Saturday 👍

David Yang said:

Lennart, I might join you on Sunday. Rain is fine, but Pride Parade starts at 11a so the city will be busier than normal and there will definitely be street closures at least in Manhattan.

If you want to do something different we can check this route out on our cross bikes:

https://ridewithgps.com/routes/35674637

Looks awesome! I’m down 

8am start? Each way starting from High Bridge is about 35miles and we'll be going slower than on the road it seems.

Sure! Where do we wanna meet?

8am start where?

JP, thinking it might be fun to explore the Old Croton Aquaduct trail on the other side of the river on our cross bikes for some gravel riding. The Ride With GPS route was made by NYCC a few years ago.

I'm totally new to this route so feel like we might have some stop/starts, especially on the way through the Bronx to what I hope is a long stretch of car-free woods riding.

I'm also down with the usual over GWB if you all want to do some straightforward riding.

Yeah both works for me, although I do see that we’ll have some strong rain all night - i don’t know what that does with the quality of the trail 

Let's keep it simple - 8am GWB.

Let’s do it!

From today's ride

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbPp_vbCCcc

The OCA is super fun , take northcounty greenway through van cortland and get the train back from Peekskill ,it’s really amazing 

I'll be at the GWB. Need to be back by 11.  

JP we are headed on river road if you're running super late.

Lennart beat me up today and I am supposedly in my best form in 2 years. The man is coming for all the Strava KOMs.

He led me out for state line heading up and gas station heading back and I was having trouble staying on his wheel *downhill* - like wut. Happy I was able to put down about 1000w for the sprint but I was toast afterwards.

Like Le Tour the humidity on top of the heat really beat us up. What a day to have forgotten to fill my bottles so had to stop by a deli to grab Gatorade before the bridge.

We saw John M and Alex VH as we were coming back. Some really sketchy behavior on the GWB - random stops and wandering by riders off their bike in the middle of the lane, and one idiot who cut in front of another rider opposite us at one of the tower underpasses almost taking out everyone.

The heat does funny things to our brains I guess.

@David Yang

ouch.  I thought you meant 9am at the GWB.  I was there at 9:05 with Malcolmson.  We waited til 9:15, checked the forum and rode.

sorry about that.

Anyone off on Friday and up for some Cunningham?

Tomorrow Saturday July 6th, 7AM BB 8AM GWB

Notice the earlier time. 

We'll ride to Piermont/Nyack. See you then.

Count me in 👍

Meet you at the GWB

Fun ride today , met @eloy at the brooklyn bridge and we both looked at the grey sky and hoped it wouldn’t rain 
it rained super hard over the GWB but we road on hooked up with @David Yang and @PatrickGrehan , waited a few minutes and set off into blue sky’s and 90 degree weather to Bradley and onto Boxer Donuts 
Nice pace back ,podium shots were taken 😂

definitely a good day out

oh & the video of mark surfing the rainy GWB:

https://youtu.be/9S9YKfBcMpI?si=bwRZh75zu0IuckdF

Gnarly start turned into a fun, eventful ride. Loving the early starts. Heading up, I was approaching NY Presbyterian just before GWB when it started raining. I ducked under some scaffolding and pulled on my rain jacket and cap and messaged that I was going to be 5 mins late. Then it started raining even harder. Make that 10 mins. Finally it let up enough for me to abandon my ark building plans and got back on the road. Going over the bridge I saw some folks riding back to NYC. One poor guy coming the opposite direction was about to say hey to me and I watched in horror a car next to him splash up an enormous wave straight into his mouth. Godspeed, hope your shots are up to date!

Saw Eloy and Mark hanging just up the road at Pat's car. I peeled off the jacket, stowed it in my pocket and joined them and we made our way to the low roads. 20 minutes later, the sun was shining, the sky was blue and we were motoring. The road was still greasy and I felt my rear wheel slip out on one of the fast downhill turns. Pat noted his carbon rim brake set up wasn't ideal for wet braking either. We took it slower on the descents.

Mark towed us toward state line. Eloy jumped first so I grabbed his wheel and did my best impression of Cav to take it today. I made sure to stay parallel to the traffic lines so that I wouldn't be relegated.

Up and over Bradley/Tweed, we saw half a dozen deer along the way. Rolled into Nyack to get Boxer Donuts where it was surprisingly busy with CRCA riders, still pinned with numbers from their club race this morning. While we ate donuts and sipped coffee we contemplated the different shades of oranges on our helmets, our urban gardens, Le Tour (of course) and how we should just stay there and enjoy the bucolic life in Nyack instead of having to ride back to the city.

But back we had to, through Nyack and Piermont, through Tallman and 9W to trade pulls after the state line climb. A local NJ patrol car in the shade "booped" Eloy who coasted through a red light. It was just after it turned red and the intersection was clear, but foul is foul. Maybe they decided against taking further action as they watched the rest of us at the red light, sweaty and baking under the sun. The light turned green and we rolled on out without any further protest. Today was a good day.

Mark decided to rip it up the road towards gas station. I made a half assed effort to follow and was about to sit up, but Eloy came flying around me and told me to jump on his wheel to catch Mark. A free ride? The answer is always YES. He booked it down the hill so fast I was spinning 52x11. Road pitched up toward gas station, the light turned green and I put in a dig from behind Eloy's lead out. Mark wasn't interested in my antics though and as I sat up after the sprint he pedaled right by me.

No one seemed interested in the final Hudson Terrace hill sprint, but I made the effort anyway. Pat nearly pulled a ninja move and silently almost pipped me at the top. He is a former L&C KOM Polka Dots winner after all. We took photos with Pat before he packed up his car, crossed over the bridge and stopped by the water fountain after Grant's Tomb to fill up our bottles and cool down for a minute. I split off at 72nd to head to the QBB while Eloy and Mark headed down to Brooklyn.

A lot of words for a simple weekend team ride, but these little experiences add up to something bigger and life affirming for me.

We'll see you next time.

I feel regretful about posting this the week of a race, though I am sitting this week out. For those not racing (if you're on the fence, DO race), anyone interested in a Saturday morning ride? I am prescribed an unstructured +/- 60miles at endurance pace in my training program. I am also prescribed to "suck wheel" and not pull, but I will do some pulls unless anyone really wants to tow me along.   Key for me will be trying to stay at endurance for most/all of the ride... 

Anyway.. 35-40mi wormhole from GWB sounds cool to me if anyone is in. Forecast looks same as it has been; hot/humid with a chance of rain. 

@BlakeFoster we have a new member ride after the race. You should join us, 35 miles in the park is kinda trivial, specially if you add both the race and new member ride. I am pretty sure I'll end the day close to 70~75 km (42~45miles)

If not raining too hard I might try for a chill rain ride - River Road up Piermont or maybe Nyack and back.

I’m gonna go later to try and avoid the rain (and so I can watch tour stage live). My goal is to roll out around 11a from north Brooklyn, up to Nyack via river road and 9W back. 

Raining just hard enough that I'm going to wait it out for later in the morning.

BlakeFoster said:

I’m gonna go later to try and avoid the rain (and so I can watch tour stage live). My goal is to roll out around 11a from north Brooklyn, up to Nyack via river road and 9W back. 

I’ll join if your headed up that way, I’m UWS side and 30 mins from the NJ side of the GWB

Kevin, send me a text if you see this, we can coordinate a link up 405 420 5278