We’re back into real hills for the first time in many weeks. Upper New York state is living up to it’s reputation as hilly and spectacular.
I woke up with a bit of a sore knee from the previous day’s ride. I think I mashed gears a bit too much trying to get up some of the shorter hills. It’s easier than shifting with my shoulder as it is. I had myself a bit worried I was going to do a number on my knee just to save my shoulder. I was happy though that after an hour of riding things felt miles and miles better instead of worse. Today’s hills were longer and steeper than the previous day’s so I put out the effort to shift properly and took it easy on the knee.
I left camp alone but quickly caught up with Jenna Zee and Heidi Bentum who were rolling along at a good clip. I wasn’t going much quicker than them and when I went by they latched on and followed in my draft. We pulled off the highway and checked out a huge waterfall and then soon were in Ithaca. The town was pretty cool and we stopped along a walking street downtown at a little coffee shop and bakery. We loaded up on caffeine and I bought a whole loaf of Olive bread which I proceeded to chow down on with a lot less help from the girls than I expected. Kinda reminiscent of the pancake breakfast the day before I remounted my bike stuffed full and started out of town. We climbed up the hill past Cornell University which I think would be a really sweet place to study (great bike racing community in the area too according to some locals). When I say hill I mean hill! This part of the country seems to have roads built before people had huge machinery (or at least the road-route, the surfaces are fantastic) and as a result they just run straight up the hills. We all managed up it with smiles on our faces and continued through the hills towards camp.
I have that camera of mine that was smashed in my crash replaced and it is working well except for the part where I want to upload photos from my SD card to the internet. I have to resize them with MS paint before uploading so only a few from today…