| Before the Ride | |||
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A week before the ride (Friday, July 16), I broke my finger playing softball. I spent that evening in the emergency room and had an internal split put in. The splint was a wire that went through the first two bones and stuck out the end. The end was bent over (I suppose to prevent poking the eye out with the sharp end). I called myself "Captain Hook" or "Edward Scissorhands." The next Friday evening (the day before we were to drive to Niagara Falls), I caught the hook on something and pulled the splint right out. So I spent another night in the emergency room. This time I got an external splint and a prescription for antibiotics. I did the ride with my finger in the splint which had some interesting consequences: (1) I held the handlebars with a strange grip with my right hand. Towards the end of the first day, my right wrist was so sore that I couldn't operate the STI shift lever. I reached across with the left hand and pulled it. The next couple of days, I went to three speed bike mode - just shifting between chain rings and leaving the chain in the center cog in the back. By the fourth day, I could shift with the right hand again. (2) I couldn't pull on the handlebars very hard when pedaling uphill. (3) The splint did a number on my handlebar tape! |  |
Saturday, people arrived, registered, and camped at the Niagara Falls Golf Course (adjacent to the high school where previous FANY rides have started). The clubhouse restaurant provided dinner and breakfast the next morning. Here are some of the tents set up (not actually on the golf course, but adjacent grassy fields!). |
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Here are Katie and Jenn with the luggage truck. Katie drove one of the SAGs for a few days before she had to return to work. |  |
A better shot of Jenn in the luggage truck. In addition to carrying the luggage from one overnight town to the next, the truck hauled chairs, portable showers, propane to heat the shower water, etc. Jenn took good care of us! |
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Sunday, July 25 Niagara Falls to Brockport Cue Sheet: 88.0 miles, Odometer: 96.0 miles, Sunny with strong headwinds from the east. |
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The first day's ride went from Niagara Falls to Brockport. It was about 90 miles. (I got lost near the end and wound up with 96!) There were really strong headwinds whenever we were going east - about 60 of the 90 miles. About 30 miles into the ride, I took a break at the town of Olcott on Lake Ontario. I imagine the lake water is pretty chilly, but that didn't seem to bother this fellow. |  |
Here's another view of the dock from a lakeside park in Olcott. |
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A view of the park. |  |
Much later in the day, I crossed the Erie Canal (actually, due to being lost, I crossed it several times, but this was before getting lost!). |
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The first day was a long day! I left at 8:30 and arrived at 7pm. A number of people had put up the tent for Jane, so that helped! Here's part of the tent city at Brockport including our tent in the foreground. |  |
Here are Patti and her grandchildren, Zachary and Samantha. Patti's daughter Jaimie, drove an SUV as a "personal SAG" for Patti, Anna, and Annalise much like Jane drives our van as a personal SAG. |
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David, Karlo, Paula, Steve, and Jean at Brockport. In the background is the building which houses fire department activities (but not the actual fire department). A fund raising pasta dinner was served here which I was too late for. Instead, Jane and I went to the Brockport Diner in town. Fortunately we got there (remember, it's Sunday night in a small town in upstate New York) before they closed the kitchen, but we were the last ones . |  |
Joe replaces a broken spoke. Behind him and the picnic table are the portable showers. |
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Monday, July 26 Brockport to Waterloo Cue Sheet: 79.7 miles, Odometer: 77.8 miles, Rain. |
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Monday's ride was from Brockport to Waterloo. I got kind of a late start, finishing breakfast at Main Street Diner in Brockport at about 9:30. Shortly after I started, I took this picture - we still had headwinds! But about an hour into the ride, it started to rain and rained the rest of the day. The headwinds died down but didn't go away completely. I tried to keep my splint bandage dry by putting a plastic bag over my hand with a rubber band around my wrist. It worked for a while, but I sweated enough that pretty soon the inside of the bag was not just wet, but there was enough water that it could be dumped out! |  |
Nearing the end of the day's ride, I took a break at the gazebo (plus tent) in Geneva at the north end of Lake Seneca. On a sunny day, the lake would be a beautiful blue. |
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Monday night's campground was at Oak Island Park in Waterloo. A few people set up tents under the pavilion. |  |
Here, ??? and ??? stay dry under the pavilion. |
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In the community center at Oak Island, the Buzz Cats entertained. It tended to be 60s and 70s rock - that is, Golden Oldies! |  |
People also slept in the community center to stay out of the rain. A member of the band remarked it was the first time they had ever played for a slumber party! |
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Kaye, ???, ??? (seated), Wilf, Jane, and Robin listen to the band. The girl scouts had a fund raising dinner for the cyclists. However, it started at 5 and I didn't get in until about 6:30, so once again I was too late. But, Jane found us a hotel in Geneva, the Ramada Inn, so we didn't have to set up the tent in the rain. We wound up having room service in the hotel for dinner. |  |
??? and Paula enjoy the band! |
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Augie is oblivious to it all! |  |
That's Anna and Ed (me), Jaimie and Samantha, and Patti and Zachary enjoying the band. |
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Tuesday, July 27 Waterloo to Homer Cue Sheet: 69.5 miles, Odometer: 72.3 miles, Rain. |
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Tuesday's ride went from Waterloo along Lake Cayuga to Ithaca and then to Homer. It rained all day! This is Lake Cayuga, just after the route came alongside the lake.
Jane and I had breakfast at Connie's Diner in Waterloo, then returned to the Oak Island campground, for me to start riding. I had partially disassembled the bike and taken it to the hotel with us the night before, so I had to reassemble it. Of course, I didn't notice until after I started out that I had a rear flat. It turned out to be a small piece of glass. Kind of disappointing with the kevlar belted tires! By the time I got the flat changed, I was really late. I didn't leave until about 10:30. |
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About 9 miles before Ithaca, one could take a short detour to see Taughannock Falls. It was a steep climb, but I figured it would be worth it since all the rain would make for a lot of water going over the falls. Sure enough, the falls were spectacular. According to our cue sheet, they're 215 ft high.
Our route alongside Lake Cayuga overlapped the route of the Bon Ton Roulet and I got to meet several BTR riders. |
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The Commons in Ithaca. |  |
Once again, people camped under the pavilion to avoid the rain and a number of people set up their sleeping bags on the second floor of the Homer Fire Department. Jane and I stayed in a hotel again, the Hampton Inn in Cortland! |
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There was a fund raising pasta dinner, but I didn't get in until about 7:30, so once again I was too late. Instead, Jane and I ate in town. | ||
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Wednesday, July 28 Homer to Rome Cue Sheet: 71.8 miles, Odometer: 72.3 miles, Partly sunny, rain in the evening. |
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Wednesday, we rode from Homer to Rome. Jane and I had breakfast at Denny's and then she took me back to the Homer fire department to start riding. I got a much better start, about 8:30am and finished about 5pm. Here's Joe going by about 5 miles into the ride. I had stopped to take a picture of the valley in the other direction. Despite my keeping the camera in a plastic bag, I think it got wet. It couldn't decide whether it should be off or on. Sometimes when I took a picture it would just turn off and then turn back on. Sometimes it would take the picture, save it, turn off and then turn back on. Sometimes it acted normally. In any case, I think I lost the picture of the valley (and probably others that I don't remember) due to camera flakiness! |  |
Here are Bret and Tyler with a lemonade stand just before the last big hill on the ride from Homer to Rome. It never rained on me on Wednesday, although wet spots on the road made it appear that it had just rained sometimes. In the afternoon, the sun came out and it actually got hot! |
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Looking back down the last big hill on the way to Rome. I confess I walked part of this hill. Two years ago, I walked parts of five hills (I think three of them were on this year's route) on the way from Marcellus to Rome. So that's an improvement, right? |  |
The pavilion at Rome's Pinti Field and Tosti Pool. That's Marge walking towards the camera. The previous evening, we had noticed that the field around that night's pavilion was a morass. When you stepped on the grass you sank in. So even though it hadn't rained, we decided to get a hotel anyway. We stayed in the Quality Inn and had a nice dinner at Coalyard Charlies with Patti, Anna and Annalise. Just as we were leaving for the hotel, the sky opened up and there was a huge downpour and it rained most of the evening. We decided it had been a wise move to get a hotel for the third night in a row. |
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That's Karen, the FANY ride's originator and head honcho, talking with one of the locals. Every morning she left early to put up route arrows along the way. A good thing too, because some of the mileages in the cue sheets are just plain wrong! The Saturn was loaned by Saturn of Albany, one of the ride's sponsors. They provided another Saturn that served as a SAG wagon. |  |
Some of the tent city at Rome. |
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My bike and more of the tent city at Rome. In front of the locker rooms, you can see the portable showers set up. For some reason, there was a problem with the showers in the locker room and they weren't being used. | ||
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Thursday, July 29 Rome to Speculator Cue Sheet: 67.8 miles, Odometer: 68.2 miles, Foggy in the morning, then sunny. |
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Thursday's ride went from Rome to Speculator. It started off well. I got going early (about 6:40am) and after about 17 miles of riding through dense fog, met Jane at Sweet Basil's Diner in Barneveld, along with a lot of other riders, and had a humongous breakfast. After breakfast the fog started to lift and about 6 miles farther there is the overlook of Hinckley Reservoir. Here I am in front of the reservoir with the Adirondacks in the background. |  |
The reservoir overlook turned out to be a popular place. Here are ???, ??? and ??? along with a couple of SAG vehicles. |
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Elise gives water to a rider while others regroup. |  |
John comes up the hill. |
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Jim comes up the hill. |  |
Another group of riders collects around the SAG. |
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Hinckley Reservoir looking towards the dam. |  |
Some riders at the bottom of the hill. |
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Those riders have made it a little farther up the hill. In the foreground is the generator house on the downstream side of the dam. |  |
??? gets to the top of the hill. |
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Gary and Ann at the top of the hill. |  |
Well, the day started off well, but it deteriorated just after the Hinckley Reservoir. I noticed my rear tire was feeling mushy. Sure enough it was going flat. I had just passed a Citgo station and convenience store with some picnic tables in front, so I walked the bike back there to fix the flat. It was another piece of glass that had worked its way through the kevlar belt. I patched the tube and while it was drying I installed my second and last new tube. When I went to put the wheel back on the bike I discovered it was wobbling pretty badly. Closer inspection revealed a broken spoke. I recalled hearing a sproing the day before (or maybe two days before) and wondering if I had broken a spoke, but forgot about it by the next time I got off the bike. So I had been riding for one or two days with the rear brakes dragging! In any event, I had just purchased, a few days before the ride, some kevlar fiber fix spokes! So I installed one. Even though it was on the rear drive side, I didn't have to remove the cogs; it's easy to thread the fiber through the hole in the hub. After some playing around with a spoke wrench I got the wheel true enough that it was no longer dragging on the brakes. Off I went. Of course by this time, everyone had passed me and the SAG wagons were on the lookout for me. So about twenty miles later when I stopped to take a picture of the last big hill, Sue pulled up right behind me before I could take the picture! |
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Here's the hill and the valley behind without the SAG wagon! It's about 43 miles into Thursday's ride and I think it's the last steep hill (but not the highest point) before getting to the Bear Path Inn. |  |
After about 48 miles, there's Hoffmeister and the Bear Path Inn. I stopped for a burger, fries and beer. Here are Judy and Ronnie and in the background Annalise and Bruce. Bruce joined us for the Rome to Albany portion of the ride. He surprised me when I was working on my wheel back at the Citgo station. I think that's Patti just outside the door. She came in but didn't stay for lunch. Anna didn't stop. (In case you haven't figured it out, Anna, Annalise, Patti, and Bruce ride as a group. Anna and Patti are sisters, Annalise is Anna's daughter and Bruce is a friend.)
I took what amounted to a sponge bath in the Bear Path Inn restroom. I was filthy from working on my bike. I managed to get most of the grease off the skin and I rewrapped my bandage, so the dirty parts were on the inside (there was a piece of gauze between the wound and the bandage, so I figured that was OK). |
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Ronnie, Elise, and Judy. Elise is one of the SAG drivers. She came in to tell us we were last! (I was getting used to being last by this time!) |  |
Some of the tents behind the Lake Pleasant School in Speculator. Even though it was quite sunny and there was no rain, it was quite humid. (Recall we started with dense fog in the morning.) |
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More tents at Speculator including ours - the green and grey dome tent - and yes, we went back to camping after three nights of wimping out. Also, there's the ride pavilion and the luggage truck. |  |
Some people like to set up far away from the crowd! |
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People also set up in the school gym. The locker rooms here had nice showers. |  |
Jenna and ??? were decorating their helmets for the contest, but I guess they didn't trust me because as I walked over to take a picture, they hid them! Edwin is laughing about the whole thing.
By the way, Jenna and ??? gave me a hand setting up the tent way back on the first day in Niagara Falls (not that I needed a hand, but it was nice anyway!). |
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At Speculator, we posed for a group photo. Probably a little more than half the people were on hand for the photo. This is a large file since I left it at the full resolution of the camera. Later on there's a photo with numbers added and a key of names. |  |
After the photo, we were entertained by a local barbershop quartet (or maybe they're a beauty parlor quartet!). Anyway, they were quite good and we all enjoyed them. |
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Some of the riders in the audience. |  |
It was Augie's birthday, so we sang "Happy Birthday" for Augie. In the foreground are Anna and Samantha and behind them are Bruce and his daughter Hannah. I'm not sure who that is to the right of Augie, but beyond her is Jane. |
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Another shot of the audience. In the center, Jaimie entertains Zachary. |  |
More of the audience. |
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Still more of the audience. Ellen leans against the bricks while Elise sits just in front of her.
While this show was going on, a bear (we found out later) was wandering around on the other side of the school, pretty close to where Jane had parked our van. Annalise and other cyclists not attending the show shooed it away. Later, after all the festivities were over, Jane and I went to the Inn at Speculator for a nice dinner. In the middle of dinner, people jumped up and went to the window. I asked what was going on and they started talking about a bear. I went to the window and sure enough there was a bear rummaging through the dumpster behind the inn. Made us very cautious going to the van when we left! Later that night, as we were trying to get to sleep in the tent, dogs started yapping. Since the school was only 0.8 miles from the inn, we assumed that the bear had come back near the school. Eventually, the dogs quieted down and we assumed that the bear had left. It must have been Jane's fault because she was wearing her "Who let the Bears Out" T-shirt. |
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Reggie sang along with the quartet - ba ba ba boom! |
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David listens to the show on his faired recumbent. |  |
He sang a few country songs. |
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She's a student at the school and the daughter of one of the quartet members. She sang a ballad about a lighthouse and the sea. |  |
The decoraated helmet contest. ??? explains the theme of her helmet. |
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Jenna and ??? explain the theme of their helmets. |  |
All the contestants: ???, ???, Jenna, Patti, and ???. |
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The winners: ???'s helmet is a burning house, while Jenna's is the fire truck coming to put out the flames. (The FANY ride makes a donation to the firemen's retirement home.) | ||
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Friday, July 30 Speculator to Schuylerville Cue Sheet: 77.1 miles, Odometer: 75.8 miles, Sunny. |
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Early Friday morning before heading out to Schuylerville. Team Exactimundo. These three women were cycling self supported from Portland, Oregon to Portland, Maine. They happened to run into some FANY riders on Thursday and they spent the night in the gym at the Lake Pleasant School. They expected to be in Portland, Maine in four days. Seemed like a long way to go in four days to me! |  |
Friday morning, a number of us had breakfast at the Sunrise Diner in Speculator. Here are Chris, Jim, Steve, and Jean. |
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Paul waves. At the same table, clockwise, are Kathy, ???, and ???. At the nearer table are Augie and ???. |  |
Clockwise from Augie on the left are ???, ???, and Ellen. |
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Jane and Tom seem to be having a lively discussion. |  |
Later, another wave came in. At the near table are Bruce, Annalise and Anna. At the far table are Jaimie, Patti holding Zachary, and Samantha is hidden behind Annalise. Jane looks on from behind. |
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The ride from Speculator to Schuylerville was beautiful. The fog had burned off by the time breakfast was over and the first 30 miles was almost all downhill! There was a place where it was just me, the road, a valley and the tree covered Adirondacks. No utility poles, no cell phone towers, no cars, no trucks, no buildings. It was majestic; I didn't take a picture because there's no way the camera could capture that. Later on, the route paralleled the Sacandaga River and I took this picture. |  |
Well, the ride on Friday was not without its problems. About forty miles into it, the fiber fix spoke gave out. I had read (or thought I had read) that people finish their tours on them. However, the hub wore through mine after about 80 miles. So I removed the remains of the spoke and released the quick release on the rear brakes knowing that there was a bike shop about 25 miles farther on along the route. About 5 miles later, I was coming down a hill when I noticed what I thought might be a tick on my sleeve. I was trying to flick it off and not paying attention to riding. I went off the side of the pavement (perhaps a 5 inch drop at the edge of the asphalt). What I should have done is just go on off the pavement, stop, and get back on. Instead, what I did, more or less by instinct, was steer back to the left which caused the bike to try and climb the edge of the pavement. Somehow it made it up the edge without crashing. I really had to wrestle with the handle bars. I wound up in the middle of the lane but fortunately there was no traffic. Once everything was back under control, I noticed my front wheel was thumping, so I pulled to the shoulder (on the uphill) to see what was going on. It turns out I had knocked the front tire partially off the rim. The tube was pushing more of the tire off the rim and coming out between the tire and the rim. As I watched, somewhat mesmerized, the tube blew out: BANG! Paul and Kathy, who were a little behind me on their tandem at the time, got quite a surprise. Anyway, I had one tube left (the one I had patched the day before). The wheel and the tire were undamaged, so I replaced the tube and continued. I made it to the bike shop without further incident. I had the spoke replaced in the rear wheel, the wheel trued, and bought a couple more tubes.
The bike shop was on the outskirts of Saratoga Springs. I continued on into Saratoga Springs and visited the Olde Saratoga Brewery. Olde Saratoga is the beer sponsor of the FANY ride, providing beer on "non-school" nights. Thanks! At the brewery they were having tastings. From left to right are our host, ???, ???, Tom and Ed (me). |
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From the brewery, Tom and I got on 29 and went straight to Schuylerville, skipping the jog over to the Saratoga Battle Monument. Here's some of the tent city at the Schuylerville Elementary School. I'm going to put our tent up just this side of that blue tarp. |  |
Our tent, on the right, is partially pitched. It still needs the fly which is lying on the ground in front of the middle tent. |
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A fund raising BBQ dinner was served in the cafeteria. Once again, I was too late. Instead, Jane and I went into Saratoga Springs and after a couple of false starts wound up at the Inn at Saratoga for a really nice dinner. My entree was pork loin and for dessert, good old fashioned strawberry shortcake. Also that evening in Saratoga Springs was the "Hats Off" beginning of season street party. But by the time Jane and I finished dinner, it was approaching 10 pm, and all we wanted to do was get back to the tent and get to sleep. | ||
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Saturday, July 31 Schuylerville to Albany Cue Sheet: 44.7 miles, Odometer: 43.8 miles, Sunny with strong headwinds. |
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Saturday we went from Schuylerville to Albany. A number of us had breakfast at Mac's Diner in Schuylerville. Clockwise from David in the purple shirt are the members of Team Sweep: Jodie, Andrei, Kaye, and Richard . |  |
Clockwise from near left: Matt, Carter, ???, ???, ???, and Richard. |
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Ed (me) and Jane. |  |
??? and ???. |
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??? and ???. |  |
We had strong headwinds from the south for Saturday's ride. |
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After about 20 miles, we came to Mechanicville, where the fire department hosted a very nice rest stop for us. I got the impression from talking to these guys that not all that many riders stopped. They were probably anxious to get to Albany. |  |
The Albany skyline from the bike path along the Hudson River. |
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Here's Tony. On the first FANY ride in 2001, Tony drove the luggage truck for the first few days before he had to get back to work. This year, a slimmed down Tony is doing triathlons and rode the Schuylerville to Albany leg of the FANY ride. |  |
The official end of the ride: the Firefighters Memorial at the capitol in Albany. |
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???, ???, ???, and ??? from Texas were happy they finished the ride. Is the bicycle clean and jerk a Texas thing? |  |
Jaimie and Zachary and Patti and Samantha at the end of the ride. The headwinds are still blowing! |
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I made it, too. I think I was the last one. |  |
After disassembling the bike and loading it on the bike rack, we went to the Albany Pump Station for lunch. Here are Jane, Carter, Ellen, Heidi (almost invisible behind Ellen), Desmond, Samantha, and Patti. |
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Here are part of Patti, Jaimie, Anna holding Zachary, Rich, Joe and our son Jeff, who lives in Clifton Park (a suburb of Albany) and joined us for lunch. |  |
Patti, Jaimie, Zachary, Anna, Samantha, Rich and part of Joe. |
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Ellen (green shirt), Carter, Heidi, and Desmond. |  |
Bicycle jewelry: Ellen's bicycle earring. |
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Bicycle jewelry: Patti's chain ring earring. |  |
After getting everybody to the parking lot, train station, or wherever, Jenn (luggage truck driver), Karen (head honcho), and Sue (SAG driver) showed up for well deserved refreshments! |
| Group Photo and Name Key | |||
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Here's the group photo with numbers added. And, here's the key giving as many names as I know. It's currently an Excel spreadsheet but will probably become a text file after I know more names. If you know some names, be sure and let me know! | ||
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Maps and Altitude/Climb Profiles
I carry a GPS receiver with me. (This year a Garmin Vista.) Every evening I upload the saved track (includes time, latitude, longitude, and altitude) to my laptop. Below are the tracks overlaid on USGS topographic maps. These are done with GPS Visualizer a really nice web based program for dealing with GPS tracks. The altitude is crudely coded by the color of the track: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet, indigo from the minimum to maximum altitude of the day. The maps can be up to 3 Mbytes. The charts show the altitude and total climb as a function of distance. The altitude data are somewhat noisy, so the answer you get for the total climb depends on your algorithm. I use Excel and a simple minded algorithm to generate these plots. Typically I'm within a few hundred feet of what the GPS receiver computed. |
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The GPS track for Sunday, July 25, Niagara Falls to Brockport, overlaid on a USGS topographic map. I did a little wandering around in Olcott, and made a major wrong turn about and a mile and a half from the end. I think I started following the arrows to the hotel. |  |
The altitude and climb profiles for Sunday, July 25, Niagara Falls to Brockport. The plots and the numbers on the side are computed from the uploaded GPS track. The total climb reported by the GPS at the end of the day was 2500 ft. The distance recorded by my bike odometer was 96.0 miles. |
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The GPS track for Monday, July 26, Brockport to Waterloo, overlaid on a USGS topographic map. |  |
The altitude and climb profiles for Monday, July 26, Brockport to Waterloo. The plots and the numbers on the side are computed from the uploaded GPS track. The total climb reported by the GPS at the end of the day was 2903 ft. The distance recorded by my bike odometer was 77.8 miles. |
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The GPS track for Tuesday, July 27, Waterloo to Homer, overlaid on a USGS topographic map. You can see where I took the side trip to Taughannock Falls. Also, I went a block or two past a turn in Ithaca before doubling back. The altitude between Taughannock Falls and Ithaca is bogus. See the next caption for the explanation. |  |
The altitude and climb profiles for Tuesday, July 27, Waterloo to Homer. The plots and the numbers on the side are computed from the uploaded GPS track. The total climb reported by the GPS at the end of the day was 3516 ft. The distance recorded by my bike odometer was 72.3 miles. The steep climb beginning at about mile 33.5, is the climb up to the Taughannock Falls overlook. It was the same road going down, so the profile should be just as steep. But the altimeter went on the blink for about 8 miles. I got going really fast really quickly, in the rain, and I think the pressure vent on the GPS got water in it. The GPS unit uses a barometric altimeter that's corrected automatically over a long time scale (~20 minutes?) by the GPS altitude. With water plugging up the small pressure vent, the barometric altimeter went crazy. Sometimes when I was clearly descending it would should a gain in altitude and vice-versa. Several times I stopped and reset the altitude to the GPS altitude, but the altimeter would wander off again. After about 8 miles, the pressure vent must have opened up because the altitude started behaving sensibly again. However, the uploaded track contains the bogus altitude data, so the altitude between about miles 33 and 42 is not right and the total climb for the day is not correct. (I think it should be a few hundred feet more!)
The flat spot spot between miles 43 and 44 is in the town of Ithaca right at the Lake. I missed a turn that caused me to go a few blocks out of my way in Ithaca. There's a very long steep hill on the way out of Ithaca. I walked part of that, and also part of the hill at 49 miles (Freese Rd I think) and part of the hill at mile 58 (Lafayette Rd). |
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The GPS track for Wednesday, July 28, Homer to Rome, overlaid on a USGS topographic map. |  |
The altitude and climb profiles for Wednesday, July 28, Homer to Rome. The plots and the numbers on the side are computed from the uploaded GPS track. The total climb reported by the GPS at the end of the day was 3481 ft. The distance recorded by my bike odometer was 72.3 miles. I walked a part of the hill at mile 53. |
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The GPS track for Thursday, July 29, Rome to Speculator, overlaid on a USGS topographic map. |  |
The altitude and climb profiles for Thursday, July 29, Rome to Speculator. The plots and the numbers on the side are computed from the uploaded GPS track. The total climb reported by the GPS at the end of the day was 3270 ft. The distance recorded by my bike odometer was 68.2 miles. |
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The GPS track for Friday, July 30, Speculator to Schuylerville, overlaid on a USGS topographic map. I took the side trip to the Olde Saratoga Brewery in Saratoga Springs, then skipped the jog over to the Saratoga Battle Monument on the way to Schuylerville. |  |
The altitude and climb profiles for Friday, July 30, Speculator to Schuylerville. The plots and the numbers on the side are computed from the uploaded GPS track. The total climb reported by the GPS at the end of the day was 3387 ft. (At least that's what I wrote down; it appears to be a rather large discrepancy with what the plot shows.) The distance recorded by my bike odometer was 75.8 miles. |
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The GPS track for Saturday, July 31, Schuylerville to Albany, overlaid on a USGS topographic map. |  |
The altitude and climb profiles for Saturday, July 31, Schuylerville to Albany. The plots and the numbers on the side are computed from the uploaded GPS track. The total climb reported by the GPS at the end of the day was 2191 ft. The distance recorded by my bike odometer was 43.8 miles. |
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The GPS track for Sunday-Saturday, July 25-31, Niagara Falls to Albany, overlaid on a USGS topographic map. A really spectacular ride! |  |
The altitude and climb profiles for the entire ride, Sunday-Saturday, July 25-31, Niagara Falls to Albany. The plots and the numbers on the side are computed from the uploaded, concatenated GPS tracks. The sum of the total climbs reported by the GPS at the end of each day is 21248 ft. This includes the bogus data for about 8 miles after Taughannock Falls. The total distance recorded by my bike odometer was 506.1 miles. Altogether I had to walk parts of four hills. On the last FANY ride I did (2002), which had basically the same route except we went to Marcellus instead of Homer, I had to walk parts of 5 hills (all on the Marcellus to Rome leg). So I suppose there's been an improvement! |