- At October 10, 2005
- By Bob Howe
- In Blog Posts
42
Tour de Bob
or
I Have the Best Friends
Yesterday was the first annual Tour de Bob. The modestly-named tour is a bicycle ride through Marine Park and Rockaway, and points in between. Sunday afternoon
Tee-shirt front: the Tour de Bob logo, designed by . The tee-shirt was produced by with text by Laura and Shana.
Tee-shirt back.

The Route (in yellow).

The Marine Park Nature Center, on the Gerritsen Inlet. Left to right: , , Shana, and .

Inside a ruined building at Fort Tilden, Rockaway.

The Tour in front of Battery Harris East, a decommissioned 16-inch gun emplacement at Fort Tilden. Left to right: Shana, , , Laura, and .

A wider view of us in front of Battery Harris East.

Exploring the inside of a ruined 16-inch ammunition magazine at Fort Tilden. A small railway connected the magazines with the two gun batteries (Harris East and West); each projectile weighed approximately 2,000 pounds, and could be fired 30 miles out to sea from the big guns.

Laura saw these three kids doing forward flips off a manmade dune at Jacob Riis Park, a public beach in Rockaway just east of Fort Tilden. She coaxed them into repeating the trick for her camera.

The Tour in my kitchen after dinner. Left to right: , , Shana, and Laura.

Shana tries to extract something from . Could be love, could be foodwe were there and none of us is sure.

A birthday gift from : a copy of the first contemporary SF novel I read as a teenager, Emil Petaja’s The Nets of Space. To say that this weird melange of Don Quixote and giant, spacegoing crabs is lurid would be a vast understatement.

Tee-shirt back.
The Route (in yellow).
The Marine Park Nature Center, on the Gerritsen Inlet. Left to right:
Inside a ruined building at Fort Tilden, Rockaway.
The Tour in front of Battery Harris East, a decommissioned 16-inch gun emplacement at Fort Tilden. Left to right: Shana,
A wider view of us in front of Battery Harris East.
Exploring the inside of a ruined 16-inch ammunition magazine at Fort Tilden. A small railway connected the magazines with the two gun batteries (Harris East and West); each projectile weighed approximately 2,000 pounds, and could be fired 30 miles out to sea from the big guns.
Laura saw these three kids doing forward flips off a manmade dune at Jacob Riis Park, a public beach in Rockaway just east of Fort Tilden. She coaxed them into repeating the trick for her camera.
The Tour in my kitchen after dinner. Left to right:
Shana tries to extract something from
A birthday gift from
holyoutlaw
That looks like a totally fun time. Very sweet! And a belated happy birthday. Yeah!
admin
Hey Luke, thanks! It was a great, great time. I’m smiling just looking at the pictures again. (And you made it under the wire: it’s still my birthday here on the right-hand coast.)
curmudgeon
Giant spacegoing crabs.
Giant spacegoing crabs?
Giant spacegoing crabs!
It looks like you all had a great day. Maybe some day I’ll be able to ride 20 miles without my butt falling off, and I will come to New York and ride the Tour de Bob myself.
admin
Oh, I think there was some butt-fall-offery among us: because the rally point was my house, the Tour itself was 20.5 miles; the rest of the guys rode a very impressive 35 miles! You’re more than welcome to join the Tour next year.
Yeah, Giant spacegoing crabs. I’d say you can’t make this stuff up, but (one hopes) Petaja did.
rosiebird
happy birthday, bob. i can think of no more joyous gift than a day like that.
shunn
You’re a great tour guide, a great cook, and a great friend. Who else would we ride an extra 15 miles through deepest Brooklyn to hang out with?
shunn
The 7.5 miles to get from where the Q train stopped running (Atlantic & Flatbush) to Bob’s house (ass-end of nowhere) was no big deal at all, except for the wanker with Florida plates who kept honking at us and trying to run us over on Avenue N. But try riding 20 miles and then having Bob feed you enough to keep all of Rome fat and happy, so much that it’s agony to breathe, and then ride those same 7.5 miles back to Atlantic & Flatbush. In the dark.
It was a great day.
admin
Thanks, Maggie. Yeah, it was a pretty damn good daygood enough to blur the sensation of the odometer ticking over another notch.
admin
You know, I completely forgot about the Q train not running until I read it here. Since you guys arrived at the house I’ve idly wondered why you’d only take the train as far as Atlantic Avenue. I really should have been wearing Laura’s short bus socks.
admin
Aww, thank you. It was a delight to spend the day with you guys, and to cook for such an appreciative audience.
markbourne
Oh, man, bravos all around. Wish I coulda been there (for the cooking and eating part).
Say what you will about the giant crab monsters, that’s a mighty cool cover there. “So, puny humans, now I show you how to make real bisque.”
(And, my god, Laura’s just getting even lovelier and lovelier.)
steelbrassnwood
And here’s the route for those of us who rode the extra mile (or 15) for the Tour. Well worth it!!
steelbrassnwood
In the dark. And it was raining. And it was uphill.
But still wonderful.
admin
Well, the rest of the guys seemed to enjoy the eating okayI personally ate until I was ready to moult my shell like a giant, pink crab.
They are a delightful bunch.
admin
Gah! It looks so much further in red.
steelbrassnwood
“Honey, does this color make my route look long?”
laurie_daniels
Sounds like a fantastic time. You all look great- remarkably un-sweaty and awake. Bob, when did you have time to cook?
mckitterick
That’s so sweet! Good friends you have there, sir. And a happy birthday to you.
Chris
admin
Ha!
“Does this route go with my padded lycra biking shorts?”
“Honey, nothing goes with padded lycra biking shorts.”
admin
I was partially anesthetized with ValpolicellaI have no idea how the rest of them managed to be so bright-eyed. I made pasta; started the sauce early in the morning, before the Tour.
admin
Why thank you, sir. Yes, they’re inexplicably nice to me. I’m lucky in my friends.
steelbrassnwood
Bob’s being modest. I was tremendously impressed by his ability to keep a nine-quart pot full of bubbling marinara sauce balanced on the back of his bike.
admin
Oh, that was easy. Keeping the rigatoni from getting overdone, now that was a challenge.
kijjohnson
The Tour de Bob looks wonderful. Of course, next year you’ll have 150 participants, and the year after Lance Armstrong will show up.
Are those the same camo pants you had when we were married? If so, they have to be getting old enough to vote.
admin
And then Armstrong will win the damn thing because he’s injected himself with mare’s sweat. As long as he brings Sheryl Crow, I don’t care.
Those BDUs are old enough to drink in New York State. I know you could not possibly be objecting to my garmentage, because: A. Camouflage goes with everything; and B. I know somewhere in your extensive trousseau you have finery that was venerable when Cato was wearing short togas.
kijjohnson
Oh, har de har. Only some pairs of shoes. And a sweater. And this one skirt…
And then all the vintage stuff.
shunn
Boy, that stretch of Ocean Parkway seemed endless. Now I can see that it was.
shunn
I was most impressed with the freshness of the duck, and the deftness with which Bob speared it in the Gerritsen Inlet.
shunn
We work freelance, too, and we’re available for parties.
mckitterick
😎
I’ll give you a call….
Anonymous
Gee, and all I got you was a lousy phone call. I guess I am the lesser of the three Bills.
Bill the Lesser
admin
Tell me if this conversation is at all familiar:
“Bill, do you have a bike?”
“Oh God no!”
I would be daunted by the prospect of running all the way to the Silver Gull and back. Now I know you’re made of sterner stuff than me, but still. You have eleven months and twenty-eight days to buy a bicycle. The clock, she ticks.
admin
Yes. You have pencils older than I am.
steelbrassnwood
Um, Bill, that was in Dead Horse Bay, and it wasn’t duck…
shunn
<holding my sides>
Bill the Mustachioed
shunn
Oh my. There always has to be a neighsayer.
shunn
Not to mention all the little old Jewish ladies throwing themselves under our wheels.
admin
That is, hooves down, the worst pun atrocity I’ve ever seen.
admin
Isn’t that the punchline to a very filthy joke about a rabbi, a priest, and a kiddie pool full of Astroglide?
shunn
That was my mane goal.
justaqt
I think this Tour De Bob thing is awesome!
I hope you do it every year and it gets so popular thousands of people do it and they show it on ESPN and even after you move away or don’t even participate people will still do it and say “Now why is this race called the Tour De Bob again?” (and of course, someone will know the answer regaling all your wonderful other ideas that were never actually put into practice)
admin
Hey, thanks! I don’t relish the thought of cooking for thousands of participants, I have to say. Not even to get on ESPN.