The Bon Ton Saga Continues
Bon Ton Roulet, Days 2-5
What an incredible journey! After a night of thundershowers and lightning, Day 2 (Monday, Ithaca to Watkins-Glen) proved to be quite a challenging riding day. I was not expecting to hurt so quickly into the ride. I figure there were a few contributing factors:
1) It began with a good climb out of camp. I need about 10-15 miles just to warm up, so hitting that right out of the gate wore me out!
2) The rest stop came too quickly—at about mile 10—when I had just gotten warmed up by the climb.
3) Failure to apply sunscreen
4) Headwinds
5) High humidity
6) Lack of sleep (due to the lightning and thunder which went on until early in the morning, so neither of us got much sleep)
The humidity was probably the worst part of it, since we are accustomed to much drier weather. On top of that there were several long hills that just wore us down. During the day I decided to do the short ride (50 miles) on the next day. We spent the night in the school gym, even though the anticipated rain never materialized. At least we got a better night’s sleep and we didn’t have to hassle with setting up and tearing down the tent.
Day 3, Tuesday (Watkins Glen to Hammondsport), was a much better day. I finished the ride before noon, got into camp, did a little exploring, helped unload the gear truck, and set up camp before Rich rode in, since he chose to do the longer ride. The course put us on an idyllic road right on Keuka Lake which was shady, green, and simply lovely. It was my favorite part of the ride that day. Rich took the longer ride (70 miles). For your reading pleasure, here it is in his own words (italicized):
The ride out of Watkins began with approximately 8 miles of steady climbing, with some long stretches that were as steep as climbing Mt Baldy in the San Gabriel Mts at home. I had the same feeling as Octave Lapiz (the Tour de France winner in 1910) who exclaimed to tour officials as he made it to the top of the Col de Tourmalet (one of the hardest climbs in France) “You’re assassins, all of you!” Finally we were rewarded with an incredible 2 mile down hill where I reached a speed of 54 mph. Over the next 40 miles there were a series of hills that continued to wear me down, with the last 20 miles or so being “flat” (ie. rollers with continuous ups and downs). However, the scenery was spectacular with beautifully manicured farms interspersed with wooded areas. Something you just can’t see in So Cal. When I got into camp Jenn was sitting at the entrance to the school waiting for me having already gotten our luggage, and set up the tent. What a gal!” At the camp meeting that night a woman asked if there were going to be any more mountains for us to climb, the tour director said there were no mountains on our route. The woman then said, “I’m from Florida,” to which he replied, “then yes, there will be more mountains tomorrow.”
Day 4, Wednesday (Hammondsport to Geneva)
We both decided that there was no shame in doing the short ride, so that’s what we did, but it was still 50 miles long. Even though we chose the short route, it still had three long and steep climbing sections along with the ubiquitous rollers that characterize the glacial topography of this part of New York. In addition, there was supposed to be a good chance of rain, and neither of us wanted to spend too much time riding in bad weather. As it was, we were lucky and were only 5 miles from our camp site at Hobart and William Smith Colleges when the rain started to fall. Fortunately we had signed up for a dorm room in the campus housing, which was quite a welcome relief as it continued raining off and on throughout the night. We stayed in campus “townhouses”, essentially 4 individual bedrooms with a common kitchen and dining area. Our roomies were Mary Jane and Amy who are biking buddies from New England (Vermont and New Hampshire) and have known each other for years because their kids played sports together from the time they were in junior high, and Ellen from New York City. What a riot they are!
We had dinner in the campus dining hall with a wonderful couple named Mike & Jean, who are from D.C. She works for the State Department and he is a carpenter. We spent hours lingering over dinner talking about politics, her travels overseas, bike tours around the country, and remarriage and raising children under those circumstances. Meeting people is one of the things we like best about these kinds of trips.
Day 5, Thursday (Geneva to Canandaigua and back to Geneva)
This was an optional riding day, but since we came here to ride, we did the short 40 mile loop. We slept in, missed breakfast, but then rode to a little coffee house and fueled up on caffeine and bagels with cream cheese—breakfast of champions. While there, we met another interesting gentleman, Mike, who is a counselor from New Orleans and lost his home during Katrina. We spent an hour before our ride having another phenomenal conversation. Today was, I think, my best riding day. Again, more gorgeous countryside and scenery. We had dinner at a lovely little restaurant just outside of town with the best seafood. Upon our return, I graded essays and Rich got us packed up to head out early tomorrow. The rumor is that we can expect rain tomorrow, we’ll have to see how that turns out, especially since we were supposed to have rain on days 1 and 2, but it never happened.
Two days left, and more to come later. We are calling it a night!
