Paramit corporation hosted the staging area and registration. They love microwaves. or hot food.
wall of microwaves
The ride was really well supported with plentiful sugary home-baked rest stops. I ate a lot of m&ms and cookies that day. yum.
great homebaked food
The ride was a little foggy in the morning, especially once you got up in the hills a bit:
foggy gilroy hot springs
and sometimes sunny
sunny gilroy hot springs
the fog was wonderful though:
beautiful fogmore beautiful fog
there was an accident somewhere on the route where a car apparently hit a telephone pole, requiring that the road be closed while PG&E conduct repairs. we lost about 30 miles of our ride but we were able to make up 20 miles of it elsewhere on uvas rd.
detour!
Brook hooked me up with some flashy handlebar tape:
Abraco (86 East 7th Street New York) is a small space with a strong smell of coffee and a distinctive neon sign that is featured prominently as their logo on their website. The beans are from counter culture, and the guy apparently has Bay Area roots and had previous experience at blue bottle. For more information, there’s a good writeup in New York magazine.
Abraco’s website pushes some delicious looking pastries, but I only ended up getting an espresso:
abraco: espresso
The espresso, a ristretto, had a very “traditional” taste to me.
As claimed, the place was tiny and crowded. Nothing wrong with that.
abraco: crowded insideabraco: baristasabraco: from the sidewalk
Sam and I continued walking in the east village, headed towards brooklyn but in search of food.
I only ended up with a shot of the bathroom. “Please be good”
We took a little stroll through Tompkins Square Park and then came across Busy Bee Bikes (437 East 6th Street, New York, NY)
busy bee bikes
Nothing too crazy here. You can see a pretty big used part selection behind the glass on the right and a pretty bright paint job outside where some of the people from the shop were working on repairs.
busy bee bikes: sunny sidewalk shot
Our next stop was Bike Works (106 Ridge Street, New York), just on the manhattan side of the Williamsburg bridge. they had a decent selection of cycling caps here, so I picked a couple up as souvenirs.
The city was painting new bike lanes on Rivington St as we approached the Williamsburg bridge. Fresh green paint!
new bike lines on rivington st! (or at least I think it was rivington)
Williamsburg bridge photos:
williamsburg bridge
Heavily covered with graffiti good and bad:
williamsburg bridge: I don't think this needed to be covered up
aand plenty crowded with cyclists and pedestrians. It was cool to see the variety of styles. There were old beater bikes, fixies with chopped bars, cheapo mountain bikes and nice road bikes.
williamsburg bridge: a cyclist, eyeing me suspiciously
We took a break to sit down and rest our legs in Williamsburg. There was some group ride going on that looked more instructional than anything else:
back in brooklyn
we started walking in the general direction of park slope, feet and legs starting to get tired. I happened to spot Bicycle Station (171 Park Avenue, Brooklyn, NY). I went in for a bit. The shop seemed small, and relatively sparse possibly due to the fact that they had moved to this location not too long ago. A family came in with a bunch of bikes needing attention and they were starting the repair as I left.
I believe this is bicycle station
I stopped into La Bagel Delight for some food and then took a quick peek into Bespoke Bicycles (64-B Lafayette Avenue, Brooklyn) before meeting Sam for a beer at Mullanes across the street. It was well-lit with some beautiful signage.
bespoke bicycles
replenished and rested, we continued towards park slope.
Saw this on Atlantic Ave:
prizes! (trash)
worst prizes ever. but cool tape job.
This little amendment to the BNE sticker took some planning. I got a kick out of it:
"big nut eater". seriously, no love for BNE.
we had some time to spare before meeting up with Sam’s friend for dinner, so naturally we walked up and down 5th and 7th avenues.
Stopped into R&A Cycles (105 5th Avenue Brooklyn) for a second:
R&A Cycles: storefront
R&A has a big shop with many fancy road/tri/whatever bikes.
passed by Dixon’s (792 Union Street Brooklyn), so I stepped in for a second too:
dixon's bike shop wall. But this wasn't actually dixon's
Dixon’s is also a pretty large shop but their focus seemed to be used bikes and repairs:
dixon's bike shop: interior
We walked on to Tea Lounge (837 Union Street Brooklyn) where I didn’t get more coffee because I was already 2 espressos in for the day. Instead, we sat on a comfy couch and rested.
chalkboard outside of tea lounge
I tried making a google map of all of the places visited but am having a hard time embedding that onto this site. So, here’s a list of places that I visited (thanks again to Brooklyn by Bike and the New York Times Interactive Coffee Map! and the people who helped me along the way)
the cruiser, parked across the street from lit fuse
my time for the rental was running out and I was meeting friends at pacifico for dinner. I left lit fuse and rode through downtown brooklyn to get back to recycle a bicycle.
there were a lot of bike lanes going on here under the manhattan bridge (sands st and jay st)happyface sadface
chris at recycleabicycle invited me in to take more pictures.
ridiculous amount of used bikes and parts.left crank armsforkslots and lotscrates of brakesright crank arms
I took the subway back to my sister’s place in manhattan. It was kind of sad to leave the cruiser behind.
I caught this before the end of the night:
chop
your brake levers overlap! but I suppose it’s good to at least have brakes.
I had to work the next day but continued the bike shop and coffee tour the day after that, on foot with my friend sam.
first stop: stumptown.
I was debating whether to post this. ok shepard fairey, you win.stumptown barista
I was really impressed with stumptown (18 West 27th Street New York, NY). It’s a really well done little spot attached to the swank ace hotel.
stumptown: menu
the line was about 8-10 deep, which was a bit long but manageable.
stumptown: grinding and brewing
there was lots of fun stuff, coffee and not coffee related on the walls.
stumptown: espresso
stumptown’s espresso was my favorite of the tour by far.
saw this guy parked outside stumptown:
is this comfortable? I kind of wanted to hop on and try it out.
has anyone ridden a no-nose saddle before?
next stop: conrad’s in tudor city.
conrad's store front
conrad’s bike shop (25 Tudor City Place New York, NY) looked like they got pretty serious with the bike fitting:
conrad's interior. bike fit setup is the 2nd bike inconrad's interior
there was a decent selection of apparel and accessories as well as many fancy bikes on the floor.
sam and I walked down to the east village next, to hit abraco.
this guy had a good look:
riding a strida? on 10th st
and this note, hilarious:
nobikes, bike, note
“Don’t come crying when we cut your chain and remove your bicycle from the fence! THAT’S A BIG SIGN!”
This is part 2 of my brooklyn bike and coffee tour.
My next stop after Blue Bottle was Oslo coffee (133 Roebling St, Brooklyn).
I took some shots along the way:
williamsburg pasteupGATS gets around
I couldn’t handle much more caffeine by the time I got to Oslo, so I skipped another espresso and had a cookie instead.
oslo coffee: storefront
eddie at oslo coffee
I told Eddie about the bike and coffee tour idea and he recommended a few places to check out in Manhattan. I was surprised that it was empty there, but I think it was mid-afternoon at this point, which isn’t exactly a prime coffee hour.
I visited NYCbikes (spokes and strings? 140 Havemeyer St. Brooklyn, NY) next.
I continued rolling around Williamsburg to Gimme! Coffee (495 Lorimer St, Brooklyn, NY)
gimme! coffee: storefront
It was pretty packed in here with quite a few people working on their laptops and it looked like some of the after-work crowd was coming in for a buzz. Friendly baristas.
gimme! coffee: transaction
I didn’t remember to take a picture of the espresso shot until I was almost done:
gimme! coffee: espresso, mostly finished.
affinity cycles (616 Grand Street Brooklyn, NY) was right around the corner.
affinity cycles: storefront
The guys in the shop were pretty busy with repairs and they were doing some renovations to the interior:
affinity cycles: interior
onward. Grand St. was being resurfaced but the fatty cruiser tires didn’t really care.
probably on grand st @ bushwick ave
I rode down to velo brooklyn (bushwick bike shop). (342 Dekalb Avenue, Brooklyn, NY) This shop wasn’t part of my originally-scheduled tour, but I happened to be riding by, so…
velo brooklyn (bushwick bike shop)
super-friendly and laid back people here. One guy recommeded that I check out the biker cafe, boneshakers – but alas, I didn’t have time this trip. maybe next time. I browsed through their cycling cap selection and was surprised to see that they carried hats by local lady alloneword. She had graciously donated caps to my girlfriend and friends who are doing AIDS lifecycle this year.
velo brooklyn (bushwick bike shop): shop talkvelo brooklyn (bushwick bike shop): pretty sweet walls
I headed towards Lit fuse cyclery (409 Willoughby Avenue, Brooklyn, NY) next.
dekalb avedekalb ave: cruisin bed-stuylit fuse cyclery: entrancelit fuse cyclery: interior, with klein
I was taking interior shots at every shop, but I had to get one from this angle because I have a soft spot for kleins. this Klein Rascal had the mission control integrated handlebars. (Side note: I’m happy someone put together www.oldklein.com – the official klein page is just a product registration form. boo trek.)
lit fuse cyclery: interior, alternate view
that’s a lot of photos. next post is the ride back to recycle a bicycle to return the bike.
I was in New York for work a couple of weeks ago and decided to take some time off to wander in the city. I embarked on a self-guided tour of bike shops and coffee shops in brooklyn and manhattan (with the much-appreciated help of Anita from Brooklyn by Bike who led me to the New York Times Interactive Coffee Map) and took a bunch of pictures. whenever possible, images were shot at ISO 50 and wide open, just because.
front counter of recycle a bicycle
I asked about bike rentals and bikesnobnyc was kind enough to suggest that I check out recycle a bicycle. I went to their DUMBO location (Recycle A Bicycle, 35 Pearl St, Brooklyn) They had only two bikes available and this is the one I got:
cruiser from recycle a bicycle
Chris from the shop hooked me up with the free official NYC cycling map.
I took a few pictures outside:
shredded paper, DUMBO
and along the way. It felt weird trying to balance on this bike – it had a coaster brake and I wasn’t used to the way-upright handlebars. Riding the cruiser kind of made the ride more enjoyable, though, because it allowed me to just kick back at a slower pace and enjoy the ride.
brooklyn BEEFdalai lama stencil - and of course, a BNE sticker
and then pedaled towards Cafe Grumpy in Greenpoint.
williamsburg st bike lanekent ave bike lane. I've got to say, I'm really digging the bright green.this wall is at Kent and Metropolitan
the weather was ridiculously beautiful.
Cafe Grumpy front counter
the espresso at Cafe Grumpy (193 Meserole Avenue, Brooklyn, NY) was good and the people very friendly.
cafe grumpy (greenpoint) espresso. I couldn't resist and took a sip before taking the picture.roasting at cafe grumpy
Cafe Grumpy was larger than I expected. It was relatively crowded with people working on their laptops and they had a beautiful bathroom window:
cafe grumpy bathroom window. it was pretty. I couldn't help it.
I headed towards B’s bike shop (262 Driggs Avenue, Brooklyn, NY) next in Williamsburg.
took a picture along the way:
but hey, what's up with that frame?B's Bikes: counter
B’s Bikes was a crowded little shop that seemed to be getting a lot of business. I told the people inside about my plans for the day and they happily mentioned a few neat bike shops in Manhattan to check out.
B's Bikes: repair stand
I rode the cruiser down to King Kog (455 Graham Avenue, Brooklyn, NY) next:
King Kog bike shopInside King Kog
There was definitely a different vibe here with more bike-lifestyle items on the shelves including a hilarious “One Less Messenger” t-shirt.
Next stop: Blue Bottle (160 Berry Street, Brooklyn, NY). I live in Oakland, CA, and wanted to see what Blue Bottle was doing on the East Coast:
Blue Bottle Coffee, Williamsburg
I was really impressed by the size of their space. The natural light was great. They roast in the back. I’ve been to their kiosk in Hayes Valley in SF, the Cafe at Mint Plaza, their Ferry Building location, their old roastery in Emeryville and their farmers market in Temescal. This space was absolutely huge in comparison.
Blue Bottle Coffee: La MarzoccoBlue Bottle Coffee: oji cold brew array
There were quite a few people hanging outside too, enjoying the coffee and the weather:
today was bike to work day. here are some shots from the bike away from work afterparty put on by the east bay bike coalition:
crazy bike from cyclecide. This bike was really hard to ride!crazy bike #2 - I did not get to try this one but check out the rear wheel - made from an old trampolineahh, oakland's uptown.crazy cyclecide rides - pretty sweet capethis girl is having a BLAST. in comparison, the speed of the swing kind of scared me. I did not ride it.phil from rideSFO
The Nicasio reservoir. Our group split soon after – we went to Pt. Reyes Station, the rest to Petaluma and then Santa Rosa.
Old St. Mary’s church + Corvette
Riding back across the bridge that afternoon was a little hairy and a little wet, but this scene was absolutely wild:
this part was a bit scary with the tourists and the fog:
Chrissy field on the way back:
Latte at Blue Bottle in the Ferry Building to end the day:
