Island review: Randalls-Wards Island

The best part about Randalls-Wards island - at least in the Winter time - is that there's no one there. The south side of the island has a great set of small paved paths that wind around, and make for great solitary touring, not to mention amazing views of the East Side, Harlem, and Astoria.

But there's a catch. The island's rather tricky to get to, and I always feel a little too uncomfortable trying to get there from the Triboroguh Bridge. The problem is that the traffic across the bridge is always extremely reckless, and the ramps to exit the bridge and spiral down to the island are from the extreme right lanes. That's normally not a problem if you're coming from Manhattan up the FDR, but if you try to get off the bridge going westbound, the exit is 50 meters after the toll booth, and route 278 merges and forces you to the far left of the toll plaza, which means that right after the toll, you have to zip across to the far right lane, cutting across 8-10 lanes of traffic. Not safe. Rider beware.

But let's assume you make it safely, perhaps because you came from the FDR. The first thing you notice upon winding down the spiral ramp is that the island is covered with ambiguous concrete buildings, often unlabeled, and always decripit. They're clearly municipal buildings and storage facilities, as you will often find cranes and road repairing equipment/vehicles strewn about the island (in fact, in the mid-south of the island is huge parking lot full of crows-nest cranes). As you wind around the north side of the island where you start, beware of the potholes - they're 6-9 inches deep in some areas!

As you make your way south, you'll pass the NYC Fire Department training facility, the mental hospital, and some auxilliary buildings - again, concrete, and ambiguous. Then, you'll come to Icann stadium, which isn't much to see from a biker's perspective, but can be fun to drive by once or twice just to say you saw it. Continuing south, you'll pass some more buildings, and then the island just opens up, the buildings disappear, and the only structure remaining is the massive, curving, elevated Triborough bridge ramp. Now we come to my favorite part of the island.

The southern-most tip of the island, called Ward's Island Park, is home to a number of baseball diamonds that stretch across the south-east shore. The east side of the island is slightly more elevated than the souther tip, and so there are a few fun, steep hills to climb. On the south-west shore, there is nothing. Just a mass of mauled earth from what looks to be an abandoned attempt to create a park, and a few bull dozers lying around. At this time of the year, the ground is just cold enough that you can ride without fear of sinking across the entire area. It's a lot like a miniature off-road adventure. But a really tame one that even a city-bred Buell can ride over. If you can make it out here in the middle of the day, you can easily occupy a couple of hours navigating the interesting terrain, and honing your slow-maneuvering off-road skills.

If you haven't been there yet, it's worth the ride once. Unfortunately, there's not much to do here, so aside from the serene south shore, there's limited reason to return. All in all, I give Randalls-Wards island a 3 star rating out of 5.

Randalls-Wards Islan: *** 3/5 stars