Off to Bear Mountain.

I met a cyclist on Tuesday and he told me Bear Mountain was a good climb and it was 30+  miles north of here... Well, I had to do it...

This morning I Google mapped it, downloaded Firefox and used an app to convert Google Maps to a GPX file  then I went to another website and converted it to a TCX file... then I loaded onto my bike computer. I later found out that Google maps does not use as many pick points as Map My Ride, and I would have had a better mapped course. 

Not having a great map allowed me to do the way of yore. Ride along a cyclist and ask for directions. I found such a cyclist and they had to stop in a LBS for air in their tires and the owner finally got my rear deralur dialed in after weeks of messing around with it, now I have all 10 speeds in the back on command! yea. Now for you cyclist, I had a 12-23, as I thought this area is flat, and no hills, I wished I had a 12-25 to get up Bear Mt. it was not hard, not much different than the Gatineau's climb... 

Once I got up, descending is easy but the ride home had some major "rollers" along the way, not to mention that a Thuderstorm was developing, but I can read them pretty good after all these years on a bike, and I made for a Motel, front room with chairs just before it started and sat out one hour of a major Thunderstorm. WOW it came down, and the thunder was fantastic! at the tail end I rode in the rain, cyclist can ride in the rain and I'm a "hard man" of cycling... I got to the small town of Nyack, NY where the bike shop was and it is at the bottom of the Appalachians, right on the Hudson and the streets were 2 feet deep in water... the bike got wet. I then climbed out  of town thinking I was a pretty darn "hard man" of cycling riding through all that, and head home on the last leg.... and I was on my last leg, this long in the saddle is hard, I'm good and strong for about four hours but this ended up being a six hour ride.

The Central Park Loop.

OK, so I can see New York form our Condo, and the Empire State building on our way home. I had to ride in Central Park. Cam Brehn is working with me on this project and wanted to do ride tonight so I said Central Park and he was in. We started at our place and headed up the Hudson, we climbed up to the George Washington Bridge over the Hudson River and worked our way onto Broadway. Lot's of TV shows shoot on that section of Broadway as I recognized it from Serpico, and NYC cop shows.
We arrived at the North end of the park, went into the entrance and once there the southbound section of the park had been closed to traffic for the weekend (cool), lots of runners and cyclists. I talked Cam into going out in the traffic and getting a photo in front of the Plaza... not too keen on riding down Times Square, his crazy dad might have done it and scared the crap out of me, but Cam has some common sense Robert is missing. We then got back on the North bound section was just closed to traffic, as we got to our Northern exit we threw caution to the wind (getting home in dark without lights), and rode a second lap. Beat up on a few NYC boys, with VERY nice bikes. Then hit our exit at the North end happy we had ridden Central Park.

Both ways we rode through Harlem, on the way back Cam showed me the Apollo theater, Cam wanted his photo in front of it... He took a second look around and said "nah, keep moving" Got to the Bridge, this guy (Cam not me) has a fantastic sense of direction. I knew where we were going because I Google mapped but I'm never positive. We got back and both were happy for a great ride on Friday night in NYC.

PROOF: 

OK, I'm on my last day here and I want to eat Cuban food and I want to see and photo a gator...
I did find a good Cuban restaurant that was "modest" in price and had home cooking. I took the daily special Rabo Encendido, with plantains and rice. Most likely the the Ox Tail was a bit fattier than what I should be eating and fried Plantains are! Oh well, until I get to Cuba for their Jazz festival this will have to do.

I then waited to see if it was going to rain again, it was cloudy windy and very questionable all day but no rain so I decided to venture out, I took a state highway that went through the everglades hoping to find my gator for a photo op... no luck... but I saw air  boats and a lot of swampland! And I do mean a lot. I got my second flat in Florida, my first was on my first ride there at the beginning of March, second at the end of my stay at the beginning of May. Their roads are not really cyclist friendly. ON THAT note. I saw the Weston cycling club out riding... Idiots taking up TWO lanes on a state highway and had 10 cars backed up... come on guys most drivers hate us when we behave... and that just gives them all the more reason to hate us.