September 11, 2023
Day 3-A Day of Ridges, Valleys and Expletives
Mt. Morris to Canandaigua, viewing our first finger, and some colorful language
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Another decent Choice hotel breakfast and we were ready to roll at 9am. Rich had found a LBS at our destination, Canandaigua, and they were expecting him to be there at roughly 2pm. He said they were even enthusiastic about helping him with his mechanical.
When leaving breakfast today I was approached by another hotel guest who had seen us riding through Letchworth yesterday. She said to me, “You are fantastic!” It was a truly nice way to start a day.
We expected today’s ride to be challenging-on paper it has the most elevation gain for a weighted ride this trip and it is one of our longer days of as well. Well, as I write this, my legs are telling me that it lived up to its billing.
The valleys here that contain the Finger Lakes run north to south separated by ridges and we traveled east today. So pretty much the entire day was either riding up, sometimes very steeply, or down. Jim’s Wahoo documented 19 climbs, some quite short, and some a few miles long. To me, it felt like a day of many intensive rollers with a couple sustained climbs and descents. The steepest pitches ranged from 8% to 17% and several touched 15%. You know it is steep when 9 or 10% feels easy in comparison.
By about the 10th Wahoo climb, we were all getting fatigued and the expletives began to flow. After ascending a f&$#ing steep pitch, I would look over the top and, damn, there was another one. And after that, holy sh%#, another, and another, and another, as we slowly counted them down. They all added up to almost 2800 ft of elevation gain. No wonder my legs are tired!
The weather was fabulous though-a mix of clouds and sun, not too hot and no rain! The route took us through lovely farmlands and small villages on primarily smaller roads. The road surface quality was very good, very different from the roads we are used to riding on. Drivers have been courteous as well.
The last 5 miles were mostly flat to downhill on a busy highway. Once in Canandaigua, we found the Holiday Inn Express, and Rich dumped his bags and rode to RV&E Bike and Skate. They fixed his bike right away and didn’t charge him; presuming the fix sticks, we would recommend them!
We should sleep well tonight.
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1 year ago
1 year ago
Enjoy our ride without the suffering:
Today's ride: 40 miles (64 km)
Total: 121 miles (195 km)
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