Fishkill to Manhattan
Click on this for the route
We finished the trip today. It was a shock to ride on the 9W, the upper part of which has the friendly bike symbol on it but in reality has no hard shoulder and cars streaming by you, some disconcertingly close. The cool thing is riding across the Hudson again and round Bear mountain. To our shame we did not climb Bear mountain: I had a lunch rendevous with my long suffering family and Bugs and Jeff were very considerate in getting back to NYC in time. We stopped at Nyack and the "Runcible Spoon", the furthest point for every serious road cyclist who rides out of Manhattan of a Saturday morning. Suddenly we were surrounded by lots of lycra and carved calf muscles. It's quite the scene and there's some serious posturing that goes on. Luckily I could show off my tan lines and felt right at home. We felt some smugness in the distance we had travelled even though most of these guys were twice as fit as us. Back on the road we hit the lower part of the 9W, a road I know well from my early years in NYC, when I would ride up from Park Slope to the Pallisades with a bunch of friends. I felt like I was going back in time, a few years ago when the kids were more helpless and messy, and I mysteriously became very serious about getting up at 6am on a weekend morning to ride for 6 hours. That world of strollers, nappies, giant car seats and books you can wipe clean now gone, as quickly as it arrived.
I thought a lot about the miles in front of me during the ride. A mile is a stubborn thing - it doesn't change. You may be going uphill or downhill, but it's still a mile, and each one needs to be given it's due. It doesn't care about your state of mind, or if you ate enough, or whether its raining. Sometimes you curse them and feel vaguely outraged at just how long a section is taking. While the indifference of terrain to your plight can feel chilling at points, it is a great leveller: A way of connecting with the world and other humans that comfort and the pursuit of pleasure cannot do. I will try to lay out more miles in front of my wheels. Long live the indifference of the miles, and the mellow buzz from a few IPA's after a good ride.
The 9W has a wide shoulder and a competitive edge as plenty of riders put their heads down, and get whatever has been bugging them in the working week out of their systems. It was the last stretch of the ride and I went with the flow. The GWB was a welcome sight. Bugs, owning the most generic gray car in history, was a little hard to find. Everyday, when we saw any random grey sedan, one of us would say "How did Bugs get here so fast?". How funny we are.
Thanks to Jeff and Bugs, 2 true gents of the road and the golf course!
We finished the trip today. It was a shock to ride on the 9W, the upper part of which has the friendly bike symbol on it but in reality has no hard shoulder and cars streaming by you, some disconcertingly close. The cool thing is riding across the Hudson again and round Bear mountain. To our shame we did not climb Bear mountain: I had a lunch rendevous with my long suffering family and Bugs and Jeff were very considerate in getting back to NYC in time. We stopped at Nyack and the "Runcible Spoon", the furthest point for every serious road cyclist who rides out of Manhattan of a Saturday morning. Suddenly we were surrounded by lots of lycra and carved calf muscles. It's quite the scene and there's some serious posturing that goes on. Luckily I could show off my tan lines and felt right at home. We felt some smugness in the distance we had travelled even though most of these guys were twice as fit as us. Back on the road we hit the lower part of the 9W, a road I know well from my early years in NYC, when I would ride up from Park Slope to the Pallisades with a bunch of friends. I felt like I was going back in time, a few years ago when the kids were more helpless and messy, and I mysteriously became very serious about getting up at 6am on a weekend morning to ride for 6 hours. That world of strollers, nappies, giant car seats and books you can wipe clean now gone, as quickly as it arrived.
I thought a lot about the miles in front of me during the ride. A mile is a stubborn thing - it doesn't change. You may be going uphill or downhill, but it's still a mile, and each one needs to be given it's due. It doesn't care about your state of mind, or if you ate enough, or whether its raining. Sometimes you curse them and feel vaguely outraged at just how long a section is taking. While the indifference of terrain to your plight can feel chilling at points, it is a great leveller: A way of connecting with the world and other humans that comfort and the pursuit of pleasure cannot do. I will try to lay out more miles in front of my wheels. Long live the indifference of the miles, and the mellow buzz from a few IPA's after a good ride.
The 9W has a wide shoulder and a competitive edge as plenty of riders put their heads down, and get whatever has been bugging them in the working week out of their systems. It was the last stretch of the ride and I went with the flow. The GWB was a welcome sight. Bugs, owning the most generic gray car in history, was a little hard to find. Everyday, when we saw any random grey sedan, one of us would say "How did Bugs get here so fast?". How funny we are.
Thanks to Jeff and Bugs, 2 true gents of the road and the golf course!
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