CT3C

[thegock]

5​

The next stop was bustling Rome, NY, which was one of the larger towns where we overnighted. Camping was on the grounds of Fort Stanwix, a National monument that was built in 1758, just before the French and Indian War. The fort is there because there is a gap in the mountains through which the Mohawk River passes on the way east from Buffalo to Albany. Therefore, in revolutionary times it was a very valuable strategic location, because the river preceded the canal as a means of transportation.



ROME TEAM PHOTO

After a few beers from the brewpub truck, dinner at Vigneto’s and a self guided tour of the sprawling fort, we turned in. My guy at the NOAA/NWS had told us to expect considerable rain, which held off until 11pm, when my nephew told me he heard the rain roaring in a full minute before it hit. My 40 year old Eureka tent wasn’t up to the 2 hours of wind driven 2.8 inches of rain. Four times, I had to stifle a laugh at how hard it was raining, after thinking that it couldn’t possibly rain any harder or more.

The next morning my sleeping bag, pillow and clothes I was wearing were all drenched, but everything else was packed in double plastic bags. Not feeling great, until I ran into a woman who had her tent set up under one of the official canopies. When I told her that she was a genius, she said that she had originally been sleeping in a low spot and awoke to 4” on rain in her tent. Everything she had was soaked. While we were leaving, she was headed for the laundromat to dry out.

This next day was one of the most difficult. There was quite a bit of county road and State Highway 5 (five miles entirely in the rain with multiple trailer trucks roaring by just feet away at 70mph) riding. We may have stopped 8 times in the miles between 18 and 35 to don and remove rain jackets, when it rained and stopped and rained and stopped...

I didn’t have a rain jacket with me and my back was very twitchy after 225 miles plus of CAAD10 Black stiffness (please, Einstein, pick the most uncomfortable bike that you own for this trip…), combined with hauling 80 pounds of gear a quarter of a mile twice a day. Not really sleeping much, in a small tent sized lake the night, before hadn’t helped. I hammered that last half of Route 5 when the 8th rain jacket stop commenced and jetted into the next rest stop.

I was happy to get to the Little Falls rest stop 10 minutes later and slam down 4 Advil from the angelic volunteer. The $1 Klondike bar didn’t hurt either. I was talking to one of the local volunteers at the park building, who told me that the population of the town had been 15,000 people in 2000 and, pointing out the factories across the river that had closed, he said that the population had fallen to 2,600 people 15 years later. EPIC FAIL.

The last 18 miles were blissfully dry and cool with a tail wind and I hammered home to Canajoharie @ 20mph, until the last climb up the 247 vf of Canajoharie Hill to the high school. The hour wait for the autobus gave me time to stake out my soaked tent, bag and clothes in the 20mph cooling wind. Also, I scored the holy grail of indoor showers in the varsity locker room. Bliss.

 

[pooriggy]

The hour wait for the autobus gave me time to stake out my soaked tent, bag and clothes in the 20mph cooling wind.

Were you carrying your tent on your bike? I thought they transported your gear on autobus?

 

[thegock]

Were you carrying your tent on your bike? I thought they transported your gear on autobus?

autobus:

The group of cyclists in a race who form a large group behind the leading peloton.

There were 4 big, yellow trucks like the one in the first post that hauled the stuff.

 

[w_b]

and silly me thinking it was a multi passenger vehicle with only gas and brake pedals.

 

[thegock]

6​

That evening we dined on delicious baked chicken al fresco on the grounds of the Arkell gallery, an impressive art museum. It was built by the same Beech Nut baby food fortune that funded the entire monumental High School we stayed at. My millionaire in laws declined to spend the $15 to view the significant art collection. Guess that’s how they got to be millionaires.

Arkell TEAM PHOTO

We next walked down the hill to the best Irish bar in Canajoharie, which had live music. It was so hot inside that we chose the patio, 15 degrees cooler. We were joined by Owen, the President of the biker gang Nomads, Chapter 26. While I was chatting him up, he was showing me his beater bike, a pristine 2012 Harley, which was parked adjacent to the patio, and killing its Megadeth sound system.

OWEN

That's our Team Captain on the other side of the fence to the right with his hand on his chin, wondering if he was going to have to throw my bail, again. When a couple of the older bicycle rider patrons, who are in the extreme left of the photo, complained about the blast to the bar manager, she came out to gently admonish Owen, who is a regular. He genially discussed the volume level with her and with practiced ceremony, turned the volume carefully down from 11.5 to 11. She went back inside, while we partied on. Probably the best night of the trip for pure fun and dancing.

OLD INDIAN

The average age of the CT3C riders was 58. Quite a few crews were older, but there were a sprinkling of families with sainted fathers and mothers and kids who were not yet 12. Some of the crews make it an annual trip/reunion. Myself, I would rather do the glamping option, with a more comfortable bike to save my back, but it wasn’t my trip. If I was doing it myself, I might substitute 4 hotel nights in lieu of 4 nights of camping and hauling.

Because my brother in law invited me and because I am “the cyclist” in the family, I couldn’t refuse to go on this trip. At the end of the eight days, I had really enjoyed the whole experience and the family in laws were equally glad to be rid of “Mr. don’t give a fuck.” That being said, it didn’t seem like something that I would want to do every year, or maybe ever again.

 

[stilluf]

"Mr. Don't Give A Fuck".

 

[w_b]

^^^ change @thegock title from Well Known Member to ^^^^

 

[rick81721]

What is this thread.

Yes I am confused as well. Is old man @thegock sitting in his rocking chair recounting tales of yore??

 

[thegock]

Yes I am confused as well. Is old man @thegock sitting in his rocking chair recounting tales of yore??

You have to read the answer to @pooriggy four questions above, my little darling @SNOWFAK3

 

[pooriggy]

You have to read the answer to @pooriggy four questions above, my little darling @SNOWFAK3

I'm still not sure why the name Hello Kitty for your team of 7 people/in-laws.

 

[thegock]

I'm still not sure why the name Hello Kitty for your team of 7 people/in-laws.

Our captain got these cool jerseys on AliExpress^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

 

[pooriggy]

Our captain got these cool jerseys on AliExpress^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Gonna have to add one to the magnificent 7.
You don't get to win Covid.

 

[thegock]

7​

We were my two brothers in law, my two sisters in law, my nephew and one of my brother in laws. Also with us was my brother in law’s coworkers from his job with a global CM, which my brother in law had retired from a year ago. His friend, Mitch, had been the lead project engineer on the construction of one of the largest commercial buildings in the world for the last five years. Mitch was riding a 32 pound bike, but had the advantage of a Peloton bike at home that he must have put some time on, because he rode very well. My nephew liked the “Oh, look at me and my expensive Peloton bike” threads that were on youtube.com last year.

KITTY PHOTO-that's Paul from the Elmira bike shop under the canopy

After the first day’s trip with the mac and cheeze food coma afternoon, we decided (the fact that I made it clear that I was willing to kill everyone else may have helped…) that we would only stop briefly or for beer or to get food at the well provisioned rest areas. The picture below is from one of the towpath side bars that we particularly liked by the end of the week. Mitch on the right looking most thirsty:

LOCK 32 PHOTO

My nephew (the youngest member of the HELLO KITTY team) and I rode Sprain Ridge in January 2020 and had a great time. He went back in February to clean the whale rock formation. That park is worth the trip, especially if you are at the REI in the adjacent mall.

SPRAIN RIDGE

My brother in law, who was a county champion swimmer in HS, surfs every day there are waves, but is the oldest and slowest rider on the team had a mechanical almost right out of the gate the next day and we milked it into the first rest area. We waited for the two bikes ahead of us at the SAG tent in the hot sun.


The second bike ahead of us was about the same age as my Eureka tent and Jim, the mechanic, who does this trip each summer as an assistant/backup/alternate to the lead mechanic, Dr. Paul from Elmira, was sweating hard under the canopy. He appreciated the cold snacks that I dropped off.

The owner of the 40 year old bike was a nurse from Mississippi with her 17 year old daughter, who was looking at colleges. We had a while to talk, cuz the mechanic hadn’t stocked his truck with 40 year old bearing races. The nurse had given me her business card at some point, so I figured if I was ever sick in Mississippi, I would be all set. Finally the mechanic jury rigged something in her bottom bracket, moved on to the five minute repair on my BIL’s whip and we were off.

One of the things that I never thought about before this trip was that you see the same people, every day, more than once. I was slow pedaling one afternoon and I rolled up on the Mississippi nurse and daughter. I was talking to them about colleges, while waiting for the Hello Kitties to catch up, for about five minutes, when the young girl said: “Well, you seem like a nice person.” I said: “If you ever see a guy wearing a Hello Kitty bicycle jersey, he probably has a kidnapper van right around the corner, so you should just run.” I probably saved her life.

 

[stilluf]

Just so we are forewarned, how many Gocks are out there?

 

[thegock]

Well, @stilluf I have seven siblings, but none were on this in-law trip.

 

[thegock]

8​

The JCC, yeah, you know me, in Schenectady was one of the better overnight stops. They had a very large pool and huge property for the last tent erection of the trip. Thank God. They also had a large Pavilion of steel and wood which seated the whole crew when paired with tents. The helped with the huge last night feast and drinks.

The next morning, the crew was bitchin’ about not sleeping well. Duh, guys, you set your tents up between the beer truck and the portjohns? Arriving first each night, I tried to pick the best tent locations, usually walking out a couple hundred yards, but everyone has different tastes and it is a free country. That being said, my trusty Eureka is just to the right of the Portajohns, but 100 yards in the background below:

The last leg of the trip went only 28 miles into Albany. The middle 11 miles I had ridden at least 20 times. I had a client in Latham for five and a half months in 2014 and brought the bike up for the three weeknights staying at the formerly pimp Century House on Route 9. It was like a paid MTB vacation six years ago, especially when I had to be in the client’s Queensbury facility for some real or imagined reason, and my job description required me to slay the SMBA trails north of Skidmore College in Saratoga, or Luther Woods in Malta. Homefield was the Colonie Shale Pit in those halcyon days.

I knew all of the bumps, swales, hills, bridges and most of the groundhogs on those 11 miles of the Erie Canal towpath, so, it was a very comfortable section for me. I started late with the back half of the crew, because one of my brothers in law had site mobilization issues that morning and I volunteered to hang. We caught the rest of the posse about halfway through that middle section.

What I never did back in 2014 was go down into the town of Colonie at the eastern end of the 11 mile stretch of the trail. Not a very aspirational town, and very steep going north from the trail, so I passed, back then. I realized on a beautiful summer midday that I had made a big mistake. This was the signature photo opportunity of the trip, overlooking the Mohawk Falls, which were killing it this morning. This is the point where the Mohawk River empties into the Hudson and the picture doesn’t do the magnificence of the view any justice, especially combined with the noise from the falls.

MOHAWK TEAM PHOTO

We stopped at the last rest stop in Cohoes. The kinda cute Mississippi nurse came up to me when I walked into the rest stop and kind of let me know that she was pissed that I hadn’t called her over the last couple of days of the trip. My impression is that she was angry and she thought that I was under some sort of obligation to date her. We didn’t discuss the facts that I was married, her 17 year old daughter was with her on the trip or my wife’s four siblings being on the trip with me, but awkward. I was kind of stunned, when she walked away abruptly.

With only 12 or so miles to go, I was ready to stage a breakaway at this point and the Mississippi nurse really helped motivate me. It felt better all week to hammer and bounce off the top of the bumps on the trail, now it felt great. The trail was a bit wider now that we were on the Hudson across from Troy and the crowd had thinned out a bit due to attrition and about a hundred riders leaving after the first half of the trip.

COHOES

About three quarters of the way to Albany, I caught up to a guy riding the bike that I should have been on: a carbon Diverge with 32mm tires. We chatted our way into town and collapsed on the lawn in the shade.

The End