6-5-10 Day 8: Duanesburg, New York to Morrisville, NY: 80 miles in 6:09 hrs: Rt 20 west the whole day.
OUCH!! This was absolutely the hardest day of the trip thus far. Rain settled in last night about 4 AM and continued thru about 7 AM. With the pitter patter on the van roof I was in no hurry to get out there. Finally, a half hr later the rain stopped and we heard Bill tearing down the tent. So we packed asap and went straight to Altamont for breakfast at a super little WW2 motif café. Got back to the end of yesterday’s ride. I started alone while Bill took some pics at a place where they had this old Penn. Central train engin and memorabilia. And he joined me at about 8 miles in, where I’d already done two pretty stout climbs right from the gun. Judy did support for the day having tweeked her back yesterday. And let me tell you, this was some brutal, never ending climbing, and coupled with a 20-25 mph dead on headwind………God was today tough! We clocked one of these climbs at 14 miles of climbing with 2 miles of descent. I joked with Bill that we ought to see prayer banners at the top of that bloody thing. I mean it just went on forever, undulating with these little tiny downs and then a great big giant UP. I was in the middle cookie just to save energy for the day.
By 2 hrs in Bill and I were both in suffer city for sure. There are the Allegheny’s of New York and it was a good alternative to taking the Allegheny’s of PA – I think? No, PA is harder – I did that ride a couple of decades ago and it really kicked my ass. So this was the lesser of two evils in coming back west. But man, just no flats at all, and when you crested the top of a climb, I mean the REAL top of the climb, the wind was just wicked hard, blowing you backwards. We would have to stand up on the pedals and just lean over the bars to make any headway over the tops of these climbs as the wind had us totally at its mercy. The trees, the weeds, the flags were just bent to the east, ready to blow right off into the void.
Finally, after about 40 miles of these massively long climbs, the terrain mellowed out a bit – just a bit mind you, nothing to feel warm and fuzzy about. Bill peeled off at about the 4.5 hr mark, and Judy didn’t have it in her with her back problem to get on the bike and fight the hills and the terrible headwind. I got off the bike two times to pound a coke and have a sandwich, but tried to keep the downtime to a minimum because my average was at about 12.5 mph, after 5 hours of riding. It’s pretty humbling to ride for 5 hours and only cover about 60 miles. I mean you look at a map and that 60 miles looks like nothing.
But fight the wind and the hills by just grinding away in big gears – and you’re totally gassed in a couple of hrs. Nope, you just have to whittle away at it with gears that are manageable to push. When I would climb, I’d use a slightly easier gear than normal and just take it slow so as to not fatigue the legs too much. It’s kind of like recovery climbing. It’s slow – painfully slow, but hey, what can you do – hammer a Z4-5 rep up one climb…..and then you’re just totally done! So it’s slow goes it, giving up the speed in leu of putting in more time and staying in control. Can’t fight Mother Nature!
I had intended on doing 100 miles today, but by 6:09 hrs in, and just 80 miles at 4 PM, I conceded to Mother Nature and called it a day. I could have ridden another hr but come on……another hr of torture and get just another 12 miles…..Nope! My legs were totally gone by then. So we packed er up just outside of Morrisville and went on a 1:15 hr hotel hunt. We wanted to spend this last eve in a hotel to make it easy for me tomorrow to get my gear packed for my solo mission. I managed to dodge the bullet today with a weather report that had called for rain all day, and there were several instances where it looked like I was going to get shit on in a real big way, what with thunder and dark clouds, but I lucked out. Bill, by the way, did a magnificent job today on those hills, hanging with me the whole way.
Tomorrow’s forecast is even worse than today’s, calling for 80% chance of rain all day. I’ve been so lucky over these 8 days of riding with Bill and Judy, having gotten in 6 hrs each and every day. Will tomorrow break that streak? I don’t mind riding in the rain, but a deluge is a totally different story.
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