Scenic Route

Somewhere along the line, Mom Nature got confused. While April was an excellent May, May is an average April.

Of course, the landlord turned off the boiler in mid-April, given the 80° days. I’ve been heating the apartment with the electric oven and stove-top for the past few days. With the bedroom door shut, I can get it pretty comfortable in here, but not like when the boiler is on.

Nights are tough. It got down to 58° in here the other night, since I won’t leave the oven on unattended. And sleeping on the couch under two comforters and a blanket is getting old.

I had thought of rolling out the sleeping bag on the kitchen floor in front of my “hearth”, but the floor is hard, and narrow, and there’s not quite enough room between the outside door and the oven door. So I wait for the heat to drift in from the kitchen.

It’s been damp and rainy too. Today no less so. Hndlebar called this morning to suggest that riding for five hours in 45°, rain and winds gusting into the 20s was probably not a good idea. I had the same feelings.

As you may recall, hndlebar, bikerjohn and I rode together for what turned out of be my first century back in October.

Hndlebar and I ride at a similar level, have similar training goals for this year, and are doing a couple of the same rides this summer. He’s intimately familiar with those parts outside of town where the hills are, and of course, has a car to get us there. So we’ve been riding together the past couple of Wednesdays.

Back on the seventh, we did 50 miles and 4,000 feet of climbing from Geneseo to Dansville and back, by a route based on the RBC’s map number 74. This took us through Groveland, Kysorville, Byersville, and Ossian on and along roads that all seemed to have the word “hill” in them.

Then back from Dansville there was a nice, long hill on NY 256, which eventually levels out to become West Lake Rd around Conesus Lake. We turned instead and climbed Maple Beach Road. Our cyclometers registered 17% and 18% grades on that climb. I had to stop twice. Foolishly, I’d left my 12-23 “flatlander” cassette on the bike. I almost walked, and would have had I been solo. That’s why a ride partner is great for training.

I enjoyed the ride, but was sore from Thursday straight through to Monday.

Last week we opted for something a bit less challenging. We rode around Keuka Lake, leaving out the reputedly murderous climb in the middle of the “Y”. We rode straight from Branchport to Penn Yan, then straight into the wind down East Lake Rd to Hammondsport.

West Lake Rd back from Hammondsport to Branchport is protected from the wind a bit, so we didn’t get the full tailwind effect. But, that was the nicest stretch of road I’ve ever ridden. It’s smooth, well-maintained, curvy and interesting, has a few little rollers, nice scenery and little traffic. Of course, it’s still off-season, it was a weekday, and a hundred yards of construction had the road closed to motor vehicles for several miles. The workers let us through just fine.

We’ll be doing that ride again real soon, although beginning and ending in Hammondsport. It’s the Sunday “recovery ride” on the Great Finger Lakes Bicycle Tour coming up the first weekend in June. It was such a nice ride, I can hardly wait to do it again.

Today’s plan was to circumnavigate Canandaigua Lake. That one will wait. I could do it. I ride in foul weather—but only when I have to. And generally not for four or five hours at a whack. So I was relieved when hndlebar called to say he felt the same.

As it turns out, what I thought was just some sinus congestion from being in an underheated apartment, turns out to be a cold. It really kicked into gear by mid-morning and I spent the bulk of the day on the couch.

So my plan to bring this up to date sort of sniffled out. There has been no shortage of interesting things things happening. But there’s always tomorrow…

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 21st, 2008 at 9:07 pm EDT and is filed under Bike. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.