Ahoy from Westchester

Although our cross continental excursion is done and the crew has split up, Will and I are still on the road riding from NYC up to North Ferrisburg, VT and Potsdam, NY respectively. We have so many more stories to tell on the blog including the epic last few days into the city and our epic visit to the Atlantic at Rockaway Beach. For now I will give you a quick recap of Will and I's journey out of the city today and save the description of our journey from Bing to NYC for when I have more time and energy. Our day began with a delicious breakfast at Andrew Carmellini’s Laconda Verde. Will interned with Carmellini and his staff a few summers ago so we knew we were going to get hooked up with some dank meal. Afterwords we packed up our stuff and Carrie's old apartment in the east village that we stayed in for the last two nights we headed over to Continuum Cycles. We met the owner, Jeff, the day before on our ride to Rockaway. He told us to come over the shop the next morning for some bike maintenance. While we waited for their expert staff to help heal our broken bikes, we talked with the knowledgeable staff, admired their selection of vintage bikes, and observed the interesting patrons and their bikes that flowed through the shop. Our destination for the day was Mohegan Lake, where Will has family. Although we had the gusto to cross the continent, Will and I met our match today when we tried to navigate through the suburban jungle of Westchester County. We took the Westside bike path and then navigated ourselves to Van Cortlandt Park, where I used to race xc in high school. From there we thought we could take a bike path almost all the way up to Mohegan Lake. At first the bike path was a dirt trail that was manageable but sketchy in sections. We got excited when it turned into a newly paved path up through Yonkers through the Forest, but then it turned into single track and we forced to walk our bikes and change a flat. We got of the bike path and figured out where we were and then found another bike path up along the Bronx river. This curvy path was enjoyable but got sketchy again and just as it ended we were forced to change another flat. At this point we were left with little daylight and still 30 miles to ride. We booked it through White Plains and Greenburgh and thought we had found our jam with route 100 but as the sky turned dark the road turned sketchy. We did some super sketchy riding on a 60 mile an hour divided highway with no shoulder at night, but thankfully we had some sense and put safety first and called will's family from Pleasantville and asked for a ride. We chilled at a 7-11 and did work on some slurpees, and then got driven to Mohegan Lake from Will's Dad's cousins Reb's wife Cathy. Reb is an experienced bike racer, and Reb and Cathy treated us to some fine meal as we talked about the Tour and some of Bike racing career. I sit hear now awaiting tomorrow, when Reb will guide us to Route 22, which we will take to Will's camp in North Ferrisburg. If this post is spaint, its because I am really tired, as the last couple days have been exhilarating but draining. But my spirits are high and I am excited to ride again in a more rural setting instead of Westchester, which from what I can tell is not very easy to navigate on bikes. Hey Westchester County, how about some shoulders?