Just got back from my first bike ride in NYC! My bike got delivered last Thursday with the rest of my things, but I needed till this weekend to fix it up. Had to re-adjust the brakes as they got knocked around quite a bit on the way over.

I rode to Central Park, hoping to ride on some of the tracks there, but the NYC marathon is on today (which finishes in C.P.) and it was impossible to get through some of the barriers police had set up.

Even though the city is laid out in a grid, it's a bit of a different challenge riding here as opposed to London. The majority of streets are wide, multi-carriage and one-way, and because they're straight, the cars go a lot faster. There aren't many bike lanes or even bus lanes to ride in either, so it's like cycling on a highway.

You ride on the right-hand side, which is fine if you're going straight or turning right, but it's almost impossible to make a left hand turn as you need to cut across 3 or 4 lanes of traffic to do so! There are also no bike 'areas' at the traffic lights - in London there's a bike area which runs parallel to the pedestrian crossing at the lights where at a red light you're meant to pull out and wait in front of the cars so they can see you. There are also less bikes on the roads here which means cars are less familiar with dealing with cyclists.

Unfortunately I can't ride to work, as bikes are not allowed in our building, but this may be a blessing in disguise..

So for now I'm going to keep my cycling to weekends and the bike lanes in the park. hmmph!