http://connect.garmin.com/activity/2697869
Spring arrived here in the New York area this week during a freak snow storm, further reinforcing my feeling that my friend, Tariq Banuri, is right when it calls it, “climate chaos” rather than climate change. But, this morning with the temperatures going from just above freezing at the start of this ride and climbing to almost nine degrees, it was starting to feel like Spring weather may be coming soon.
There is a great MTA Hudson Line train that leaves Grand Central Station at 0750 on weekend mornings and gets into the Croton-Harmon station forty-one minutes later with only one stop at the 125th St. Station: a straight shot from mid-town Manhattan to the edge of the urban sprawl. US$15 round trip and there is a perfect train heading back to town at 1225, which is also one-stop to GCS. Fit in between the trains’ arrival and departure is just enough time for an 80 km ride through the hills and reservoirs to the east and northeast.
This ride was a full 80 km, but for some reason that I forgot to turn on my GPS until about seven km after leaving the train station. On the map, here was the ride:
At least, this map was the plan. however my GPS decided about 60% into the ride to stop auto-routing and directed me right into a large body of water. So, I had to improvise my way back to the Croton-Harmon station, discovering some really nice cycling roads in the process. Although I do not think that my Garmin Edge 705 is smart enough to direct me to good cycling roads, it accidently does a fairly good job. Sometime in the future, I look forward to an intelligent cycling computer that actually knows some of the better routes for bikes, with low traffic rates, <7% grades and (hopefully) tree-lined and scenic.
The memory of the Argus is still fresh and it felt good to get in a good ride after that bad day. My fitness is still there and I can tell that the first 60 km of the Argus, albeit not the full race, was a great training ride and I’m feeling the good effects. Now, the challenge is to drop those few kilos gained in the last two weeks while I ate and drank my way around the world from Cape Town to Köln/Bonn, Rotterdam, the Hague, Frankfurt, Istanbul and Seoul. Far too much time sitting on airplanes and not enough time of the bike, that’s for sure.
However, I’m back in New York for almost nine weeks and can’t wait to get back into some normal rhythms of cycling, yoga, minimally-shod running and healthy eating from my own kitchen.
On today’s ride I was looking for the first signs of Spring. Unfortunately, no crocuses and no forsythia. It may be officially Spring, but it is not springtime. There is a difference.
Comments