Writing about where you’re writing from is hokey. But I feel like you should know that I’m writing this from the children’s floor of a library in Nova Scotia. I couldn’t find a table on the main floor with an outlet for my iPad. But this has turned out to be a blessing for my productivity. I kind of love having to work around the cacophony of whooping tots and moody high schoolers.
A thing that reminds me of my youth: taking extremely silly sports and making them even sillier by the use of improper equipment. For example, my sister, cousins and I whiled away countless hours in our basement playing a sort of baseball-cricket hybrid with a squishy softball and a blue plastic wedge-style golf club.
Devotees of Bike Polo take this to an extreme. If you’ve ever had the fortune of passing by the St. John’s Recreation Center at the exact right time of the week, you might have spotted some of them. These pioneers have replaced horses—majestic beasts incapable of informed consent1—with bikes. They’ve traded privately owned water-hungry, manicured bluegrass2 fields for multi-use concrete parks. But otherwise, the rules of the sport are the same. I think? Has anyone reading this actually played regular polo?
This weekend, the New York City Bike Polo team will be hosting a massive invitational event. Lest you think Bike Polo is just some Brooklyn nonsense, the competition includes teams traveling in from DC, Boston, Philadelphia, Montreal, Toronto and SALT LAKE CITY. The festivities begin at 8 am on Saturday, August 17th and end at 10 pm the next day, at least according to the Partiful event description. I am definitely going to try and make it. If you’d like to join, let me know!
Upcoming Group Rides
There are more group rides in New York than you think! The ones I’ve personally vetted are hearted. Ones I have heard good things about are starred. Let me know about others I should add to the list. And if you’ve heard anything about any of these that I should know … please tell me!! If I send anyone into harms way, I’ll never forgive myself.
Monday, August 12h
✨✨ ✨ 7 pm: NightCAP. Start at Grand Army Plaza and end McGolrick Park in Greenpoint. 6.6 miles. There will be a stop for pizza and ice cream. Reserved for ABCD (anyone but cis dudes). Link.
✨✨ ✨ 8 pm: Chill Racing. Start at Grand Army Plaza. Recovery pace laps in Prospect Park. Women, trans, femme, and nonbinary folks only. Link.
Tuesday, August 13th
7 am: Bad Pony Racing. Start at Grand Army Plaza. Track bike laps, specifically for fixed gear cyclists. Paceline for an hour at 20-22 mph. Link.
6:30 pm: NYC Bike and Brew. Start at 1 Wharf Plaza Park and end at Golden Years. 13.3 miles. Link.
Wednesday, August 14th
❤️❤️❤️ 6:30 pm: Nonbinary Bike Ride. Start at Ride Brooklyn and end at Domino Park. A Tour of 4 BK Parks at a chill pace with no drops [Rescheduled from last week]. 11.5 miles. Link.
Thursday, August 15th
✨✨ ✨ 7:00 pm: Thursday Night Social Ride. Start at the Columbus Circle entrance of Central Park. Link.
Saturday, August 17th
✨✨ ✨ 9 am: Queer Joy Ride, Start at Solid State UWS and end at Principles, Coffee Crawl 6: with three coffee shop stops. 10 miles. Link.
Other Cycling Events
Complimentary SoulCycle Classes courtesy of Strava in celebration of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift. On Friday, August 16, there’s an 8:30 am class at the East 63rd st location and a 10:30 am class in the West Village. On Saturday August 17, there a 1 pm class in Brooklyn Heights and a 3 pm class in Noho. Sign-up ahead of time via the SoulCycle app or this link.
It’s still Summer Streets Season in New York! On Saturday, a bunch of sections of Manhattan will be closed to traffic. You can get a free Citbike day pass that day with promo code CITISUMMER24! (Yes, the exclamation point is part of the code.) I included the full list of closed streets in last Monday’s send.
I say this with full knowledge that an uncomfortably large percent of my hometown’s economy is based on animal cruelty … the plight of the Kentuckian.
Boy, the commonwealth is catching strays all over the place today. Revoke my citizenship if you must, Mr. Beshear.