Multi-county Mixed Bag

   On Sunday Sue and I headed off on a 53 mile ride that was a bit different, combining a large amount of both road and trail riding through four different counties of New York and New Jersey. Starting in Ft. Lee (Bergen County), NJ, we crossed over the George Washington Bridge into Manhattan (New York County), then made our way through the Bronx and finally Westchester.

   Much of the planned route was inspired by well-known blogger and author Eben Weiss, alias Bike Snob NYC, who had written a March guest article for The Brooks Blog (sponsored by the famous leather bicycle saddle manufacturer). Eben highlighted portions of one of his regular rides, and using his description and photos, I was able to piece together the course he had taken and linked it up with our planned starting point at the G.W.B.

   Our trip started off with the unfortunate discovery that our favorite free parking spot at Ft. Lee Historic Park now had numbered spaces and pay kiosks. At first I thought, “What a stupid thing to do, if you are trying to encourage people not to drive into the city.” Then it occurred to me that New Jersey wouldn’t care about cars in NYC, and is just trying to make money.

   I’ve been across the bridge maybe a dozen times, and it never fails to deliver exhilaration with its expansive views of the New York skyline, the Hudson River and the rocky Palisade to the west. The great feeling is dampened somewhat as you make your way down the steep, spiraling access ramp on the east end, and the thought crosses your mind of having to face the return trip up this nasty climb with the fatigue of the day’s ride in your legs.

   We’ve never been intimidated by the traffic of city riding, with or without bike lanes, as the pedestrians always seem to be the big problem, since they rarely pay attention to crossing signals or traffic lights. Add in the distraction of cell phones and other electronic devices people are using when strolling across intersections, and it seems amazing that cars are the first thing mentioned when I hear complaints from bicycle commuters!

   Down to the Hudson River Greenway we went, and despite some rather obscure markings along the path, we found our way up a short and very steep approach and some steps to the Henry Hudson Bridge over Spuyten Duyvil (Spouting Devil in Dutch) Creek. As we descended near the intersection of the Henry Hudson Parkway East and Independence Avenue, two young women asked if I knew how to get to Van Cortlandlt Park.

   “We happen to be riding right through the park,” I replied. “Why don’t you just ride with us, instead of me trying to explain directions?” So for about the next two miles we had some slow company, but since weaving our way through the crooked streets in this section of the city and down through Manhattan College was rather complicated, I was glad to have plenty of time to check the cue sheet I had attached to my stem to make sure we were always headed in the correct direction.

   The ride through the park on the Old Putnam Trail was a bit of low point for Sue and I on this trip. Abandoned in 1958, this right-of-way was part of the Putnam division of the New York Central Railroad, and I don’t think a whole lot went into the planning of its conversion to public usage. The natural dirt trail surface was uneven, poorly maintained, and in some bad drainage areas large railroad ballast-sized rock had been dumped – definitely not a bicycle-friendly surface!

   The trail was also barely wide enough for bicycles to be ridden in each direction, and railroad ties were still set in the ground on the right-hand side (traveling north), making the situation extremely hazardous for anyone swerving to avoid a collision. Crowds of families with little care about the courtesy of sharing of the pathway didn’t help matters much, either. When are people going to learn to pull completely off of the trail when they stop to take a drink or make that all-important (extreme sarcasm implied) check of their phones?

   A little over a mile later, we were treated to the Westchester County line and the start the wonderful, wide-paved South County Trailway, and although we still faced plenty of “people pylons”, at least there was adequate room to weave around them. Sue complained about feeling sluggish, and I pointed out that the trail was gradually climbing nearly 300 feet along its 15 miles up around the Pocantico Hills. There was a small disconnected section of the Trailway at the village of Elmsford where some on-street riding is required, and we took that opportunity to fill our bottles at a local shop.

   Although it eventually connects to the 22-mile North County Trailway, we exited the South County portion to take Sleepy Hollow Road through the Rockefeller State Park Preserve. There was some beautiful scenery as we wound through forests and horse farms. Just outside downtown Sleepy Hollow, we swung off near the high school to reach the Old Croton Aqueduct Trail, which I will refer to in the future as the OCA.

   The aquaduct once carried water from the Croton River down to Manhattan reservoirs, but I’ll leave you to read up on its history, as this blog entry will be long enough on its own. The OCA is actually a State Historic Park, but much of its route crosses private land, so we found ourselves feeling a bit uncomfortable as we followed this winding single-track through backyards, across front lawns and between gardens of the Tarrytown area.

If you click on the photo to enlarge, you can better make out the OCA path.

   We saw many remnants of the aqueduct’s infrastructure, such as weir chambers and shaft/gatehouses. The most prominent features were the numerous stone ventilator columns that we passed along the way.

Weir Chamber

Ventilator

   The northern part of the OCA was generally well-marked with neat green wooden posts with carved lettering painted in white. The quality of the road crossings, however, ranged from passible to God-awful, as most had poor sightlines for cyclists or the intersecting traffic. The surface in these areas had uneven curbs, broken asphalt, eroded holes or some combination of all three. We came away feeling that this trail was a wonderful resource with so much potential, and it just felt like it was being left to waste away.

   The strange thing was that the best riding was in the sections that had no maintenance, where hard packed dirt provided a smooth, fast surface. One particularly enjoyable area was within the grounds of the Lyndhurst Mansion, which was once the residence of railroad magnate Jay Gould.

   Wider areas that had one time been resurfaced with sand or crushed gravel, were worn away from heavy use, leaving large rocks and tree roots exposed. The constant light change while cycling from sun into shade and back, plus the patterns of the light through the leaves made spotting these hazards difficult. I recall a couple moments of cursing (I won’t say who), and I once had the bars jolted from my fingers – luckily I didn’t hit anything else while maintaining my no-hands balance.

   We eventually worked our way back to Yonkers and made a turn east, where we faced a wicked little hill up Ashburton Avenue. A good-natured fellow in a pickup truck yelled to us, “You should be in Rio!” (Olympics site that year). We half-heartedly shouted back our thanks, then veered right and down into a miserable segment of the OCA that was littered with refuse of all imaginable varieties. Shortly after doing a little climb out of this hole, back up to Yonkers Avenue, Sue said to me, “I think I just got hepatitis on that part of the trail!”

   We rejoined the OCA off Midland Road, right alongside Tibbetts Brook Park, but in hindsight, we probably should have just stayed on pavement. I’ll admit that my “enjoyable ride time” was just about up – after all, I have ridden the 80 miles to the shore in shorter time than this trip was taking. The trail markings became confusing, and the convoluted route that the OCA took, made necessary by highway development, added unnecessary distance to the total we had to ride.

   There was also a point where we could have diverted to a paved route towards the Van Cortlandt Golf Clubhouse instead of following the OCA, but at the time I wasn’t sure where that was going to put us, in relation to the planned return route to reach the G.W.B. We wanted to take a more gradual climb up to the bridge, not retrace our outbound course and take on some of the steep hills involved that way.

   The OCA unceremoniously dumped us at an awkward intersection that really had to be crossed on foot, and we made our way down Dickinson and Goulden Avenues alongside the Jerome Park Reservoir. From there it was an interesting ride down University Avenue through “The Heights” to reach the Washington Bridge over the Harlem River.

   I still had enough in my legs to have a little race with a dude on a power assist bike up the last incline on 181ST Street to Fort Washington Avenue and the connection to the G.W.B. The surprised rider laughed as I pulled up along his back wheel, and I didn’t bother telling him that I had about 50 miles in my legs already.

   Sue was definitely not amused by any of the remaining hills but was quite happy to find that the Ft. Lee parking area was not patrolled regularly on Sundays. We were behind schedule by a couple hours and, with our current run of luck, had been pretty sure we were going to find a ticket on our windshield. Maybe the cycling gods were taking pity on us!