RB’s Bike Trip take 3 (day 2)

This should really be titled: “The Easiest 70 Miles You’ll Ever Ride!”

Last year whilst I reflected by this reflecting pool in Boonville (a former portion of the Black River Canal) I was on the verge of quitting (I had some sense then!) but this year, I decided that I wasn’t challenging myself enough.. that 70 miles wasn’t enough to ride in a day!

And all this was because of a little breeze!

Riding for hours on a bicycle can be pleasant or unpleasant… it all depends on the wind.  Riding headlong into a mere 5 mph zephyr slows you down considerably… 10 mph is deadly!  But today, as my Father’s Day treat, I got a 10-15 mph tailwind!  Instead of poking along at 10-12 mph as I did yesterday, I was flying at 17-20 mph… it was FUN! I rode the 70 miles in just under 6 hours including several stops for lunch and reflecting.

I’m now in Little Falls, NY, on the Mohawk River.  Last year I loved Little Falls, this year, I’m not so sure.  For one thing, they’re in trouble… the population of the city has dropped from 13,000 in 1920 to 5,200 now.

They also just got a brand new Perfect Game Collegiate Baseball League team, the “Herkimer Diamond Dawgs” who played the nearby “Amsterdam Mohwaks” today  in LF.  It was the most glorious of days AND Father’s got in free!  ($3 for adult non-fathers).  Not only could they not fill up the stadium (I figured just a few hundred people were there) but there was remarkably little audience participation… even though beer was sold on site!  The level of play was quite good, the players were from all over the country.

Then they tried to kill me:  last year I’d enjoyed a wonderful steak dinner at a real Steak House… which morphed this year into a place which sold me some bar-b-cue ribs which were about 70% yellow fat… yikes!

The final straw was that the gal in the Super Market had never heard of Power Bars of Cliff Bars… what kind of a cyclist was she!

Notes from the road:  As I said last year (maybe) you suffer some sensory overload on a long bike trip… wind whistling all the time… road, road road is all you can see… but smell?  You don’t smell much, so when you do get a whiff of something, it wakes you up!  I know this sounds wierd, but the odor of rotting road kill (which I used to find disgusting) has somehow become somewhat pleasant!  Farms are even better… so here’s my list of things I’ve smelt in ascending order from “Pretty Good” to Great!

1) dead skunk

2) cows

3) horses

4) church bar-b-ques

Tomorrow its on to Clifton Park along the Mohawk River… Happy Father’s Day!