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New York, New York
Words & photos by Gavin Wells
Weaving through traffic with a warm spring sun beating my eyes, I expose myself to every wayward city bus, insane delivery truck and door-popping cab on Canal Street. It’s 11 a.m. on a Wednesday, and I’m willing my army green Surly Long Haul Trucker—with it’s tenuously overloaded Arkel T-42 panniers and heavy bar bag—through the worst lunchtime traffic the Big Apple can throw down. My destination: out of town. My relative level of insanity: high.
I usually ride through here on my way to my job at Sid’s Bikes NYC astride my old Cannondale Killer V900 hard tail, which is more properly equipped with Specialized Armadillo tires and an aero stem position that any fixie rider could rightly scoff at. I dodge and weave my way in and out of street combat everyday on that rig for my commute from Park Slope, Brooklyn to Midtown via the Manhattan Bridge and the optimistically named First Avenue Bike Lane.
But today, I’m getting out. I’ve had it with the concrete jungle. I’m riding up the Hudson to Bear Mountain State Park for an overnight stay. I am fairly new to touring and hence have a macho idea about exactly what I can carry and how far I can go in a day. The park is 50 miles north of the city. Coincidently, that’s also the poundage I’ve elected to haul today. MSR stove and cooking gear: Check. Sleeping bag and tent: Check. Laptop, extra batteries, flashlight, food, water, tools, and the kitchen sink: Check, check, check.
Suddenly, my seat becomes horribly uncomfortable, and I make a quick stop at the West Side Bike Path. I pull over on a nice long stretch of improved cycle-oriented development along the New York bank of the Hudson. I figure I deserve a quick breather anyway, for surviving the feat of hauling my gear all the way from the Brooklyn end of the bridge across lower Manhattan to the path.
As I finish knocking my seat back a centimeter and raising the nose just slightly, the late morning mist is clearing off the river and I can just make out a Naval vessel coming upstream. It’s flying the Canadian flag and is about to be intercepted by two coast guard speedboats charging downriver in pursuit. Finally, I think to myself, the Canadians are invading.
Further up the path, I’m surrounded by a mob of white-clad sailors pouring out of a huge aircraft carrier that is moored by the USS Lexington Memorial. As I slowly needle my way through the ocean of loudly gesticulating sailors, it occurs to me that the Canadian invasion of New York is actually the beginning of Fleet Week. They all seem extraordinarily happy to be off the boat.
From my vantage point down on the bike path at 125th street, I can look upwards and spy the open steel towers of the George Washington Bridge jutting out of the Hudson, supporting the bridge’s snake-like suspension cables. High above the water, the thin concrete roadway is visible, choked with truck traffic.
The bridge leads from 178th Street in Washington Heights to the Palisades Park in Fort Lee, NJ. For those of us who can stomach a somewhat less than inspired trip under the bridge through a netherworld of urban grit, it can be accessed directly from the Upper West Side Bike Path. After cresting the last broken concrete switchback out of the graffiti caves under the bridge, I squeeze my unfamiliarly wide bike through the tightly parked cars on 12th Avenue. As I barrel out into the honking mass on 178th, I’m suddenly drawn by the flow of traffic onto the freeway on-ramp around the north side of the bridge. I have to stop and lift my heavy rig up 10 inches of rusty metal curb as the trucks whiz past.
New York has done a lot in the last five years to improve roadways and bridges for cyclists. The effort has included adding painted bike lanes, stopping auto traffic on selected streets during certain times of year, and distributing free citywide cycling maps. I think about this as I heft my bike once again and carry it down one side and up the metal stairs leading to the pedestrian path over the bridge. A few bike ramps, please, Mayor Bloomberg!
All of this grit and grime is left behind as I begin to pedal across the Hudson. The glass towers of the city recede into the distance over my left shoulder, and the Hudson River expands before me. This huge river that once inspired the painters of the Hudson River School is the gateway to another world.
Crossing into New Jersey, the roadway drops to river level. The aptly named River Road winds north through a forest of picturesque oak trees. Before I know it, I am whipping down little rollers, whirring through the woods with the sun glinting off the river. I stop en route to Nyack just to remove my iPod headphones for a minute and realize that within sight of one the largest cities in the world, you can actually find silence.
Continuing on, I crest a long uphill and reach the intersection at highway 9W. A state police station dating from the late 1700’s, complete with stable and carriage turn-around, marks my entry to the highway proper, and the halfway point of my ride.
I turn onto 9W, jamming out to ACDC and paying scant attention to the trucks barreling past, blaring horns and offering waves of encouragement or derision as I pedal along. In what seems like a blur, I spin into quaint Nyack, making a quick stop at the Runcible Spoon, a local favorite coffee shop for high-test cyclists like myself. At 6’-2” and 240 pounds, I stick out like a linebacker at the Tour De France.
The next town, Haverstraw, is an odd mix of tiny streets, High Victorian houses and gravel quarries that pass by as the fluid sounds of Lou Reed filter through my earphones. Riding the narrow shoulder of 9W north of Nyack is slightly less pleasing, although I do enjoy the odd yelling from speeding black SUVs filled with promising teenagers offering appropriate hand gestures.
As I continue on, buoyed by a potent combination of fear and Gatorade, the interconnected towns of the lower Hudson River Valley give way to the open hills of the countryside. The pavement flashes under my Continentals and I begin to feel at home in my Brooks B-17 saddle. Of course, I am working with a tailwind.
This becomes hugely apparent when I turn left at Stony Point and cross into the hilly country around the Palisades Interstate Parkway. Too late, I realize that I have not saved nearly enough energy for the five-mile uphill trek into the park. I guess the term Bear Mountain is partially correct. I don’t see any bears, but a close encounter might better spur me to make it up the cruelly steep hill. With Deathklok blasting through my earpieces, I stand up in the pedals and give my last ounce of strength in the nearly vain effort of dragging myself up the hill.
The last mile up to the park is the closest approximation to hell on earth that I have yet experienced, and I’ve had two root canals. I bonk so hard at the top that I evidently ask for the “closest” spot to the ranger station, which ends up being in a swamp next to the restroom under a set of majestic power lines. Of course, I don’t realize this until 20 minutes later when I come to, lying flat on my back on the picnic table, still wheezing from the effort.
Needing food before rest, I heat a can of Stagg chili on my backpacking stove. After eating that sparse but sorely needed meal while swatting bugs from my face and neck, I slowly set up my tent and crawl in. I think about waking up tomorrow morning to do it all over again in reverse. The wind whispers through the green leaves of the deciduous trees around my mosquito hatchery, and I feel at peace inside the bug netting as I watch the satellites trace their lonely paths across the stars.
