You Take the Low Road, I'll Take the Highbridge

Back in December I wrote for Outside about Highbridge Park, home to Manhattan's only legal mountain bike trails.  Highbridge opened in 2007, and shortly after it did I headed up there with some friends and found these feeride trails cut into the side of a bluff far too burly for my timid and dainty singlespeed-oriented style of riding.  Plus, it was far from my home in Brooklyn, and when the far more flowy Cunningham Park trails in Queens opened shortly thereafter I knew I had found my in-the-city mountain bike spot.

Then in 2012 I moved to the Bronx, a mere three mile ride from Highbridge.  So I rode down, not having been there in five years, and not only did I still find the trails daunting but I also interrupted two people in an advanced state of intimacy and generally found the whole riding experience to be uncomfortable.  I also now lived less than an hour's ride from Sprain Ridge Park, a popular mountain biking destination outside of the city I could only drive to when I lived in Brooklyn, and that soon became my default for knobby-tired rides.

Recently though it began to dawn on me that living so close to mountain bike trails and not taking advantage of them is stupid.  Also, while riding to and from Sprain is eminently doable, it's still a couple hours round-trip not including actual trail time.  And while I don't mind that round trip in the least, as the parent of seventeen (17) human children and the curator of an equal number of blogs I don't always have the time.  So I resolved to finally figure out this Highbridge thing.

Here's something going on there next weekend by the way:

Dig, then ride with us on NYCMTB's monthly welcome days at Highbridge park in Manhattan.

Bring your friends and family for a day of fun in the woods and learn what it takes to build, maintain, and ride the most progressive urban bike park in America. All participants, NYCMTB members, or anyone with logged volunteer hours, receive a free 20 minute clinic and a guided ride throughout the trails. Bikes and helmets provided!

Highbridge Park is the home of NYC's first Mountain Biking Course. The 3 mile course offers trails of varying difficulty from Intermediate to expert, and a free-ride trail that includes drops, steeps, and berms. The park also features a Dirt Jump Park and pump track, which makes it a good place to develop different skills at all levels. The course has been featured in national magazines and is stewarded by volunteers just like you!

Getting to Highbridge from my home is a straight shot right under the elevated tracks of the 1 train.  This means I can get there in 15 or 20 minutes.  I also found that if I edit out all the super rocky body armor-type stuff I can do some fun loops on the more cross country-oriented sections of the trail.  Of course, owing to the diminutive size of the park riding in one corner of it is not the sort of thing I'd want to spend hours at a time doing, but for a quick ride it's highly enjoyable--not a full meal but definitely a satisfying snack that will hold me over until the next big dirt ride.  So when I've only got an hour and a half to squeeze in a ride, or when it's so goddamn cold I don't want to be out for that long, or when I want the novelty of a city ride with a singletrack detour, Highbridge is just the thing.

Anyway, yesterday was bitterly cold with some residual snow from the previous evening, which made it a Highbridge morning.  On the way there however I took a little detour into Van Cortlandt Park, where I availed myself of the facilities:

I should also mention that after trying various subtle spots on the Jones bar to mount my artisanal bell I found they all interfered with my hand positions, and so I was finally forced to place it front and center where it sticks out like one big cycloptic nipple:

The best thing about the Jones bars is that they're amazingly comfortable, and the second-best thing is they force you to surrender any aesthetic considerations you may have when it comes to your bicycle.

From Van Cortlandt Park I headed down to Highbridge.  That's a mountain bike trailhead, a protected bike lane, and a subway station, all in one place, and in Manhattan:

Come on, now that's incredible.

I could have entered there, but instead I headed onto the bike lane, climbed the mighty Fort George Hill (where they once held automotive hillclimb races don't you know) and went in by the dirt jumps.  As you can see, Highbridge Park is indeed high:

The trail had just the right amount of crunchy snow on it:

And I followed the tracks of some animal that had evidently been running laps in the night:

I don't know shit about animal prints, but I'm assuming that's from a raccoon, or else one big-ass rat.

Here's a photo of Ol' Piney cutting a dashing silhouette against the "Extreme Difficulty" trail marker:

And here's the trail marker for the trail I actually ride:

Oh, I should also mention that part of the joy of riding in Highbridge is wearing "regular" clothes: I just grab a bike and go.  On this particular day though I do confess I was wearing some fancy Mission Workshop pants--these pants, I believe:

Because I am a world famous blogger and social media influencer the same people who hooked me up with the Renovo proffered the pants, and where I come from when someone offers to drop trousers on you you don't say no.

Wow, that didn't sound good.

I should point out that at this point in my blogging career I've tried a lot of bikey pants: Rapha, Levi's bike-specific jeans, Outlier...  So far the only ones that didn't die the same crotch hole-related death as ordinary pants do were the Outlier--which seven years after I took delivery of them were still going strong.  Unfortunately though they've also recently gone missing, and I've turned my wardrobe inside out searching for them to no avail.

Outlier notwithstanding, I'm currently of the opinion that the best jeans for cycling in terms of cost, comfort, and durability are the ones from Uniqlo with a little stretch in them.  They're not ostensibly bike-specific, but they are relatively inexpensive and hold up at least as well as anything I've tried.  Nevertheless, I seized upon the opportunity to try the Mission Workshop jeans to see if they're worth the considerable premium.  At this early stage I simply don't know yet, but here's the waist-down selfie that you never thought you wanted and now you wish you could unsee:

We'll see how they hold up after six months of Highbridge rides and infrequent-to-nonexistent washings.

Once I'd shredded enough (to be fair I don't shred so much as I vainly attempt to cut with leftie scissors) I hit the city streets once again, and the other great thing about riding at Highbridge is stopping at Target on the way home:

There's nothing quite as exhilarating as the transition from trail to linoleum, and from mountain bike to shopping cart:

Of course, being a dutiful Strava douche I paused the app while I shopped.  Nevertheless, as I browsed the aisles I received a notification from them:

So how do I keep @Strava from sending me messages like this? pic.twitter.com/a4KkqpPUD3

— Bike Snob NYC (@bikesnobnyc) January 31, 2018

Naturally my tweet prompted the predictable "Why would you want to?" responses.  I dunno, are there really people who would enjoy getting messages like this?  It's 2018, and thanks to the Internet you have instant access to any type of erotic image imaginable.  Sure, you could enjoy it in private, but why do that when instead it can appear on your wrist in the checkout line at Target?

Anyway, I rode home with a full backpack and carrying a pair of plastic Target bags (hey, I overshopped) and by the time I got home and went to block whoever sent the message the account seemed to be gone, so maybe Strava saw my tweet and deleted it.  And if they're reading this now, I hope they don't take away my (probably erroneous) KOM from the other day:

It's all I've got.