Seneca Lake Loop

Total for this ride: 78.7 miles
Total for this year: 1097.8 miles

Let me start by getting something off my chest.  Geneva, NY, sucks.  It's a pit, a hole, a cesspool.  It is the most bike unfriendly town I've ever ridden in.  The toads who planned this wart of a town took one of the best east-west routes for cycling in New York state (Rts 5 & 20) and totally destroyed it.  Anyone trying to ride through Geneva (no one in there right mind would want to make it their destination...) is literally playing Russuan Roulette.  5&20 in Geneva has a 6 inch "shoulder" if you could call it that... it's little more than a white line painted up against a curb on a 4-lane road where the speed limit is 45 mph.  Now, typically a 6 inch shoulder wouldn't bother me, but 1) butting it up against a curb leaves no margin for error (hope the pedal doesn't clip the curb...) and 2) what little shoulder you do get has more craters than the face of the moon!  I think you can tell a lot about a town by the condition of its roads.  In my opinion, Geneva is worse than scum on the bottom of the ocean.

I feel better...

So... except for the fact that today's loop around Seneca Lake started and ended in Geneva, it was a good ride.  It's a ride I've been wanting to make for a long, long time.  I tried to do it last year, but cut it short when it became very apparent that the weather was turning foul.  The weather threatened all day today, but except for a quick 10 minute downpour at about the 63 mile mark, it was OK.  Hot and humid - one time/temp sign flashed 88 degrees - but I kept well hydrated and didn't have any problems.

Things I learned on this ride:

1. There are about 14,723 wineries around Seneca Lake.  But I may have missed a few.  Some are large, elegant affairs with worldwide sales and snooty tasting rooms.  Others are little more than Mom and Pop operations set in an old storage shed on the side of the road.  My favorite was the Ashley Lynn Winery because they had a Port-A-John in the parking lot right in front of their building.  Such amenities occasionally come in handy on a long ride...

2. Traffic in Watkins Glen is bad even when it's not race weekend.

3. The town of Hector has more New York State Historic Markers per person than any other town in New York (I suspect).  They have so many that some of them are literally a few feet apart.

4. If you want to get the Raspberry Chardonnay ice cream at the little place where I parked the truck in Geneva, you need to get there before 4:00.  By the time I got there, all that was left was Chocolate Cabernet.  Which was OK... (it really is made with wine - you have to be over 21 to buy it), but after a long sweaty ride I really had my heart set on some thing a little fruitier.

Picture below: Hector Falls, on the east side of the lake, a few miles up from Watkins Glen.  You don't get a chance to appreciate something this cool when you're speeding by in a car.