Beware of late night and early morning traffic

It's no secret that cab drivers can be crazy and erratic. But they're at their worst during the hours of 1am and 7am every morning. During this time, they're most likely to run a red light, turn left or right against the signal, or worst yet - cross the center divide on Park avenue and other split lane roads when they're supposed to be stopped.

I learned this the hard way a few mornings ago, when I decided to go out early for a quick ride. I started going down Park, but noticed down the road that cabs were cutting straight across the divide without hesitation. I decided not to risk it a single block more, and turned off onto Lexington to continue my journey.

Lession of the day: avoid two laned, divided roads in Manhattan (Park and upper west side Broadway), and in general expect cabs stopped at intersections to run them during the early morning / late late night hours.

Bridge review update: Queensboro Bridge

I mentioned in an earlier post (http://nycmoto.blogspot.com/2006/12/christmas-eve-bridges-ride-and-review.html) that the Queensboro upper roadway always seemed closed. Secretly, I thought that the Queensboro deservered at least another star if that section ever re-opened for a long enough period of time to be considered reliable. And so it happened - it seems the winter construction is over, and the bridge is now easily accessible from 57th street between 1st and 2nd (the best way to reach it is to drive north up 1st ave, then turn left onto 57th - that way, you'll avoid getting caught making an uncomfortable left hand turn with traffic to your back).



Queensboro Bridge: **** stars
At long last, the top level is reliably open, providing a great midtown view of the river, and a great west-bound view of Roosevelt Island. It's still a little tricky to navigate once you cross the river, as the top level of the bridge seems to devolve into a series winding, narrow concrete channels as soon as you hit Queens. But otherwise, it's a great, easy to find bridge that is motocycle friendly on all but the windiest days (but they're the most fun anyway).

Feigned insanity

I got a great idea today, inspired by the little gray toyota I saw out on I495 yesterday. Here's the concept:

Drivers already get nervous enough whenever a motorcyclist drives anywhere near them. The idea is to capitalize off this nervousness, and magnify it. By swerving around the lane more than normal, cars around you will interpret this as insane driving, and actively avoid you, so they don't hit you and get manslaughter charges.

Aside from the obvious downside of having to be extra careful in your manoeuvres not to lose traction or hit a road trap, I think this is just another trick to carry around.

Brain freeze

Yesterday wasn't so bad temperature wise, but sustained highway winds made driving longer than 15 minutes at a time painful... until...

I went to Kohl's and bought two velcro neck bandanas - the kind that go around your neck, snap in the back, and reach up and cover your mouth as well. I also bought a thin wool hat - the kind that hugs your head, not the kind that folds up with a lip at the bottom. All of this was to complement my existing head wrap, which wasn't up to the task of constant 75mph wind buffetting.

The solution worked perfectly. I wrapped one bandana right up to my mouth, so my breath could disperse, instead of fogging my sheild. The second bandana I wrapped around my neck, and bunche it up to reduce the wind chill on my neck, but more importantly to reduce the wind that crept up and circulated in my helmet. Finally, I put the hat on my head *on top of* my thin head wrap. Though it made the fit in my helmet a little snug, the added warmth was a tradeoff I was willing to make. All in all, I've now found yet another way to keep riding through the winter. And in case you forgot, I'm doing this all on a naked bike, so your results on any other type of bike should be even better.