The first time came in 1966, when my family left New York City by crossing the George Washington Bridge en route to a suburban haven called Monsey 25 miles to the north in Rockland County, N.Y. I still get chills when I think about the first time I laid eyes on this bridge, a majestic silver span with its two towers looming 604 feet above the Hudson River.

The most recent visit to the bridge came at 4:45 a.m. on June 21. A parabola of lights extending from the bridge's New Jersey tower guides a flowing, New York City-bound stream of trucks, buses and cars to eight million sleeping souls.

I make out dawn's first light: burnt orange on the northeast horizon.

I'm here to start a special one-day, solo bicycle trip: a 158-mile journey from the George Washington Bridge to the New York state capitol in Albany.

I picked this day to celebrate the first day of summer in the Hudson Valley, where everything seems to have turned green overnight after early spring's gray skies and soupy snowstorms.

I slowly approach the 4,760-foot-long span from the Fort Lee, N.J., side on a fancy road bike, a Trek 2200, with enough 200-proof adrenalin coursing through my veins to fuel me along the roller coaster roads along the Hudson River that will lead me to Albany.

I hope to end this odyssey by 8:30 p.m. — some 15 1/2 hours later. I’ve biked across the country twice by myself, but I’ve never biked this many miles — 158 — in a single day.

I’m biking unchartered distances. By comparison, cyclists in the Tour de France will bike at most 149 miles in a day.

As I approached the locked gate to launch this thing, a pair of headlights illuminated the sidewalk. A man in a port authority truck pulled up, got out and began walking to the gate.

He took a key out of his pocket and unlocked the gate.

Huh? I told the worker I thought the sidewalk was locked until 6 a.m.

"Well, today I came early," he said.

It must have been the spirit of Bill Fox.

This 2005 Hudson Valley Summer Solstice Bike Ride is dedicated to the memory of Bill, a long-distance bicyclist I first met in 2001 when our long-distance bike rides intersected at a convenience store in Goshen, N.Y.

Bill and I were kindred bicycle spirits, two-wheeler evangelists who spread the bicycle gospel.

It was the only time we would meet. He died of head injuries a little more than a year later — June 1, 2002 — in a bike crash going down a hill in the Hudson Valley. He was 50.

Bill was a renaissance man: a bassoon-playing, kaleidoscope-crafting, cake-as-artwork-fashioning IBM technician known to bike tens of thousands of miles in his day.

Although we had met that time while cycling, I didn’t know much about Bill’s life until I wrote about him for a local newspaper at the time of his death. His wife, Margaret, a gentle soul who met Bill when he rescued her from police tear gas during an anti-war rally in Berkeley, Calif., during the 1960s, told me he weighed 300 pounds when he decided to use a bicycle to change his life.

The 165-pound Bill Fox kept a picture of the old Bill Fox in his wallet.

So, with unexpected sidewalk access and the memory of Bill in mind, I pedaled to the New York City side of the bridge and soaked up the skyline views.

It turned out to be the best bike ride of my life.

It was one of those days when you’re so happy that you can’t even put your arms around all the nice things that happened and you wish you could put the day in slow-motion.

I trained hard in Florida for this ride and it paid off. I used a heavier, older road bike instead of my lighter new one for 40-mile rides on weekday mornings. And on the weekends, I slammed hills in Pasco and Lake counties with the heavier bike until my quads and hamstrings burned in the middle of sticky afternoons.

On the logistical front, I knit together my past Hudson Valley bike routes into the monster 158-miler.

Then there’s the most important part of long-distance bicycling: transcending leg power and mental strategy.

I bike for the purity of propelling 20 pounds of metal at a pace that allows me to absorb life’s smallest details that I wouldn’t see otherwise. I see, hear, smell and feel stuff that is a blur from the seat of a car: a building’s architecture, a pedestrian’s smile, a downtown’s buzz, a bakery’s aroma. Biking is truth.

Bill knew this as well.

Through Villages To Meet Friend

I pedal off the George Washington Bridge sidewalk, make a right turn for my northern excursion and greet my first hill. I gear down and begin pumping, and the bike zooms up the hill. I can’t believe it — my legs are effortlessly driving the two-wheeler up this hill.

I blast the first 15 miles to Piermont, a onetime blue-collar riverfront village in suburban Rockland County that has gentrified into a refuge for New York commuters. An old factory was rebuilt into condos, and art galleries and antiques shops lure New Yorkers on the weekend.

Then I bike a few miles through the family of Nyacks — South Nyack, good ol’ regular Nyack and Upper Nyack — before reaching Hook Mountain State Park.

A hard-packed dirt trail hugs the river, offering vistas of the Palisades cliffs that cut a spectacular, rugged brown outline against a cloud-free sky.

I head to Haverstraw, a historical village known for brick-making factories. I was just a cub reporter for a local daily newspaper in 1985 when I covered a company’s proposal to build a garbage-burning plant on a vacant riverfront parcel that was mainly home to stacks of old concrete pipes. As I bike past the site, I see upscale condos across the land.

In the Haverstraw area, I meet my first trek pal: Carrie Korner-Kovalsky, an old girlfriend from 20 years ago. We arrange to meet at Haverstraw Bay County Park, a new riverfront park that includes a 9/11 memorial.

I arrive at 7:15 a.m. and wait by a park building near the river.

No Carrie. Still waiting. Still no Carrie.

But a guy with a white Ford pickup truck pulls up with a dog in the back and his business lettered on the side door: "Geese Police." Makes sense. Many parks in Rockland County have a geese problem.

The driver, George Mechle, tells me his dog, a male border collie named Joe, is the secret weapon for the Geese Police: "Joe gives a wolflike glance, and the geese think he’s a wolf and take off."

I get a good laugh.

Then I call Carrie’s husband, Donny, to find out about her.

"Carrie is waiting for you out on the road at the park entrance," Donny tells me.

Gotcha. So, he tells me that he will call Carrie, and Carrie comes driving into the parking lot. She is laughing hysterically.

Apparently some bicyclist who she thought was me came pedaling by and passed the park and kept on going down the road. So, she chased him down in her car. When she caught up, she rolled down her window and said, "Hey, Al, it’s me, Carrie. Are you playing a joke on me? I know it’s been a long time, but I don’t look that different."

The startled bicyclist responded, "Hey, lady, who are you? Stop stalking me."

Carrie and I met in the park at 8:05 a.m., and I have to meet a buddy at the Bear Mountain State Park lodge on Route 9W at 8:30 a.m.

Fast Track To Next Rendezvous

The eight-mile stretch between Haverstraw and Bear Mountain is awfully hilly. When I first did this segment 20 years ago, I got hammered by the hills. I limped into a restaurant looking for water like a thirsty dog.

I was wondering how I would tackle these hills now. The answer came quickly: like Lance Armstrong blowing away the field in a time trial. The same hills that beat me down long ago were humbled by my upward surges. I crested the hills with ease, then raced down the other side and repeated the cycle over and over until I reached my friend Chris O’Connell, at 8:35 a.m.

I have logged 42 miles when I meet Chris, a former Hudson Valley biking partner, at the Bear Mountain lodge lot.

Chris is a Coca-Cola regional sales rep from Goshen, N.Y., with legs like tree trunks and a heart full of gold. He will bike the next 80 miles with me to the village of Catskill in Greene County, home of the world-famous Catskill Mountains.

For me, Bear Mountain is the emotional heart of the Hudson Valley. Hikers walking the Appalachian Trail cross through its rugged hills. Every elementary school within a 50-mile radius has spent a field day at the Bear, visiting its zoo, ice-skating on its rink and enjoying the scenery of the Hudson Highlands.

We cross the Bear Mountain Bridge to reach the river’s east side, turn left on Route 9D and zoom 18 miles up to Beacon, one of the many work-in-progress valley cities in transition from downtrodden community to something to be determined.

Scenery Worthy Of Timeless Art

After whipping these rolling hills and reaching the Newburgh-Beacon Bridge, we ride across the span and back to the river’s west side to Balmville, a tony neighborhood that is a stark contrast to the depressed city of Newburgh.

Both share river views, which offer some of the prettiest scenery in the country. These vistas inspired the Hudson River School of Art in the 19th century, when artists captured the American wilderness on canvas.

We come off the bridge and bike only 30 feet to the house of John Courtsunis, a buddy who owns the Commodore Chocolatier, one of the few viable businesses along Newburgh’s break-your-heart Broadway. John’s teenage son, Gus, invites us in, and we quaff some water until John the madman races into his house to give a hearty greeting 15 minutes later.

He cuts up bread, slices a cantaloupe and serves a tasty crab salad. John’s laugh fills a room.

The trek is taking on a wonderful karma. It began with the good omen of the surprising bridge gate opening and continued with good friends, good weather and good riding.

Monasteries At Halfway Point

Bill has something to do with this. His spirit is coming along. My friend Carrie put it best: "It’s a bond between humans that we don’t understand but know it’s there. It’s not religion. It’s a connection that’s bigger than us but has an impact on us."

Margaret Fox later wrote me: "How Bill would have loved to be on the road with you for that summer solstice ride. But ... he was!"

I’m thinking about that concept as Chris and I bike from Newburgh across the Ulster County line. We buzz through quaint Marlboro, then climb until we hit Milton and pump an additional half-dozen miles up and down rolling hills until we reach Highland.

Highland is across the river from Poughkeepsie — we’re about halfway between New York and Albany.

After several miles, we head through West Park’s monastery row. Route 9W has turned into a leafy-lined thoroughfare. SHHHH! Be very quiet. People are meditating.

We’re passing the Marist Brothers Seminary, Ascension Church and Rectory, Holy Cross Monastery and even the former estate of the former naturalist John Burroughs.

More rollers, hammering up hills and gliding down the other sides, until we reach Kingston, where the Rondout Creek meets the Hudson River.

It’s visit and water time. This time it’s Alan Baer, a new friend I made just two days before when I had dinner at the Raccoon Saloon in Marlboro, about 25 miles back south on Route 9W. Alan and his artist wife, Jan Harrison, were eating at the restaurant when they overheard me refer to the Rondout section of Kingston to a friend at dinner. Jan mentioned she was an artist, I mentioned the bike ride, one thing led to another, and we set up plans for a summer solstice bike ride visit.

Jan isn’t home, but Alan is. "Can I get you water? I have power drinks. I was in the middle of making some hummus. Would you like any?"

Chris and I jump at Alan’s offer of water and blue liquid. Alan shows us Jan’s studio next door to their minimalist-decorated house. The studio is up on an entire open second floor in the shape of a triangle.

Always the host, Alan offers us more water, more blue energy liquid and more hummus. With 100 miles logged, I fill my two water bottles and we are off to Saugerties, a spunky little village in north Ulster County with a vibrant downtown, and Catskill, 12 miles north of Saugerties.

In Catskill, I say goodbye to Chris. He had logged 80 miles with me before his daughter picked him up near the New York State Thruway.

Over Rip Van Winkle To Hudson

I head across the river via the Rip Van Winkle Bridge, which takes me to Route 9G. I make a quick left once I’m on the eastern side and head north to Hudson, another work-in-progress city much like Beacon.

More than 70 antiques shops line Warren Street, the city’s main street. But back in the 1920s and 1930s, the city organized by Quakers 220 years ago had a red-light district that hosted 15 brothels. State police cracked down on Las Vegas-on-the-Hudson in the 1950s, but, according to legend, the ghost of a prostitute wrongfully convicted of murdering a customer haunts the former jail building.

Albany is about 30 miles up the river and after 130 miles, there’s plenty of high-octane adrenaline in my tank. I plan to meet Rosemary Evans, a friend from Newburgh, at a Stewart’s ice cream convenience store in Castleton-on-Hudson, a rugged little village of brick buildings on the river’s eastern edge. Rosemary, a second-grade teacher, will then drive to Albany to meet me there, along with a half-dozen other friends.

As I’m cycling on the river’s eastern side, the thought suddenly comes over me: I’m actually going to pull this off. I’m going to bike these 150 miles in one day.

School Reading Project Ties In

I think about the second-graders in Rosemary’s class. Rosemary hooked the bike ride into her Gardnertown Elementary School classroom by giving the children a project: Do one book report for every mile of the bike ride. She called the project "160 Miles, 160 Books ... You can do it, we can do it," and set up a big wall chart, with the book reports covering the hallway outside her room.

Rosemary’s kids broke the 160-book barrier with ease. The second-graders read 212 books, including the last few rolling in on the last day of school on June 24.

About 7 p.m., I pull into the Stewart’s parking lot in Castleton to meet Rosemary. I think about Bill again.

I met him during a bike ride for an offbeat newspaper story I wrote about the proliferation of Stewart’s shops in the Hudson Valley. At the Stewart’s in Goshen in April 2001, Bill told me he was heading for a concert in New York City by bike, while I told him about the goofy Tour de Stewart’s story. We talked long-distance biking, then headed for our destinations.

"Bill was never a pack rat, but he kept that story," Margaret Fox told me later.

So, this Stewart’s would be last stop before Albany. I’m only about 10 miles away at this point. I have a chocolate brownie scoop, while Rosemary goes for mint chocolate chip. We finish our ice cream and Rosemary heads to Albany to meet Bruce Graham.

I hop on the saddle to wrap up this ride. The hills are history. Route 9J is flatter than U.S. 19 in Palm Harbor as I head toward Rensselaer and a bridge that will carry me to Albany.

I come off the sideway ramp, make a left turn and find State Street. It’s about 7:50 p.m. and I’m a hill away from the steps of the state capitol.

I can see Rosemary and Bruce waving as I draw near. I hop the curb and bike to the steps. Bruce is videotaping the final wheel revolutions and my front tire taps the bottom step as he yells, "Way to go, Al!"

It’s five minutes before 8 o’clock, and soon some friends come walking by. We drink sodas, take goofy photos and chat until 10 p.m. when the party breaks up.

It’s time to call it a day. I exchange hugs with my friends and I load my bike into Rosemary’s Honda CRV.

I think about how so many of our days have become like the movie "Groundhog Day," when day after day after day unfolds with the same routine. But this day was different. I took a day in the middle of the week in the middle of the calendar and seized it as my own. It was a day that celebrated life — and the memory of Bill Fox.

2005 HUDSON VALLEY SUMMER SOLSTICE BIKE RIDE IN MEMORY OF BILL FOX

Follow reporter Alan Snel's 158-mile bike ride from New York City to Albany in one day.

(1) 2:30 a.m. in Newburgh, N.Y.: Wake up. All systems go. The car is packed. I stretch. Drink some water. Mentally review the game plan.

(2) 3 a.m.: Leave Newburgh to drive to New Jersey side of the George Washington Bridge. It's about 60 miles, an hour's drive.(3) 4 a.m.; Arrive in Englewood Cliffs, N.J., and park my car in front of The Bicycle Club restaurant, an apt name for the place where I'll leave my car overnight. It's two miles to the George Washington Bridge.

(3) 4:35 a.m.: At George Washington Bridge, Fort Lee, N.J., bridge worker shows up mysteriously and unlocks the bridge sidewalk gate.

MILE 13

5:35 a.m.: Sun is hovering above the horizon and weather is ideal. Dry, warm and gentle breeze out of the south.

MILE 22

6:20 a.m.: Hook Mountain State Park is quiet. Following a hard-packed dirt trail, with the river on my right and the Palisades cliffs to my left.

MILE 30

7:15 a.m.: Meet friend Carrie Korner-Kovalsky at Haverstraw Bay County Park. Park includes a 9/11 memorial and riverfront views of the Hudson.

MILE 42

8:35 a.m.: Bear Mountain State Park parking lot; Meet friend Chris O'Connell, of Goshen, N.Y., who will bike with me for the next 80 miles.

MILE 63

10:30 a.m.: We cross back to the west side of the Hudson River via the Newburgh-Beacon Bridge and meet John Courtsunis at his house.

MILE 94

1:30 p.m.: In Kingston's Rondout district, Chris and I hammer some 30 miles along Route 9W in the middle of the day.

MILE 106

3 p.m.: We meet up with Katherine Van Acker, a photographer who takes shots for the story.

MILE 118

4:10 p.m.: Chris heads home and I head east across the Rip Van Winkle Bridge to Route 9G and the city of Hudson.

MILE 145

7 p.m.: I meet my friend Rosemary Evans for ice cream at the Stewart's ice cream convenience store.

MILE 155

7:45 p.m.: Rosemary is already at the steps of the state capitol and she has met Bruce Graham, a college buddy and an architect from Fairfield, Conn.

MILE 158

7:55 p.m.: I bike up State Street and I see Rosemary and Bruce waving from the steps. Bruce is videotaping the arrival. "Way to go, Al," Bruce says as he records with one hand and gives me a high-five with the other. I meet other friends.

10 p.m.: Goodbye, Albany: We pack the bike in Rosemary's car and head back to Newburgh.

Tribune graphic by ANDY DORSETT

Reporter Alan Snel can be reached at (813) 259-7850.