Bicycle Race Challenges Residents to 100-mile Endurance Event

This year's "Ride to Montauk" brought a crowd to Babylon Village as cycling enthusiasts descended on the train station as part of the 100-mile trek to Long Island's "End."

Some had already started in Manhattan and were stopping for a rest and a bite to eat, but most were beginning a one-hundred mile bicycle ride starting at the Babylon train station on June 18. The ride is an annual tradition for endurance enthusiasts on Long Island and elsewhere.

Doug Williamson, co-owner of , a village staple since 1969, has seen the popularity of cycling, and particularly this biking event, grow over the years. This year the event drew over 3,000 participants.

"It's a very well run ride and that's why it's so well attended. There are plenty of rest stops, and they transport your bike back on a truck," said Williamson.

The organizer, Glen Goldstein, runs a company called Bicycle Shows U.S. that is dedicated to staging large-scale cycling events like the Ride to Montauk, which is in its fourteenth year.

The route is mapped new each year and not revealed until the morning of the ride, with the streets marked for cyclists from New York City to the end of the South Fork. Riders can choose between 145, 100, 70 and 30 mile distances.

Babylon makes sense as the starting point, said Williamson, because "it's such a well-known place and so easily accessible from the LIRR. Babylon is definitely a cycling hub, as well as a center for triathloning, which introduces a lot of people to cycling."

The ride is known for well-stocked rest stops with famed Briermere Farms pies and a finish line featuring free beer from sponsor Blue Point Brewery Company and hot showers. The route is mostly flat and snakes above and below Montauk Highway, avoiding major traffic snarls and keeping cyclists on scenic back roads.

Monica Sacco, a North Babylon resident who works at the Babylon Village gym Fitness Incentive as well as LA Fitness in West Babylon, thought it was the perfect event for her first century ride.

Sacco had previously completed the Five Boro Bike Tour, a popular 42-mile ride through New York City, and this year decided to go the distance.

"If I can do 50 miles, I can do 100," Sacco, 24, enthused. Her friends had highly recommended the Ride to Montauk, she related.

"They said it was so quiet, and riding through Long Island is absolutely beautiful. So this year was my turn to jump on this ride. It was fun, peaceful, breathtaking and intense."

Other riders came from as far afield as upstate New York and Delaware, all attracted by the scenery of the area and the camaraderie of the event.