kristingbridges
Today, we knew we couldn’t avoid the rain, but we still pushed off from our hotel with only our raincoats over our normal cycling clothes. We were not a thousand feet from the hotel and it started to rain some. We pulled over and zipped up the coats. Another quarter mile and the rain turned to heavy rain. We stopped on a neighborhood driveway and pulled out our rain pants and I grabbed my shoe covers. Unless it’s 90 degrees out, I don’t do wet feet. By the time we got down to the trail, I realized I needed to break in my new rain gloves. Wet hands make me feel like my grip could slip at the wrong time. Good thing I did. With all the gear on, the rain was entirely tolerable. It did make the trail more technically difficult. Crushed stone is a great choice for paths in general, but when it gets wet, the puddles can be very, very slick and the ruts in them can really pull your wheel.
After slowly slogging along the trail for a couple hours and only getting about 10 miles, we came into Newark. There was a shelter and across the street from that, there was a deli. We both got HOT sandwiches for the first time for a lunch on this trip and Brian spotted chocolate milk and I got a cold brew. We took it to the shelter, and pulled off our wet gear. Some of our layers under the rain gear had gotten wet before we got all suited up. I had put my second, heavier wool sweater on top in one of my panniers, so I pulled that out and switched it for my damp lighter wool sweater (we use a lot of Smart Wool and similar stuff). It felt A – MAZ – ING!
As we were packing up from lunch, we could see the sky, and the radar, were looking promising. I left the shoe covers off, but it was too early to shed all the rain gear. The trail got weird today. We are in the very marshy areas around Montezuma and we found some places where my older print map shows the off-road trails going through, but the signage sent us to bike lanes on the road. At one point, we thought, what if we followed that old path right there? We got 20 feet in, saw that it was almost completely overgrown with grass and we got completely covered in mosquitos immediately. Back to the road!
Most of the roadway (State Highway 31) was flat and nicely paved, with a wide bike lane. But unlike a real bike path, the only separation from the 55mph (or more) traffic, was a white line and rumble strip. At one point, it got very, very narrow and we got a close pass by a few rude drivers. Most drivers were pretty courteous, though. But we are glad to have our mirrors and our rear-facing radar. Before we pulled onto 31 the first time, we stopped and got all our rain gear off and stowed. Yay!
Going through one town, we found a little Menonite grocery and got some water, bananas and a fried pie. If you haven’t already divined, I like my pastries 🙂 I still have it, though, so that might be part of breakfast tomorrow.
Something else to know – I am not a good hill climber. We like these canal trails, railtrails, and river valley trails because the grades are not that steep. Now that this trail takes us out on a main road and away from the canal, bets are off on the climbs. The last 10 miles were my worst nightmare. Brian’s new cyclometer has % grade readout. We kept hitting big, long rolling hills. 4%, then 6%….. My muscles were holding out, but my knees were not happy. It didn’t help that our chains and gears were encrusted with basically concrete by now. That wet stone dust was in everything. My gears were sounding more like a stone cutter than a bike. Then we were only a few miles from our stop and we hit another hill. This one topped out at a 9% grade and was about a third of a mile long. Have you ever read about the studies that cussing can help manage pain? I can confirm. After slogging through over 40 miles of trails and 170 miles in the last 4 days, this hill hurt. I took it personally and kicked its butt! Brian fully expected to turn around and see me walking (it’s happened before). We celebrated at the top and he looked ahead on his cyclometer to see that it was downhill or flat the rest of the way.
The hotel was literally on our route. No navigating any city streets or anything. We actually celebrated again when we pulled into the motel parking lot in Weedsport (yep, that’s the name). The mosquitos here are horrible. Probably has to do with all the swampland, ya think?
Brian used the waterskin to “hose” off the bikes and chains, then he lubed them again. We’ve rinsed some of the dust off the bags and we have stuff hanging all over the room drying out. We’re hoping for smoother pedaling tomorrow. But we are expecting more rain. This time it should be later in the day, so if we get out early enough, we might miss most of it. But as soon as we predict something, we’ll be wrong, so we’ll just see what tomorrow brings.
Notable Wildlife:
Deer 3
Snakes – 2
Groundhogs – 2
Kingfisher – 1
Great Blue Heron – 3
Green Heron – 1
White Egret – 1
Lots of little fish that jump out of the water
Cormorants – many, but hadn’t expected them at all
Squirrels – all over the place
Ducks – lots, but I haven’t spotted anything I can confirm is something more exotic than a mallard
Gulls – soooo many
Canada Geese – too dang many!