I'm hoping this becomes a tradition, which I very much think it might. Last Fall, myself and two friends went on a touring-style bike ride from Albany, NY to Boston, MA. Total mileage was only about 170-180, but split up across 1 full day and two partial days. The goal isn't to throttle ourselves, but more-so the chance for a bunch of guys to go for a ride through the back-roads of the country, all the while enjoying some good food + beer along the way.
The latest addition of our ride took us from Albany, NY to NYC via a route along the Hudson River. The legs were in running shape, but definitely not cycling shape. Never-the-less, I knew that my running fitness would far exceed the cycling fitness of the other two guys so I wasn't that worried at all. All in all this trip was great timing b/c it fell between my major races (half-marathon and full marathon!). We just hit the Spring greening across upstate NY too, but by only about a week or so. Everything was blooming!
Here's a slathering of photos to help paint the picture of our trip. Enjoy!
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| My bike. |
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| Our typical roadways out in the country. |
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| Awesome bookstore / bar. |
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| Southern Tier beer, out of NY of course! |
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| Trespassing for an amazing view. |
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| Damn good regional beer. |
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| Our overnight accommodations. |
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| Frank Gehry building at Bard College. |
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| Loving the stone walls that flanked the roads for much of the ride. |
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| View of the Hudson River from a nunnery, of all places! |
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| The unsettlingly large bones of some deceased animal. |
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| Student views from Marist College. |
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| The Poughkeepsie pedestrian bridge over the Hudson River. |
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| A pack of donkeys. |
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| Chicken hot-dog with a thai peanut-sauce, green onions and lime iced-tea. |
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| Taking a break along the Hudson River. |
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| Refueling. Duh. |
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| Unintentional shot I found on my camera. |
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| My future home (castle) on the hill. |
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| Trying to out-run the weather at Bear Mountain bridge. |
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| Thinking we found the beginning of the trail into NYC... |
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| Hmm, not as glamorous as I thought, but still looks good... |
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| Err, not bad.. but still good. |
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| Wait a minute... |
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| Wood chips?? WTF!! (No punctures, either!) |
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| Ahhh... finally!! |
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| Cool little pergola structure along the trail. |
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| A VERY pedestrian friendly cross-walk. |
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| Awesome stop-lights. |
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| Yep... he took a header trying to dodge a rollerblader and is now having his wounds dressed on the river-front. |
We're soliciting options for our next ride. The three of us currently live in Boston, MA and Albany, NY. The most feasible option right now is a tour of the Finger Lakes region of Syracuse, NY. Basically, we would ride our bikes around massive lakes stopping to taste wine every so often. Sounds like a great way to stay hydrated!
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2 comments:
Looks awesome! Where's the dog and iced tea from? I do recognize Hudson, of course, in the Spotty Dog pic.
What was your route?
I stick to running, but husband much prefers to bike. He's been exploring the Voorheesville/Altamont roads so far. I've been sending him these posts!
Sorry for the late response (work work blah blah...)
We were on the East side of the Hudson River the whole way, tracing Route 9 in its various forms (9J, 9G, 9D...). It was very nice for the majority of the ride, but got sticky at some points with minimal/no shoulder. Of course, we had a group of 3 so that made a huge difference in terms of our overall road presence.
For our next group-ride we're talking about doing laps around the various Finger Lakes and stopping off at the wineries to.. err.. fuel!
Keep up the running and maybe I'll see you at a local race one of these days!
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