Tag Archives: biking

Mohawk Towpath ride and new biking partner!

John is off visiting his family in Colorado this week, so I had to round up another biking partner for the weekend!  My sister and I do things together, usually at her suggestion, which has included things like the Becoming and Outdoors Woman, Camp N Pack – in freezing weather, ice fishing in gale force winds, etc.  Now it was my turn. A month or so ago, I asked my sister if she would be interested in doing a ride that was a casual 36 mile ride.  I wanted to give her time to work on the bike as she isn’t a biker.  She agreed and we decided to do the Bike the Byway, which was an organized ride that went along the Mohawk river with stops at historic sites of the Mohawk and Hudson rivers and the Erie Canal.

It really was a casual ride.  There were about 16 people on the ride.  We chose this for its casual pace seeing as it was Colleen’s first really long bike ride in a few years.  We had a lot of stops.  9 in all.  I will try not to put in too many pictures!

If you follow the canal, you could go to either place.  This used to be a railway stop as well.  We were about 6 miles into the ride here.

We were tooling along about about a 12 mph pace, which was really perfect.  There weren’t too many hills for the first part.  Of course, then I blew a front tire around mile 15 or so.  It had to happen, right?  It exploded, too, and scared people LOL!  I just pulled over and changed the tire.  Good thing I have experience with that….   Colleen said we should have taken a picture, but really, who wants to remember that?  I have plenty of flat tire pictures I could insert here  😀

Anyway, the rest of the group headed on while I changed the tire.  Then we caught up to them at the next stop, where there were refreshments waiting for us!

Cookies!  Plus lemonade and water.  We had stopped at one of the locks of the canal here.

 

At each stop, we learned about the history of the towpath and the Erie canal and how it shaped the towns in the area.  Pretty cool stuff!

We then went a bit further for a rest stop at a local orchard store.  The ride organizer had called ahead to see if we could use their facilities, which they agreed to.

This was the cutest place!

It was like a country store inside, too.  They served some type of food, but I am not sure what it was.  Definitely need to come back to this next time we are in this area!

The next stop was the Vischer Ferry Power Plant.  Lots of hydro along the Mohawk.

 

My sister works for the DEC and part of her job is making sure the hydro plants don’t hurt the fishies.  We were joking that she could have charged time for work stopping at all the hydro plants 😀

Next stop?

I love Vischer Ferry.  I would love to live here.  It’s a Greek Revival style town that was built on waterway traffic.  It’s so beautiful.

It was really starting to get hot and humid.  You can see how loose my helmet strap was getting. When it gets really wet from sweat, it starts to slip the buckle.  We had our protein bars here for some fuel.  It sure felt good to get back on the bikes and make some breeze to cool off.

We got back on the bike path for a bit and ended up at this little parking area.    This was around mile 28. Note the really dark sky in the background. Foreshadowing…

We had more cookies and drinks here.  Two really nice women had baked up treats for us and brought them to 3 of our stops along the ride.  How nice is that?  They packed up their car and moved the stuff around.  Me and my sis!  She was doing pretty well on the ride and she wasn’t hating me. She’s much taller than I am, too.

Shortly after we left this stop, we could hear thunder and then it started pouring!

It only lasted about 10 minutes, though.  Then it stopped and we hit the next point of interest.

How cool is that?  Of course, it came about because of the waterway.

Then we biked to where the Mohawk and Hudson rivers diverge.

 

They have a really nice promenade here.

 

It seems like more of our stops were all squished together at the end.  This ride actually took a long time because we stopped so much.

Our next stop was the Cohoes Falls.  Even though the water level was low, still very beautiful!

We were up above it all.  (more hydro plants)

Then we got back on the bike path and headed back to the starting point.  It was basically one large circle all around.  I know Colleen was pretty tired by that point, but she made it!

 

I am so proud of her for doing all 36 miles!  I hope I can get her to do more biking with us and didn’t scare her away 😀

 

Return of the cupcake ride!

Long ride on Saturday.  Finally! After me being gone at BOW and then weather playing a factor the last couple weekends, we were finally able to get in a long cupcake ride.  Pretty much a perfect day for biking.  Hardly any wind, sunny and low 80s.  We decided to head down after lunch.

We started off with a bit of a mishap.  I checked my tires and inflated them a bit more than usual.  Well, I was just standing by my bike in the driveway and *blam* – the front tube blew.  Scared the carp out of both John and I LOL!  Not totally sure if this is due to my narrow tires or cheap tubes (probably the latter).   I have 25 mm tires on my bike, which are very narrow for a hybrid.  I may go back to 28 mm with the puncture proof.  Anyway, we had to swap out a tube and then get on our way.

We scooted along at a pretty good pace.  John mapped out a bit of a different route for us to take to Saratoga.  Basically, we avoided the route 9 bike lane and skirted it on each side.  It was a nice traffic free ride.

Could the day be more perfect?  This was around mile 13.

This was a newly paved road, too, which is always nice to ride on.

We met up with another cyclist a few miles later.  He asked to borrow a  wrench if we had one to fix his seat.  Since we are prepared riders, John did have his little tool kit.

Hooray for good karma!  We had a bit of dried pineapple here as well since we were stopped.

At mile 24, we got into Saratoga and it was opening day of the track.  I was expecting it to be really crowded, but then I realized that everyone would be at the track, so downtown was lighter with the people today. Yay!  First stop was to check out a new bike shop that opened up.  How cute is this?

That is not a person sitting there, but a mannequin.  There is a secret garden courtyard on the side to rest in.

They are supposed to be having a cafe here, which would be pretty cool. Plus, there is some fun artwork.

Okay, now for the real reason to come down!

First, we had stopped to get some iced lattes because as much as I like Bettie’s, their drinks are very pedestrian.

We sat outside since we brought our own beverages.  My cupcake?  Samosa  – like the Girl Scout cookie!  Plus something called an Oreo bomb.  It was like a cake ball made with Oreos.

This cupcake was so good!  The Oreo bomb was pretty intense.  Really like Oreo fudge.  I think I will stick with cupcakes!

We filled up the water bottles and headed home.  We took our River road route back.  This route was shadier and just such a nice ride.

Around mile 36 we stopped for some refreshments.  I had frozen this so that it was nice and slushy by this time.

Plus we did some stretching, especially the hammies.

River road is really nice.  There is actually a house on the road for sale that we keep looking at.  John has a bit of a bee in his bonnet about it, even though we aren’t really ready to move yet.

This is a few miles from home. They are working on dredging the river.  GE polluted the Hudson with PCBs and finally after years of foot dragging, they are now cleaning it up. About frigging time, too.  Our little town is a Superfund site.  🙄

They dredge up the soil and then cart it away for disposal. They were actually working on a Saturday evening, too.

I was ready to be finished with the ride today.  It felt good, but a bit tiring.

Ride stats:

52.4 miles

Average speed 13.3 mph

Top speed:  32.6 mph (wheeeeee!!!)

Ride time: 3 hours 55 minutes

Calories burned:  1605

We got back pretty late for us.  After getting home, stretching and showering it was around 7 and we didn’t feel like cooking, so we walked up the street for some carbz!!

Yum.  It was such a nice day and a really enjoyable ride 😀  It’s nice to have a typical Adirondack summer day – and why we put up with those winters!

 

What’s in my bag?

Okay, just another couple days of heat and humidity and then a break, hopefully.  We get hot days here, but usually not so humid and I am a wilting flower  :mrgreen:

I was going to go for a ride this morning, but I couldn’t didn’t want to face the sweating under the helmet, so I just took a 2 mile walk instead before breakfast.

Tish asked more about the contents of my bike bag.  We each have a bag that attached to the back of the bike on a rack.  You can see those bags in this pic:

I can’t stand to wear a pack on my back while riding, so we loooove the Topeak bike rack system.  There are interchangeable components as well if we ever want to buy any of them.

The contents of the ride vary a bit depending on the length of the ride and where we are going.  For all rides short or long – this is what goes in the bag:

Phone/wallet, tube, pump, tire lifters.  Always have these (which I haven’t needed yet this season, knock on wood).

Longer rides get these things added to that:

Anti-chafe gel (I hardly ever use this, but you never know after 50 miles if you might want it.).   John also brings ibuprofen in a little jar in his bag.  Good to have on hand.

Bike lock – I hate carrying this lock because it is heavy, but when we stop for meals or walking, the bikes get locked up (not that a lock helped much in Montreal… ).

Sunscreen in my smaller container.

My hat for hiding my helmet head when we stop for meals/cupcakes/ice cream.  Gotta look pretty, don’t you know.

Various snacks like dried pineapple, dates, bars. Sometimes a whole lunch packed if that is on the agenda.

 

The good stuff:

 

Napkins are tucked in the side pocket as well, usually extras from when we have bagels, but you never know when you might use one at any other time.

All of this stuff makes the bag heavy – probably 5 pounds.  It is extra weight to lug along, but we don’t have a team car or sag wagon when we are out riding.

Something we ought to carry would be a tiny first aid kit or at least some band-aids.  I used to have a travel size bottle of hand sanitizer, but I cracked the bottle.

I normally just carry one water bottle and fill it up at stops, but when it is really hot or we are going out for a long time, I will bring the second just in case.  Yesterday I really needed it!

You do have to plan ahead for longer rides to think about water stops, potty stops, food stops, weather, timing (being back by dark later in the season).  It’s pretty second nature for us now and most of this stuff stays in my bag all the time.

Being prepared is a good thing 😀

30 humid miles

It was a *hot* weekend to go biking!  We were going to go down to Saratoga, but most of that ride is on open road and I didn’t want to be in the sun and heat for that ride.  So, we were going to try to hit up 40 miles closer to home on the paths.  The plan was to loop south and then turn around and go to the lake – with an ice cream visit tucked in there.

Ride prep: Bike checkup before leaving the house.  We always do a tire check.

Then pack the bags that go on our bag racks.  I found a good way to tote my sunscreen.  I have a large bottle and then fill a small jar that goes in my bike bag.

Saves space and much cheaper than buying travel size sunscreen – since I go through so much!  This is my 50 SPF.  Thick cream and greasy, as I have said before, but it works.

Two water bottles.  One for my water cage and one goes in my bag.

All ready to go!

We decided since it would be an ice cream ride that we would leave after lunch.  We should have thought through that a little more with 90 degrees and humidity.  🙄

The first part of the ride going south was on open roads and in the sun.  We had gone a few miles when I took the lead and John told me my bag was open in the back.  Duh.

No shade to be seen!

I made sure to take small sips of water often to avoid having a ‘water baby’ and have it sloshing around in my stomach.  I was sweating profusely by this time and the combination of my sunscreen coating and the humidity and I felt like I couldn’t get cool at all.  Uck!  Even my forearms were dripping sweat.  After 12 miles, we pulled off onto the 1-mile Betar byway  and into some shade so I could cool down.

I could have ridden this 1 mile stretch  30 more times and been perfectly happy.

After cooling down a bit, we continued on.  Back to downtown Glens Falls and then we hit the bike path there.  Again, I was starting to feel really hot.  Why were we biking at 2 pm?  I don’t know.  At mile 17, we stopped for a bit of dried pineapple and to cool down again.

Helmets off to cool off faster.  I never take my helmet off for short stops, but I did this day.

John has dubbed this spot “Decision Point.”  It is a section where the bike lane sharing the road becomes just path only.  This is just before the climbing stretch to get to Lake George.

With the heat and humidity, we decided not to do the climbs to the lake.  The heat was wiping me out and we didn’t want the ride to become a dirge.  So, it was time to turn around and head to Martha’s, which was a couple miles away.

Great Escape was full of people.  That tall thing is the Sasquatch ride, which does a free fall thing.  Not my cup of tea.

More my cup of tea was my sundae!

The scholarship sundae.  I had red raspberry ice cream, which was topped with raspberry sauce, hot fudge and cookie crumbs.

It’s almost as pink as my shirt.

My hair was soaked, as was my shirt.  I had gone through both bottles of water by this point and refilled both of them at Martha’s.

John had apple pie ice cream with caramel sauce.  Equally yummy!

A slight cloud cover began to form, which was nice as it made the rest of the ride not so meltingly hot.  We took the path home from here and then wound around a bit so we could get 30 miles in for the day.  That’s a good ride.

I kept sipping bits of water all the way home. I was all crusty from salt when we got back.  I felt like a personal salt lick.  Ewwww!

Ride stats:

Total miles:  30.7

Average speed:  12.5 mph

Calories burned:  908

Water bottles consumed:  4!

We have decided any time it is this hot to just get up early and go out for a ride and not plan any kind of lunch or ice cream.  That is why we went later and really hadn’t thought the heat would affect us so much.  It was more me than John, though.  I would have been better if we had not done the first part of the ride in the sun and gone straight to the path. Humidity and I don’t play well together.  At least we don’t get a lot of days like this around here.

Hopefully this weekend will be a Saratoga ride. I am wanting a cupcake ride!

Zim Smith trail and 72 miles

Saturday ride day!  John has been the route planner this year for our rides.  He suggested a 67 mile ride since we had done 62 last week.  Sounded good to me.  We had a nice relaxing breakfast and then headed out on our route.

Big loop-de-loop ride.  Packed up snacks, 2 water bottles (each), sunscreen, bike lock, tire repair stuff, etc.  I have to say, it really does make the bag heavy to have all this stuff, but thankfully it is on the back of the bike and not my shoulders!

Of course, one water bottle goes in the cage on my bike, but the other has to go in the bag.  I need a domestique to cart all this stuff for me.  We headed down to Saratoga and didn’t stop for a long time.  Almost thought about going all the 21ish miles without stopping, but then I didn’t want to bonk, so we stopped at mile 16 under what little shade we could find to have a snack.

This is along route 9 going south. Designated bike route with a wide shoulder.

It was very, very sunny – and warm!  We pedaled on down to Saratoga downtown. Mile 21.  John had a request for lunch.

Twist my arm… NOT!

That meant a good carby bagel for lunch!

We didn’t dawdle too long over lunch since we had a lot of miles planned for the day.  I put on more sunscreen and we headed back out. Our main reason for this route was to find the Zim Smith trail in Ballston Spa.  We went on this last year and it was a nice trail.  We found it around mile 30.

So much better than riding on roads.  It was actually quite uncrowded today, which was just fine by me!  Spring flowers blooming along the path.

Last year John got a flat on this path, but not today 😀

The trail crosses over the highway.  Glad we weren’t riding down there!

The Zim Smith trail is 8 miles long.  I was sad when we came up to this:

I also had a bit more to eat.

John decided we needed to find an ice cream place, and he knew of one that was not too far off of our planned route. Or so he said, anyway.  We needed to get into Mechanicsville.  It was going well until we came to some funky intersection with no stop signs or lights or street signs.  Right by this cool abandoned train station:

Couldn’t you imagine this all fixed up with a cafe and some cute gift shops in it?  It really is lovely.

It was time for a map check.  I had no idea where we were.

I am putting my trust in his mapping skills! I love when he says “If we find X street, we are golden.”  Big if LOL!

We did find find the street we needed and how could you not stop at an ice cream shop called Bubbles?  Mile  43.

They had hard frozen yogurt, which is not very common around here.  I got a couple scoops. One chocolate almond and one heath bar crunch.

The nice girl at the counter also filled up one of my water bottles and put ice in it!  I gave her a tip for that.  It was heaven to have ice water while riding.  I put a 3rd application of sunscreen on and we continued on.  This ice cream stop took us a little out of the way.  John said maybe a mile or 2.

The next chunk of riding was not very pleasant, I have to say.  There was a 6 mile stretch where the designated bike lane was torn up and we had to weave in and out of the car lane (where is is 55 mph).  Lori was so not a happy camper.  We tried to bike as fast as we could to get through that stretch.  Luckily it was not heavily traveled on a Saturday afternoon.  Never again on that road until it is paved!!

I was starting to get tired by this point.   We finally reached small town Schuylerville at mile 58.

That clunking sound?  That was me hitting a wall.  Looking at the mileage, it was going to be a bit more than a 67 miles ride.  Over 70, in fact.  I was hot and tired after that long stretch.   We drank water and had some more dried pineapple while resting, plus stretched the legs.

15 miles home, that was all we needed.  We just hit the road and kept pedaling.  I was afraid to stop because it would be hard to get started again LOL!  Going this way, the last 1/2 mile we had a choice of 3 different hills to go on.  Can’t avoid them like we can going a different way.  We both made it up the last climb.  If John hadn’t been in front of me, I probably would have stopped, but I figured if he was getting up the hill, I would.  Made it!

Ride stats:

Total miles:  72.2  (almost like running a marathon, thank you very much)

Average speed:  13 mph

Ride time: 5 hours 43 minutes

Calories burned 2100

We had protein drinks when we got home and the best shower ever!!

(my “that was a really long ride” face)

Doing this ride really solidified that I do *not* want to do another 100 mile day again.  I have done 2 and it takes so long and I don’t know what the point would be.  I like my 40-50 mile rides just fine.  😀

We went out for dinner and dessert after that.  I burned 3700 calories over the whole day and managed to take in about 3100, so I did pretty good as far as that goes.

Here is what the day looked like on my GoWear Fit.

Yeah, an active day LOL!

I hope this post comes through okay.  My blog is being upgraded to a new server, so hopefully that will solve some of the issues my blog has had lately.  If it goes down in the next day or 2, that is why.

Metric Century riding

Sunday was a day for riding.  We normally long ride on Saturday, but the weather forecast was iffy (turns out it would have been fine… go figure).  So, we decided to put in a lot of miles on Sunday.  We almost always bike to breakfast, but we also wanted to ride to Saratoga and then figured we would just do both 😀

We left the house around 7:40 a.m. or so to go to breakfast.  Nice and sunny.

You can also see the sorry state of our driveway as well.  We are just going to have it torn up and repaved instead of doing it ourselves.

We arrived at Coffee Planet and had a bagel with 2 cups of coffee and read the papers.

A nice relaxing breakfast.  We were putting in a lot of miles today, so there was a lot of relaxing going on.  We do things at our own pace.

John and I decided to pack a lunch and head down to Saratoga.  We had 11 miles of riding down at this point.

It was sunny, sunny, sunny today!  I slathered on the sunscreen.  Even with lots of sunscreen, I still get a little color, but it actually is light tan and not sunburn.  Not to mention a million and 1 freckles, which are supposed to be cute, but I am 44.

Here was mile 13 of the second leg (mile 24 overall).  Quick stop in the shade for a snack.  This is a dried banana.

Kind of looks like something you would see smooshed in the road, doesn’t it? It’s like fruit leather, only just banana with no added anything.  Talk about intense banana flavor!  I kind of liked this.  I do love dried fruit on rides because it doesn’t take up room in the tummy, but you get the fast carb hit.  I can’t stomach gels, so dried fruit works really well for me.

This part of the ride is farm land.  Really stinky today as well.  The farmers laid manure and had dragged it all over the road.  Whenever a car passed us, there was lots of manure dust.  Ever try to hold your breath while riding?  Doesn’t work very well.   😀

Lunch time in Saratoga at mile 34 on the day.  We stopped in Congress Park at the little stone tables.

My lunch, which was a cheesy quinoa (pintrest recipe!), plus a pear and coconut water.  (That’s a working carousel in the background).

My dining companion.

We also had other companions come by.

Too many people have been feeding these ducks (and heaven knows what they are feeding them).  They came right up to our feet.

Plus some babies!  So cute.

It felt good to rest and sit in the shade.  I was the sweat queen today.

After eating, we walked around town.  Thankful for this:

Downtown Saratoga is very beautiful.  Old buildings mixed in with new.  It is quite bustling now.

I saw these dresses in a window and loved them (the blue one the best).

I stopped in to see how much it was.  $378 for this dress – and it’s cotton!

It was time to use our Groupon for froyo!

Okay, I’ll take that off John’s leg and give you a closer look.

With 60 miles on the day, I got a lot of toppings 😳 I had 3 flavors of yogurt in there:  Cake batter, cookies and cream, red velvet cake.  My favorite topping was the cookie dough bites!

After sitting a spell, we headed on home.  I had put more sunscreen on because it was so bright and sunny.  I went through 3 bottles of water today on this trip and I ran out before we got home.  John gave me some of his as well.

This was around mile 42 ish?

Our usual stop point on the way home for some dried pineapple (and shade!!)  I think it was here that we decided to round up the miles from a 50 odd mile day to get up to 60 on the day.  We were both feeling strong.  No wind, which makes a *huge* difference in the ride.

The hills were much easier without the wind:

These calves were enjoying the sun as well.

We finished out the ride strong.

We ended up a little over due to the route we took.  Then John said we did a metric century today!  Woo Hoo!

Total Day Ride stats:

Total miles:  62.7

Riding time:  4 hours 44 minutes (total bike time)

Top speed:  31.7 – yay!!

Average speed:  13.2 mph

Calories burned:  1900 !!

Celebratory recovery drinks:

While I made these, John put on “We are the Champions” by Queen, which make me laugh out loud.  We are champs  :mrgreen:

Loaded up for dinner.  Burgers and lots of fruit.

I still need to consume a couple hundred more calories tonight. Such a problem to have.

Want to see what a day of riding 62 miles looks like?

That’s how you burn 1900 calories LOL!

Stop by for Monday night’s post.  It’s an anniversary post.

44 miles for 44 years

I had a great day yesterday!  I tell you, though, my email and Facebook exploded, which was cool – but overwhelming!

I had taken the day off, so I knew I wanted to bike ride, but not for how long.  Then Shelley mentioned that she ran 4.9 miles on her birthday and that I should do 44 miles on the bike.  I figured “why not?”  That is a normal good riding distance for me and I had the time.  I was just concerned about the weather cooperating.   It was 49 degrees when I got up.  (It’s June, right?)

Bundled up! I decided to let John sleep in a little bit before breakfast – earning Best Wife points – and headed out for a 7 mile ride.  I came back home to see if he was up (he was) and then we headed out for a breakfast bagel!  We biked to Coffee Planet:

Oat bran with cranberry walnut cream cheese!  It was weird being there on a weekday morning as this is our Sunday place.

We biked home and I left John behind.  I had 19 miles done already at that point before 10 a.m.!  I thought it might rain in the afternoon, so I knew if I wanted the rest of the miles, I better get them in.  I  packed up a few snacks and then headed out for some loop riding.  I went on some quieter roads:

With a snack:

Some downtown roads – which had too much traffic.  Midday weekday riding is something I am just not used to. (no pictures of that).  I tried to stay on quieter roads, though, and just have a nice “thinking” ride.

Then some path riding. I stopped for a long break at mile 35 to eat this Luna bar and enjoy the quietness of this place.

This is that 1 mile byway we recently discovered.

Then the last 9 miles home.  Not sure how I got it this exact without a planned route, but I guess I must have been a cartographer in a previous life or something.

Yay!

I am a cool 44 year old! 😀

John and I had to run out and get an extra cake for the evening.   Then I got a private piano concert:

I had requested 3 pieces that he play for me on my birthday.  Thanks John!

Then dinner time! My dinner of choice –

Local seafood place.  We don’t go here too often because it is a little expensive, but good food.  Check out this picture staring at John.

You will eat your fish, sir, and you will like it!

I had some crab bisque to start with.

And then my plate.  I couldn’t decide between the scallops and the shrimp and our server said she could just have them make me a half and half plate!  Yay!  I chose the broiled version.

With a baker and sour cream.  This was very, very good.  I love scallops and wish they weren’t so pricey to purchase for home.

Then it was cake time!  These are the 2 cakes.

This one is a chocolate pecan torte.  Layers of mousse and chocolate cake.

We did the emergency run for the red velvet cake because we thought there was going to be 2 people for cake, which turned into a few more.

Yum!!!

A couple present highlights:

Puzzles (this one is a 4 dimensional puzzle)

I have wanted one of these:

Totally unexpected:

It’s the regular Kindle (not the Fire).  I guess it is a Kimble Kindle? Say that 10 times fast!

 

Overall a great day was had and thanks to everyone for the well wishes (and presents!!).

Tour de paths

This weekend was really hot and sunny!  I needed this:

The traffic has been bothering me on the bikes, particularly out in the afternoon, so John planned a ride that took advantage of the paths as much as possible.  Plus I wanted a more relaxing ride since it is a holiday weekend.

We decided on a ride to the lake because the crowds will really be coming soon.  Next week is the Elvis festival, which is kind of surreal if you are not a big Elvis fan.  Then the weekend after that is Americade where 10,000 motorcycles descend on Lake George – double no thank you!  The traffic gets horrendous then.  So, this weekend will be the last lake visit for a while.

We headed out after lunch.  We took the usual paths and then crossed over into Glens Falls to get back on the western canal trail (as John dubbed it).  It is part of the logging route.

None of this goes down the canal anymore, but it used to.

This was about 8 miles in.

We didn’t snack here, but just stopped in the shade for a bit.  It was really hot!

We wound around and back onto the path that goes to Lake George.  I was starting to get hungry at this point and we stopped around mile 18 so I could have a pear.

There is a little picnic area here, which we never stop at because  it is only a couple miles left to the lake, but I was afraid I was going to bonk after doing all those hills in the heat.

Another biker came and asked to join us in the shade and we got talking different bike routes in the area.  It was nice to chat with another cyclist!

After that nice rest, we headed the rest of the way to the lake.  Mile 21.  Gorgeous day.  A bit breeze, but full of people!  Eeeek!

It’s tourist season! We didn’t stay long, just enough to fill the water bottles and take a pit stop.  Too many people for us.  Hope everyone enjoys the beautiful Adirondack region.

The path began to fill up with all kinds of people as well, many of which did not know path etiquette.

We booked out of town. What was on our minds?  Ice cream!  One of our favorite stops.  Coopers Cave.   This was mile 30 and I decided I wanted a sundae!

I got a Mexican sundae, which has peanut butter sauce and chocolate fudge.  Way overloaded with whipped topping!  It made it look huge!

Nomph!!

It tasted so good after 30 miles.  We had a nice shady table to relax at.  We sat a little too long and I got a bit stiff.  Oops.

Then we only had 10 more miles to do.  Our goal was a 40 mile ride on the day.  Back on the paths!  It  was so nice not to deal with traffic on this part of the paths.  Usually, the paths closer to home are much less crowded than those by the lake.

Look who we found, too!

The babies are getting bigger.  Almost past the cute stage.The parents hissed at us as we rode by, so I stopped past them and used the zoom because I didn’t want to upset the parents.  Although, they were sitting on the edge of the path.

 

5 more miles of riding and we arrived home.

Ride stats:

Total miles:  40.3

Average speed 12 mph

Top speed 26.7 mph

Calories burned 1183 (although this is low, when you ride slow, the computer says less calories burned even if it is the same distance).

All in all a wonderful ride and no sunburn! As greasy as that sunscreen is, it really works very well.  I just don’t like that every bit of dirt and bug sticks to me  :mrgreen:

Ridin’ Route 4

Lots and lots of riding this weekend.  We did 3 rides.  2 shorter ones on Saturday and a long one on Sunday.  Which to share?  I guess it will be Sunday’s ride.  We never got down to Saratoga.  I actually was going to meet up with Diane Carbonell Saturday night in Saratoga and we didn’t want to bike down there and back and then to drive  down again at night.  So, we did 2 shorter rides around home totaling 30 miles.However, Diane got held up at her event and we couldn’t get together.

We decided to plan our longer ride for Sunday and leave bright and early because of the impending heat!  High of 86 forecast, which is a bit warm for me to bike for a prolonged period of time.  It was 59 degrees when we left the house at 7:45 a.m.  We headed on over to Coffee Planet for breakfast.  This was 6 miles from home.

Bright and sunny today!  I had a oat bagel with honey walnut cream cheese:

I love my Sunday bagel here.  It is so good and fresh!  It’s very filling, too.  After breakfast, we slathered on the sunscreen and continued on our ride.  We should have sat longer because my tummy was full to be riding for that long!  We went on the roads with bike lanes on them today and headed south.  We got to route 197, which I really don’t like riding on.  There is a fairly wide shoulder designated as a bike lane, but it is not always in good repair and the traffic goes by at 55 (or faster – speeders!!!).  Anyway, it is a pretty view.  We stopped around mile 13 or so and looked around.  This is higher up before you head down hill to the river.  You can see forever.

Back downtown and we headed down route 4 towards Schuylerville.  This is a fairly fast and flat ride with only a couple hills (the worst being at the very end).  We stopped at the original burial site for Jane McCrea, who I talked about a few rides ago.

There is a headstone here as well, but it is not for Jane.

He died at the same time as Jane.  Jane was originally buried here, but then her remains were moved a couple of times and now reside at the cemetery in the village of Fort Edward.  I need to remind myself to get some pictures of that.  Anyway, Tobias still remains here.  Nobody knows much about him.  If I remember correctly, the owner of the property asked that this site be preserved when they made the road and to not move his remains.  Not sure if he is some sort or relative or what.

Onward again.  my legs were feeling pretty good today.  I did a lifting workout on Saturday, plus we did 30 miles, so I actually was surprised how good my legs felt.

We took a break around mile 24 for a a snack at our usual stopping point.

Sunny and sweaty!

My hero:

Yesterday, I received a package from the Zone company.  They have new bars that are have less ingredients made with dates and nuts.  They are pretty much like a Larabar, only they have soy protein in them.  So, I brought one along for my snack.

It was chewy, but pretty tasty.  I could taste the soy protein in it.  I don’t eat a lot of soy, so I really noticed it.  I do like the stats on the bar and it is nice to get a little protein in, but not too much.   I got a couple other flavors to try as well.

After that rest, we kept going.  One thing about my sunscreen is that it is a cream (good because I don’t sweat it off), but the combo of that plus sweat and every gnat and fly that hit me stuck to me – my arms and legs! Ewwww!  You know it is hot when your forearms sweat.  It was only about 11 a.m., too.

Another 5 miles and we got to Schuylerville.  This is a small town (like there is any other type of town around here) outside of Saratoga.  We stopped on the bridge and there is a smaller river that feeds into the PCB Hudson river.  Pretty falls.  Mile 29.

I think there may be some hydro power here as well.

I could have jumped right into that cool water. Then we turned around to go home.  We found a new coffee shop in Schuylerville, so we will have to come back and try that.

I was definitely feeling the sun.  Hot!  So glad we were out earlier.  One thing about this bike route, it is exposed to the sky the whole way.

Greasy or not, my sunscreen works really well.  We took one last break at mile  36 for refreshment.

I had frozen this last night so it was slushy and deliciously cold!  Yay!  I was ready to finish out the ride.  One last bit of hill at the end by our house.  This is the hill I talked about conquering at some point this year and the one I avoid at all costs.  We decided to take it today.  I did not think I was going to make it up.  I told myself it was okay to stop and I figured I would just stop when my chain fell off from going too slow as I was in my very last gear.   :mrgreen:  Well, it never fell off and I huffed and puffed my way to the top.  I think I was going about 4 miles an hour.  Just about at falling over pace LOL!  So happy to have made it up that hill, but I was breathing really hard.  Then we arrived home and my legs were total jello and shaky.

Ride stats:

Total miles: 42.4

Top speed: 24.3 mph (no real big down hills)

Average speed:  13.2 mph

Calories burned: 1258

Final Hill: 0, Lori: 1

Ride all completed by 12:30 and avoiding the worst of the heat.  I love a 40 mile ride.  It is just enough to be a really good workout, but not so much that I am wiped out for the day.

Now, nothing but chillaxin’ for the rest of the day and staying cool!

Sundae on Saturday!

The weekend had the most glorious weather!  It was supposed to be pretty warm Saturday (upper 70s), so we decided on an afternoon ride for ice cream!  Last weekend, we did a 50+ mile ride and were pretty tired on Sunday, so we backed down a bit and John mapped out a 40 mile ride with hills.  We had a destination in mind, so John planned around that to get us to 40 miles.  After fueling up with a big lunch, I lathered up with sunscreen and we hit the roads.

We probably should have let lunch sit a little longer because my tummy was not happy with riding for the first 5 or 6 miles.   We cruised along for about 12 miles before stopping just as we got to the top of a hill coming into downtown Glens Falls.

This is a 5 point intersection and if you can believe it, they use to have a traffic light here before they put in the circle.  It sucked if you just missed the light because you had to sit *forever* to for the light to go around 4 times.  The circle is much, much better.

This is my team Espresso jersey.

From here, we took a long way around to hook back onto the Lake George path.  Now it was time for the hills!  We normally get to the top of this section of hills at mile 11, so it was a nice challenge doing it after riding for a while.

As we were climbing the b*tch hill, a couple people passed us going up and I felt slightly annoyed at why I couldn’t go faster.  Then I caught up to  them again as we were approaching the peak of that hill where it gets steep to the top and they got off to walk their bikes up.  Petty me decided I was going to ride on past them LOL!  I was tired, but I thought “no way am I going to walk up this part”.  I should have thanked them for the impetus.

Made it!  This was about mile 18. Look at that line of cars for the outlet mall.

I asked John to pose, but after hitting the top of the hill, he wasn’t all into that.

Then it was 2 miles of nice downhill riding to the lake!  Wheeeeee!  A little energy reward once we got there.

Did I say how gorgeous it was on Saturday?

See that sky?  That is known as sunburn sky to Lori.   I put on more sunscreen while we stopped here.

I was nice to sit a spell and get some rest.  I was saying to John how much I loved days where it was this nice at the lake before all the tourists come and make it all crowded.

We didn’t stop too long, because I had ice cream on my mind!  That was the reason for the ride  :mrgreen:

We headed back up the way we came.  This is the 2 mile climb back up to that overpass, but it doesn’t seem as bad going this way because the last tick up is not so steep.  Then at mile 26, we arrived at our destination:

Great Escape isn’t open for the season yet, but Martha’s is!  It was really crowded, too.  All the locals love Martha’s and with good reason.  We set up camp under the metal umbrellas:

My treat for the day?  This is the Scholarship Sundae (proceeds fund a scholarship).  Apple pie soft serve with raspberry sauce and chocolate fudge. Topped with cookie crumbs.

John got the cherry (har har).  The one fruit I do not eat would be cherries. Ick.   This is a regular size sundae.  I can’t imagine how big the large size is!

This was soooo good.  We like to say we have biking tastebuds because everything tastes just that much better when you have worked hard before eating.

We altered our route on the way home to avoid some traffic and decided to go around on the path with a couple extra loops and then finish up.  We saw this family on the canal:

Aren’t they the cutest!  Eeeeeeee!!!  Normally we only see ducks on the canal. First time ever to see geese with babies.

A little less than a mile to go (around mile 39), John’s bike started making a funny noise.  Oh no!  The back tire was flat!  Look at what was sticking out of his tire.

That is a 2 inch nail!  We have super duper puncture proof tires on our bikes now after the Flat Tire Saga of 2011, which I am sure you all remember.   However, no tire can withstand a 2 inch nail.  John was going to walk the rest of the way home, but then just decided to change the tube so as not to harm the wheel.  He can change a tube quite fast now.

Then the last 3 minutes to home.

Ride stats:

Total miles:  40.2

Average speed:  12.6 mph

Top speed: 27.2 mph

Calories burned:  1200

Hopefully that flat tire is not gong to bring about another round of flats like last year.  Other than that, it was a great day and a great ride!