1,000 mile club

Yesterday was a truly great day.

After a delicious breakfast prepared by Matt, we decided to go for a long bike ride. Biking north along the Hudson River, we eventually made our way up to the George Washington Bridge and left the island (a rare occurence for most Manhattanites). Biking across the bridge is slightly terrifying as you attempt to navigate the 4 foot wide sidewalk that is inevitably filled with pedestrians and another bikers. However, as you make your way across the bridge, the most breath-taking view of the city appears behind you. It almost makes you happy to live in New York.

Once we made it across the bridge, we started our bike out into the suburbs. Biking along 9W is amazing as you can essentially bike forever without having to turn or worry too much about cars. As we rode down the hills and into Rockland County, I suddenly started yelling at Matt to pull over and stop. He thought something was wrong, but as I pulled up, he noticed that I had a big smile on my face. I told him to look at my odometer and we celebrated the fact that I had joined the 1,000 mile club!

The only thing is… I made up the 1,000 mile club and if you were to ask any serious cyclists about it, they would laugh saying that they bike that much in a week. However, I was psyched to see the mileage change from 999 to 1,000. And when the temperature is over 90 degrees and you still have to bike 20+ miles back to your apartment, you celebrate the little things.

We stopped in Piermont, NY which is a small village along the Hudson with an impressive view of the Tappan Zee Bridge. We refilled our water bottles and each had a popsicle in attempts to cool ourselves down. Finally we hopped back on our bikes and started the dreaded ride home. The hills were hard and the sun was hot, but eventually we made it back to the GW bridge. Anxious to get home, and very tired, I made my way back across the bridge. At the very end of the bridge, there is a ramp that is, at most 3 feet wide, and contains a hair pin turn. As I made my way down the ramp, I unclipped one foot to help balance myself as I took the corner. Unfortunately I unclipped the wrong foot and fell scrapping my hand and arm along the side of the ramp.

My mom, who also bikes frequently with my dad, has had a few falls. Typically, when she tells me about them, I tend to find it funny. This time, when it happened to me, it wasn’t quite so funny.

We eventually made our way back to our apartment, although I wasn’t sure we were going to. I was exhausted and could barely grab my handle bars. We ended the day with a spaghetti dinner (my favorite) with the pasta sauce I made on Friday (as mentioned in the last post). It was delicious!

I went to bed at 10pm with sore legs and a full belly. The perfect ending to the perfect Sunday.