Rising up above the Walkill River Valley, running parallel to and west of the Hudson River, is one of the most famous rock climbing areas in the world, the Shawangunk Ridge, known as "The Gunks." About 270 million years ago, during the Permian, the silica-bound sediment of quartz pebbles and sandstone was thrust upwards, then scoured during the last glaciation, leaving some spectacular technical climbing routes and nice cycling climbs.
In this map, you can easily see the ridge and my route today, riding northwest from Beacon and then back into Poughkeepsie, for rehydration at Cliffy's River Station. All in all, a lovely ride on a cool and party overcast spring day. A little less than 79 km in under four hours, so no speed records. But, after a tough week of riding four days this week and running three times, including a race in Central Park, I'm feeling a bit tired.
So, today was an easy spin as I finished listening to Archer's "Prisoner of Birth" on an audio book and tested out my new toy, the Garmin Edge 705, a cycling GPS that keeps track of altitude, heart rate, speed, distance, cadence and also does color route mapping. Now, if it could only take photos, handle mobile calls and a highspeed GPRS connection, connect to the Exchange server and stream A2DP bluetooth handsfree and wireless stereo connections while playing MP3 files, I could get down to only one tech device on my ride. However, this is an improvement, since the Edge 705 replaces three devices that I was carrying. I no longer keep my Shimano FlightDeck speedometer on the handlebars and I can now leave my Garmin 76CsX mapping GPS at home, because this new unit has all of the essential features that were in that bulky thing. Also, the mounting bracket for the 76CsX was the most poorly designed piece of crap and I was buying four or five a year to replace them when they snapped from the strain of holding the GPS on to bars. So, kudos to Garmin for this lovely piece of cycletronics.
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