New York City to Mahopac

May 30, 2015

One up and three down. Jerry kept track today.

Up early again with breakfast at the Metro Diner on West 100th Street. Decent place with a real diner feel and look. They even charged my Garmin for me during breakfast (the outlets at the hostel were loose and ill-fitting, meaning our plugs did not stay in and no juice flowed!). From there, back to the Hudson River Greenway.

Today's ride to Mahopac

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Which only got better the further north we went. This included views of the George Washington Bridge.

The Hudson River and George Washington Bridge (aka Bridgegate).

That was pleasant enough until you passed under the Henry Hudson Parkway and hit a major (i.e., steep) climb up to the southbound side of the same highway. We actually accomplished this fairly well (meaning no walking) and fully loaded, so I felt pretty good about that. Remember we have been doing mostly flat riding, so it was nice to be tested. We have more hills to come, after all!

Our next challenge was a dead stop where Riverside Drive merges with the Henry Hudson Parkway:

Blocked path forward at Riverside Drive.

I was not expecting this, but after carefully consulting my RWGPS route and Google Maps, sure enough, we were to descend these stairs to continue our route north (and as we stood there debating this, all the passing cyclists knew the routine).

Fortunately, the landing (or tread in architectural jargon) was about the length of the bicycle's wheelbase . . . not just for the Bike Fridays but mine as well (which is much longer). This made the descent a lot easier.

We still had some wayfinding challenges as we made our way north. After consulting with some locals on Dyckman Street (all with bicycles and geeked out similar to us), we headed west and thought we had the final path north. With some great teaser views of the Hudson River Valley:

The Hudson River Valley as seen from Dyckman Fields.

But this turned out to be a false start, and after re-consulting our RWGPS, we determined that climbing the railroad crossing was the way. RWGPS actually had it right, if not inconvenient!

Then Happy . . . Happy fully unloaded, Jerry partially.

I'm going to take some bragging rights here and claim pushing it up fully loaded!

The far side had similar stairs as the prior descent with wide treads. By the way, this part of the trail is still heavily used in spite of the challenges. The alternative is Broadway, which is also US-9, a heavily traveled roadway with a crossing to the Bronx that is further east. We continued north through Inwood Hill Park with one last major climb up to the Henry Hudson Bridge, which took us to the Bronx and our last stair down (a minor one, but Jerry was counting).

A local cyclist with whom we compared notes and challenges. He confirmed that our route, while challenging, was probably the best way from Manhattan to the Bronx.

So now we were in the Bronx. The riding there was much easier than I had expected. Traffic volumes were low, and the streets were easy to navigate. And it wasn't long (four miles) before we were on the Old Putman Trail, which becomes the South County Trailway once you leave the Bronx and are in Yonkers.

And what a beautiful trail. Thirty-five miles of a slow climb (at ~1% grade!) north built on a former railroad alignment.

The old railroad bridges are still used to carry the trail.

Two fellows we met on the trail, Montiristo and Afim (I hope I remembered that right).

The bridge over the New Croton Reservoir.

We met a lot of people along this trail, all friendly, curious about us, and happy to talk. All will be pleasant memories of our trip out of Manhattan and into the hills of Connecticut coming up tomorrow!

Today's ride: 48 miles (77 km)
Total: 2,116 miles (3,405 km)

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