The ride was on a quiet rest stop off Route 7, just north of the old Springs Restaurant. About 12 potential showed up, in a light sprinkle. Thirty percent chance of rain and it's on the ride, figures. Of course Duke road up from Pittsfield and got soaked. A lot of folks offered him a ride, but the intreped biker he is, he refused.
You know, I was surprised that only 12 folks showed up. I was sure that there would be at least 60. Especially after that wonderful article in the news paper about our Hero's, Shaun, John Y. and Rev Rick. If you didn't see it go online and check it out. Very nice story about tourning rides that BCA offers. Almost made me want to be come a ride leader..................Nah!
Ok, on with the comments about Thursday night. While we were waiting for Duke to Swim in, we noticed about 10 signs posted, "Any Cars Unattended for more than 30 minutes will be Towed."
Wait, what's the deal? We will be gone for at least 90 minutes, are our cars going to be here when we get back? Just who the heck set this ride up anyway? Shaun of course and he wasn't here. Oh I get it, his car won't be there to be towed. The bottom line to all of this was that it was the fastest ride I've ever done. I wanted to make sure that the first car towed was the ride leaders. Fortunately the cars weren't towed. Shaun you are so lucky. How would the BCA pay for the towing fees???? Shaun, when challanged about his logic of parking in a no parking zone, logically said they can't tow them all so there was safety in numbers. Oh yeah Shaun, your number wasn't there!!! Good thing they took pitty on us bucko!!!Oh and a couple of small things, notice the warning about Poison Ivy? Well that certainly discoraged any potty stops at the rest stop. Some rest stop, get your car towed and poison ivy at same time. Great!!! Oh did I tell you about the two major climbs right out of the turn on the road? I didn't? Just let me say that Neils (lets climb Outlook) Wells and Shaun's name will be mentioned in the same breath as lynchings of ride leaders.
OK on to the the ride d'Jour, Red Rock.
The ride started at Stop and Shop with 14 riders. You can see from the photo that it was bit nippy. Jim Creer, debated to go as the Getto biker, if you've seen Jim's hair cut you would know why he wore the hood.
There were 14 riders starting, well I think there were 14. Do you have any idea how hard it is to count riders, esp when they keep changing clothes, sweatshirts on, sweatshirts off, arm warmers, no arm warmers. Jeez, stay still!!! Finally Shaun helped me count, Dudly, John C, Alissa (who? The following picture is Alissa, so if you see her in yarn shop say hello.)
Jim C, Nicky C, Pete, Paula, Deb McI, Glenn, Duke, Willy, Scott L., Shaun and me, Bryan. After spending 5 minutes counting, we figured it out and were ready to go. Well not quite ready. Seems like when rides are posted as 10:30 people think that 10:30 is the time they show up. No, my intreped readers, 10:30 is the time the ride starts, not the time you put shoes on, pump your tires, change clothes, etc. People showing up late make the ride longer and Pete has to get home to his eBay business and we certainly don't want to hold that up. Do I sound bitchy with this, I don't mean to be, well maybe I do.. humm, maybe I should be fired as chief blogger. But after all I don't want Pete to miss a sale.Finally the ride headed out Dan Fox Road, 50 miles planned, on a beautiful sunny day. Thank you weather woman.
The ride went smoothly until we reached 41, where Petes mirror fell off. No problem fixed in a jiffy and we continued down rt 295. ( I sense another eBay purchase in the offing. Wonder how much a mirror is?) What a great down hill rt 295 is. At the bottom of the hill we regrouped and decided who was going to do the 50 or the 25 that Shaun thought he would do. Five folks decided on the Shaun option (more on their experiences at the end of the chapter.) they turned at Queccy Lake and headed out to Rt 22 down to Rt20. Pete was going to go with them, but at the last moment he changed his mind. After you read this story, I don't know what he was worried about, he about killed me at the end of the ride, I couldn't keep up with him.
Those of us that were demented enough to want to spend the day on a bike, continued to NY RT 5 where we climbed up and over to the intersection of Frisbee street. There Duke and Dudly ranted over which route to take. Ahh old times, Duke arguing with somebody about the routes. Frankly, I didn't care I was just dreading the climb ahead. In this case Duke pervaled and we started climbing Rt 5 OMG!!! It was brutal!!
It took a while but we finally met at top. Ate, refreshed, and talked about the climb.
[ You will notice in this picture, that Glenn doesn't have a cell phone in his ear. One of the few times in the whole ride.] Speaking of refreshing; do you know that according to Glenn that if you get caught peeing in public you can get arrested for 3rd Degree Sex Offender. Chirst. You talk about being able to hold my bladder for the rest of the ride, that was motivation. I had to take a chance though and found an unused building. Probably To Much Information, but jeeze, I couldn't make another 30 miles.. whew!!!!The downhill on Rt 5 was a hoot, and it was down hill to the Red Rock. Shaun told me to tell everybody the history of the rock. What the heck is the history of the rock Shaun? Where are you when we need you? Instead of history we got a lot diverse comments.
The discussion started focusing on the oblisk on the top of the rock. It was a stimulating discussion. If you note on the picture of the Oblisk it was erected in 1865. This prompted many comments about the length of time of the erection and further comments on who said they didn't have viagra in those days. All very humerous discussions and very funny. It was hard to continue the ride with the frolicking going on. As much as I'm the serious type, I too, got caught up in the banter.
I do want to pass on one thing to my readers though. I have a Dr friend that I questioned on what happens if an erection lasts more than 4 hours. Remember the ads state that if you still feel the impact longer than 4 hours, go see a Dr. So I asked her what the Dr does. Well readers, they cut blood vesals to relieve the pressure!!! OMG, if I ever thought of Viagra, I've decided that I will turn into a Monk first. Sorry about this readers, just thought it was interesting.After I collected my wits from this sassy talk about the Oblisk, I caught up with the rest of the group and climbed up to rt 295. It was a small Chatham at the intersection, which we crossed to head down to Old Chatham, OC. The crossing wasn't without some danger though, poor John C. fell over. Don't you hate those pedals John? I'm glad your OK though. The important part isn't you though, it your bike. Is it ok?
The OC store is a very up scale country store, I can't afford to buy anything there. Besides why would I want to, it doesn't have any Table Top Pies. Even so we stopped to rest there. When I questioned the choice of stop the group declared that this years crew are a different level of bikers, we don't stop at Stewarts for Pies, we look for upclassed country stores like Old Chatham. Jeeez..
I wonder if the group noticed the number of people that ignored us, many with riding boots, a true measure of friendly folks. Even so, it was a nice stop, John C got some water and we filled our bottles and took off on Rt 13 to find Rt 20, the last climb. It was a grat back road, I don't think a car passed us, rolling hills, spring flowers, frolking horses, and barking dogs (chained), wonderful. We traveled over I 90 for the 3rd time and 5 miles later ended up on Rt 20. Once again we regrouped so Dudly and Duke could argue over routes. Dudly wanted to do Rt 9, which paralled Rt 20. The only problem is that Rt 9 is hillier than my stomach. Holy Catfish Dudly what are you thinking.. I'm exhausted from climbing and your looking for more hills, even Glenn thought you were crazy. After some lively discussion about male bike shorts and what goes in them and who has them, sanity prevailed, we went Rt20.
On Route 20 Pete started Zooming. What's up with that Pete? You said you had a sniper program on eBay and didn't need to get back; I'm doing 19 mph and couldn't catch you. Didn't you realize the Rt 20 climb was ahead. Finally I gave up trying to catch up and slowed down to 15 mph and just Turtled into Stewarts, enjoying the day.
I finally caught up with group at Stewarts, yes Stewarts. Dudly stopped there to regroup. Funny thing was, nobody went in. Even though they had bathrooms, nobody went in. I guess I'm writting off Table Top ride stops. Darn!!!
It was here that Willy asked me if there was a map for this ride. I almost died laughing, this is a Duke Ride, there never is a map, JUST RIDE!!! Newbies.. I love them.
The climb up 20 was nasty. It was demorializing too, ever looked at the cyclometer at the bottom of a 3 mile climb and see that you are only doing 3 mph?? Well I did and it was depressing. Fortunately I didn't do 3 mph the whole ride and met up with rest of group at the top some time later.
The rest of the ride was uneventful and we made it back to Stop and Shop with no other items of interest. We were all focused on getting back. The following picture is of Paula, I think it says it all about our ride.
Other Topics
What happened to Shauns Group?
The other group made it back nicely. Shaun reports that Rt 22 from East Cannan to Rt 20, is rough. All did the climb up 20 with no problems and they experienced the same issues with the loose rocks on the down hill. They did 28 miles, good ride guys. We ended up with 48.8, except for Chaves, who looped the hotel a couple of times to get 50.1. Rookies!!! :)
Anybody ever heard of Chamois Wax??
I have a side story that has nothing to do with ride, except cause and effect. Yesterday I was in Competitive Edge Shopping for birthday presents for Son who just bought Trek 2.2. I was talking to the sales lady about bike shorts and chamois' and how I hate them getting wet. She referred me to a jar of Chamois cream that you spread on your Chamois prior to the ride to prevent chaffing, wet or dry. I thought, I've been riding for 7 years and who needs a jar of this, after all it was $20. Well I will say no more, but if any body has any feed back on this please let me know if it's worth it. When I can next walk I might go get some.
What to wear, Wear?
Finally is there a dependable site on the proper attire for biking, shirt, shorts, etc. I would like to determine if I'm properly dressed witout having to discuss it with my peers, I do get embarrassed you know. I can see it now.. "Shaun, what kind of underclothes do you wear under your shorts? Or do you wear any?" I don't think I can do that with the seriousness required to have a grown up converstation. After all I am only 59.5 years old. And frankly I can't see me having this discussion with Tom M at Ordinary. I could be there hours trying to figure out how underwear got us into a discussion about city hall.
LIFE IS GOOD.. Thanks Duke another Great Ride. Can we do Twin Lake later in June? And good seeing you again this year Alissa. PS sorry about spell check, keep getting fatal error so I said screw it and published anyway.
Finally a friend that watched with disbelief our climb into Old Concord, NY.
1 comment:
Post a Comment