Robert's Ride 2010, Day 6, Thursday, August 26, 2010, Hagerstown, MD to Hyde Park, NY

We were on the road by 7:30 AM. We each grabbed a bagel from the free motel breakfast buffet, and found a Starbucks nearby (thanks, IPhone).  Philip described the choices for today's ride and driving route.  Choice 1: old US Hwy 11 from Hagerstown, MD over the Potomac River, through Harrisburg, PA to the Susquehana River, and up towards Wilkes-Barre, PA, through the Catskill Mountains, and on to Hyde Park, our destination for tonight.  Choice 2: Carbondale, PA, over the Delaware River to Hancock, NY,  to Kingston, NY, and on towards Hyde Park.  We decided to drive 3+ hours north on Interstate 81 to Carbondale, PA and begin our ride there. Philip assured me that the ride would be scenic and mostly downhill "after reaching the top of the watershed." I was hopeful that "reaching the top" would be less challenging than yesterday's ride.

I was the first to ride.  We pulled into a Sunoco gas station on PA Hwy 171 and I got ready in the shady rear corner of the parking lot.  It was hard to calculate the exact mileage between Carbondale and Hancock from the information in our road atlas, so Philip canvassed some of the customers and workers in the gas station store.  Two of them were visitors and didn't know where Hancock is.  Two locals gave the distance in different estimates of drive time.  One local had never been to Hancock and so didn't know.  Another guy asked his buddy, who finally gave Philip a mileage estimate of about 30 miles.  Philip tried to convince me to ride the entire distance.  I decided not to commit, but to wait and see.

The traffic on that road was fairly light, and there seemed to be an ample shoulder, so I felt pretty comfortable starting out.  As I started out, I immediately tried to change to the small ring of my crank for easier peddling, and realized, to my dismay, that I was already in the small ring.   This was not a good sign. 

Sure enough, it was mostly uphill peddling, with a head wind, for the first 15 miles or so.  The shoulder soon disappeared or was broken up.  Some parts of the road were worse.  I had been spoiled by 5 days on the beautiful roads of the Natchez Trace and Blue Ridge Parkway.  I was too busy huffing and puffing today to see any scenery.  But the traffic was light, and I consoled myself that I was developing climbers legs.  At each point on the road where Philip had leap-frogged ahead, he kept saying that the downhill sections were just ahead.  But where-o-where were they. 

I decided that I would give today's ride a "D", until I turned off Hwy 171 onto Hwy 370 heading for Hancock, NY.  Philip was there at the corner.  I gave him an ear full about the climbing (Philip calls it "bitching"), but he insisted that it would be downhill from here to the PA-NY state line just up the road.  Finally he was right.  I was screaming (not literally this time) down hill at 32 mph.  That was indeed enjoyably scary.  Of course if there are downhills, there are up hills.  I wanted to finish my 20-mile goal for today.  At 19.5 miles I was at the base of a long hill, and had to decide whether to wimp out or carry on.  I decided to carry on, and finished the climb.  I gave that stretch of road a C+.  Philip wanted me to stay on the bike until the state line, which, he again assured me, was all down hill.  I started peddling again, downhill, uphill, downhill.  By 24 miles, I'd had enough of both and ingnored further encouragement to reach the state line, so Philip decided to begin his ride there.

Supporting a cyclist on country roads with lots of intersecting roads is not an easy task, especially if you are direction-challenged as I am.  Philip had ridden these roads on his previous Robert's Rides up to Halifax, so he knew them well.  For me, I went from the anxiety of riding on the road, to the anxiety of loosing my rider.  So I drove only short distances ahead of Philip and kept asking him to confirm his route.   If you loose your rider because you take a wrong turn, and if there's no cell phone signal to call the rider (which was the case), well, you probably get the picture. 

As soon as he started his ride, Philip realized that his rear brakes were rubbing the wheel.  The brake calipers had bound up from exposure to rain on top the car.  His hopes of a perfect ride down into Hancock were not to be.  We stopped in the tiny town just before the state line and tried to find a nearby bike shop, but the nearest one was several miles away in NY.  After a few minutes of tinkering, Philip fixed the problem himself with his little handy pocket tool kit.  From there he decided to ride until 4:30, so that we'd have enough drive time to arrive at our friend Valerie's B&B in Hyde Park by 7:00.  Philip tore into his ride, with the wind at his back (not fair!).  Instead of continuing his ride on country roads, he rode one 11 mile stretch on NY Rt 17, which was a huge highway, like an interstate, but with 55 mph speed limit and a huge shoulder.  I thought he was nuts, but he was able to make really good time.  I leaped-frogged ahead several times, until he found me asleep in the car at 4:20.  He got off the bike there, with 26.7 miles.  From there we drove to Valerie's place.

Valerie's B&B is called Le Petit Chateau Inn (http://www.lepetitchateauinn.com/).  She and I have know each other since my years in law school in Austin in the mid-80s -- she was the librarian at the county law library, and I had a part-time job doing research requested by inmates at the county jail.  Valerie's B&B is very nice.  Philip has stayed at her B&B on 2 previous Robert's Rides.  He had originally planned that we would stay at Valerie's B&B for one night, and camp for two nights in Brattleboro, VT (one of his favorite places) where we would take our rest day.  When he told me his plan, it took me a milli-second to suggest that we should take our rest day at the B&B instead of in a tent in Brattleboro (dah!)

It was great to see Valerie again; it's been about 10 years since I'd seen her, but we have stayed in touch, and she's a loyal supporter of Robert's Ride.  After settling in our very comfortable room, she and her beau Steve and Philip and I had a fabulous dinner at a restaurant call Twist.  All of the dishes have a bit of a twist of the unexpected--some unusual but delicious flavor.  Hyde Park, NY is the home of the Culinary Institute of America.  The chefs at Twist, and the chefs who prepare breakfast at the B&B, are graduates of the Institute.  We're in for a treat for tomorrow's breakfast.

Today we drove 370 miles and cycled 50.7 miles.