This morning, I met up with another biker on the New Jersey side of the George Washington Bridge. We had organized the way young people these days tend to do, using the internet.

I got there first and watched the diversity of bikers coming and going over the south side pedestrian path. People on high-end carbon fiber time trial bikes and people on cruisers and upright hybrids, and a majority of people in spandex with alu and carbon bikes with Ultegra and Dura-Ace drivetrains. In otherwords, some real bling, and lots of high quality. It should go without saying that there was lots of lycra. Waiting for my riding buddy I must have stood out with my fixed gear, my camelback, my dickies and windbreaker outfit.

My riding buddy showed up and led me around the bridge to River Road, a thin, winding road down the Palisades to the edge of the Hudson. Pictures would be appropriate, but I have none. The road is thickly lined with fallen leaves. In many places there is just a ragged barrier of small, well-placed boulders between the road and a drop to the shallows of the Hudson. We see few other bikers - most are on 9W. It winds past small waterfalls coming down the Palisades; looking out over the river affords a view of the Hudson on a day that's remarkably clear, crisp but bright and warm, for late November; beyond the river, the hills of the Bronx and Westchester County. Greens, greys, and blues...

There are two significant climbs, the second of which takes us back up the cliffs and has us at a snail's pace until we reach 9W again and pick up the pace. Cars hammer by when they're impatient, but most are familiar with bikers on this road. There must be hundreds if not thousands on any given beautiful weekend day.

Up to a biker coffee shop in Nyack--now nice to see a place where bikes are parked without locks on racks in parking spaces on the street and people linger on the sidewalks, sipping coffee at tables, enjoying that last weekend before fall draws itself to a moody close and reminds us that winter is coming in earnest.

And, settling in to a long bike ride back to the Bronx...