Ride distance: 89 miles; ride time: 5:56; cumulative distance: 3,751 miles; average speed: 15.0 mph; calories: 5763; ascent: 5943 feet; descent: 6785 feet. Today, we’re back to rain. It was raining or drizzling pretty much the entire day. We left Newcomb shortly before 8 a.m. dressed in our wet weather gear. We had a bit of a mix-up at lunch time. We planned to have lunch before we took the ferry across Lake Champlain. Four of us followed the route on our map and stopped at a picnic shelter at a city park in Ticonderoga, New York about 2 miles from the ferry crossing. The rest of the group followed signs to the ferry following a different route 
and went directly to the ferry crossing. The group at the ferry ended up riding back to the park since there was no covered shelter at the ferry crossing and it was raining. We had our lunch and arrived in Vermont shortly after 2 p.m. We were soon to find out that our hardest climb of the trip was ahead of us. We took an alternate route to Rochester since the heavy rains this summer washed out roads and bridges on our mapped route. We ended up taking Highway 73 which went over Brandon Pass. The climb to the pass was about the steepest hill I’ve been on for that distance of climb. The hill seemed to go on forever at slopes reaching 16%. Much of the climb was at 12% which is steep for cyclists, particularly when the slope continues for a long distance. Paul Bayfield, Zack and I managed to make it to Rochester shortly after 5 p.m. I was proud of the rest of the group because they all made it over that steep hill. The last riders arrived around 6:40 p.m. and we were taken to our host homes. Stuart and I are staying with Dan and Peggy tonight. Dan is a fisheries biologist with the U.S. Forest Service and Peggy is a counselor. Since I used to work for the Forest Service, Dan and I had lots to talk about. We finished the evening by watching the Olympics on TV.
and went directly to the ferry crossing. The group at the ferry ended up riding back to the park since there was no covered shelter at the ferry crossing and it was raining. We had our lunch and arrived in Vermont shortly after 2 p.m. We were soon to find out that our hardest climb of the trip was ahead of us. We took an alternate route to Rochester since the heavy rains this summer washed out roads and bridges on our mapped route. We ended up taking Highway 73 which went over Brandon Pass. The climb to the pass was about the steepest hill I’ve been on for that distance of climb. The hill seemed to go on forever at slopes reaching 16%. Much of the climb was at 12% which is steep for cyclists, particularly when the slope continues for a long distance. Paul Bayfield, Zack and I managed to make it to Rochester shortly after 5 p.m. I was proud of the rest of the group because they all made it over that steep hill. The last riders arrived around 6:40 p.m. and we were taken to our host homes. Stuart and I are staying with Dan and Peggy tonight. Dan is a fisheries biologist with the U.S. Forest Service and Peggy is a counselor. Since I used to work for the Forest Service, Dan and I had lots to talk about. We finished the evening by watching the Olympics on TV.
1 comment:
Nice job getting over the hills!
Post a Comment