Day Nine – Sunday, September 14

Expectation: This is the last leg of our adventure

Of course that never happened. I woke up to the sound of rain this morning at home, safe and dry. I went out on the Internet to see what the weather was like where we would have been riding (from Amsterdam to Albany) and I found this:

Amsterdam area as of 7:46 am EDT on September 14, 2008
Showers will continue to affect eastern New York and adjacent New England through 10 am. Additional rainfall amounts will range from a few hundredths of an inch to one quarter inch.

Albany Updated: 4:28 am EDT on September 14, 2008
Today mostly cloudy. Showers this morning...then a chance of showers and thunderstorms this afternoon. Highs in the mid 80s. South winds 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 90 percent.

By coming home a day early we dodged a bullet or maybe we dodged a lightening bolt. Lightening and bike riding do not go together!

It seemed like we rode in rain every other day. When I got home one of the first things I did was to throw my poncho away. It was disposable to begin with, but I couldn’t wait to get rid of it because it represented the unpleasantness of riding in the rain.

I’m OK with having cut our ride short. If I had tried to continue I might have done great damage to my body. I’d rather give up and live to ride another day.

I had estimated a total of 345 miles. We rode a total of 273 miles. Had we ridden from DeWitt to Rome we would have added another 50 miles. Had we finished the eighth day we would have added another 28 miles. Had we actually ridden from Amsterdam to Latham on the ninth and final day we would have added another 47 miles. That would have made an estimated grand total of 398 miles. That’s an additional 53 miles more than estimated, or an average of 6 miles a day more than estimated.


THE AFTER WORD! ☺
Thank you, Kathy, for coming with me. I had stated several times that I was ready to do the ride solo. She made sure, at the expense of abusing her own body, that I did not ride alone. As things turned out, if I had been alone I would have had some terrifying moments and probably would have aborted the ride way back in DeWitt. I will try very hard, in the future, to be a good girl and not cause any of my children physical or mental anguish. It doesn’t mean I won’t…it means I’ll try hard not to. ☺

My body was not ready to ride 45 – 50 miles a day, every day. The most I was able to ride while getting ready for the Erie Canal was 25 miles at any one time. Between the weather and obligations at home, I just couldn’t get in any longer rides. That was a concern for me because I knew doubling that for 9 days on end might not be possible. I had to try.

Then there is the issue of feeding my body. I was not able to put the right kind of food in the proper amounts into my body during the ride. Our eating schedule was erratic and my body needs time to relax after a hard ride before I can eat. We didn’t have that luxury. We had time constraints that ruled everything we did. On top of that, I did not sleep well. It takes me a couple nights in a strange bed to be able to sleep well. That was not possible.

BUT, the ride was an experiment in endurance. I didn’t know if I could do it at all. I had no idea how far I could go. Now I know. I am no longer curious.

Am I glad I did it? You bet I am. Would I do it again? Well…I would like to go back to Canajahorie and finish the ride. Take smaller chunks – like 20 to 25 miles a day. I wanted to ride through Fonda/Fultonville where I used to go to dig Herkimer diamonds. I really wanted to stop at Cohoes and view the Falls. If I could take 3 weeks or more to do the same ride, Niagara Falls to Albany, then yes, I might consider doing it again.

I am looking forward to next year when I hope to bike with a group with full SAG support. I won’t be pedaling a fully loaded bike. I won’t have to plan the trip for a year, hammering out every detail to make sure everything goes as smoothly as possible. Someone else will do that and all I have to do is throw my suitcase into a truck and ride.

As for any further thoughts of riding the East Coast Greenway—I have wisely decided it will not happen. That would be a self-supported ride and after the Erie Canal experience, I can see that, for me, it would not work.

“Adversity doesn't build character…it reveals it.” —Coach Vince Lombardi

That being said, I’m as much of a character as I’ll ever want to be. Go easy on the adversity.