The Five Boro Bike Tour

Go Fuck Yourself, New York City!

May 12, 2023

This past Sunday was something called the Five Boro Bike Tour, which is held in New York City every year on the first Sunday in May.  I also refer to it as The Purge. 

I’ve never been part of a mass exodus from an imminent apocalyptic event, thankfully.  But I imagine it is filled with fleeing cars, mob panic, desperation, and lawlessness.  If those are the criteria, then scratch that, I actually have been part of such an event multiple times—every year on the first Sunday in May, in fact.

The Five Boro Bike Tour is an annual nightmare where New York City authorities close all the major highways and road arteries to car traffic so that thousands of bicycles can ride on them instead.  In short, it is the day the city lets its citizens fend for themselves.  I’ve never met anyone who actually participated in this so-called “Bike Tour,” as I’m proud to report that I don’t know anyone rude enough to do so.  And I know a lot of assholes.

If you live in New York, you know deep down that we perpetually live on the brink of civil disorder.  There’s just too many people and not enough space.  No buffer.  No shoulder.  There’s a constant buzz of purposeful people whizzing around you.  All you need is one loose horse to run across Fifth Avenue and everything will break down.  If you do not live in the city and this reality is not readily apparent to you, try this: Remember how when you were here there was all that traffic?  All that stress and honking and rumbling?  Now imagine the same amount of cars, but half the streets and all the highways and bridges are closed. 

Like the Purge, this reduces the city into a state of complete lawlessness for the entire day.  Don’t get me wrong, there are police everywhere.  But they are apparently only enforcing one rule: don’t get on the highway.     

On Sunday morning, the day was sunny and warm and filled with possibility.  We all packed into the family car and we made our way towards the Belt Parkway.  We were all wearing fancy clothes—uncomfortable fancy clothes—as we were heading off to a family function on Long Island.  I first realized that it was the day of the annual bike nightmare when I made a right turn towards the normal on-ramp but could not proceed any further.  You see, there were a million cars and trucks jamming up the side street all going in the same direction, towards us.  This is supposed to be a two-way street, mind you.  And oh, did these drivers have anger in their hearts.  Apparently each and every one of these good people had ambitious hopes of driving across the Verrazano Bridge on this fine Sunday, but, alas, like Icarus, such ambitions came crashing down to Mother Earth.  This is precisely the scene I would have expected to see if a spaceship just flew into the Verrazano Bridge.  Except no, someone just decided to close the bridge on purpose.  So that bikes can ride on them.  

It is at that moment that it suddenly dawns on you that the same thing happened to you a year ago.  And two years ago.  And ten years ago.  You block it out because humans tend to block out unspeakable trauma.  Like the time we went to visit Grandma at church in Greenpoint and it took over two hours to get off the Brooklyn Queens Expressway and make our way home through the side streets, all while the GPS was telling us to get back on the BQE.  “The BQE is fucking closed, you bitch!”  Or the time we had to go to a birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese on Staten Island.  Where was the merciful spaceship then?

If you get beyond the life-threatening chaos and are able to reflect on the meaning behind the madness, you start to consider the event itself.  What on earth can possibly justify this upheaval?  A “bike tour?”  And that’s when you get mad.  That’s when the great vengeance and furious anger start to percolate.  We are experiencing this degradation for a “bike tour?”  So that people who aren’t even from the city can ride their bikes on our streets and highways?  There are so many problems with this, let me count the ways. 

First, let’s face it.  Serious cyclists are generally among the most douchey and contemptible humans on the planet. They think they own the road, or the path, or the sidewalk, and they have their own little set of rules that you’re supposed to know but you don’t because you’re not a douchebag.  They’re horrible, with their ridiculous tights and sunglasses and penis helmets.  Fuck you.  And it is for the indulgence of these people that we are shutting down the city?  So that on that one day, they get to literally have the entire road to themselves.  If you are not a serious cyclist, but merely a bike enthusiast who happens to participate in the Five Boro Bike Tour, please be assured that I enthusiastically hate you, too.      

Second, this isn’t the New York City Marathon.  Yes, they close off some streets for that, too, but I generally respect the marathon.  I know many people who have run the marathon.  We once gathered as a family to cheer on my brother when he ran the marathon.  It’s an athletic competition.  Its participants are doing something hard.  It’s a meaningful cultural event.  Records are kept.  And because it’s a meaningful event, the people of New York City are aware of when it will be taking place.  It does not catch us by surprise every year.  As for the “Bike Tour?”  No one gives a shit about it, so no one knows when it will happen.  It’s not a competition.  It’s a masturbatory indulgence.  And it takes place on a Sunday in May of all times, one of the few months out of the year when New York City is generally sunny and pleasant.            

Finally, the Bike Tour reliably causes a complete city-wide clusterfuck every time. If someone told me that 8,000 people die on that day each year, I would believe them.   Richard Dawson might as well be emceeing the event. 

Yet there is never any acknowledgement of the chaos and misery that it causes.  Every news report is just a puff piece.  And always after the fact: “Five Boro Bike Tour draws riders from around the world for 40 mile trek.” They never interview the guy who couldn’t get across the Queensboro Bridge and sat in traffic for six hours.   It’s not easy living in New York, but this genuinely stands out as one of the biggest middle fingers that the city can possibly point at its residents.   

It was late Sunday when we found ourselves driving back towards our home in Brooklyn.  All traffic ground to a halt somewhere near Coney Island.  The Verrazano Bridge was, of course, closed, and our car was stuck in the sea of Humanity forgotten and betrayed by the city.  By then, the anger had long subsided and we were in a state of Zen-like acceptance of our lot.  As we crept along towards the on-ramp, blocked by a menacing police cruiser, we noticed a car stopped, idling on the shoulder.  Inside was an old man with his eyes closed, sitting peacefully behind the wheel.  Maybe he was dead.  Maybe he just decided to shut it down.  The thing is, when that man first got on the highway, he was twenty five years old.