Time & the River: The Joys of Biking

My alarm goes off at 6:00 just as the early morning sun floods my bedroom. I check the surface of the Hudson River below my window, and I’m happy to see only a few wind-created ripples. The forest of trees at the bottom of my building is also still.

No wind this morning means it will be a biking day. I open my weather app and check the temperature. It’s 45° now and it will take several hours to reach 50°. My girlfriend and I haven’t yet biked the river path at a temperature below than 60°, and I wonder if we can do it.

I think back to last March. We knew the pandemic was starting but had no idea of its ultimate severity. On March 8, a beautiful Saturday, I had celebrated my 80th birthday with 50 friends and family members.

During the brunch I walked out on the deck and looked down the paved path that extended along the river to the edge of Jersey City’s Liberty Park, about 12 miles south of the restaurant. My girlfriend and I had biked on the path, I on my heavy, solid bike and she on a shiny aluminum lightweight bike. I loved these rides, but I knew my heavy bike was holding me back. I decided what I wanted for my 80th birthday: a new carbon fiber bike.

For years I had a heavy steel bike. In Piermont, a river town along the Hudson, streams of bikers routinely passed me on their way north. They wore snazzy biking attire, special shoes clamped onto their pedals and tiny packs perched on their backs. Their beautiful lightweight bikes made easy work of steep hills, whereas even a slight upward grade would get me off my bike, pushing it up to the top. Now at 80 years, I decided to spend the bucks for a new bike

The Health Benefits of Biking

According to the Better Health Channel, regular biking is primarily an aerobic activity. One’s heart, blood vessels and lungs are exercised during cycling. Biking requires breathing more deeply than walking. The article lists these benefits from regular cycling:

• increased cardiovascular fitness.

• increased muscle strength and flexibility.

• improved joint mobility.

• decreased stress levels, anxiety and depression.

• improved posture and coordination.

• strengthened bones.

• decreased body fat levels.

• prevention or management of disease.

Cycling also burns body fat, with a half-hour bike ride every day burning nearly 11 pounds over a year. A 2011 study reported in The Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and Science in Sports reported that in 16 cycling-specific studies showed

“a clear positive relationship between cycling and cardiorespiratory fitness in youths, (and) a strong inverse relationship between commuter cycling and all-cause mortality, cancer mortality, and cancer morbidity among middle-aged to elderly subjects.”

As I read about the benefits of biking, I became convinced that I could do myself a lot of good by adding a daily bike ride to my exercise regimen. And the Hudson River path, wide and flat and with the most beautiful views I’ve ever seen of New York City’s skyline, was waiting for me.

Buying My New Bike

When Monday arrived, I went to a bike shop and learned that that carbon fiber bikes ranged in price from about $1600 up to $12,000. I asked to see the least expensive one and liked it immediately.

All the other bikes I had ever owned had gears both in the front and back, but this had an 11- gear mechanism on the rear wheel. It also had disc brakes and broad tires so that only a quarter inch of tread actually contacted the road. The bike was beautiful, blue and light in weight. I loved it and bought it. Because of a chronic neck issue, I asked the salesman to raise the handlebars so that I would not have to bend over while riding.

By that time the pandemic was in full force, and experts put forth differing opinions about whether one which should wear a face mask on a bike, or how distant from other riders and pedestrians one should stay. I decided to ride without a mask, while keeping it handy on my handlebars when I stopped or encountered slow moving bikers or groups of pedestrians.

I ramped up my riding as winter approached. I rode nearly every day in September and October. I noticed changes in my body: my legs were becoming more muscled and I was losing weight, about 8 pounds by mid-October. I was able to climb stairs without getting winded, which is useful as I live on the 17th floor of an apartment house where the elevators occasionally break down.

After five months of steady biking, I had lost weight without changing my eating habits. In fact, I ate more than before I started biking, because I was burning a lot of energy. I ignored the anecdotal evidence that suggests eliminating alcohol while biking to lose weight. Having a daily late afternoon cognac was too comfortable a habit to change.

A Moving Meditation

It is chilly this morning, about 47degrees Fahrenheit.

Gliding effortlessly along the Hudson River path feels magical. I am in the moment and the moment is sweet. The slight bumps from the uneven surface of the path remind me that I am tethered to the bike by the Earth’s gravity, yet I can fly over the path with ease, leaning into the curves and feeling the bike turn itself. I feel young and free when I’m on my bike.

Heraclitus, if he were alive today, might remind us that we cannot bike twice along the same river. This accurately describes my experience: either I change from day to day or the river changes. Or both of us change. Biking has changed me. It has become my moving meditation. In just a few minutes of riding, I get into a flow state. I stop thinking about everyday concerns. The clouds, the boat traffic, the New York skyline and the Verrazano bridge dispel these. My consciousness expands as I watch the river flow by.

I pass the food pier whose many trucks offered wood-burning pizza, ice cream treats and skewered chicken and pork. On a typical Saturday we encounter hundreds of joggers, couples walking slowly and holding hands, parents pushing baby carriages or biking with babies in carriers. Many of these people will be speaking in foreign tongues. A few fishermen are chatting, with their rods leaning on the railing waiting for a fish to bite. I asked one whether they eat the fish they pull from the dark river water. He showed me a few blue claw crabs that he had caught in a trap and said, “These I will eat. Not the fish!”

I feel part of a community: the bikers; the walkers; the lovers; the parents pushing strollers; the weightlifters who work out in the playground; the fishermen; the people sunning themselves on benches or sitting in the parks. Most are friendly: when somebody is too close to the middle of the path and I need to pass them, I’ll ring my bell. They usually move over and I shout a “thank you.”

One Saturday my girlfriend and I stopped for pizza on the food pier, and a bearded man about my age pulled up and said hello. We noticed that he had something lashed to his bike rack and we asked him about it. “Oh, that’s my tent.” He said. “I just biked down from Maine. It took me three weeks and I slept in yards and campsites. I didn’t go indoors for the whole trip.” He told us that his wife had passed away a few months ago and this trip was his way of dealing with her loss. This resonated with me, as I had lost my wife three years ago and I was still feeling the impact of bereavement. I realized that biking had helped me get through the first year after her death.

So, get a bike if you don’t already have one. Find a beautiful bike path of your own. The world won’t seem too difficult to live in anymore. As you effortlessly lean into the curves, you will feel truly alive.