Tell us about your weekend ride

Had a really good ride on Saturday, which things have been building towards for a while (pretty much built my bike with this in mind). The plan was to ride a form of the Seven Lakes route, ending at Bear Mountain for some leg-bashing.

Managed to take quite a few photos from the saddle, but not all are top-notch, so don't be judgin'.

We rode across from Brooklyn to Manhattan and traversed the shit-show that is is midtown, and pootled up the west side cycle route to the George Washington Bridge

The bridge was a bit of a shitshow, but all that was forgotten pretty quickly when we swung around to the entrance of the River Road on the other side of the Hudson. Something like ten miles of blissful, car-free rolling riverside tarmac that winds through the trees, ending with a reasonably stiff ascent to bring you back level with the highway at the top.

After hitting the 9W and picking our way through a deluge of annoying weekend warriors we arrived in Nyack for donuts de rigueur at one of the nice little shops. Delicious maple bacon and cold press pictured.

Not content with one, we had to get a pumpkin spice one (not as good).

Onwards north to the Nyack Beach Park cycle path, which cuts up straight along the banks of the Hudson for a few miles, ending in a surprisingly steep ascent, atop which I saw a house wot I took a picture of

Alex started having some cable tension issues at this point, and his gears were skipping out/generally being a cunt, so by the time we reached the first lake, we had some assessing to do. Or at least he did, I just took pictures of the lake.

And of my bike sitting suggestively by said lake.

I went to enquire as to whether there was a bike shoppe nearby, and was reliably informed there would be one on the direction we were headed, so we trundled slowly on. The chap at the shop had a fiddle around and did what he could, getting all but one of the gears to work, so we soldiered on, tears suitably mopped away.

At the top of High Tor state park, about 74km in we stopped for some apple cider action, and to replenish salt via delicious potato chips. I had the best apple I've ever eaten, and took a pano of the store because I'm like that.

On to the second of the lakes, after which I started to lose count of which one was which, as the roads passed right through them. We covered about 20 miles of spotless, unfuckholed roads, with only the odd wazzock on a Harley to bother us.

Passing through the woods between lakes I spotted this car parked, with nothing for else for miles around.

Onward to another beaut of a body of water.

So beautiful, it turns out, that I neglected to see the roundabout behind us, and had us march onward in the same direction...

After this lake we hammered it down another snaking descent for about 5km, laughing and generally being smug. That is until I realised we'd missed the turning right back at the roundabout, meaning we had to climb right back up that beautiful road. Felt bad for Croft as he was lacking a gear and the ride back up was a pain in the dick.

Back on track we hammered down the right road towards Bear Mountain State Park, crossing the busy Freeway and briefly traveling along it. Not enjoyable. We got to the foot of the real climb up to BM peak and headed straight for the top and took in the vista covered in sweat. Panoramarama.

The descent down from Bear Mountain is pretty nailbiting, and the sides of the road are lined with huge boulders which would ruin your day. Certainly the tested the breaking surface on my Reynolds Attacks, but they stayed solid and delivered me to the bottom with a grin on my face and two flies in my throat.

The final stretch saw us head over the Hudson again across a busy car bridge, and South towards Peekskill for the train. Found a nasty little climb, but once we'd peaked that it was another pedal-free blast for ten minutes, catching up to cars as we barrelled down.

Then a vision of perfection in the form of Peekskill Brewery tap, after leaving the shitty highway.

Far and away the most enjoyable day I've had on a bike. I don't have a Garmin so Strava mangled the distance, though it worked out at about 2,500m of climbing and 90-something miles.