Thousands of Cyclists Ride into Rockland County

Around seven years ago, Kristen Gohr from Boston received a bicycle as a gift from her husband. She let it sit around the house for several years before becoming a competitive cyclist and participating in various competitions on the National Circuit.

“It [the bike] sat in my basement for a while because I was afraid of it," Gohr said. "And then I finally took it out and I rode with some women in my neighborhood, and then I found a coach who has been really, really good to me and I started racing, and it’s been a wonderful experience."

So on this Mother’s Day weekend, her three children decided to give her a gift they knew she would enjoy: entrance into the inaugural Gran Fondo New York bike ride.

The 100-mile course for Sunday’s Gran Fondo began at the George Washington Bridge in New York City and took riders up to Bear Mountain and back. The over 2,000 participants came from 57 different countries, with the largest international contingents coming from Canada and Italy.

The Gran Fondo, which means “big ride” in Italian, is a long-distance cycling event that is popular in Italy. The event is open to amateur cyclists of all levels, from those who ride just for fun to those who have competed in amateur races in the past.  The ride is not a race, as only the climbing portions of the event are timed to determine the King and Queen of the Mountain. The Gran Fondo New York featured four timed climbs, and the cumulative time of each of these climbs determined the winners in each category. The top three times per gender in each age category won prizes, along with the overall top finishers, top him + her teams, and top four-person teams. The event also featured a Medio Fondo, a non-competitive ride that was 65 miles long and featured less climbing.

The riders went through New City briefly during the race, turning onto Route 304 South from Rotue 9W on their way to Bear Mountain. The course also went through Piermont, Nyack, West Nyack, Orangeburg, Haverstraw and Stony Point, among other places in Rockland.

Many of the volunteers helping out during the event were athletes themselves, with some being  bike riders who could not participate in the event and thus decided to help out instead. One of these was Patrick Cherilus from Queens, who was volunteering at one of the food stations on the course. He and a few other volunteers helped pass out drinks and bagels to the riders at around the 70-mile mark in Stony Point. For him, cycling is a special sport as it is one of the few where amateur athletes are able to take part in experiences similar to those of professional riders.

“This is certainly an activity if you want you can always ride the same course that the professionals ride and use the same equipment as the professional riders,” he said. “If a rider is a pro who is riding a bike, you can go to the store right away and buy the same bike and ride the same course. […] If you are a baseball player and you want to pitch at the same field as [a professional] athlete you can’t run and do that; you have to make a special reservation.”

Gohr from Boston was in the minority as a female taking part in the ride. But she said she was used to this after being a professional cyclist for several years.

“This is how it usually is. There’s usually not too many women; it’s usually just a lot of men.," she said. "But it’s fine, they’re nice. […] Hopefully next year I’ll bring some teammates, some of my friends. They’re women, so they can come and join me and that’d be nice.”

Another rider who traveled a long way to get to the Gran Fondo New York was Clay Crymes from Arkansas. He heard about a contest sponsored by Competitive Cyclist, a bike- and bike gear-supplier chain, to win an entrance ticket to the ride. For the contest he had to come up with an idea for a contest for the company’s Facebook page , and he came up with an idea called “Like Your Bike, Man” where cyclists would post pictures of their bikes on the social networking site and see who could get the most “likes”.

“I’ve always wanted to ride Bear Mountain too […] [I heard] it was just pretty. It was. It was beautiful, gorgeous. It’s a beautiful part of the country, and a lot of people don’t get to see this, don’t think about it actually,” Crymes said.

However, other riders taking part in the event were more local. But while Michael Ibrahim lives in Connecticut, he had never actually ridden in this part of the state. In fact the Gran Fondo New York was his first road race, although he has done triathlons in the past.

“I just got an email [about the event], and it seemed like a lot of fun,” he said. “[…] I always ride in Connecticut because I live in Connecticut; I’ve never been on this side of the Hudson. It seemed like a well-organized event, so great idea.”

On the opposite end of the spectrum was Piermont resident Wilson Vasquez, who said he takes part in around 60 professional races a year and has been riding for 22 years. He came to the Gran Fondo New York to get fitter and help him with his training.

“I always grew up with bikes; I always liked racing,” he said. “Once I moved to New York [from Puerto Rico, where he lived for 10 years] I saw that there was a big racing community, so I just took it up.”

But no matter how experienced a cyclist was, or where he or she came from, the participants agreed that the event was a great success, especially because they got to look at the beautiful Rockland landscape during their rides.

“It’s gorgeous, love it,” Gohr said of the area. ”The scenery has been beautiful, really pretty, and this is a very well-done event, so I would definitely come back.”