navigating 5 boro ride

[hipmama]

How many of you ladies have done this one?
I leave this afternoon and am having a hard time choosing pedals.
30,000 riders, many experienced riders, many very inexperienced. Pretty hard to pick and choose my place in the pack but hoping to be up front with more experienced riders.
Can't decide to clip in or not, is the main issue. Ride is famous for many reasons, the number of crashes is one of them- so while I want to be able to get my feet on the ground as fast as possible, the thought of riding on flat pedals for 45 miles makes me groan.
I'm pretty efficient in clipping in and out quickly but am also a little bit of a nervous rider right now due to a crash last fall that broke my wrist and tore my rotator cuff.
Thoughts from those who have done the ride?
Also looking for start points possibly other than "the" start point. I know a lot of riders hop on in central park to avoid the mass start. If any of you have experimented with where to start I'd love to hear your feedback!

[NoNo]

I never really got moving enough to need to clip in. A lot of time was spent just pushing myself scooter-style. I had two near-misses before someone finally fell on me. Forget the clips.

[hipmama]

Great, just swapped pedals and am heading out- thanks for the input!

[Mr. SR500]

Please let us know how it went. I'm in Indiana and have never been to NY, and would love to do the ride - maybe on a tandem?

[hipmama]

It was fantastic!!!!!!!!! I really had a great experience and couldn't believe how well it was run. There were 32,000 riders and it was so organized, couldn't believe it. We did do a cheater start, I'll admit, it was either get in the herd of the mass, or jump up 4 blocks to a cheater start with about 200 other riders, so we did that. We did get there 2 hours before start so it's not like we didn't put in the effort but it was just insane so we did what honestly felt safest because that start is insane.
I was with my sister in law and we lost each other in the first 2 seconds when we were sucked into the pack but found each other 10 minutes later and mostly were able to stick together for the rest of the ride- we'd separate on the downhills but always met up at the bottom.
It was about 85 degrees by 9am and humid but it was also breezy and felt nice. There were riders who were obviously not aware of how to ride in a pack and that was a struggle but honestly it wasn't more of a problem than any small charity ride I've every done where there are follks who just don't know that they need to stay in a line and call out/signal when stopping or changing lanes. So I just always gave verbal cues as to where I was and when I was passing so I could protect my own safety. I almost got taken out twice, once from a girl who couldn't start in a straight line and made a 90 degree turn into me but we were ok, and another guy was weaving in and out of folks really fast and banged into my arm with his bars but I stayed upright and kept going.
I saw about 5 bad crashes and 5 not too bad which was less than I thought I'd see- I know there were plenty more but in my immediate surrounding that's what was happening. The police were everywhere and were VERY nice, they were cheering and clapping and helping wherever needed. The volunteers and marshals were all over the place and also, so helpful and right on point. They were merging lanes when there were crashes, well in advance of the crash so that no one was getting run over, giving huge heads up for big potholes and hills so folks knew to merge or shift down. At one point this guy was warning for potholes for a good long time so I called out a "thank you very much" to him and he called back "You are so very welcome!" Seriously everyone was patient and happy and excited for things to go well.
The bridges got messy just because a lot of beginning riders didn't know how to use gears or were not physically ready for the hills so it was slow going and unexpected stops, wavering bikes but after the first 2 bridges they seemed to get it that they either needed to walk them or stay very far far right.
My chain jammed up with debris on the very last bridge and I had to pull over for a quick fix and it was quick and no one plowed into me to that was great as well.
Best parts were being up on the high bridges and highways, all closed off to cars- bikes only, and looking down at the streets below and all you could see was a pack of bikes like 5 miles long.
There were a few tandems and a triple that I saw, a number of trail-a-bikes and trailers and a number of kids probably 8 and up on their own bikes. I don't know if they were doing the full ride, some didn't have registration vests so maybe they hopped on to do their own neighborhoods but it was so cool to see the little ones.
At one point I was behind/going around a dad with two kids and they were huffing up this hill saying "Pappa, this is tiring!" but with big huge smiles on their faces. Love it.
Was glad I didn't do the clips, way too many times of quick stops and starts - so that probably saved me going down at some point.
Not so fun after was carrying the bikes up and down stairs to take the trains back to our car after- but hey...
All in all two happy thumbs up and a fantastic experience.

[NoNo]

Sadly, no one told us about starting ahead of the official spot, so we were stuck in the pack. We actually didn't begin to move until an hour after the ride supposedly started. And we had arrived several hours early, as well. Glad it worked out for you.