Latest news with #FiveBoroBikeTour
New York Post
04-05-2025
- Climate
- New York Post
Five Boro Bike Tour takes thousands of bicyclists through NYC's main thoroughfares
More than 32,000 cyclists turned out for the annual Five Boro Bike Tour — with riders racing through the streets to beat out rain showers that swept over the city Sunday. The first wave of riders took off from Lower Manhattan around 8:30 a.m, with the huge crowd moving north through the city and through Central Park, before crossing briefly into the Bronx and back into Manhattan. From there they travelled south down the FDR and crossed into Queens over the Queensboro Bridge, spun a look through Astoria and headed south into Brooklyn, before crossing the Verrazzano Bridge into Staten Island. More than 30,000 riders turned out for the 2025 Five Boro Bike Tour on Sunday, which was spared severe rain Luiz C. Ribeiro for New York Post The whole route stretches about 40 miles and crosses five bridges, as spectators also braved the forecasts this year to cheer on the riders. Cyclists managed to dodge most of the deluges that had been forecast for the day, with only scattered showers during the leisurely ride, which is not a timed race. The bike tour kicked off in Lower Manhattan Sunday morning and touched all five boroughs, ending in Staten Island Tomas E. Gaston First biked in 1977 by only a few hundred riders, the event has grown over the years and become an annual staple in the city's cycling community. Registration fees go towards bicycling education programs, along with advocacy for more and safer bike infrastructure across the city.
CBS News
02-05-2025
- CBS News
5 Boro Bike Tour returns to NYC on Sunday. Find street closures, a route map and more.
Tens of thousands of cyclists will bike through New York City on Sunday for the 47th Annual TD Five Boro Bike Tour. Five Boro Bike Tour packet pickup Participants can pick up their rider ID kits at Center415, located at 415 Fifth Ave., until 7 p.m. Friday and from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m. Saturday. Riders will need to bring their wave assignment email with a QR code and a valid photo ID. Five Boro Bike Tour start times The first wave of riders will start at 7:30 a.m. on Sunday, May 4, with subsequent waves departing at 8:30 a.m., 9:15 a.m., 9:50 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. Five Boro Bike Tour route map The tour takes participants on a 40-mile ride from Lower Manhattan, through the Bronx, over to Queens and down through Brooklyn to Staten Island. Five Boro Bike Tour street closures The route closes to vehicular traffic at 7:15 a.m. Sixth Avenue will reopen to cars at noon. The New York City Department of Transportation has announced the following road closures: Manhattan Greenwich Street between Battery Place and Morris Street Trinity Place between Morris Street and Liberty Street Church Street between Liberty Street and Canal Street Chambers Street between Broadway and West Street Worth Street between Broadway and West Broadway Canal Street between Broadway and 6th Avenue 6th Avenue between Franklin Street and West 59th Street West 59th Street between 6th Avenue and 5th Avenue Grand Army Plaza between West 59th Street and East Drive East Drive between Grand Army Plaza and Center Drive Center Drive between 5th Avenue and East Drive East Drive between Center Drive and Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard between West 110th Street and West 135th Street East / West 135th Street between Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard and Madison Avenue Madison Avenue between East 135th Street and East 138th Street Madison Avenue Bridge (Bronx-bound) Harlem River Drive / FDR Drive (Southbound) between 3rd Avenue Bridge and East 116th Street East 116th Street between FDR Drive and Pleasant Avenue Pleasant Avenue between East 116th Street and East 114th Street Harlem River Drive / FDR Drive (Southbound) between 116th Street and 63rd Street Exit East 63rd Street between FDR Drive (Southbound) and Queensboro Bridge Exit Queensboro Bridge Exit between East 63rd Street and East 60th Street Queensboro Bridge Upper Level (Manhattan-bound) The Bronx 138th Street between Madison Avenue Bridge and 3rd Avenue 3rd Avenue between 138th Street and 3rd Avenue Bridge 3rd Avenue Bridge (Manhattan-bound) Queens Queens Plaza South between 21st Street and Vernon Boulevard / Alternate Route 21st Street between 43rd Avenue and Queens Plaza South 21st Street between Queens Plaza South and Hoyt Avenue North Hoyt Avenue North between 21st Street and 19th Street 19th Street between Hoyt Avenue North and Ditmars Boulevard Ditmars Boulevard between 19th Street and Shore Boulevard Shore Boulevard between Ditmars Boulevard and Astoria Park South Astoria Park South between Shore Boulevard and 14th Street 14th Street between Astoria Park South and 31st Avenue 31st Avenue between 14th Street and Vernon Boulevard Vernon Boulevard between 31st Avenue and 44th Drive 44th Drive between Vernon Boulevard and 11th Street 11th Street between 44th Drive and Pulaski Bridge Pulaski Bridge (Brooklyn-bound) Brooklyn McGuiness Boulevard between Pulaski Bridge and Greenpoint Avenue Java Street between McGuinness Boulevard and Franklin Street Greenpoint Avenue between McGuinness Boulevard and Franklin Street Franklin Street between Java Street and North 14th Street Kent Avenue between North 14th Street and Williamsburg Street West Williamsburg Street West between Kent Avenue and Flushing Avenue Flushing Avenue between Williamsburg Street West and Navy Street North Elliot Place between Flushing Avenue and Park Avenue Navy Street between Flushing Avenue and York Street York Street between Navy Street and Gold Street Gold Street between York Street and Front Street Front Street between Gold Street and Old Fulton Street Old Fulton between Furman Street and Front Street Furman Street between Old Fulton Street and Atlantic Avenue Atlantic Avenue between Furman Street and Columbia Street Columbia Street between Atlantic Avenue and BQE West Entrance Columbia Street BQE / Gowanus Expressway between BQE West Entrance Columbia Street and Verrazano Verrazano Bridge Lower Level (Staten Island-bound) Staten Island Bay Street between New York Avenue and Hylan Boulevard Hylan Boulevard between Bay Street and Edgewater Street Edgewater Street/ Front Street between Hylan Boulevard and Hannah Street Hannah Street between Front Street and Bay Street Bay Street between Hannah Street and Richmond Terrace Richmond Terrace between Bay Street and Nicholas Street Wall Street between Richmond Terrace and Dead End
New York Times
02-05-2025
- Sport
- New York Times
A Blind Bicyclist and His Daughter Work in Tandem
Good morning. It's Friday. We'll look at a father-daughter team that is preparing to ride in the Five Boro Bike Tour this weekend. We'll also find out what prompted a composer to write a tribute after Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1968 while campaigning for president. Thomas Panek has run more than 20 road races. His time in the New York Half Marathon last year was 2 hours 9 minutes 21 seconds. On Sunday, he will cover some of the same ground in a different way, as a rider in the Five Boro Bike Tour. 'I'm a little nervous,' he said. 'I don't know what to expect when you're using a different group of muscles in your body.' That sentence skipped over two things that will set him apart from most of the 32,000 other riders. One is that he will ride on a tandem bicycle. The other is that he is blind. He has retinitis pigmentosa, a degenerative disorder that left him legally blind by the time his daughter, Madeleine, was born 22 years ago. She will be the one in the front seat of the tandem, shifting the gears and calling out when turns are coming or she needs to brake. They have practiced stopping because, as he put it, 'if she were to suddenly brake, I would get thrown forward into her.' Many sightless athletes talk about their collaboration with their guides. 'Harmony and synchrony' was how the blind runner Jerusa Geber dos Santos of Brazil described the relationship during the Olympics in Paris last year. Madeleine Panek talked about how she and her father trust each other, an idea he echoed. 'Holding my hand when she was 2 years old, helping me cross the street, it's second nature for her to guide me,' he said. 'It takes some coordination to trust the captain if you're blind and you don't know the person. We already have that relationship. That is going to be the easy part. The hard part is getting it done.' He knows the route from running — it is similar to the course of the New York City Marathon. The two races start and end in different places, but both cover the 2.6-mile-long Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge and highways like the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway and the Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive. Some of the hazards are similar, too, like potholes that can seem as large as craters on the moon. But some of the hazards are different for cyclists: Expansion joints between sections of pavement could be trouble spots. Riders who do not spot them in time could fly over the handlebars. Thomas Panek started a new job last month, as the president and chief executive of Lighthouse Guild, a nonprofit organization that provides services for blind people. When he heard about other cyclists from the Lighthouse Guild who would be riding, he signed up. He waited to ask his daughter to be the pilot 'because she just finished her MCATs,' he said — the standardized test for medical school applications. 'I didn't want to add any additional pressure,' he said. She is coming to New York for the weekend as she approaches graduation from Binghamton University and is applying to medical school. Bike New York, which runs the Five Boro Bike tour, says that 210 riders with disabilities will be in the ride on Sunday and that 101 of them will be visually impaired cyclists on tandem bicycles. Ken Podziba, the president of Bike New York, first rode in the tour in 2002 on a tandem bike with Matthew Sapolin, a friend who was blind and was the commissioner of the Mayor's Office for People With Disabilities under Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Podziba, the sports commissioner under Bloomberg, loved it and ended up working for Bike New York. Thomas Panek said their tandem is 'a long vehicle,' adding that 'you have to account for the fact that it's almost like pulling a trailer.' 'On a tandem bike,' he said, 'you're pedaling for two. If I get tired at some point, Madeleine can pick up the level of effort.' And vice versa, he said. 'But on the Verrazzano, it's going to take everything from both of us.' There is a chance of showers throughout the day, but also sun and temperatures near 80. In the evening, there is a 30 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms, with a low around 63. In effect until May 26 (Memorial Day). The latest New York news A first New York performance of a requiem from the 1960s On a June day in 1968, a man named Frank Lewin drove his three daughters to a railroad station not far from where they lived in Princeton, N.J. He wanted to watch for a train that was going to pass by. 'I mostly remember standing there, and that it was very hot,' said one of the daughters, Naomi Lewin. The train Frank Lewin wanted to see was carrying the body of Robert F. Kennedy, the former attorney general and senator who had been assassinated while campaigning for president in Los Angeles a couple of days earlier. The funeral had been held at St. Patrick's Cathedral in Manhattan. The train was bound for Washington; Kennedy was to be buried in Arlington National Cemetery. Frank Lewin was a composer who was perhaps best known then for scores for television shows like 'The Defenders' and 'The Nurses' on CBS. But he wrote serious music, too, including an opera based on John Steinbeck's novella 'Burning Bright,' and decided to write a requiem Mass in memory of Kennedy. It will be given its first New York performance, with Matthew Lewis and the St. George's Choral Society, on Sunday at the Rutgers Presbyterian Church on the Upper West Side. 'I think my dad felt there was a need for a requiem in the English language,' Naomi Lewin said. The works by Mozart, Verdi and Fauré follow Latin texts. Lewin's setting of the Lord's Prayer in English is particularly lovely. 'Dad wanted to compose music for an entire Catholic requiem service,' Naomi Lewin said. 'So instead of having the congregation speak the Lord's Prayer, as they would normally do during a church service, he wrote music for it, and labeled it to be sung by the congregation.' As for Kennedy, 'my dad obviously admired him,' Naomi Lewin said. The Lewins were German Jews who had come to the United States 'looking for freedom — and the sort of freedom that Robert Kennedy was fighting for,' she said. 'Robert Kennedy had a legacy of civil rights and helping poor people. This is history.' Frank Lewin turned to the Roman Catholic chaplain at Princeton University and others from the university's Aquinas Institute who 'gave him pointers because he didn't know about the Catholic liturgy.' The piece was first performed in the Princeton University Chapel in 1969. 'Dad used the Catholic text' for the Lord's Prayer, 'ending at 'deliver us from evil,' with no 'kingdom' or 'power' or 'glory,'' said Naomi Lewis, who was a professional singer and a classical music radio personality. 'Years later, having sung in countless churches, I told Dad that he should compose a Protestant ending.' So he did. Così fan tattoo Dear Diary: I have been attending operas for more than 25 years and getting tattoos for almost twice as long. On a trip to New York in 2018, I attended a Metropolitan Opera production of Mozart's 'Così Fan Tutte' that was staged in Coney Island and featured actual sideshow performers, including a fire-eater, a sword swallower, a snake dancer and a contortionist. Later that summer, I returned to the city for an annual tattoo show in Manhattan. Some of the same sideshow performers provided entertainment. As one woman came off the stage, I told her I had seen her earlier that year in the opera. She looked at the heavily tattooed and pierced crowd. 'I'm guessing you'll be the only person this weekend who tells me that,' she said. — Jil McIntosh Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Send submissions here and read more Metropolitan Diary here. Glad we could get together here. See you Monday. — J.B. P.S. Here's today's Mini Crossword and Spelling Bee. You can find all our puzzles here. Stefano Montali and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at nytoday@ Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox.
