Great Finger Lakes Bicycle Tour

June 8-10, 2007



Jane and I have done the "Great Finger Lakes Bicycle Tour" every year starting with 1999. It occurs the second weekend in June and starts Friday afternoon when you arrive at the Watkins Glen State Park Hidden Valley Group Camp and set up your tent. (Or, you can put your sleeping bag on a bunk in one of the cabins.)

Late Friday is a dinner and Saturday morning there is breakfast. There is often a short ride Friday afternoon. Saturday there are different rides to choose from followed by dinner Saturday night. Sunday there is a breakfast followed by a choice of rides, breaking camp and departure.

The rest of the story is in the pictures below.


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GFLBT 2007 Our van and trailer with the tandem trike and regular bike ready to go Friday Morning, June 8, 2007. GFLBT 2007 Part of our camp at the Hidden Valley Group Camp in Watkins Glen State Park on Friday afternoon.
GFLBT 2007 More of our set up at the campground. GFLBT 2007 Some riders getting ready to ride Saturday morning.
GFLBT 2007 More riders setting out Saturday morning. GFLBT 2007 The sponsor of a great weekend! Thanks!
GFLBT 2007 I study the cue sheet Saturday morning after breakfast. I decide on a modified "Augie's Ramble" to the Windmill. I'll ride from camp down to Watkins Glen and then ride on 14 along Seneca Lake and pick up the cue sheet when the route goes on 14 for a short distance. GFLBT 2007 I'm ready to ride.
GFLBT 2007 There's a steep climb to get out of camp and then this road leads to a steep downhill into town. GFLBT 2007 I ran into Karen and ??? in town. Karen had started out with Wilf and ??? to do the Four Falls Tour, but ???'s freewheel pawls broke (or something-the cogs would spin without turning the wheel), and Karen had come back into town with him where he got his car. So Karen and I rode together for a while. She had her folder. Here she found a photo-op!
GFLBT 2007 Seneca Lake over the hill. The morning overcast is clearing up. GFLBT 2007 Karen decided she'd rather go around the lake than go to the Windmill, so she took off after a while. We've been in this area so much, we don't really need a cue sheet!
GFLBT 2007 The Windmill is an Amish flea market. I had lunch there and wandered around. These dancers were putting on quite a show! GFLBT 2007 It turned into a beautiful day!
GFLBT 2007 More of the countryside on Saturday afternoon. GFLBT 2007 Making one of the last turns before getting back to camp.
GFLBT 2007 Dinner service Saturday evening. There are dinners provided Friday and Saturday evenings and breakfasts on Saturday and Sunday mornings. GFLBT 2007 After dinner we had fun giving test rides on our tandem trike. Here are Paula and Carlo, an upright tandem team that we met on the first FANY ride in 2001. We hadn't seen them in perhaps 5 years - it was good to see them again.
GFLBT 2007 Pat and Joe's daughter (whose name I've lost) gets in the captain's seat while Lonnie, part of an upright tandem team with Don, gets the stoker position. We met Pat and Joe on the Erie Canal ride in 2000. This is the first time we've run into them since. Unfortunately, we don't seem to have a photo. GFLBT 2007 They're underway!
GFLBT 2007 Jane was a good sport about being a stoker when a guy wanted to be captain. The captain's position is set to fit me and the stoker's position fits Jane. Changing the seat to pedal distance involves changing the length of the chain, so it's not trivial, although I did build a tensioner that can take up the slack in the connecting chain when the stoker's seat is moved. It's still not an instant operation! GFLBT 2007 They're back!
GFLBT 2007 There was musical entertainment! GFLBT 2007 Another test ride. I forgot to tell one fellow about the parking brake (not in a picture). It's a big rubber band around one of the brake levers. He wondered why it was so hard to pedal.
GFLBT 2007 Jane sets off with Ray. The trike has a fairly big turning circle so U-turns required going on the grass. GFLBT 2007 Ray and Jane return.
GFLBT 2007 Jane gets another ride! GFLBT 2007 And yet another ride!
GFLBT 2007 Sam and his older son tried it out. They normally ride an upright tandem. GFLBT 2007 Pretty soon Sam's son started giving all the test rides - we had a hard time getting the trike back!
GFLBT 2007 Anna (a good friend who we met on the first FANY ride) and I go for a ride. I think she got the full treatment, up the steep hill out of camp and then coast back down at up to 47 mph! GFLBT 2007 Karen and Ginny planned to do a test ride, but there was a problem with the left front crank, so that ended the trike fun for the day.
GFLBT 2007 In fact the crank was about to fall off! I must have screwed up when I swapped out the regular crank for the stoker freewheel crank (almost a year ago!). In any case, I had all my tools and was able to fix it so Karen and I could ride it around Lake Keuka on Sunday as planned. GFLBT 2007 On Saturday evening, Paul gave his world famous bike clothing fashion show/striptease!
GFLBT 2007 Jerseys for all occasions. GFLBT 2007 Test patterns to make drivers wonder what's going on.
GFLBT 2007 It's not in the photo, but I believe a character on the front of this jersey is giving a one-fingered salute. GFLBT 2007 No animals were harmed to make these bike tights (at least I don't think so).
GFLBT 2007 Coordination is the key! GFLBT 2007 In case you flunked anatomy and physiology!
GFLBT 2007 Green shorts! GFLBT 2007 Glow in the dark shorts and a tie-dyed jersey!
GFLBT 2007 Hmm... No chamois, so this must be his recumbent outfit. GFLBT 2007 On Sunday, the most popular ride is a "remote start" loop around Keuka Lake. You drive your bike to a parking lot in Hammondsport, loop the lake, and drive back. There are big hills between Hammondsport and Watkins Glen! Here a rider is leaving the parking lot.
GFLBT 2007 The parking lot is actually for access to a beach and dock. Here's a small dock. GFLBT 2007 A cruise ship docked in Hammondsport.
GFLBT 2007 Karen's ready to go. GFLBT 2007 We tended to pass people on downhills and get passed on uphills. Karen's pretty thin, but even so, our total weight is over 400 pounds.
GFLBT 2007 We took a break after about 10 miles. GFLBT 2007 Another beautiful day in the Finger Lakes Region!
GFLBT 2007 The corner where we turned in Branchport was a popular rest stop. GFLBT 2007 Near the end of the loop we stopped at the Switzerland Inn for lunch on the deck overlooking Keuka Lake and ran into some other riders. Here are ???, Augie, and Karen.
GFLBT 2007 This family's getting ready for a Sunday afternoon cruise. GFLBT 2007 Karen thought I should be in a picture, so there I am with ???, Augie, and ???.
GFLBT 2007 The GPS tracks plotted on a topo map with GPSVisualizer. Sunday's ride is the clockwise loop around Keuka Lake and Saturday's ride is the counterclockwise loop between Keuka and Seneca Lakes. GFLBT 2007 The altitude and climb profiles for Saturday's modified Augie's Ramble.
GFLBT 2007 The altitude and climb profiles for the Lake Keuka loop on Sunday. The one small hill is where we cross from the west branch to the east branch, from Branchport to Penn-Yan.