This is another of the all time great training rides available by train just outside of New York City. The 6:41 train leaves Grand Central and gets to Ossining around 7:25, in time for the reverse-commute ferry ride across the Hudson to Haverstraw. So, you not only get a lovely ride along the river, but a trip out across the water to the not-so-populated area to the east of Harriman State Park.
For today's ride, I headed through familiar territory up along Seven Lakes Drive in the State Park, descending down to the river again through Bear Mountain State Park and across the bridge and through Putnam County and into Clarence Fahnestock State Park. From there I turned south through Putnam Valley and almost due south to Croton-on-Hudson.
The day was cool, overcast and drippy for the first half of the ride, turning quite pleasant and certainly not the heat we are expecting over the next few days, when temperatures should climb into the upper thirties. The totals for the day were about 115 km (my GPS didn't start recording for the first 13 km as it was "calculating" the route) in a little less than five hours of riding, climbing 1700 meters and burning about 4800 calories.
After leaving Haverstraw, this ride does not go through another town for more than 100 km and sticks mostly to back roads and roads through state parks. It is the lowest car-per-hour route that is close to Manhattan for this distance. This five hour loop ends in Croton-Harmon in time to catch the 1:27 train back Manhattan.
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