We are at Day 3 and about half way done. Along the way we notice many things. Here are some observations:
* there are roads out there that are worse than Chester County and tar and chip can use bigger stones
* any WCCC rider can do this ride. The hills may be longer but they are not steeper
* there are very few cyclists on the roads (we only saw 2 - one per day - in the 230 mile ridden)
* Texas isn't the only place where pick up trucks dominate the roads
* PA Bike Route L is very well marked
* the people we spoke to think this ride is both impressive and a great idea. They love that this is helping the SPCA
* not many loose dogs on the road
* there is a lot of diverse landscape including cities, towns and villages but mostly there is a lot of forest and farm land
* having supportive families is great!!
Thanks, Viktor
At the NY/PA Border
Whitney Point Friend:
We met up with Tim Hanna a cyclist with Soutern Tier Bike Club. He braved risky weather to ride with us. Thanks Tim!
Here's a link to other pictures Tim took.. www.timhanna.net/SPCA
As you can imagine, taking the photo is much easier than annotating and emailing for the blog, so here is the first of several photos from today, day 3.
This photo is of us at Whitney Point with the local high school in the background. The photo was taken by Tim Hanna, a rider from the Southern Tier Bike Club (STBC). STBC is based out of the Binghamton area but they tend to ride north of that city because the roads and scenery are so exceptional. We must agree. Today was one of the easiest rides, not just for this trip, but ever. The roads had huge shoulders to ride on and they were very well maintained. PA could learn from NY in that area!!
From Whitney Point, we rode with Tim for about 30 miles to Cortland and all along the way Tim took photos which we will be posting on the blog as soon as we get them.
This photo and the other similar one show that we were in Marathon, NY. We stopped by a famous landmark, Three Bear Inn, and if you look at the right side of each photo you can see the sign for the place. We literally stopped just for the photo with the bear and given that the SPCA is our charity in this ride, the idea of "adopting" this bear for the photos seemed fitting! http://www.threebearinn.com/History.html
Riding into Cortland.....
This is Kathleen from the Community Restaurant in Cortland NY where we stopped for lunch with our new cycling buddy, Tim.
More good samaritans: We are stopped because of a storm and are in a garage with Chad, Kayla and Emma in Preble, NY (about 20 miles south of Syracuse. Thank goodness for kind souls!!
Onandaga Nation: There are few places where you can get as exceptional a view as this. In truth it was several hundred feet down from the really spectacular view we originally saw but neither Mike nor I were going back up the hill for the photo. Maybe next year. For those wondering where this is, look for Syracuse and go south by about 10 miles south. When we finished the decent we were about 1100 feet lower than we started. Nice!!
Rain about to hit: If you look over the barn you will see the scary dark clouds that made us run for the Currie Farm house. What you won't see is the lightning or hear the thunder but we sure did! More photos show the sheets of rain and puddles after 5 minutes. The good news: by 20 minutes, we were back on the road.
Opening up of the skies: This picture does not adequately show just how heavy it was raining.Thank goodness for the kindness of the Currie's
Syracuse! As with each evening, we take photos of those we meet. Say hello to Sam from our hotel and Carrie from our restaurant.
It was a great 3rd day of riding and tomorrow we tackle the 125 mile trek to the border at Ogdensburg and the Watertown Daily Times with our reporter friend, Max Mitchell who is covering our arrival. I spoke to Max about the ride today for about 5 miles with my headset on. Very cool to have reporters at both the start and finish!!
Day 3 Observations
While Chester County, Pa has it's beautiful country-side, scenic farmlands and picturesque villages-Southern Tier New York has all that PLUS miles and miles of bike-friendly roads, wide shoulders and smooth macadam (for the most part).We are very impressed with the roads in this part of New York so far.
On a humorous personal note, Mike found that sweat, climbs and rain combine to make for good a chafing experience. He also found that walking into a drug store in full lycra is okay until you ask for diaper balm. When he got to the cash, there was an odd look on the cashier's face. "Don't ask...", he said.
While in PA, we saw 2 police cars. In NY,we saw 10 already but half of those were in Syracuse during rush hour. Incidentally, that is not a good time to ride through a city. In fact, it appears that all big cities seem to suffer from the same malaise - they are scarey and noisy and generally speaking the roads we followed were not in good parts of town. Those of us in little towns or rural areas really don't realize just how good we have it...
Rain can arrive very quickly. We saw several almost blue skies change to a thunderstorms in less than 30 minutes. Although we were certainly moving towards these fun situations, it is still very humbling to realize just how much Mother Nature can do to mess with you.
More later today - we may let you read about it in the paper if the Watertown reporter and photographer really do show up tonight for our big finish!
