Empire State of Mind

Bear Mountain Oktoberfest

Better late than never, right? Anyways, over Columbus Day weekend my friends and I made our yearly bike trip up to NYC and beyond. Two familiar faces were missing although we did pick up two new travelers this year as Brett (Houser) and Chat joined in.  Chris, although in town from Oregon, was visiting with family and Jackie had school work to attend to.  Friday night was a flurry of activity as I worked on my bike, went bowling, then came back and continued working on my bike until around 3:45AM.  I woke up at 6:15, ate some breakfast and headed out with Chat and Cooper, both of whom had stayed the night at my place after coming down from Columbia University the previous night. We met Trevor, Matt, Brett, and Nick at the Walnut Lane Bridge traffic circle at 7:30 to begin our journey north bound.

The Wawa pitstop

For the most part we took the same route as years past.  We stopped at the same Wawa for a mid-morning snack, passed the same mansion that had suffered fire damage a year or so ago (now completely repaired), and went over the same two 'closed' bridges.  I suffered a slow leak right before we hit our standard lunch break at a Subway about 30 minutes past Somerville so I rode it out and repaired it while eating lunch.  Trevor actually broke a spoke at the same time when he jumped a curb when we all pulled over to check out my flat but was he was able to field true it so that the brake pads didn't rub for the rest of the trip.

Just riding along.

The Delaware River from the
 New Hope-Lambertville bridge.

We continued our journey north and went back to our usual route through Elizabeth Seaport which entailed some busy highway riding but cut out riding through the sketchy town of Elizabeth itself.  Although we biked through the seaport much earlier in the day this year, it was a weekend so truck traffic was virtually non-existent.  No more than a handful of cars and trucks passed us throughout the entire port.  As we approached the bridge over into Jersey City, it looked like our annual issues here (including playing Frogger last year across the highway due to construction) might be non-existent as there was a freshly laid sidewalk next to the on-ramp leading from the seaport.

High hopes and a bright future
for the Route 9 bridge

Biking along the Rte 9 bridge

We didn't have to bushwhack our way through dense vegetation this year but they were still working to repaint the bridge so we had to skirt our way through a much narrower passageway in between the guardrail and the painting tents and clamber over signs, large hoses, and other construction equipment to get to the other side.  The other side hadn't been improved and Chat got a flat here. This was actually the first flat that I think that we've had in this area which is quite surprising considering that there is broken glass everywhere along the 'path' where we are forced to ride.

After riding through Jersey City and Hoboken where we made a quick stop to pick up a spare spoke for Trevor, we took the train over to Manhattan where we proceeded to bike along the Hudson River Greenway up near Columbia's campus where Chat and Cooper live.  After showering, we headed out to eat at a Thai restaurant.  It was my first time eating Thai so I tried pad thai which was absolutely delicious.  There are a few Thai places in Manayunk that I am sure to try out when I return from my cross country trip.

Back off!

Gels inside a water bottle.
Ice cubes/backup food.
Genius!

Matt's homebrew rack system

As the layout abilities of Blogger are absolutely atrocious, I do not feel like spending an hour rearranging all these photos into a better and more logical place so here they are smack dab in the middle of the post.  Think of them as an intermission.  Just some cool bike pictures and ideas.

The GW bridge from the Palisades Interstate Park

The Manhattan skyline from the GW

Cooper and Trevor on the
Palisades Interstate Park

On Sunday we biked out to Bear Mountain to attend an Oktoberfest celebration.  Nick had to be home for Monday so he left in the morning but we met up with Chat's friend Anastasia who rode with us out to Bear Mountain.
We headed over the GW bridge (avoiding the ridiculous $12 toll!) and proceded to follow the west bank of the Hudson through the Palisades Interstate Park which was quite nice and scenic.  Although open to cars, we only saw one or two cars driving on it while we were biking on it and they were driving slower than the cyclists and not looking to speed past.

The cyclist hang-out in Nyack

After exiting the park, we started biking along 9W.  It was an awesome road with a really wide shoulder and was obviously a very popular cycling route - we easily passed hundreds of cyclists going the other direction on our way out to Bear Mountain. I even saw the Adler team returning from a group training ride. Along the way we stopped in Nyack to refill water bottles.  A festival was going on so the streets were closed to traffic.

Unique firepit sculpture

The cafe where we grabbed some water was a starting and stopping point for many rides so there were dozens of cyclists milling around both with hundreds of thousands of dollars of carbon fiber bikes occupying every available bike rack and wall space. When we got out to Bear Mountain for the Oktoberfest there were people boating on the lake, families picnicking, and couples strolling along the shore as well as hundreds of people attending the festival. After relaxing and having some beer we waited in line for well over an hour to get some food.  I enjoyed my goulash and potato salad but wouldn't quite call it worth the price and wait.  We headed over the Bear Mountain Bridge and hopped on a train in Garrison back to NYC.

The Hudson River with West Point in the background.

Monday morning we stopped at a coffee shop for some breakfast, bid adieu to Chat and Matt, and then Trevor, Brett and I biked around Central Park and then down Broadway to Grand Central Terminal where Trevor and I took Bolt Bus back to Philly while Brett took the train to Trenton to meet his girlfriend.

Another great NYC bike trip is in the bag and we couldn't have asked for better weather, especially for October. Until next year!

(I'm almost done typing up my entry about my car trip across the country but I still have to sort through a whole bunch of photos - hopefully I'll get that done before I embark on the bike portion of the trip and have somewhat more intermittent internet access)