Remember Arthur Treacher's?

   This fast(sea)food franchise used to be fairly common in our area, but now is down to about a dozen total restaurants throughout the mid-Atlantic states. When I see road signs announcing the application of “Oil and Chips”, the ONLY thing that makes me smile is the thought of the restaurant sign with the obscure actor in the jaunty riding cap. Since the road sign doesn’t signal the coming of anything edible, I’m just left with the frustration that another one of my favorite cycling roads is getting messed up by that half-assed road resurfacing technique.

   Besides saving the Department of Transporation money, I always think it is really a subtle speed limit enforcing method. When driving on those treated roads, who can ignore all those ticks and clinks of gravel you hear and the thoughts of what they must be doing to your car’s paintjob?

   I get the same feeling when riding my bike over these roads, except the dust is also accumulating all over my rims and frame, not to mention fouling up the nice, clean lube job on my chain. When the sporadic piles of loose gravel clear off the road surface in a few months, I’m then left with a slow, bumpy ride, instead of the fast sheet of worn asphalt that used to be there!

   Sue and I found out Saturday that a large section of the Shore Fire Century route that we enjoyed so much last year was ruined by chips and oil as well. It didn’t seem to bother us as much as the constant wind that came out of the northeast. The 100 mile course through the flat farmlands of central Delaware had very little shade, and the sun was beating on us throughout the ride, so I admit that the breeze kept the temperature very comfortable, but the pedaling effort in those conditions left us pretty wasted, beyond what we had experienced in previous rides at a similar distance.

   After the 45 mile mark, the riding was almost exclusively to the north or east, so the wind was either right in our faces or just off a shoulder. With our regular “teammates” unable to join us on this year’s ride, we missed taking turns pulling on the front and then getting a bit of rest in the paceline. I took it upon myself to lead out most of the way, but Sue was struggling to even hold my wheel, and expended too much energy yo-yoing back and forth.

   The ride otherwise was very enjoyable, with an excellent choice of lightly travelled roads that weaved from Middletown down to Smyrna, west just across the Maryland border, then back east through Dover, skirting the wetlands of Delaware Bay and looping back. Although I don’t expect gluten-free miracles, and I supply myself accordingly, there were otherwise well-stocked food/rest spots about every twenty miles, with very friendly folks to encourage you along the way.

   At one particular stop I returned to my bike to find a married couple checking it out. They were admiring the Saeco/Cannondale paint job and reminiscing about the great sprinter Mario Cipollini. All right, real cycling fans! We talked about our respective collections of machines, which were surprisingly similar in number and manufacture. Sue was getting that glazed-over look from listening to our talk for too long, so I took the hint, wished them a good ride, and we were off again.

   Sue admitted later that she hadn’t eaten enough and probably drank too much water, which really threw her system off. Much like the latter part of the MS ride last autumn, I was just tired of being in the saddle and really wanted to pick up the tempo to be done with it! With about ten miles left, we were among a handful of riders with whom Sue could pace, so she told me “I’m done – you go ahead.” I asked if she wanted me to return with the car, but she said, “Oh no, I’m finishing - just at my own speed.”

   Truth be told, after fighting the headwind all day, I didn’t have a whole lot left in my legs, and there were some minor hills approaching the end of the course that discouraged me from going very hard at all. It wasn’t too long of a wait until Sue came along, and we enjoyed some ice cream at the finish area, then headed for the nearby Wawa for a large Coke! 

   

70 Miles On the Erie Canal

   Sue and I are planning to do a century ride in Delaware this month, and we’ve become frustrated trying to find areas with enough flat terrain on which to train. Not that we mind hills in general, but doing the hills in combination with the 100 mile distance is a lot to ask for two non-professional cyclists!

   Repeated rides of the out and back route on the Schuylkill Trail have become quite boring. Cycling at the shore is fine, but we’ve already done much of the Stone Harbor/Cape May area, and it is almost always windy in one direction. We thought maybe a mini vacation to an area with a rail trail might provide level riding and some interesting scenery, so my travel-agent-wannabe wife went web surfing.

   I had thought of the Erie Canal towpath in the past, but Sue found that the Bicycle Route 5 of the New York State’s Department of Transportation provided a signed, on-road route that paralleled the canal from Buffalo to Albany. She then tried to find a portion with the desirable profile, and she came up with a long stretch heading east from Verona to Little Falls.

   We have never been the type of folks who need posh lodgings, but during our family travels across the U.S. and Europe, Sue has shown an incredible knack for finding hotels or apartments that were true diamonds in the rough. She has come up with some places in which I have almost felt guilty about staying, since a bed and a shower was pretty much all we needed - we were intending to spend most of our time out of the room anyway!

   Of course I’m talking about being in locations that are beautiful in their own right, but two wonderful accommodations immediately come to mind, in Milan and Venice, but my favorite of her “finds” was in Paris . I remember talking to a gentleman from North Carolina while we were standing on the Champs Élysées, taking in the final stage of the 2009 Tour de France. He was astounded to hear that we were paying as much for a week in a fantastic apartment in Montmartre as he was for two nights in a downtown hotel (photo on left is Sacré-Coeur, just around the corner from our apartment).

   Certainly I am not trying to compare the Herkimer Motel in any way with the worst hotels in France or Italy, because it would take me a split second to choose the latter locations, sight unseen, but I wanted to acknowledge Sue’s efforts. The motel was just what we needed, with very friendly staff, continental breakfast, internet access and a nice pool, although the unexpectedly mild temperatures made swimming unnecessary. The room also had a small refrigerator and a microwave, so that we could store and prepare some meals, since there was no guarantee of gluten free food for me anywhere nearby.

   I know this wouldn’t appeal to everyone, but an added perk for me, the railfan, was that the former New York Central (now CSX) mainline ran right behind the motel. By simply stepping out our door and walking out a few feet I could witness a regular parade of freights, or an occasional Amtrak train, passing on the bridge over the nearby street. The average motel customer was glad that the railroad was completely separate from grade crossings, so all you would hear was the low engine rumble, no air horns!

   In the days leading up to our departure, Sue was concerned about changing precipitation percentages in the forecast, but I reminded her that the weather in this region is always erratic, since it is affected by the Great Lakes. I remember vacationing in the Finger Lakes region many times as a child, and it seemed we always had swings from day to day, sunny or rainy. Sue booked a couple of days in Herkimer to give us a chance of at least one nice day for cycling.

   Tuesday ended up being absolutely perfect, with white fluffy clouds and temperatures in the high seventies. It had actually gotten down into the forties the night before, so we waited for it to warm up a bit, and started getting ready around 11:00. Our plan heading west sounded rather exotic, reaching towns named Utica, Rome and Verona, but the majority of towns in this area have seen better days economically, and much of the urban areas were quite sad.

   The prettier sections were in between the towns, with the idyllic Erie Canal nearby, lush farmlands lining its banks and steep hills edging the Mohawk River valley to the north and south. We had initially thought of riding our cross bikes on the combination gravel and paved Canal towpath, but we were glad we went with the road route and the variety of sites it provided, good or bad.

   Because of my interests in railroads and architecture, I try to visit and take pictures of train stations all over the country. My “collection” numbers over 500, and I took the opportunity to see some along the way, which we used as little breaks for our legs and butts! Some of the smaller stations were in a bit of disrepair, but the buildings in Utica (photos above) and Rome (photos below), which are Amtrak stops, proved to be very impressive inside and out.

   From a cycling standpoint, we both handled it well, and but for a bit of a headwind on the return leg and a couple of thigh-burning rises late in the ride, we held a very good pace throughout. We spied a soft-serve ice cream joint that advertised 24 different flavors, and thought about stopping, but we made an agreement to drive up after dinner. I had a large piña colada, and, because she couldn't decide on one flavor, Sue had a small each of blackberry and peach. Hey, we had burned around 4000 calories earlier!

   We had considered just lazing about on Wednesday, but we ended up being antsy and decided to get back on the bikes for a little ride east. A little fatigue was in our legs, but it went away fairly quickly as we made our way toward Little Falls, NY. There was a very unwelcome hill early in the ride, but it was measly compared to some of the regular slopes we encounter climbing out of the Schuylkill Valley at home, so we made quick work of it.

   Little Falls is an attractive, small city that lies in a narrow, rocky gorge on the Mohawk River. The city has an interesting railroad station and a neat business district down by the riverside, apart from the main city up on the hillside. Nearby is the Erie Canal’s Lock 17 (photo below) which, at the time of its completion in 1916, boasted the highest raise/lower of boats in the world at 40.5 feet. We were lucky to arrive in time to see the lock in action, as a canal maintenance boat was making its way east towards St. Johnsville on the Mohawk River’s more navigable sections.

   After a tricky walk over the lock’s bridge, carrying our bikes down a couple flights of metal-grated stairs, we weaved up a long access ramp to the canal path. We weren’t sure what the surface would be like, but despite an older, bumpy paved surface for the first couple hundred yards, we enjoyed a pristine sheet of asphalt on the brand new trail for about two miles, until the path abruptly ended on Route 167. The highway rolled up and down considerably back towards Herkimer, but we were happy to find the downhills were much longer in that direction.

   Later we were glad to have found the motivation to get off our butts and see some new things, but more importantly we hoped the ride would aid our recovery from the long trip on Tuesday and improve our conditioning for the BIG RIDE later this month.