Feet for Food

Total for this ride: 14.5 miles
Total for this year: 1961.9 miles

Second ride of the day.

This one was the annual charity walk/ride for the local food cupboard.  I think I've ridden in every one since they started allowing bikes.  Some of them have been absolutely miserable... I remember riding last year in a driving rain.  Fortunately the weather today was OK.  Overcast, cool, and breezy, but at least no rain.  Registration for the ride started at 2:00 -- just about the time I got there.  I filled out the form, turned in what little money I'd raised (really didn't solicit contributions, since I put the hard sell on family and friends for the Tour de Cure...), and got my cue sheet.  The ride wasn't scheduled to start until 2:30, but I didn't feel like hanging around for another 20 minutes, so I took off early.  No big deal - it's really a pretty informal event... I did the "long" ride, which is only 10.8 miles, but I also counted the miles I rode from home to the start, and then the miles from the finish back home again, which gave me the total I reported above.

Bloomfield

Total for this ride: 23.6 miles
Total for this year: 1947.4 miles

First of two rides today.  This one was nothing special.  Just trying to get some mileage in while the weather cooperates.  Probably aren't many more rideable weekends...

Noticed my pace is starting to drop a little.  Average for this ride was only 13.8 mph.  Granted I did almost 1400 feet of climbing, but still... Maybe it's because it's starting to get cooler and it takes me longer to warm up.

Or maybe I'm just getting old.

Ride, Interrupted...

Total for this ride: 32.1 miles
Total for this year: 1923.8 miles

This is precisely why I prefer to ride alone...

So a few days after the Western New York Bike Adventure I decided it would be nice to give the kids a little time to get settled in and then offer them an "encore ride" - one that would give them a chance to see what's on the canal towpath going east, instead of west toward Niagara Falls.  It looked like I didn't have any other commitments this weekend, so I sent out an invitation to the group - if you're interested, show up at the Carlson Building at 1:00 on Saturday.  The plan was to ride to Schoen Place, have some ice cream, and head back.  21 miles in maybe 2 1/2 hours.  If they weren't in a hurry, and wanted to do some exploring, I could add a few miles by taking them up to old Lock 50 (?) behind Pittsford Plaza.  If they were real ambitious we could ride through UR and into town.  The possibilities were endless...

I could have driven out to campus to meet up with the group, but there's not a lot of time left in the season and I really want to put in as many miles as possible before the weather shuts me down for the year.  So I decided to drive to Bushnell's Basin and ride from there to campus.  We'd do the encore ride, and then I'd ride back from RIT to the Park-N-Ride where the truck would be waiting.  I figured that would be enough riding to give me my 15th ride of the year longer than 50 miles.  It was a plan.

I started riding about 10:30 and hit the canal in Bushnell's Basin a few minutes later.  First thing I noticed was a big orange sign which said "NAL CONSTRUCTION AHE D".  For a second I thought about climbing back up to Marsh Rd. and taking the surface streets to Pittsford where I figured I could catch the towpath.  But then I decided that I wasn't in a hurry, and it would be more of an adventure if I stayed on the towpath, so I pressed on.  As it turned out, there was no construction on the nal.  It was smooth sailing the whole way.

It was very apparent on this ride that fall is upon us.  It was cool enough when I took off to wear the lightweght blue shell.  I left it on all day.  The trees have definitely started changing color.  Not at peak color yet, but it won't be long.  And many of them are starting to deposit their leaves and seed pods (or whatever they are...) all over the trail.  In some places it's like a little obstacle course, trying to avoid all the debris.

I got to RIT just before noon and figured I'd eat before we started the encore ride.  I was hoping to go to the Crossroads Cafe and get a quick sandwich, but they were closed.  Instead I ended up going to a new restaurant that's kind of a "Moe's" on steroids.  They feature southwestern fare... burritos, tacos, nachos, quesedillas, and specialty SW pizzas.  I went with the burrito.

I wasn't sure how many of the kids would show up for the ride.  I'd heard from a few of them, but you never know with college students.  It could have been most, or it could have been none.  In the end, four guys showed up.  My current student Kevin, and three of the new freshmen, Andrew, Jeremy, and Evan.  I waited until about five after one before pushing off.

Things went pretty well on the ride out to Schoen Place.  We had the wind with us so we were making pretty good time.  But when we got to our destination, the little ice cream shop at the east end of Schoen, it was closed.  Kevin suggested we press on to Bushnell's Basin and go to the Abbott's.  I asked the group if they were up for it, and they were.  So we pressed on.

We got to Abbott's and everybody ordered their ice cream (frozen yougurt, really).  We didn't linger too long though, because Andrew was supposed to sit at the Engineering House table at the open house, so we needed to get back.

We crossed back over the canal on the Marsh Rd. bridge and started west on the towpath.  We had only gone about a mile and a half, most of the way past the Great Embankment, when Kevin starts shouting for me from the rear of the pack.  He noticed that Andrew's rear tire was flat [the picture I took of the guys as we left Abbott's clearly shows that the tire was flat before we got back to the canal].  Nobody had brought any spare tubes or patches (I specifically indicated in my invitation that I would NOT be fixing any flats on this ride...).  We were still 13 miles from campus so walking back wasn't an option.  But we were only about two miles from my truck.... So there weren't many options - Kevin, Jeremy, and Evan would continue the ride back to RIT.  I would ride to Bushnell's Basin and get the truck so I could pick up Andrew and his bike and drive them back to campus.

Right then and there my plans for a 50 mile day were trashed.  I guess it could have been worse.  At least it was a short ride back to the truck - if I had driven all the way to campus Andrew would have had a much longer wait until I could rescue him, and I would have had to drive twice as far to get him, return him to campus, and then drive home.  And it was also lucky that for some reason I decided to bring both of the racks in the truck.  Really don't know why I did.  There was no reason to.  Maybe I had a premonition...

Anyway... that was my ride.

Hello, George!

Total for this ride: 10.3 miles
Total for this year: 1891.7 miles

A short and easy ride after work from Ontario Beach Park in Charlotte, through Turning Point Park (see my posting of August 3rd), to George Eastman's grave on the grounds of Kodak's main manufacturing facility at the corner of Lake and Ridge in Rochester.  Went with Roger, Maria, and Sue.  Not really much to say about the ride...  Saw a great blue heron in the river near the Port of Rochester facilities... Had pumpkin frozen yougurt at Abbott's after we finished the ride... Watched the cops nab one car after another in the parking lot for rolling through the stop signs at the end of each row...  But other than that, it was just a short, easy ride.

A Quest for Cookies

Total for this ride: 12.5 miles
Total for this year: 1881.4 miles

This was a totally unexpected, unplanned ride.

Jill and I were just sitting down to a simple dinner when Joe popped in.  Molly was at class and he needed to use the printer so he decided to come over and hang out for a while.  The sun was still up when I finished eating, and neither one of us had anything better to do, so I asked him if he wanted to go for a ride.  Which, of course, he did.  I was kind of craving some cookies after dinner, so I suggested we ride out to our friends' house in Pumpkin Hook to see if they had any.  It's not a long ride, and I knew if we didn't linger there too long we'd get back before it got too dark.

There are a few ways to get to Pumpkin Hook.  I took the shortest and least demanding route, in the interest of saving some time.  It was actually a little chilly when we hit the road.  I wasn't uncomfortable, but I think I would have been better off if I had worn a sweatshirt.

The outbound leg of the ride was nice.  The sun was starting to get low in the sky and the shadows were growing long.  I tried to take a couple pictures of my shadow on the corn to my right, but none of them turned out as well as I would have liked.  Then I tried several of my famous "behind the back" shots to see if I could get one or two of Joe, but apparently my aim was way off.  Every shot was well to the right.  So eventually I gave up and while riding forward I turned around and aimed the camera in his direction.  Finally got one that I liked.

We got to our destination, dismounted, and rang the door bell.  No answer.  Knocked a few times.  Still nothing.  We concluded our quest for some cookies was all in vain.  We had no choice but to mount up again and head back home.

The return to Victor wasn't quite as much fun as the first half of the ride.  The sun was much lower in the sky, which meant that it was getting cooler, and when we were traveling west it was right smack in our faces.  I hoped that the glare wouldn't keep us from seeing some hazard on the shoulder, and I hoped that it wouldn't keep a car coming up from behind from seeing us.  But... we made it.

The end.

Quail Ridge Quickie

Total for this ride: ?? Maybe 1.5 miles
Total for this year: unchanged, since I didn't bother to measure the distance for this ride.

Just went once around the neighborhood with Joe after a pizza and wings dinner at Leo's.  Rode the old Trek like I used to ride when I was a kid -- no helmet, no gloves, no spandex.  Just a beat up old ball cap, sneakers, and a pair of jeans rolled up on the chain side.

Sentimental Journey to Keuka Lake

Total for this ride: 68.0 miles
Total for this year: 1868.9 miles

This ride was originally supposed to be a little closer to 60 miles... Roger will be turning 60 next Tuesday and he wanted to celebrate by riding 60 miles.  So I mapped out a route from Canandaigua to Penn Yan and back which came close.  But one of my students (and long time friend of the family), Dave, found out about our plans and invited us to meet him at his family's lake house just south of Penn Yan, on the east branch of Keuka Lake.  I knew this would add at least a few miles to the ride, but I guessed too low.  The detour to Dave's house added a total of 14 miles to the ride, so when we finally got back to Canandaigua, we had gone farther than either one of us had planned.  No worries...

I don't visit Penn Yan very often (the town was named by early settlers - it's an abbreviated version of "Pennsylvania Yankee"), but I really enjoy it when I do get down that way.  To get there you have to go through Amish country... there are quite a few in the area.  You often see them in their horse-drawn carriages, or riding bikes.  I got a picture of one while riding today, but I missed the one I should have gotten -- an Amish man hosing down his carriage.  I was already flying past him by the time I noticed what he was doing.  The one that got away...

When Roger and I rolled into Penn Yan I gave Dave a call just to get directions to the house.  I'd been there before, but it had to be at least 10 years ago, and probably closer to 12.  I knew generally where it was, but needed him to give me the house number.  As we got within about a quarter mile of the house, I noticed three people on what appeared to be bikes riding toward us.  One was Dave - he was actually on some sort of motor scooter.  Another was Joel - also a student in my department.  And a third was a girl, who I believe was named Steph?  I can't remember, but I think she was an RIT student too.  The three had ridden out to escort us the rest of the way home.

When we got there the place was crawling with people.  There were the three who met us.  Then there was Dave's twin brother Bob and a couple friends of his from Cornell.  And a couple more girls from RIT.  And lastly there was Melissa, Bob and Dave's mother.  After meeting everybody we went out on the dock to sip some lemonades and chat with the kids for a while.

Before long Melissa had set out lunch for everybody on a picnic table under some shade trees near the house.  Roger and I couldn't believe the spread - she had barbecued ribs, salt potatos, salad, carrots, bread, strawberries, and probably a few other dishes I didn't even notice because there was just so much food.  And it was SO GOOD!  Knowing we had a long, hard ride back I consciously avoided overeating.  I don't think Roger gave it a second thought.

It was so surreal, and so emotional, being back at the lake house after all these years.  It brought back some really good memories.  Dave and Bob had been best friends with AJ when they were all in elementary school, so we got to know their family well.  They had us all down to Keuka a couple of times, and I know at least once we spent the night.  AJ probably got down there a few more times without us.  But although we weren't there often, the times we had there were really really good times when the kids were young and innocent.  I'm glad I got the chance to relive some of those special times today.

Roger and I chatted for a while after lunch then excused ourselves so we could get back on the road.  Although we knew the ride back to Canandaigua would be a little shorter than the ride to the house, we also knew it was going to be significantly hillier.  And it was.  As the GPS profile shows, there were four long, steep climbs between Penn Yan and Canandaigua.  Although the first one looks like the worst (at least on paper...) I was really ready to be done with the hills by the time we hit the fourth one.

We got back to Canandaigua about 5:15 - too late for me to make it to the pig roast at Jill's boss's house (DARN!) but in plenty of time to go to the "Hang Around Victor Day" fireworks later on.  Joe and Molly came, and it actually turned out to be a nice little show.  Good way to end the day.