5 Boro Bike Tour

Three years after I was fully recovered from the heart surgery, I received permission from my cardiologist to sign up for the wonderful Five Boro Bike Tour, which is a forty-two-mile bicycle tour through New York City’s five boroughs. This race, which had been on my bucket list before my heart surgery, took me nearly five hours to complete. The last bridge was the Verrazzano from Brooklyn to Staten Island and it seemed to take forever; I thought I was riding into heaven while biking at the lowest gear uphill reaching out to clouds at the top of the bridge. Finally, I coasted down the bridge slope and arrived at the finish line. I felt so exhilarated that I had completed the entire forty-two miles. I was not even tired and thought I could go another forty-two miles. I met other deaf bikers at a tent and we celebrated our feat. Afterward some of the bikers and I rode an additional two miles to the ferry station for a ride back to Manhattan. From there I rode another couple of miles to the hotel where Vicki and I stayed. She had watched me ride off at the start of the race, and had just returned from attending a Rockettes performance at Radio City when I came back. It was a beautiful experience to ride with 33,000 bikers from all over the world—along with eighty-eight deaf bikers, many of them were Gallaudet and/or RIT/NTID alumni.