They need to make it the Six Boro Bike Tour. That's what I did.

On Sun, 1 May 2005 20:14:22 -0700 (PDT) Alfredo Garcia
<cyclistxxiii@...> writes:

> People, myself included, wondered why it took as
> least 2.5 hours to wait on Bay St. that seemed
> forever, to take the ferry back to Manhattan.

I asked the little girl in front of me, are you as bored as I am? She
was at least as. Other children were closer to the gutter and were
driving their parents to distraction by playing with the water. I didn't
try to alleviate the suffering of those around me, but the sidewalk
was rapidly filling at 3:30, so after nearly an hour of waiting I took
the
last chance to escape, reversed course and climbed above Bay Street.
And up over the spine of northeastern Staten Island. I don't know that
hilly island well, but the corner of Lafayette and Prospect looked like
the highest point around when I pedalled through. After some retracing
and climbing the wrong hills I found the Bayonne Bridge and crossed it.
A gang of ten overtook me and we conferred at the Bayonne end.

They were from distant northern New Jersey suburbs. They had
parked their cars in Fort Lee or other places near the City where
it is easier to find parking than in Manhattan. Then they had biked
along the shoulder of Highway 440 or Hudson River Greenway to
the Battery starting point of the Five Boro Bike Tour. Their
problem was, they didn't know the way to Jersey City,

My intention was to climb to Journal Square, the heart of JC. That
means the high road, which isn't very interesting and involves some
climbing and a bit of heavy traffic but gets you there pretty quickly.
They didn't want that. They wanted the low road via Liberty State Park.
Having gone there with 5BBC and TWC groups, as well as getting lost
a few times solo, I knew I could find LSP even if I couldn't remember the
efficient routes those groups used. So, I agreed to lead them. They
hadn't used a drop system to get to Bayonne, so one of their group had
got lost even though they were using the simple low road while I had
navigated by the Sun and by wrong guesses. Fortunately she had
another member's cellphone number so they were able to talk her
onto the Bayonne Bridge, giving us half an hour rest which I needed.

Someone volunteered to Sweep and someone else explained in a loud
voice how the Drop System works, and we took off along JFK Blvd
with me working Point for the first time in my life. Goodness, leading a
bunch of strangers brings kind of an emotional rush. Despite fatigue
I had to remember to slow down, to keep the group from becoming too
strung out. Pretty soon I got them going up Avenue C. Just before the
Bayonne/JC border I took a wrong turn and recovered nicely enough.
One thing about bike leadership seems to be, your people forgive your
mistakes as long as you apologise immediately. Mine did, anyway.

I missed the chance to descend from Baldwin Avenue to Princeton Street,
which is no big deal. Slightly bigger deal, I overshot the Linden Avenue
turnoff to the Caven Point Road water route. That meant using three
Drops for three turns where one should have been enough, but at least
I was getting to understand my role. It can be handy to string out the
group a bit so there are only two or three bikers immediately behind the
Point. Then there's no need to deal with a crowd in making the Drop.
One trick I missed was, always ask the Drop's name. Even if I don't
remember the answer, they will remember the question, and will
take the duty more seriously.

Nobody got lost or had a flat and we rolled into the park, found the
bathrooms and water bottle resupply (which I really needed) and I was
relieved of command. Whew; no more possibility of things going wrong
being my fault. We posed for pictures. Jersey City stands behind the
Statue of Liberty, one hundred percent. Headwind was heavy when we
headed west along the marina. At Grove Street I left the group to go to
my train. My last shouted comment was, we have to cross out "Five" in
"Five Boro Bike Tour" and make it "Six" for Hudson County. "Seven,"
replied one of these Bergen County bound riders.

Eh? The train stops at Exchange Place? That means I accidentally
took the train going to Downtown, not Midtown Manhattan. No big deal.
At 7 PM at WTC half a dozen bikers with the 5BBT orange bib were
getting onto the train that I was getting off. That means their way of
getting to New Jersey by way of Manhattan was approximately as slow
as my way of getting to Manhattan by way of New Jersey. And their way
was much more boring; I was enjoying myself and learning a new skill.

Flat tire; just have to pump. Boring but pleasant ride up the Hudson
River. No need for more excitement. Pretty sunset just before I turned
into the street grid at the Passenger Ship Terminal. No need for more
than my helmet blinky. Oof. 67 miles for the day, most of them easy
because they were on highways or under the protection of the
mighty organization. The hard part came after leaving the official ride.

And the happy part.

> The newsreport mentioned that 4 boats were used for
> previous Bike New Yorks. But today only 2 boats.

Another thing the organization can do is offer the Sixth Boro. String
a banner across Bay Street, saying on the right, "Boat to Manhattan"
and on the left "Bike to Bayonne." Keep the crowds from blocking
the way north on the left side. Yes, it means more marshalling, for
a route that only hundreds will take rather than 30,000. Well, maybe
thousands will be persuade to go the Sixth Boro route, if they know
about it and if the boats again force hours of delay as they did this
year.
Ask some NJ biker club to provide Drop System escorts from the bridge
to a Bayonne station of the trolley and to Jersey City, maybe even to
Fort Lee.