bear mountain (NY) - Octoberfest
 

has anyone ridden up to bear mountain lately with their weekend Octoberfest going on? good scene?

i'm thinking about riding up later in the day this sunday for some mid ride recovery german beer and strudel.

anyone else?

I'm thinking about checking it out on Sunday afternoon with my GF, taking the car though.

My bike club is riding from the Alpine, NJ SP station at exit 2 on the Palisades to the top and back on Sunday morning. 70 miles round trip. I will let you know how it is on Sunday.

Gonna be there with friends for Oktoberfest this Sunday but not on my bike ...grrrrr.

im planning to go with the mrs this weekend? does the park have trials for mountain or road bikes? can anyone help? thx

It has trails - I am not sure if a MTB is allowed on them or not. The only thing I have ever ridden is the main road. 4.5 miles at 7% grade (about 1600 ft of climb).

According to this site, there is one dedicated MTB trail.

http://www.bikekinetix.com/t_ny/ny_state/harriman.php

You can ride a road or mtn bike on any of the paved roads through Bear Mtn and Harriman Parks. The only official MTB trail is the one at the Anthony Wayne Recreation area. It's about 5 miles of woods road and single track. You're supposed to ride it counter clockwise starting at the south parking lot and ending at the north parking lot. It's also marked as the ski trail in the winter. If you ride Seven Lakes Drive from Bear Mtn to Harriman be aware that you have to spend about 1/4 mile on the Palisades Parkway going to and from the Long Mtn traffic circle.

Bear Mountain Report.

The road from the Alpine Police station (9W) following the NY 9 bike path has been significantly improved from a year ago. Very few rough spots and only a few holes. Traffic was light for the entire ride, although the parking area at the top of Bear was full when we got there at 11. We saw literally 100's of bikes on the route. There was an Octoberfest festival in Nyack this weekend, so part of the route has be detoured, a minor inconvenience. We left at 9 and it was calm and 52. At the top of Bear is was windy, but that turned out to be a change in the weather, because it was windy the entire ride home.

70.1 miles in 4:02:09. We are the club's A group, but we did not act like it today. We were bike tourist for much of the ride. The only time we hammered was once in the park (of course). We averaged 13.5 mph for the 4.7 miles between 9W and the summit.

Pictures here:

http://picasaweb.google.com/mark.mcc...CBearMountain#

Certainly worth the time if you can do it.

Sounds like a good trip all in all.
Today i was up there with friends but got there by car.
I had a good time but my mind kept wandering every time I saw a group of cyclists coming or going.
I have a cycling trip to the Bear planned for the 25th.
Hope the weather is at least as good as it was today.

I'm not sure how long it's going on for, so this may be a moot point now, but I went two weekends ago with my club and wasn't crazy about the Oktoberfest. It was super-crowded and there were insanely long lines for the overpriced/probably crappy food and beer. Everyone seemed kind of glum and it was just generally unpleasant.

So we rode over to the Peekskill train station instead and hung out there for a while, and I learned a very important lesson about drinking a bunch of beers right after a long hard ride with lots of climbing.

My stomach feels for yours. I made the mistake once of guzzling down an ice cold Gatorade after a long ride and....ugh....