Bronx Adventure

Every time I take the bus into or out of the city, I always see parts that I want to explore. For the longest time I wanted to ride Bruckner Blvd because it goes right alongside the highway. However, the last time I went home, I passed a memorial statue in the middle of a grassy park that I knew I wanted to check out.

Pelham Bay Park

One of the train stations I always see while heading back is Hunts Point Ave which is on the (6) line. I thought it would be a good jumping off point as it is in a deep part of the Bronx that I’ve never been to before.

When researching my potential ride today, I found that it might make more sense to ride the (6) all the way to the end, to Pelham Bay Park. The reason being that that must be the park I saw from the bus the last time I went home.

So this morning, I left my apartment around 10:30am and took the (2) to Wall Street. From there I rode to Brooklyn Bridge/City Hall and hopped on the (6). I rode it all the way from it’s start point in lower Manhattan to it’s end in the Northeast Bronx.

Bronx Victory Memorial in Pelham Bay Park, Bronx, NY

From the Pelham Bay Park station it was a quick and easy ride to the Bronx Victory Memorial. This was the aforementioned statue I’d seen from the bus. I then rode around Pelham Bay Park for a bit before stopping on a bench to Instagram my findings.

From there I mapped out my next stop on my adventure, City Island.

City Island

City Island was something I’d known about for about a year. I heard about it on an episode of the Bodega Boys podcast. They were rambling about some Bronx nonsense and somehow it came up.

Talk about the ride from Pelham Bay Park to City Island. How after crossing the bridge you started to go right, then doubled back and took the bike path to the rotary and rode down that street with no bike path. Eventually crossing the street to get to the bike path, passed the second rotary and eventually to the bridge to City Island.

The island is very small I rode from one end to the other in about 10 minutes. However, it’s very charming. It reminds me of Cape Cod, Salem, Nantucket, Rockport or any of the small coastal towns in Maine or New Hampshire.

I can imagine that in the summer the town is booming with cyclists, fisherman and tourists who go to the ubiquitous sea food restaurants. I definitely want to go back in the summer and be one of those aforementioned tourists.

City Island Nautical Museum

After exploring some of the side streets and happening upon the City Island Nautical Museum, I made my way back onto the main drag and rode all the way to Belden Point at the Southerly tip.

Bay Plaza Shopping Center

After taking in everything I’d done thus far, I rode back through the city center, across the bridge and down the bike path that I should have stayed on in the first place when I had started heading in that direction.

On the bike path in the woods

Rather than going left and heading back over the bridge to go back towards Pelham Bay Park station, I crossed the intersection and went right just as I had done the first time, only this time, rather than go right at the intersection, I went left and followed the bike path to the Bay Plaza Shopping Center.

I had no interest in actually going to the mall but it was another ‘thing I see from the bus’ and I wanted to say I’d been there in person. To know how it feels to exist there rather than just be a bystander.

While there I saw a Starbucks in the middle of the parking lot. It had a drive thru! I’d never seen a Starbucks with a drive thru before. I then took the opportunity to use the restroom at the Marshalls before continuing on my journey.

Mention the bit about wanting to go a little further up the highway to the depot where they keep all of the busses but that you didn’t want to keep going further north and then have even more to retrace. Plus the fact I didn’t know how much further it was or how easy it would be to get there.

Bruckner Blvd/Hunts Point Ave Station

I doubled back through the parking lot to the bike path, across the bridge, along the river, over the highway to the rotary to the intersection across the bridge to the bike path back to Pelham Bay Park.

I rode up the ramp and crossed the bridge over the highway back to Pelham Bay Park station. I then entered the station and took the stairs down to street level where I began my journey on Bruckner Blvd.

As previously mentioned, what I liked about Bruckner Blvd was that it runs parallel to the highway (Rt. 95 and 278 to be specific). However, because it is not the highway, it is very bike-able. There was one small section along the way that tripped me up but I think that was on account of the sidewalk being closed.

Fortunately the one on the other side was open so I rode up a few blocks and crossed back over at Castle Hill Ave. From there I rode all the way to the Hunts Point Ave subway station passing Concrete Plant Park along the way (I definitely wanna go back and check it out).

As I was approaching my legs were beginning to hurt. I should have just hopped on the train there and headed home but I was determined to bike into Manhattan before getting back on the train.

Train Home

From Hunts Point Ave station I continued to Southern Blvd which later reconnected with Bruckner. I rode to and took a right onto St. Ann’s Ave before taking a left on Msgr. Gerald J. Ryan Blvd. Immediately I recognized this from the Bronx adventure I’d been on in April.

I rode along the Blvd passed the Brooks Ave subway station. A few streets later I began to approach a roadblock. As I approached the Alexander Ave intersection something was suddenly not right. My front tire was rolling fine but the back tire was suddenly translating every bump in the road.

Instantly I knew what it was and when I dismounted my fears were confirmed, flat tire. I was really bummed. Now to be be fair, the roadblock I’d come upon was for the New York City Marathon so either way my plans for crossing the Madison Avenue Bridge into Manhattan were foiled. However, it just sucked to be faced with the fact that I now needed to endure the cost of replacing my rear tire.

What added insult to injury was that had I not kept going, I wouldn’t have gotten the flat. While ridding down Southern Blvd I had ridden over some broken glass. This happens all of the time and hardly ever ends with a flat tire. However this time the glass bit in and didn’t expose itself until a mile or so later.

Defeated, I made my way back to the Brooks Ave subway station where I rode the (6) to Brooklyn Bridge/City Hall. From there I took the (4) to Fulton Street where I switched to the (2) and took that the last three stops home.

I reckon I probably rode about 20 miles or so. It’s too bad I caught that flat, it really deflated my day.