The time: Midnight. The Place: Manhattan. It felt great riding into the Big Apple in a pack with people who knew what they were doing…not sure if we could keep up though. We’ll find out soon enough. Riding 5-deep tonight with Aphazia, BushwickKLR, and HaChayalBoded. For some twisted reason, Amanda and I wanted to see the sketchy side of NY because 1. There’s no way that we’ll do it by ourselves. 2. We had the perfect tour guide—BushwickKLR. Yes, we were going to venture into the depths of Bushwick, NY.
From Long Island, we jump on the interstate on route to Bushwick; I can start to feel the adrenaline coursing through my veins. Right off the bat I notice everyone else’s throttle rev hard as soon as they pull out of the on ramp. Here we go. In order to survive the crazy drivers in this city, you have to have a little crazy in yourself. There’s cars zipping by me to my left as I try desperately to merge. Looks like Amanda’s running out of road ahead of me; you better merge now or you’re not going to make it!…she’s not going to make it…sh*t. She rides straight into a curb and luckily the bike was able to handle it at such high speeds. Now she’s riding in the breakdown lane trying desperately to merge with the flow of traffic. Stay calm girl…you know what to do. Find an opening and take it; you’ve been in this situation before. What felt like eternity, lasted all but a few seconds. A driver finally had the courtesy to allow her to merge. Phew! That was close. Put it in the back of your head; still a lot of road ahead of us. Must keep focused. We exit 495 and approached Jackie Robinson Pkwy. Rumor has it that the architect of the JRP was a racist and designed it so that the road swerved left, right, and center with the hopes of causing many accidents to people of color in the area. BushwickKLR likes to think that the designer did a huge favor to motorcyclists and sports car drivers alike. All I can say it was one heck of a ride and I’m glad I’m not dead yet. I felt such a huge weight lift off my shoulders as we exited the freeway. Now we had the ghetto to contend with. The dark alleys…the graffiti on the walls…the sketchy guys on the corner giving us looks…yeah, this was not the place to be if you didn’t know what you were doing. Funny thing was…I liked it. We stopped over at BushwickKLR’s place to pick up his lady. That was when I had a chance to touch base with Amanda and see if she was alright. She was a bit shaken by the whole experience, but felt more confident now that she was off the interstate. If I knew Amanda couldn’t handle it, I wouldn’t have brought her along. I just know deep down in my gut that she can handle it and at the end of the day she’ll always come out on top.
Stopped over here to get introduced to a Puerto Rican treat. I can never remember the name of it, but it’s milk & orange juice mixed together. Sounds weird I know, but it tastes like orange creamsicles.
Things started to get really exciting as we crossed over Brooklyn Bridge. Riding through the city; you couldn’t tell what time of night it was because the city was so alive. People were everywhere. Then a cabby almost ran me over and brought me back to my senses—pay attention to the road, not the scenery!
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| Just off of Times Square parked in the middle of the street. Better hurry before a cop gives us a ticket! |
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| Hey man, can you tell us where we are going? |
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| Better stick with bikes at this time of night |
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| Ground Zero |
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| The new World's Trade Center |
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| The money shot |
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| Tried to grab a Coney Island, but they were closed. |
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| Can you believe the current champ is a skinny little asian guy? |
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| The Cyclone...soon to be historic landmark |
Death lingers over.
The city that never sleeps.
We’ll take a rain check.
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