Back to Caz from Little Falls - Test ride Day Two

After yesterday's 70 miles ride out to Little Falls, with a nice meal at the Canal Side Inn, today I looped 82 miles back home to Cazenovia riding almost 70 miles on the Empire State Trail following the old Erie Canal. The trail is about 50% paved in asphalt, with the remainder fairly good "double track" gravel, stone dust, & well packed dirt.  Occasionally the trail "disappears" and there are semi-marked bikeways on regular streets or rural roads, but the majority is right on the old canal--scenic, shaded, and lightly travelled.  Today I probably passed a couple dozen other touring cyclists.   At any rate, 70 miles of almost pan flat riding made for a pretty easy day, though without any hills to stand up on, your seat definitely feels the miles more ;-). I won't have to worry about that on the Pacific Coast- almost every day has 3000'-5000' of hill climbing!

Anyway, I arrived home safe and without any notable gear failures, Dave for one plastic buckle on my front pack. I'll be sure to get a stronger one for the big ride in a couple of weeks...  So-- stay tuned, and wish me luck!  ;-)

Test Ride overnight...

Today is my first test ride with all my gear fully loaded.  I'm heading to Little Falls in the Mohawk River valley, about 70 miles east of Cazenovia. I'm overnighting in Little Falls at the luxurious Travelodge Motel ;-), then heading back to Caz tomorrow.  

Today's ride was gorgeous- 70 miles, light breeze, hardly a cloud in the sky, and a near perfect 75F.  Light traffic, even riding through the city of Utica, which I've never ridden through before. Once past Utica, I hooked up with the new Empire State Trail, which follows the Erie Canal all across the state... Pretty cool!  Really nicely paved along this stretch too.  I'm planning to ride about 60 miles west along the trail tomorrow, all the way to Chittenango.

So... A really good first outing to test the gear setup.  I'll check back tomorrow after finishing the return trip with a brief report on day two of the "shakedown" tour of CNY. :-)  One final note-- definitely a good omen :-).. . While riding along NY Rt. 12 south of Utica this morning, I found a cell phone lying on the shoulder of the road- pretty much out in the middle of nowhere. After arriving here in Little Falls,  I turned it on, and while it was locked, the home screen listed a bunch of missed calls from a number with an Albany area code. So, I gave it a call on my phone,  and sure enough, found the person who lost the phone!  She asked where I was, and said she'd come by and get it on her way back to Albany this evening.  So I left it for her at the motel front desk and headed out to dinner.  When I got back to the room, the front desk called and said that "Susan had left an envelope for me."  ...and in the envelope  she left a nice thank you note, and $100 !!  Sometimes the world still surprised you :-)

 

Gearing Up!

Loaded for bear and ready to roll! I just finished test loading everything onto the new Ritchey, spare riding kit, street clothes, toilettries, electronics, rain gear, tools, pump, a few key spare parts & tubes, a days' riding food (mostly granola bars!), and two full water bottles... 33lbs even for the whole tamale! 

I'm planning an overnight "shakedown" ride Thursday and Friday this week to test how everything works ;-). New entries in the blog will report on how that goes before we head west in July :-)