Bear Mountain and Hudson Highlands

A 191 km loop from Palisades Parkway north

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Why this ride

The city drops away, the river opens up. Out of Riverdale and back again: 191 km, roughly 3 h 18 in the saddle. On the way it passes Bear Mountain Bridge, Cold Spring, Storm King Highway and Seven Lakes Drive. Back roads rather than main roads, where the map allows.

Roadbook

1. Palisades Parkway north scenic

   Riverdale sits at the northern tip of the Bronx, where New York City presses up against the Hudson and the Palisades rise across the water, and it is probably the greenest and quietest corner of the borough. Big old houses sit on a ridge above the river, and the Henry Hudson Parkway runs along the shore, an elegant, curving road from the 1930s built to give city families a pleasant drive.

   The area has a long literary and artistic history. Wave Hill, a public garden and cultural centre on an old estate above the river, has hosted guests including Mark Twain, who rented it in the early 1900s, and Theodore Roosevelt, who spent summers there as a boy. The gardens, with their long views across to the Palisades, are among the best in the city. A short way south, Spuyten Duyvil, where the Harlem River meets the Hudson, is a handsome bit of water with a railway bridge and an old Dutch name that translates, so the story goes, as spitting devil.

   For the rider, the thing to know is that this is the gateway. The Henry Hudson Parkway north leads onto the Saw Mill and then the roads into Westchester, and the way across the George Washington Bridge to the Palisades Parkway is a short ride south. Traffic in this part of the Bronx can be heavy, and the parkway has low bridges and tight curves that are no place for hurry. Early on a weekend morning, though, the river light is wonderful.

   Fuel is easy to find on Riverdale Avenue and in nearby Yonkers, and the neighbourhood has a good supply of delis and bakeries. Parking is simple, and the streets are quiet. Autumn brings gold and red to the park trees, while summer afternoons are humid and hazy. Take a few minutes at the river overlook before you set off.

2. Bear Mountain Bridge photo

   The Bear Mountain Bridge, opened in 1924, was the longest suspension bridge in the world at the time of its construction and the first to span the Hudson south of Albany. It leaps across the river at its narrowest and deepest, between the steep granite flanks of Bear Mountain on the west and Anthony's Nose on the east, and the setting is dramatic: dark cliffs, a wide gleaming river, forested hills layered one behind the other. A toll is collected, and motorcycles pay like everyone else.

   The bridge has some quirks. The Appalachian Trail, which runs all the way from Georgia to Maine, crosses the Hudson here on the walkway, and at about a hundred and twenty feet above sea level, this is the lowest point on the whole trail. Hikers cross beside the traffic, and the Bear Mountain Inn, a stone-and-timber lodge nearby, is a favourite stop. Fort Montgomery, just across the river, has the ruins of a Revolutionary War fortress that tried to stop the British from sailing up the river in 1777, and failed.

   For a rider, the pleasure is in the approach. From the west, Route 9W curves along the river with a steep rocky slope on one side and sudden views of the water on the other. From the east, Route 9D or Route 6 climbs through the Hudson Highlands, with stone walls and woodlands. The bridge deck itself is a metal grid that hums under the tyres and can be slippery when wet. Take it slowly, and keep to the middle of the lane, as the grating can feel odd under a bike.

   Perkins Memorial Drive, on Bear Mountain, climbs to a stone tower on the summit with a view over the river, the Highlands and, on clear days, the Manhattan skyline. The road is narrow, twisty, and closed in winter. Plan a stop on the western side for coffee, then walk to the lookout on the bridge approach for a photo. Autumn is the season, when the whole valley turns russet and gold, though weekends are busy.

3. Cold Spring food stop food

   Cold Spring is the kind of Hudson river village that looks like a stage set, a single steep Main Street of antiques shops, cafés and brick storefronts running down to the river and a small bandstand on the waterfront. It has fewer than two thousand residents, and it fills each weekend with day-trippers from the city who arrive on the Metro-North train. Across the water rise the walls of West Point, and the Hudson narrows here between steep, wooded hills, a fjord-like stretch called the Highlands.

   The village owes its origin to iron. In the early nineteenth century, the West Point Foundry on the edge of town cast cannon, including the Parrott rifle, which helped win the Civil War, and its brick ruins still stand beside a stream, now a pleasant heritage trail. Nearby, Boscobel, a restored mansion from the early 1800s, has gardens with views over the river. Behind the village, Breakneck Ridge and Storm King Mountain climb steeply, popular with hikers and a source of the most famous views in the valley.

   Route 9D runs through, a lovely road of curves and rises between the river and the hills, with stone walls and old trees leaning over the pavement. It is narrow, popular with cyclists, and has a low speed limit, so ride it at a gentle pace and enjoy the views. Route 301 climbs eastward into the hills, quiet and winding. In autumn, the maples and oaks flare red and orange, and the traffic thickens on weekends. A weekday morning is calmer.

   Food is the main point of the stop: bakeries, a deli, a couple of pizzerias, and several places for a proper breakfast. Fuel is less convenient, as the village has little, so fill up in Fishkill or Peekskill. The train station lies at the foot of the street, and on busy days the sidewalks overflow. Park the bike by the river, find a bench, and watch the barges. In winter the village is quiet, frost whitens the roofs, and the river steams on cold mornings.

4. Storm King Highway scenic

   Highway 218 cuts along the side of Storm King Mountain like a shelf, and few roads in New York State feel so dramatic. The route was blasted out of the cliff in the early twentieth century, a narrow ledge above the Hudson with a low stone parapet and a sheer drop to the river on one side and rock on the other. Opened in the early 1920s, it was among the first scenic roads built expressly for motorists, and for a rider the experience is intimate, twisting and slow, with the river shining far below.

   Storm King holds a special place in American conservation history. In the 1960s the power company Con Edison proposed building a giant pumped-storage plant inside the mountain, and local residents and a new group called Scenic Hudson fought it for years, arguing that natural beauty deserved legal weight. The court case that followed helped establish the right of citizens to challenge environmental decisions, and the project was finally dropped in 1980. The movement it started is often seen as the beginning of modern environmental law. Close by, the Storm King Art Center spreads vast sculptures across a hillside meadow.

   The land around is steeped in history. West Point, the military academy, stands on the river a few kilometres north, and the old town of New Windsor was the site of the Continental Army's final encampment at the end of the Revolution, in 1782 and 1783, when thousands of soldiers waited here for peace. The Hudson narrows at the Highlands into a fjord-like gorge, with forest-covered mountains rising from the water.

   The road demands care. The corners are tight and blind, the shoulders are narrow, there is rockfall in spring, and it is sometimes closed for repairs, so check before you go. Large vehicles are discouraged, but cyclists and walkers are common. The best time is early morning in autumn, when the leaves are turning and the river is misty. Fuel and food are in Cornwall, New Windsor and Newburgh, and there is nothing on the mountain itself.

5. Seven Lakes Drive sight

   Harriman State Park is the second largest park in New York, and Seven Lakes Drive is its backbone: a quiet, winding road across the Ramapo hills that most people in New York City never realize is an hour from Times Square. It was built in the 1920s as a parkway for pleasure driving, long before anyone thought of it as a motorcycle road, and it still has the character of its time, with stone culverts, gentle grades and no commercial vehicles allowed. The park exists thanks in part to Mary Harriman, who gave land in 1910 in memory of her husband, the railroad magnate, with the aim of keeping the Highlands from the quarries.

   The road runs from near Bear Mountain through forest and past a string of lakes, including Tiorati, Askoti and Sebago, each with its own beach or boat launch and a scattering of picnic tables. The forest is oak, hickory and birch with hemlock in the damp hollows, and the granite underneath shows up in rounded boulders and low ridges that the glaciers scraped. The Appalachian Trail crosses the park, and thru-hikers in spring and early summer are a common sight near the road crossings. Black bears are present, and deer are everywhere, so keep an eye out at dawn and dusk.

   Riding here is calm rather than thrilling. The corners are fairly open, the speed limit is low and state troopers watch it. The surface is generally good, with some frost heave in early spring and leaf litter that can be slippery in autumn. The best seasons are late May and October, when the greens are fresh or the colors are strong, and weekday mornings give you the road almost to yourself. Summer weekends bring families to the lakes and the traffic thickens near the parking areas.

   Practical details matter, since there is little here. You will not find fuel inside the park, and the nearest large selection is down in the villages along Route 17 and Route 9W, such as Thiells and Stony Point, a short ride east. Some park facilities have seasonal opening hours, and a vehicle fee is charged at some beaches in summer. Bring water, and expect patchy phone service in the deeper valleys.

   If you can, stop at one of the lakes and listen. The silence is part of the point, and on a cool morning with mist on the water it can feel like northern Maine.

6. Back to Palisades Parkway finish

   That makes this a place to look at the Palisades rather than ride on them, and it is a good view. The cliffs are a wall of dark basalt, more than five hundred feet at their highest, formed when molten rock pushed into softer sandstone about two hundred million years ago and cooled into tall columns.

   On this side of the river, the road to know is the Henry Hudson Parkway, a Robert Moses design of the 1930s that follows the river north from Manhattan with landscaped slopes and graceful stone bridges. It is a rider's road in its own way, with curving lanes, tree canopies in summer and good views of the George Washington Bridge and the Little Red Lighthouse tucked underneath it. Beyond Riverdale, the road becomes the Saw Mill and then enters Yonkers, a city of two hundred thousand people with a long history on the waterfront and a revived downtown. Wave Hill, a public garden and cultural center in Riverdale, has a view across the Hudson to the Palisades that is hard to beat, especially in the late afternoon.

   For motorcycles, the nuances are real. The parkways ban trucks and have low stone bridges, which make them calmer. They also have short on-ramps, tight curves and heavy rush-hour traffic. Potholes after winter can be severe, and speed enforcement is active, so a steady pace beats a hurry. Crossing the Hudson on the George Washington Bridge puts you on the Palisades Parkway at its southern end, from where it runs north along the cliff tops with stone walls and tall oaks.

   Fuel and food are plentiful on this side. Riverdale and Yonkers have gas stations on the main avenues, delis, Greek diners and an increasing number of good bakeries, and the old downtown Yonkers waterfront has restaurants with views across the river. Parking is much easier than in Manhattan.

   The best time to be here is early evening, when the sun drops behind the Palisades and the cliffs go from gold to purple. The river holds the light a long time.

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