easy it is to ride to the Museum of Natural History and the Hayden Planetarium, which is called something else now, Rose Center for blah, blah, blah, on 81st-84th Sts. I'll have to check what exhibits are there. Anyway, New York Critical Mass convenes at Union Square in the East Village. It was about a 16 mile ride to get there, taking an hour and 20 minutes. A long way to go for Critical Mass, compared to the three miles it took in San Francisco, but it was exciting, and New York Critical Mass was something else!

Just from the sheer humongalopolous size of New York, you're going to have a large mass (don't forget the 'm'!). You just have that much larger a pool of cyclists interested to draw from. And taking it to the streets of New Yawk, taking attitude to the city that invented city attitude was incredible, mind-blowing. I never would have imagined that it could be pulled off in New York.

- Coming out of the Park Avenue tunnel, I saw a corker (a cyclist that blocks traffic from moving while the Mass is passing) sitting on the hood of an ornery taxi! Risky business even in San Francisco, as people get touchy when you start touching their cars.
- In San Francisco, sometimes I would advise pedestrians trying to cross the Mass to just take it slow and confident, the cyclists won't hit you. I decided it would be irresponsible to give such advise in New York; the cyclists just might hit you.
- In San Francisco, we try to be courteous to pedestrians and call out a warning to other cyclists if a pedestrian is trying to cross. In New York, I found myself holla-ing at pedestrians, forming a critical mass of their own to cross a street against a light, to let them know I was coming and I wasn't going to stop for them.
- The highlight for me was taking the West Side Highway, riding south and screaming and causing a ruckus through the Battery Park Tunnel, and ending up on the FDR Drive with glorious views of Brooklyn and the Brooklyn Bridge! It felt almost akin to riding on the Bay Bridge - just riding somewhere where normally only cars can travel.
- New York's finest handled things very well given the situation. I even saw a cyclist chatting with a motorbike cop. I saw a motorbike cop bump a cyclist in Times Square to get him to move because of an ambulance coming up from behind. I thought it was a reasonable nudge, but then the cop apologized when the cyclist protested. A San Francisco cop would have had the guy on the asphalt with a knee on his back and pulling out the handcuffs. Bastards. The cops handled getting the Mass off the FDR Drive and back onto surface streets very reasonably and professionally.
- I met a guy from fotolog named Adam who showed me the ins and outs of taking a bike on the subway.
- I dropped my fucking camera. I think all my camera dropping is a sign that I should drop photography. I'll wait until the cameras start breaking.