Today, I'm out with the 5BBC on a promising route. Several times during the Summer, the Bronx River Parkway is closed to cars. I rode it last year on Lucille.* Today, we will be taking it as part of a longer trip to Yorktown Heights to see a display of antique cars, and farm implements. That is the plan at least.
I know right away the company will be great because most of us have named our bikes, one of the signatures of the Slow Bicycle Manifesto.** There are four of us, a Point, a Sweep, R and me (we could alternate being Drop if we felt like bossing each other around).
We begin the ride an hour late to give rainy weather a chance to blow over. But just as we start off (from the Metro North Wakefield stop), it begins to mist.
There's something about rain, particularly Summer rain. It makes everything hyper-real. And today, Bronxville's beauty stands in technicolor contrast to the gray City we have left behind. And just as I am wondering where on Pondfield Road my cousins lived, we take a sudden turn onto a place I've never visited before:
I have yet to be on a bike trip where I didn't have at least one moment where I felt life couldn't get any better. Riding the Bronx River Trail is one of those moments. It's heavenly. The path is beautiful and varied, the smells are of wet earth. And because of the rain, the Bronx River, recently more of a quiet flow, roils next to us providing a liquid sound track to our ride.
There is the occasional impediment.
Then there's this bridge. I'll just be silent here.
Then the rain really hits. This is what my fellow riders look like from my camera.
Yet our Point remains resourceful. After a brief ride through Yorktown Heights, we coast into here:
And Lola is happy because the petunias match her bar tape.
By this time, we've paid our rainy day dues: we decide for the shorter trip option, cycling back to Pleasantville to catch the train. Except for R, who is working up to his Century Ride in September. He peels off to ride back to the City. Brave R.
What do you think?
*Bronx River Parkway (time lapse): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2m4rpi-6Ds&feature=youtu.be
**Slow Bicycle Manifesto: http://theslowbicycle.blogspot.com/2008/09/vote-for-manifesto.html
*** The Trailside Cafe: http://www.trailside-cafe.com