• Where:   Harriman and Bear Mountain state parks, in Rockland and Orange Counties. 
   

• 27 miles (or more), very hilly (2800 vertical feet, hill index 6.7). 

• Highlights:  Three (optionally four or five) fine descents, with some nice views of lakes and the Hudson River. 

The motivation for this loop is to link up the three descents:  (1) Rockland County Route 106 where it crosses under Lake Welch Drive;  (2) Seven Lakes Drive North from Tiorati Circle; (3) Seven Lakes Drive East from the Palisades Parkway and Perkins Memorial Drive down to Hudson River.  And there's optional additional climbs and descents:  Perkins Memorial Drive, to the top of Bear Mountain (variation X), and Rt 106 West from Kanawauke Circle (variation K).

• Characteristics:  Linking this all up into a loop includes a section on dirt (see Condition Reports), at least one dismount and walk, and of course some hill climbing. 

Uphill climbing:  Total climbing is about 2800 vertical feet.  There is one long, long climb of almost 900 vertical feet -- fortunately not real steep (much of it just under 6% grade).  Another of about 250 feet at around 8% grade, and two more almost 200 feet each, one with about 100 feet at a steep grade around 9%. 

Variation K adds about 1100 vertical feet of climbing and 10 miles of distance (or Variation K2 adds 12 miles).  For Variation X, see Bear Mountain.

Traffic:  There are specific road sections that have greater traffic-interaction risks than on most other routes on this website, and require "advanced" traffic-handling skills.  (For one section, we say that the our way to handle the traffic is to get all the way off the road onto the grass.)  See more details. 

• warning:  Riding a bicycle on roads has dangers and risks that need to be taken seriously.  For more on those, see our page on risks.

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• Special planning considerations

We suggest choosing your start point to get you to the Bicycle Route 9 path (parallel to Route 9W) early in your ride, so that you can check its current condition -- and can work out some alternative route if you do not like what you find -- rather than get surprised by it at the end of your ride.

Cheater's alternative:  Set up a car shuttle to eliminate most of the climbing.   Leave a car at the Iona Island parking on Route 9W, and drive the other car up the Gate Hill Rd climb to somewhere near Lake Welch.  This also eliminates the problem of the possible rough condition of the Bicycle Route 9 path. 

Connections:  This route could also be combined with the Bear Mountain - Newburgh-Beacon Bridge Loop (at the Bear Mt Bridge traffic circle), or with the GWB to Bear Mountain Bridge Loop using Rockland County Route 106 (High-speed / High-traffic-volume in the connecting section).  To do all the hills on this route starting from Manhattan, see NYC to Bear Mt Adventure.  

• Directions to Start: 

By car:  The Iona Island road and parking is on the East side of Route 9W, just south of the South Route 9W entrance for Bear Mountain state park.  This is 1.5 miles south on Rt 9W from the Bear Mt Bridge traffic circle.  Or about 6.3 miles north on Rt 9W from its intersection with Rt 112 in Tomkins Cove.

Alternate start points:  Bear Mountain state park main parking area (near the Bear Mt Bridge traffic circle -- with food at the Bear Mountain Inn).  There are also various parking possibilities in Harriman state park or around Tomkins Cove -- but our feeling is that it's better to avoid these, so you can get to the rough dirt section on Bike Route 9 early.

• Maps:  You should have detailed road maps of Rockland County and Orange County, NY to do this route (see Road Maps).