Yorktown Heights

What are the ingredients for a great ride? Is it the weather? The destination? The company?

Today, I'm out with the 5BBC on a promising route. Several times during the Summer, the Bronx River Parkway is closed to cars. I rode it last year on Lucille.* Today, we will be taking it as part of a longer trip to Yorktown Heights to see a display of antique cars, and farm implements. That is the plan at least.

I know right away the company will be great because most of us have named our bikes, one of the signatures of the Slow Bicycle Manifesto.** There are four of us, a Point, a Sweep, R and me (we could alternate being Drop if we felt like bossing each other around).

We begin the ride an hour late to give rainy weather a chance to blow over. But just as we start off (from the Metro North Wakefield stop), it begins to mist.

We proceed along Bronx River Road, crossing the Parkway and riding onto Pondfield Road. This is Bronxville, a community of rank and privilege, of calm and beauty, where people grow hydrangeas just because.

I haven't been here in years, and the views of the town catapult me back to my childhood where I spent countless vacations with my cousins.

There's something about rain, particularly Summer rain. It makes everything hyper-real. And today, Bronxville's beauty stands in technicolor contrast to the gray City we have left behind. And just as I am wondering where on Pondfield Road my cousins lived, we take a sudden turn onto a place I've never visited before:

Woah, what is this?  It's the Bronx River Trail. 

I have yet to be on a bike trip where I didn't have at least one moment where I felt life couldn't get any better. Riding the Bronx River Trail is one of those moments. It's heavenly. The path is beautiful and varied, the smells are of wet earth. And because of the rain, the Bronx River, recently more of a quiet flow, roils next to us providing a liquid sound track to our ride. 

We cross the River.

And traverse the occasional road.

Until we reach the Bronx River Parkway, where we experience our first surprise: it isn't closed to cars today. You'd think they would have posted this on their website… And yet it turns out to be a blessing. Instead, our Point takes us further up the Bronx River Trail. How great is that? Last year, I thought riding the Bronx River Parkway was super fun. 

But where would you rather be riding?

Much as the rain brings out the greenness of the trail, it makes the wooden bridges really slippery.

No sudden moves. I try not to shift or even pedal. 

There is the occasional impediment.

But our timing is just right. If we'd waited 20 more minutes to start this ride, we wouldn't have made it through this…

(we duck and steer our bikes through)

Then there's this bridge. I'll just be silent here.

All the more surprising to discover how close to civilization we are. Just off the trail, we find ourselves...

It's a dirty secret, but it's the rest stops that keep this trail so lovely. We make use of it. 

Then the rain really hits. This is what my fellow riders look like from my camera. 

It's too bad cameras don't have eyebrows. It's too bad they can't blink. If they did, they'd see this.

As we ride from trail to wide-shouldered highway and back, encountering a pretty spectacular bridge. 

Must be catnip for bungee jumpers...

Finally with rain pelting down, we arrive in Yorktown Heights. But guess what?

No car show today. What - does nobody know how to update a website without a 16-year-old?
Yet our Point remains resourceful. After a brief ride through Yorktown Heights, we coast into here:

So let's count it up: late start, constant rain, Bronx River Parkway not closed, No antique car show (or farm implements). And yet how is the Trailside Cafe***any different from the Runcible Spoon? For riders from Manhattan to Nyack, The Runcible Spoon's half-way point is enough to make the journey worthwhile. And so it is for us in Yorktown Heights. The food is healthy (and the gf options mean I can eat everything on the menu). And they clearly love bikes.

Hooray!

And Lola is happy because the petunias match her bar tape.

We spend a good hour, ordering, ordering more, talking and resting. Even the rain is taking a break. Until we start up again.

By this time, we've paid our rainy day dues: we decide for the shorter trip option, cycling back to Pleasantville to catch the train. Except for R, who is working up to his Century Ride in September. He peels off to ride back to the City. Brave R.

Soon, Lola and I are back in Manhattan.

Where I'm told it's been mostly dry. It's nice to be back. It's nice to be dry. It'll be nice to clean up. But would I have missed this ride? 

What do you think?

*Bronx River Parkway (time lapse): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2m4rpi-6Ds&feature=youtu.be
**Slow Bicycle Manifesto: http://theslowbicycle.blogspot.com/2008/09/vote-for-manifesto.html
*** The Trailside Cafe: http://www.trailside-cafe.com