I left early and got to the bus stop in Cherry Hill at sunrise. I had to wait a short time before the Bolt Bus arrived and I slid my bike into a compartment all by itself and we took off for New York. I got through about fifty pages of Into Thin Air as we traveled.
Nathan met me at the bus stop on 34th and we rode off in search of a Jamba Juice and a bike shop. Once we found both (and I had my breakfast acai topper) we got on the bike path along the West Side Highway.
The trail is long and gloriously unobstructed by roads for the most part. The view is quite nice also when it opens up to the river. There were a lot of people out on a beautiful morning zipping up and down the lanes, though never really creating any kind of traffic or annoyance.
We stopped under the George Washington Bridge to check out the lighthouse that neither of us ever knew was there and check out the view. While there, I accidentally knocked another guy's bike down, immediately apologizing with a red face for being so stupid. He gave me a look at first, but then laughed it off and told me not to worry about it.
We had to zig zag through the Bronx before finding the entrance to the pedestrian walkway on the GW. The lanes were nice and wide until we had to go around the standing beams; there they were narrow and awkward and almost always had someone coming around the corner in the other direction as we were rounding them.
Back in New Jersey for a short time, we biked on the road, along with tons of other cyclists. They were everywhere, flying past us even though we were moving at a good speed for most of the time. We followed the Palisades Trail, crossing into New York on undulating hills.
At the bottom of a particularly long, somewhat steep, and very fun hill, Nathan got a flat tire, screaming out to me as I was probably 200 yards ahead. I came back, unable to really help as he changed his tube. I enlisted the help of a passing cyclist who looked like he knew what he was doing. After he asked another guy he knew for help and we watched them inflate the tire for what seemed like a half hour, we were back up and running.
The bike trail is marked nicely with a little cycle and a route number. We followed this into Nyack, where we stopped for lunch at a deli. I had a good tuna sandwich with jalapenos, we rested and then turned around and headed back. The hills were mostly uphill on the way back and caused us to get off and walked them several times. I got used to my gears a bit better though.
We made it back into New York before Nathan's tired went flat again for some reason. He hopped on the subway with his bike and I rode the thirty-some blocks down to George Keeley's bar where he met me and we got some much-desired beers. We sat there, had some free popcorn and relaxed for a few hours.
I caught my Bolt Bus back home, almost went out, then ended up spending the night at home. It was a good and tiring day of riding.
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