Flats and a Shortcut

We began Saturday's ride with our first bear sighting, thankfully from a distance. We gave the bear some time to wander off into the bushes before continuing down the road. The day's riding took us up and down country roads, past farms and fields. At the town of Huguenot we saw a sign and began chanting "deli, deli, deli". They made Mike a giant sandwich and I had an egg bagel. We passed through Bloomingburg where everything was closed for the Jewish sabbath and instead stopped in Burlingham for an ice lolly and iced tea (look away, Helen Young, you would not approve of iced tea).

Towards the end of the day we met a trio of cyclists from Brooklyn who were also touring, albeit much more lightly than we are. They were carrying only sleeping bags and were planning to camp out that night. We met at mile 95 for them, and around mile 65 for us. We rode with them for a while and tried not to embarrass ourselves as they zoomed along at 15-20 mph. At one point a herd of cows got excited about the trip and ran alongside the 5 of us. We waved goodbye to the lightweight tourers on a hill and continued to the town of Gardiner.

We hadn't made any firm accommodation plans for the evening and stopped in the local bike shop to ask for a recommendation. The mechanic gave us directions to a nearby campground so we looked it up and gave them a call. They were full for the evening. Sometimes we forget which day of the week it is and it comes as a surprise that it's Saturday and other people are out camping too. We decided to continue on towards New Paltz and look for a spot to camp alongside the rail trail. Alas, the rail trail was extremely close to people's homes and there was no good hiding spot. In New Paltz we chatted with a few people who were interested in our trip while looking up local options. We settled on staying at the New Paltz youth hostel in a private room. Lah dee dah, a private room. I can hear my 19 year old self asking what's wrong with a bunk bed in a dorm. I used to stay at a lot of youth hostels on my backpacking adventures. This was Mike's first night in a hostel and he had a gentle introduction - generally clean, generously sized private room, quiet guests, they even put our bikes in the basement for us. The day's total was 74 miles and we slept well!

First order of business this morning was to visit a grocery store to acquire more snacks. We've been visiting a lot of convenience stores lately and it was nice to go somewhere that had an in-store bakery plus fruits and vegetables. As we rode away from the store Mike got a flat on his rear tire. We then realized that all four of our spare tubes had holes in them. Time to get patching. Mike had a devil of a time with his repair. Patch after patch failed for one reason or another. He persisted and eventually found a winning combination of glue, patch and tube on the fifth try. While we were working a local resident came over to offer a spare tube (also had a hole in it!) and the use of his floor pump, which was much appreciated. This whole saga took over an hour, meaning that by 11 am despite having been on the road for two hours we had only covered 1.8 miles. Today was scheduled to be 65 miles in order to reach a state campground for the evening and we weren't feeling too good about the start. Additionally, Mike was down to only one working tube with no spares, which is a little precarious when heading for rural areas that might be 50 miles from a bike shop. So we found a local bike shop in Poughkeepsie (that's fun to say!) that would unfortunately add 6 miles to our day. However, better some extra riding now than getting stuck later. We took the Duchess rail trail to the shop where we were promptly fleeced $12 for a tube. The hefty price tag didn't improve our mood.

We had a moment of levity a little while later when two groundhogs came tumbling out of some bushes and tousled with each other while rolling across the road. At 12:30 pm we stopped for lunch and discussed our thoughts on the rest of the day, given that we had only covered about 10 miles towards the campground. We decided to continue towards the campground but considered that we might stop short in a town that had a motel. Looking at the map we realized that we could chop 9 miles off today's ride by cutting a corner. We went for it. You're kind of rolling the dice when you leave the pre-approved route - there's usually a reason they didn't cut the corner. The road might be really busy, very hilly, or loose dirt. Today's trade off was that the road was unpaved but the packed dirt was quite easy to ride on and we had spectacular scenery as a stream wound alongside. The touring panel has unanimously voted this shortcut the best shortcut yet. We also made up some time by taking fewer breaks and eating while riding. Foods that are good to eat while riding include apples, carrots, and Clif bars. Foods that are not good to eat while riding include hot soup, salads, and yoghurt.

Despite the slow start to the day and the extra miles to the bike shop we made it to the Rudd Pond state campground by 6 pm with a distance of 60 miles covered. That shortcut really helped out! We might keep an eye out for future shortcuts, though I need to be careful as my family has a history of being overzealous in this area. One memorable shortcut ended with the family abseiling down a wall, much to the bemusement of all the normal people who had stayed on the path. Since we don't have any rope with us this time, I should probably take it easy.

Tomorrow: Connecticut.

Yard Art

Worth the climb

Rollers, happy for a downhill

Late in the day

Hudson River

Hudson Valley Rail Trail