More from the 2009 GFLBT
There’s a lot to report from this year’s Great Finger Lakes Bicycle Tour. I mean, besides the important stuff, like how I rode.
- The Southern Tier Bicycle Club does a great job running the annual Great Finger Lakes Bicycle Tour. It really shows in the number of “repeat offenders” that show up year, after year. I haven’t met them all yet, but I’m working on it.
- A frequent complaint is the absence of road markings. The problem is that on Saturday, there are six different rides, all on the same roads, some running “backwards” from others, and all converging on The Windmill Craft & Farm Market for lunch. I can’t see how it could be done without screwing people up even more.
Besides, it’s such a nice area to ride, that getting lost is half the fun. I made a wrong turn myself and wound up at the Watkins Glen International Speedway, where bubbas looked at me thinking, What a stupid way to spend a Saturday, and I looked back thinking, What a stupid way to spend a Saturday. You can’t add such things to a map or cue sheets. - The event is limited to 250, due to the capacity of the dining hall. This year, not only was the GFLBT over-subscribed, but “show-ups” aren’t turned away either, and there were plenty of those. Dinner especially was pretty cozy in the dining hall. Organizers scurried about finding more tables to put out, and hunted-down unoccupied chairs. I lost my chair when I made a second pass at the fresh veggie table.
- The caterers are magnificent. They fed over 250 starving cyclists from a single line in only an hour. That’s over four cyclists a minute! And the food! Boy, can they tie on the feedbag. Handlebar says, “The GFLBT is the only event where you can ride all weekend and still gain weight.” Word.
- Friday’s dinner was pulled-pork sandwiches, with mac-and-cheese, a nice mixed-greens salad (even had spinach!), a nice take on the mixed-vegetables theme and hot, homemade applesauce. Mmmm. Off to the side were the beverages table, the snacks and fresh-veggie table and the dessert table, where there were all sorts of cookies and brownies on Friday night. Was two of each (passes at the main line, the veggie table, the beverages table and two of each cookie) too much?
- Saturday’s dinner was grilled beef shish-kabob and grilled chicken breast. Yes, you could have both, and almost everyone did. The beef was so tender you could cut it with a spoon, and whatever the marinade was, made this a truly memorable selection. Cupcakes decorated with bicycles were the main event at the dessert table.
- There were several riders of note. One kid, about eight or nine, completed his first century as the stoker on a tandem with his dad. Another, age 11, rode his first century on his own bike. His dad said that up to 80 miles, there were no complaints. That’s about where everyone begins to have problems. The kid was all smiles at dinner though!
- This was the largest GFLBT in recent memory. Handlebar seemed to think there were more “locals” this year—folks from an hour or two away. The “staycation” seems to have left its mark on this year’s GFLBT. Everywhere there were people from New York, but I also rode with folks from Vermont, Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Ontario.
- The event T-shirt was a hit again this year. This year its a wicking shirt in bright red. It even has some sort of anti-microbial treatment. I prefer jerseys, but I like the wicking t-shirts for shopping. Along with cargo shorts over my bike shorts, its less frightening to the civilians. This one’s a winner
- The STBC also debuted their new club jerseys at GFLBT. They sold out, but not before I got one for myself! On the back, from the comic strip B.C., that’s Johnny riding his wheel.
- Rain moved-in on Saturday afternoon. With an early start, riding at a good clip, and doing the half-century, I caught just the fringes of it. Others got drenched. I always enjoy a nice rain on a hot ride (Fenders rock!) and Saturday’s showers cooled me just fine. Other comments ranged from “this sucks” to “the nice, cool shower on the ride made the hot showers back at camp all the more enjoyable.” Guess which crew I chose to hang with at dinner.
- Cranking down CR 23 in the big ring, in the rain, with the DiNottes blazing, I passed a group who were stopped and consulting the map. As I sped by one guy called out, “Nice lights!”
- Cool nights, and especially rain, makes the bunkhouse option really attractive. We had two campers move into our bunkhouse on Saturday night. I didn’t get a chance to talk with the one guy, who moved-in his Burley Nomad trailer and everything.
- The GFLBT is the only ride I’ve been on where I’ve had to call out on a climb, “Buggy back!” Or have had to keep a lookout for road apples. We ride right thought the heart of New York’s Amish country, and every year I see more and more Amish on bikes.
I was cranking right along solidly in the 20s on NY 14A when an Amish guy pulled out ahead of me a ways, riding a 70s or 80s ten-speed, in regular Amish clothes, (sans hat) and carrying something on the handlebars. And I couldn’t catch him before he turned off again. More often, though, you see a pack of younger women on single-speeds. - Besides requiring strong riders, GFLBT requires well-tuned bikes. On every climb I came across riders who had dropped the chain when shifting to the small ring. Two required SAG since the chain had become wedged between the crank and the bottom bracket. I was grateful that I’ve taken the time to learn how to tune my bikes, (especially the tricky triple front dérailleur) and learned how to “soft-pedal” a front shift. Between the two, every shift to the small ring was perfect all weekend. In fact, every shift—front and rear—was perfect all weekend.
I’ll add more as I think of it.
