6-8-10 Day 11: Alexander, NY to Dunkirk: 82 miles in 6:45 hrs: Rt 98 south to Rt 39 west to Rt 20 west to Rt 5 west.
Had a wonderful time last evening with Em and Charlie last evening. They were so gracious with their hospitality. They did a big campfire in the back yard, which warmed me up quite a bit on a pretty nippy evening. Sunset from their backyard, way out in the Western New York countryside was really sweet. Then Charlie and I talked bikes for several hours. Charlie rides a bike for a bit of fitness and as a means of transportation. And though he has rattrap pedals and a intro level Aluminum Schwinn touring bike, this guy rides that thing everywhere. He even times himself on various courses – he’s in his 30’s and he reminded me of ME when I was just getting into bikes way back in my late teens. I was constantly testing myself in various courses and climbs. He has a real love for cycling but has had little time to get totally serious with it because his truck driving job and the even bigger job of trying to raise 4 children with Em.
So anyway, he’s been looking at a Cannondale carbon fiber bike, has the catalogue and everything. So I talked shop with him for a great deal of time. Talked components and the various types of carbon fiber frames. Seems the folks at his local bike shop have him dialed in for the right model of road racing bike to jump into – something right in the middle. Later I had him bring in his Schwinn and I kind of tweeked his seat height a bit and encouraged him to give clipless pedals and shoes a try before the NEW steed. I just love to talk bikes with someone new to the whole gig. He told me he’s even dreamed of doing what I’m doing on my Trans USA. He wants to give it a go maybe 5-10 years from now – after their next child is born this October!!!
Slept on the couch last evening and kind of woke up briefly to the kids prepping for school. Then I got up for real about an hour later. Em fixed me what looked like 5-6 scrambled eggs, 4 pieces of toast, and yogurt with fresh blueberries. Couple that with a few cups of java and I was ready to depart. Gave Charlie a big bear hug and Em a hug and off I went, down a little sideroad called Sandpit Rd to jcn with Rt 98 south. These folks were so excellent. Hell they invited Judy and I to their big end of summer party in August where they have bonfires, tent camping and major partying for a weekend.
I got to the town of Attica – you know the place – where the super max NY state prison is located. Nice little town. And just outside of Attica, not far from the entrance road to the prison, I noticed my rear tire going gooshy. Wonderful, just 30 minutes into the ride, having gotten off by 8:45 AM, on a perfect sunny day, and I flatted. So I looked for a place to change the flat. You just don’t stop with my rig, the long bike train! Nope, you have to find a place where you can lean the whole train against and then take it apart. So I rode about a quarter mile and found a little business with some split rail fencing. Pulled off the road, walked the bike through the grass and leaned the train against the fence. Took the trailer off, took the rear wheel off and hooked the dropouts on the lower level of the fence.
Now this was the maddening part: I get the tire and tube off, pump up the tube…….and nothing. No hissing, no deflation, no nothing. Ok, must be a tiny pinhole. So I checked the tire, inside and out. Nothing. Double checked the tube again, and it was holding air just fine. Checked the tire again, this time turning it inside-out. Nothing. I just HATE not finding anything, because nine times out of ten you put another tube on, pump it up and eventually it will begin to leak due to some little freaking infinitesimal shard of something still in there. So on a simple flat I already had 15 minutes of time and hadn’t found a thing. Looked around for a puddle of water or creek to dip the old tube in to find the location of the leak, but there was no water anywhere.
So I put a used tube on, pumped it up……BANG. Freaking thing exploded. Don’t know what the hell happened other than I may have overinflated – but with a hand pump? I wonder. Now I’m getting a bit pissed. So I had to rip the yak apart, get into the drybag and fish out another tube, a brand new one. By this time I was having the jeepers about putting in a brand new tube – in a tire where I never found out where the flat came from. Pumped it up. Seemed to hold, and I made sure to underinflate this puppy. Started to put the wheel back on the bike, and the front end, weighed down with a handlebar bag and front panniers, was just going spastic on me. So I yanked off all the luggage to get the front end under control. Then I came to find that there is a small washer that had to go right up against the axle and not the fork to get the disk to sit perfectly in the brake calipers. Must have taken me another 10 minutes to figure that one out.
So got the wheel on, luggage put back together, and the yak hooked back onto the bike and I got going, pedaling on pins and needles just waiting for the rear tire to begin to go flat again. And like every mile I kind of bounced up and down on the seat to see if the rear wheel was going gooshy. Thirty minutes in on new tube, bounce up and down – ok. One hour in on new tube, bounce up and down – ok. Two hrs in on new tube, bounce up and down – ok. By then I figured that at the very least I could just pump the tire up a couple more times during the day to get me through the ride without taking the whole shebang off again.
Now Charlie had warned me about this route, saying that Rt 98 was slightly hilly and that Rt 39 was REALLY hilly. Hell, I had told him, I’d already ridding through mts in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and the heinous mts of Eastern New Your, can’t be that bad. Besides, my alternative choice was to ride the fairly flat Rt 20 right into Buffalo – and that inner city riding was exactly what I did NOT want to do after experiencing Albany. So I went with 98 and 39. Figured I take my chances with hill any day as apposed to riding through a cluster &%$# in the city of Buffalo. So by the time I got to Arcade, the jcn of 98 and 39, things had gone pretty well with respect to the hills, nothing really that bad, and all middle ring climbing. What I did have to negotiate another day of Mr. Westerly headwind. And let me tell you, doing this trip into the wind as apposed to last year’s trip with the wind….it amounts to an easy 2 mph LESS. And that adds up for sure over the course of hours and days on the road. This riding into the westerly is definitely a chore!!
So I changed over to Rt 39 in Arcade, and it seemed pretty sweet, and I remember Charlie saying: “there’s a couple of MANLY climbs on 39, but you’ve climbed mountains so you’re probably good.” As I was riding through Arcade I was thinking of that and wondered if maybe Charlie, being a bit of a novice to cycling, thought those hills were rather nasty for him. Me, hell I’m a seasoned vet! Yup, until I got to the climb out of Arcade – a total quad crusher, a little cookie nasty that just went out of sight, much reminiscent of those killers I did on Sunday east of the finger lakes. I mean this thing had me in my easiest gear out of the saddle.
Charlie…….you were right!! And that was the tone for all of Rt 39. It became my nemesis, my torturer, my adversary, my enemy. This road was just unrelenting with it’s little cookie climbing. Couple that with the headwind and it was another day of literally creeping along at just around 12 mph for an average. Next killer climb was in Springville, just tortuous! I tried to focus on the beautiful countryside around me, but the relentlessness of the climbing outweighed the scenery. By that time I was pretty sure that the rear tire was good to go, so I didn’t have that to focus on amidst the climbing hell.
And I was thinking that I was nearly 1000 miles into this trip, and I’d been climbing my ass off from mile one! Made the first month of Canada, the Rockies and all sound tame. I know it sound goofy, but man the climbing out here is just incredible. My legs were aching and my back and shoulders are just trashed from standing out of the saddle or hunkering down in the saddle for all this climbing. So I was really looking forward to hitting the flats of the Lake Erie region. And then I got to Gowanda, where the most amazing session of mental and physical torture began. Started with a 3-mile little cookie climb in the easiest gear, which then graded out to another 4-6 miles of climbing up a long gradual in the middle ring. Like it seemed that I was climbing to the top of the world for God’s sake, just one false flat after another.
I just kept thinking that the top was near, but it kept going on. Finally I got to the top of that monster and I saw Lake Erie. Yup, I saw it alright, but it looked to be some 5-10 miles off in the distance. And in my gut I realized that the climbing was far from over. Yep, I had 3 more little cookie climbs as that *&^*^$#%^$# Rt 39 rolled up and down towards the lake. A couple of time I just yelled out in exasperation as I saw another climb looming in the distance. Total count on the little cookie climbs on 39 was like 6! Finally topped out and then did a really long, gradual descent down towards the lake, taking me past miles of vineyards. By the time I reached Rt 20 west I was elated to be finished with the climbing.
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