Thousands of cyclists are gearing up to participate in the annual TD Five Boro Bike Tour on Sunday, with multiple road closures across New York City set to take effect that morning.
The 40-mile bike tour’s 46th edition will kick off at 7:30 a.m. in Lower Manhattan, where riders will start rolling in several waves throughout the morning. They’ll pedal through Central Park, Harlem and the Bronx before crossing the FDR Drive and the Queensboro Bridge to Long Island City. The route will then take them over the Pulaski Bridge to Greenpoint, followed by the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway and the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge. Cyclists will finish at Fort Wadsworth in Staten Island, and can return to Manhattan via the Staten Island Ferry.
The start area, which funnels to Sixth Avenue, is slated to reopen to car traffic around noon. Other roads along the route will remain closed into the afternoon, and the Staten Island-bound lower level of the Verrazzano Bridge will not reopen until 7 p.m. A full list of street closures from the city Department of Transportation is available here.
The MTA says mass transit is the best way for riders to get to the event. Multiple Citi Bike stations will also be deactivated or removed in advance.
The charity bike tour’s first iteration took place in 1977, when 250 riders attempted to hit all five boroughs in a day, according to the event’s organizers. Now, it typically attracts more than 30,000 participants from dozens of countries on the first Sunday of every May.
The official tour program and ride guide for the TD Five Boro Bike Tour, along with other resources and information, can be found here.