Opportunistic Exploring

At the end of the McBride ride Laura mentioned the possibility of riding to Cocoluxe for her ride this week. When it came time to plan her ride she chose to stay closer to home and do a double shot coffee ride. I don't drink coffee and I had to be up in Long Valley Saturday afternoon so since Cocoluxe had been calling me since Laura mentioned it I decided to do a ride on my own out of Peapack to do some exploring.

The last time I was in Peapack was when I did the El Capitan ride. Laura did a ride earlier in the year that I missed so this seemed like a good time to explore some new roads. I ended up doing this route which is a combination of some of my Schooley's Mountain Ride with a little be of El Capitan. The main point of the ride was eat some chocolate goodness from Cocoluxe and to go down Fox Chase hill again which was a cool hill I discovered as part of the El Capitan ride.

The weather was a little cold and foggy but since the ride started with a climb up Potterville Rd I warned up pretty quick. In 10 miles I was Rockaway Rd working my way up the hill. I ran in to a Morris County Freewheeler group that I rode with for 5 miles before splitting off to head into Hacklebarny.

One of the new roads I explored was Pleasant Hill Rd. Although there were a couple short steep spots it wasn't a bad rode and had a couple of cool downhills as well as some nice views of a small river and surrounding marshland.

The ride did not have a lot of flat spots so there was a lot of ups and downs, mostly ups but the last part of the ride has some cool down hills down South Rd and Old Mill Rd. The last down hill as Fox Chase Rd but when I got there was a sign that said the road was closed. As most people know I usually don't pay attention to those signs since there is usually a way to get around most road construction when on a bike.

In this case the road was closed past where I turned off so it wasn't a problem and I was able to enjoy the downhill into Peapack and a nice stop at Cocoluxe to satisfy my chocolate fix.

Odds and Ends

I haven't posted in a while because I been busy. After my bike vacation I went on my usually family vacation to Cape Cod. I usually bring my bike up on vacation and do a few rides. Cape Cod has a really nice rail trail and if you combine that with some of the back roads you can find some good rides past lighthouses and scenic beaches. This year I left the bike home and did a little hiking instead. We stay by the town of Wellfleet which is one of the natural harbors there and they have a cool hike on one of the peninsulas at the edge of the harbor. It's about 5 miles, mostly in sand, around the marshlands and beaches. It was a very scenic walk with a lot of cool dunes along the beach. You can see my pictures HERE from the walk as well as a whale watch and aquarium we visited. Although I have been to Cape Cod 10 or 15 times I always find something new so it is always a good vacation.

The project that has kept me busy after I got back my vacation is our bedroom remodel. I wanted to just paint the ceiling because of a leak we had 6 months ago and it is one of those projects that sort of snowballed into a full bedroom replacement. The rug was15 years old and wasn't that good to begin with so we decided to replace that while we were painting. Our bed has also seen better days so we might as well replace that. And while we're at it the furniture in the room is over 30 years old and would look like crap next to a new bed and rug so what's a few more dollars while we at it. So between moving the old bed upstairs as well as some of the furniture then doing the painting and generally cleaning up the room before all the new stuff arrived it has been a bit of work but it should look really nice when its done.

Between vacation and the remodel I have managed to get a few rides in. Before the Cape Cod vacation I did my annual Lake Nockimixon ride. It was a good ride except for the fact that the ranger in Peace Valley woke up a little lake and didn't open any of the parking area's so we had to park in a near by school. There was also Jacks derailleur which somehow ended up being bent into the spokes of his back wheel in the first mile so he couldn't come with us. The main thing that made me happy about the ride this year was I made up the short but steep 20% grade this year with out having to stop because my front wheel was coming off the ground.

I also did the Ride for McBride again this year after the vacation. It was much nicer this year since it didn't rain. I did the 50 mile loop with Laura and crew and you can read about the details on her blog. 

I didn't put any rides in the book for Sept or Oct but will probably being doing some ad hoc rides. Not sure where I'll be going but there is still time to get some interesting rides in before the winter cold sets in.
 

Weekend Around the Hudson

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This years trip had two destinations, the Berkshires and the Hudson Valley. After spending a couple of days in the Berkshires we headed to Kingston to do some riding around Rhinebeck. On Saturday we took a ride to Olana which was the home of Frederic Church one of the major figures in the Hudson River School of painting.

We started the ride from a recreations center in Red Hook and slowly worked our way through some back roads towards Olana. The terrain was a little gentler than in the Berkshires but was still mostly rolling hills. It was another perfect weather day and we have some nice clear views of the hills around the Hudson Valley. Except for Rt 9G the roads were mostly traffic free and in decent shape.

The only real climb of the day was up to Olana which is on a hill overlooking the Hudson. Cheryl had warned us about this hill since she had done this ride before. At first it didn't seem that bad but it got steeper the closer we got to the top. I actually switched down to the triple about 100 ft from the end.

The climb was worth it because we got some good views of the Hudson as well as the Moravian style house built by Frederic Church.  After we took a look around we when back out on the road and made our way back through some more back country roads. We passed by a lot of farms mostly growing apples and peaches.

By the time we got back to the start we had done 44 miles and were back before 1pm. After a quick shower back at the hotel we decided to head to Hyde Park the home of FDR. The ride to Hyde Park should have taken a half hour but Rt 9G was backed up because of the Dutches County Fair. This was probably also the reason that it was hard to find a hotel room in one of the nicer hotels.

Even with the traffic we were able to get to Hyde Park before the last tour at 4pm. We had a slightly wacky tour guide who was both funny and informative. After the tour we spent another hour in the FDR library and museum which was really well done. We could of easily spent more time but we were getting hungry so we headed off to a dinner at a diner. Then is was another ride through the  Dutches County Fair.traffic to get back to our hotel.

Sunday was the last day of the trip and we managed to squeeze in another ride. Before the trip I was concerned about riding 4 days in a row but it wasn't a problem. I wasn't sore from riding for the past three days and actually felt pretty strong.

Sundays ride started from the town of New Paltz which was on our way home. The main destination for this ride was the Walkway over the Hudson which is an old railroad bridge by Poughkeepsie that was turned into a walkway. Since it was yet another picture perfect day weather wise it would be a good day to go see the view.

This ride, by design, would be the easiest ride of the trip was only 36 miles and had only 1700 ft of climbing. It wasn't a flat ride by any means but rolling hills were gentle and reminded me a little of Lancaster. The ride started with nice flat ride along the Walljill river. It was in the low 60s at the start of the ride and I almost put on my arm warmers but after a few miles I decided I didn't need them.

After just over 5 miles we rode by a nice covered bridge before having our only real climb of the day up Dashville Rd. It wasn't real long but it was steep. From there we hit some really nice wooded roads and actually meet a local biker who was on her first ride after a bad fall. Its always nice sharing stories with other bikers. We road with her a few miles before she broke off and we headed for the walkway.

To get to the walkway we had a out and back loop from Rt 299 which conveniently had a Hess station with a good store in it. Halfway to the walkway were were able to jump on the Hudson Rail Trail which was a nice paved path. The actual Walkway over the Hudson was pretty impressive and really well done. It was a little crowded so we had to zig zag around people, kids and dogs but it was a really cool view.

We rode to the other side of the Hudson and back and meet some more bikers from New York who had took the train to Poughkeepsie. I took a few more pictures then we headed back towards New Paltz. We had some nice long downhills approaching the town through some more apple and peach farms before a ride along the Wallkill river. Before we knew it we were back in town and at the cars. We had planned to have a nice lunch in New Paltz but we weren't really that hungry and wanted to get home so we just got in the car and got out of there.

We hit a little traffic on the ride home but it wasn't that bad and we were home a little after 3pm. All in all the trip worked out as good or better as planned. All the rides we did were good, we had no mechanical problems, we saw a lot of cool things on and off the bike and we had great weather. If I did it again I would try to get a better hotel in Kingston and not go during the Dutches County Fair but otherwise it was a great trip.