Wednesday, May 4
It was quite an interesting evening. Earlier on in the afternoon, I got this awesome idea of doing the Croton Aqueduct trail ride and texted Map111158 to join me. I loaded up a few different options, 64mile out and back, 75mile loop through Westchester, 85mile loop up to Blue Mountain and coming back across the Bear Mountain Bridge back into NJ. We would finish pretty late in the dark, but whatever.
Bronx
We got started about 15 minutes late, no big deal. Cross the GWB into the Bronx which was a traffic madness. Finally get into Van Cortlandt Park and instead of taking the dirt trails, I took a wrong turn which led us to some rough ghetto looking streets. So the road ride up to Yonkers was somewhat of a nervous moment.
Yonkers
Get up to Yonkers and rob is like, maybe we should just turn this into a road ride, we've gone like 10 miles in 1hr. I'm like, don't be such a wuss, let's keep going. Then we're climbing up this hill to get to the trailhead in the most ghetto neighborhood ever. This superstar chick is walking down the street and she like "that looks like it hurts". "DOES IT HURT?!". We say nothing. "ANSWER ME DAMN IT! YOU ARE IDIOTS!" We say nothing and keep climbing. Then the f bombs start dropping. I thought she was going to rape us.
Aqueduct Trail
It was really slow going because the trails were soggy in spots and it comes in and out on to street, for most of the beginning parts of the trail. We are on CX bikes with road tires, not so good for the conditions. We are chugging along for a while and it is getting dark now. Rob is like maybe we should take that bike path back. I think about it for a minute and decide the show must go on.
Streets
Once we got past Sleepy Hollow, the trail spit us out on to the street. It is now around 8PM and almost no daylight. Turning back now would not be much better than keep on going, esp since the roads back are crap and we're not really sure how to navigate around the ghettos. So we keep pressing on, but we've now abandoned the trail and taking the road up to Croton.
Croton Dam
We are now at the dam. It is almost pitch dark .. no street lights at all. I've always wanted to see the dam. Can't see a thing. The roads are pretty nice though .. at least they would be during the day time. We keep pressing on. Then we stop. It is now almost 9PM. We (rather I am) are averaging like 11mph. Roads are nice, but getting sketchy cause of the cars coming around the corners at 40mph.
Train
We make the decision to train it back. If we keep riding, we would probably make it home well past midnight. First question. How much money do we have? Me: $25. Rob: $0. Is that enough? We're not sure. Question 2. How often the the train run and where will it take us? Rob does not have a phone. Mine has no backlight. Shining the bike light on the phone makes it somewhat usable. I figure out the route to the train station. I call my sister to see if she can help us with some questions regarding the train. No answer. We call rob's mom. She's not much help. We decide to just wing it and ride down the long 4 mile hill down to the train station. We're pretty much ready to beg people for money.
Train Station
Good news. Trains are running every 30 minutes into Grand Central. Now we're at the ticket vending machine. 2 tickets to Manhattan. $18. Awesome .. big sigh of relief. After purchasing the tickets, rob steals $2 from me to get some junk food from the vending machine.
Track 2
Track 2 is an express train which stops at 125th Street. It departs at 9:30PM. We are waiting inside this enclosed glass waiting room. Then we see this train pass by on Track 2. WTF. We missed the train.
Track 4
No more express trains left. We get on the local train at 10PM. Rob asks the chinese conductor lady where we can put our bikes. She says use another door. Rob says he hates all asian people. The chinese lady is nice to me. The local train may actually be better since it can drop us off closer to the GWB. I think for sure that it will stop at the GWB bus terminal. We get close. WTF. The train makes a turn onto the other side of East River.
Bronx
We get off at Morris Heights, Bronx. I'm not sure exactly how to get us to the GWB, but kind know the general direction. As we're riding out of the station, there is a gangster looking guy with a huge pitbull. The pitbull barks at us as we pass by. We ride for a bit, trying to figure out how to get up to the bridge that goes across the East River. Luckily, I recognize some streets and we make it across into Manhattan.
Shifter
Then my rear shifter stops working. Now I'm running on 1 gear. We make it to the GWB. My shifter magically starts working again. We are now on the home stretch. Destination time is 11:20PM. Was kind of expecting a crazy ride, but not this type of crazy.
GPS:
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/83553822
Photo
I'm pretty sure he was posing for this shot.
Bikes.
