Holy Cow

That is the official name for our Finger Lakes bike tour . . . because:

• Holy cow, it was HOT the first day.
• Holy cow, that’s all we saw the first 2 days of riding – cows, cows and more cows.
• Holy cow, we broke our bike and still finished the ride!
• Holy cow, my butt is sore from pedaling and sitting in the car for over 12 hours round-trip.

But, all in all, we had a great time. I’ll try to condense my report so as not to bore you.

Friday
We took off Friday morning and drove straight to the Corning Glass museum. Karlo always wanted to take me there and it turned out to be a nice bonus to the trip. We saw truly amazing things, learned about the origin of my favorite Corelle dishes, watched a presentation by a master glass blower, and then got to SHOP in the glass gift shop. Yes, that was the best part :-)

We got to the campground just in time to change and get ready for the first ride. It was hotter than hell and I truly didn’t have much motivation to ride. Most campers where already settling in with drinks and snacks in their hands. Why were we changing into bike clothes when it was 94 degrees and so humid that breathing was hard just sitting there? But, like idiots we rode. And we regretted it. The ride was only 16 miles, but the first 8 were straight up hill . . . and our bike wasn’t shifting into the lower gears. We both thought we were going to explode from the heat. Let’s just say the ride SUCKED. But we made it. Luckily that night the thunderstorms came through and the temps dropped significantly, making for perfect riding the next two days.

Saturday
After not sleeping one wink in the tent the night before, I was amazingly alert and ready to ride on Saturday. The trip was supposed to be 50 miles of rolling hills. The weather was perfect and we had a great day. I didn’t complain too much about the hills because compared to the night before, it was pleasant. I got such a kick out of seeing all the Amish folks doing their thing. The kids were positively adorable - all dressed in their Amish digs . . . riding their bikes with bonnets and dresses or hats and suspenders. I still can't believe this way of life. I marveled at it all weeeknd.

The views all day were terrific. You can see for miles and miles across the country sides looking over dozens of farms, cow pastures and distant hills. Karlo was in heaven just looking at the clouds. He says the best clouds in the country are in this region. It was hard getting his head out of the clouds all weekend because this is the area that he used to regularly fly his hang glider and his mind was back there in his days of flying.


Luckily for me, Karlo was happy with his head in the clouds all day and didn’t get too mad at me when I screwed up the navigation and caused us to pedal an additional 10 miles -- 5 of which where up hill (a BIG stinkin’ hill – of course). So we ended up doing a metric century that day!

Sunday
We considered today a short ride (only 44 miles) and we had the mind set of “let’s just do it fast and head home.” We felt good after our longer ride the day before we were ready to breeze through this ride. We decided to park the car so that we tackle the big hill first. It was about a 4 or 5 mile uphill stretch and there just happened to be a bike race going on. What a riot. We were biking in the middle of this race. We had buff guys that looked like they could be on the Tour zipping by us like we were standing still. And here’s the kicker . . . crowds were cheering US on. Did they really think we were part of this race? Apparently so! So of course, this motivated us to pedal FAST. And we cruised through that hard stretch in no time at all.

The rest of the ride was pretty easy. We went the complete perimeter around Keuka Lake and it was beautiful. We stopped for a snack in Hammonsport before pushing back to the car. We got about 15 miles from the end when the bike made a loud bang. I asked Karlo, “What the heck was that?” and he said “That’s bad news.” NOT what I wanted to hear. We pulled over and apparently Karlo’s crank was busted. The ball bearings literally fell out and the crank was barely hanging on. There was nothing we could do but limp the bike back and pray to God it would hold on until we made it back.

Well, we made it. I was a nervous wreck because I didn’t want any delays in starting our drive back. I pushed harder than ever because I didn’t want Karlo putting too much pressure on his cranks. I was exhausted. We did the 44 miles in 3 hours and I was so relieved to see the car at the end of the ride.

Now I think we are ready for Croatia . . .

To see all the photos from our ride, visit: http://picasaweb.google.com/paulasworld/FingerLakes