(Thanks to Clarence for this shot. Top left Sunsy Hong, Fatima Colman, me, lower left Robert Eberwein and Clarence Eckerson Jr.)
Sunsy and I had been figuring a way to catch up, either drinks after work or a bike ride. But, since I’m on an extended weight-loss diet that does not include booze, a bike ride was the better alternative. My suggestion was a long ride during the weekend, depending on the weather. And, by mid-week, it looked like Sunday was the better of the two days. Sunsy had been on an extended job search, doing some interning and had been considering some work in the international system. A good long bike ride in Ulster county seemed a good idea and our babysitter, Dorothy, had volunteered to watch the boys during the day. We could catch up while on the roads of Ulster County, up along the Hudson River in the foothills of the Catskills.
Over the last eight years, I’ve discovered an amazing number of really great bike routes that are accessible by train from Manhattan. With a Metro-North bicycle pass and a few extra hours, you can leave the megatropolis and be cycling on low-traffic roads, through lovely rural villages and climbing country lanes up forested hillsides by the time the sun is still low in the sky. And, one of my favorite routes is up through Minnewaska State Park and then down the Roundout Valley roads that parallel the old D&H canal system. I was looking forward to sharing my favorite route up through this region.
Sunsy and I are both on Facebook and I asked if she would be OK with the idea of making the ride into a Facebook event and inviting some friends. She said, “sure,” and I posted the Event on Thursday. By Friday Clarence and Fatima (friends through the Farm Ride and Glen Goldstein) had signed on and said that their friend Robert would be joining.)
We met in the concourse of Grand Central Terminal at around 7:30, boarded the 7:47 Hudson Line train to Beacon and we were on the road by 9:00 am. Robert had brought a book on the geology of the region and a smaller book on the railroad between New Paltz and Highland that had been converted into a biking trail. I was amazed that he was going to carry the nine pounds of books, plus backpack and do all the hills on a single speed “fixie” bike. Robert said that he was familiar with the route and wanted to level the field. As a strong rider, he somehow made it up more than 1600 meters of climbing all day, only walking his bike twice on some wicked 18% pitches. Here was the elevation profile, making Robert’s achievement (well, all of our achievements) all that more amazing. There were hills!
Here was the route in Google Maps
View Minnewaska Ride in a larger map
And, the day’s stats from Garmin Connect (which still does not have as good a blogging tool as the company they have replaced, Motion Based.) http://connect.garmin.com/activity/9194640
While I think that Sunsy, Fatima and Clarence had a tougher day, unaccustomed to longer rides, I’m peaking for the upcoming BonTom Roulet in the Finger Lakes starting this weekend. Next week, we’ll be doing 100-150 km per day for seven days in a row and I’ve been preparing and have started tapering for the big mileage week. Robert is fairly indestructible, I think. And, I was actually a bit tired from the length of the day (number of slow hours on two wheels) and particularly sore from the “tester” saddle that I’m trying. I think that I have gotten used to pushing the pace, keeping up at 25-30 km/hr and getting this sort of length ride done in three and a half hours, rather than the six that it took us. But we stopped, snacked, took lots of pictures, goofed around and finally made it to River Station by 3:30.
One of the cool things about this ride was that a lot of the conversations began with, “Oh, I remember you posted something about…” Perhaps one of the best things about Facebook is that, with little effort, you can keep up with the activity streams of your friends, shortcutting a lot of the time it takes to catch up when you actually spend time together. I knew the basic details of Fatima’s bike crash at the North Fork Ride, had followed Clarence’s most recent videos at StreetFilms http://www.streetfilms.org/ and knew about Sunsy’s upcoming triathlon. So, while the four of us (Robert is somehow luddite-like when it comes to social networking) hadn’t seen each other in almost a year, we were all pretty current on the major events in each other’s lives.
(Thanks, again, Clarence, for the photo)
I was the one with kids and so I inhaled a hamburger, four glasses of water and a sprite and got the 4:35 train from Poughkeepsie and I was back home at 6:30 in time for the boys coming back from Dorothy’s. The others waited to take the later train and enjoy the lovely deck at River Station overlooking the Hudson.
Great day all around.. more pictures to come when I finally get the replacement cable for my Minolta camera (until then the photos are stuck in the camera.)
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