Wait, It's Friday Already?

Firstly, I'm wildly remiss in filling you in on who won the Jones SWB:

The short version is the winning essay involved a thrilling tale of international intrigue, and ultimately the Jones will be embarking upon a thousand-mile journey from the Black sea across the Caucasus and Zagros Mountains.  Or something.  I'll share more later.

Anyway, there were a number of deserving entries, but none matched the nuanced backstory and sheer ambition of the one I ultimately deemed the winner.

Of course my own Jonesian outings are quite pedestrian by comparison; indeed, they're not particularly adventurous by any standard.  Nevertheless, I sit before you feeling tired yet satisfied after my latest Friday ramble astride the Jones LWB:

Before I go any further, I should mention there's some douchebag out there who's always leaving comments on how I'm a shill and a sell-out because of my professed love for the Jones as well as my enthusiasm for other bicycle-related products.  My response to that is, "Bite me."  I'm [redacted] years old, I've got nothing to prove anymore, and I love riding too much not to be honest when I'm enjoying something--and the Jones (in both SWB and LWB versions) has brought me a tremendous amount of cycling enjoyment.  Certainly it was the Marin Pine Mountain that set me on the path, but the plus-sized tires, dedicated rigid geometry, and upright position of the Jones have been nothing less than a revelation for me.  I'll probably always want to get on a road bike and hunch my aging body over a set of drop bars at least some of the time (some of us just have Fredliness in our DNA), but the rest of the time the Jones is the bike that lets me just ride.  A little pavement, a little dirt, a little singletrack...  For me, drinking the Jones ayahuasca has been the culmination of a long process that began with my moving from Brooklyn to the Bronx back in 2012 and thus acquiring ready access to terrain that previously required me to slog through the city for two hours or else (gasp!) drive in order to ride.  But from here, I've got mixed-terrain riding right out my back door, and can do the sorts of rides that most people don't associate with living in New York City.

Anyway, the point is I'm in a very good place with my riding life, and the Jones is no small part of that.

Moreover, my current place of residence is situated on what is slowly shaping up to be the premier cycling route in the New York City area.  Not only are they paving the mud bog that is the Putnam Trail through Van Cortlandt Park, but up in Yonkers they're now installing bicycle repair stands along the South County Trailway, which blew my mind:

From here, soon you'll be able to ride over the Tappan Zee (sorry, "Mario M. Cuomo") Bridge to all the Fredly routes on the opposite side of the river, which means by next year or so you'll be able to do a great big trans-Hudson loop, either paved or unpaved depending on your mood, and I'll live right on said loop.

As for my ride today, it included a foray into the forbidding Trails Behind The Mall, which owing to car-induced sprawl I often access by means of a sidewalk--where, oddly, I came across another new bike repair stand:

This is hardly a bicycle thoroughfare, and thus is a highly unlikely spot for a bike repair stand.  Given this, I have two theories:

1) The City of Yonkers is involved in some sort of kickback scheme whereby they bought a shitload of bike repair stands and they're just installing them wherever;

B) The City of Yonkers is genuinely attempting to be bike-friendly, so they bought data from Strava to see where people are riding--and because I visit the Trails Behind The Mall so frequently, they've mistakenly identified this as a heavily-trafficked bicycle thoroughfare, so essentially this bike stand is just for me.

If the second scenario is indeed the case, I'd like to thank the City of Yonkers, because this pump is ideally situated so that I can drop my tire pressure before hitting the Trails Behind The Mall, and then top them back up again for the ride home.

In any event, from the Trails Behind The Mall I took in a couple of other lesser-known spots.  I could easily have kept going all day, but familial responsibilities compelled me to come about and steer the good ship Jones homeward:

All in all, it was a successful outing, and I can highly recommend moving to the Bronx and purchasing a Jones.