Day Four is Done!

I am happy to say that we finished our ride by 4:00pm as we hit Watertown and our destination, the Best Western Carriage House Inn.

After checking in, we spoke to Jeri McInnis, the General Manager of the place. It turns out that Jeri is an animal lover too and has two cats that she rescued and a dog! We talked about ideas for next year’s ride and how to get more and more local community support for the cause. It’s always great when those types of discussions occur!!

Once showered up, we headed off to dinner at the Tilted Kilt (Mike is posting about that) and greatly enjoyed the dinner with Rich, Brian, Brad, and later on Allison, Rich’s wife, as she came by to pick the full day riders up. Way to go guys and see you all next year for the full distance! With luck the 11 riders this year will seem small next year and future years to come! Anyway, here’s a quick photo of the place taken as we were leaving!

At least you can see the parking lot… Mike will fill in the rest.

Dinner at the Tilted Kilt in Watertown

Here's Rich enjoying himself at the Tilted Kilt

Sometimes things happen for reasons that we just can’t explain. For example, we had Rich Conely and Brian Six from the Beer Path Cycling Club join us on our Marcellus to Watertown leg our our ride.   This was the longest ride either on these guys have done to date-a total of 104.5 miles with an average speed of 17.5 mph.

Great job guys!  We look forward to riding with you next year!
As a way to say “Thanks”, Rich took us to the Tilted Kilt (http://www.tiltedkilt.com/) in Watertown.  Not sure how Rich knows about this fine eating establishment, but let’s just say the food wasn’t the only thing that was good.  I must admit, after spending 6 hours in the saddle with the sun beating down on your back, it was refreshing to sit and watch….um, the BIG screen TVs.  Actually, the food was really good and beer was cold and refreshing.  All in all, it was a fitting end to a really nice day on bikes.
Tomorrow we have a stop at the Jefferson County SPCA then it’s off to Ogdensburg!

Ride On!

Quick Rest Stop in Adams

Let’s talk about dropping people. As most people know, I can be competitive and when Brian jump ahead of me a first time, I said “Okay, no problem. I won’t take the bait but I will just slowly catch him”. When he did it the second time, I took off in front of him and after about 5 minutes, I let him get to about 30 feet back and then kicked it up to 35 mph. I did that 3 more times before my smirk factor was low enough to stop. By then I let Brian catch me and we saw that the next town was Adams, our targeted rest stop, so we rolled into an American Legion and waited and waited and waited for the rest. As I stand here blogging, they still haven’t shown up, so here’s the photo of Brian.

Oh and by the way, we also stopped in Selkirk Shores State Park which is off Route 3 and right on Lake Ontario.

You may be able to notice that the Nine Mile Point nuclear reactor tower in Oswego in in the background. I will take a photo or two when the others arrive and post when done… still waiting.

Lunch at Cam’s in Mexico

At mile 57, we stopped for lunch at Cam’s Pizzeria in Mexico.

Each of the gang had a couple of slices and a drink and were raring to return to the road after about 30 minutes. Rich, one of our guest riders, had a flat around mile 40, so we were worried that we would be done the day of riding a touch later than expected, but we are still making excellent time. Maybe going faster makes the food taste better or maybe we are just gluttons, but we were done very quickly today!. Jay from Cam’s served up the food.

See you at the next rest stop or dinner, whichever comes first!

Visiting Welch Allyn and the Finger Lakes SPCA

Rain, rain, go away… Yep, the rain returned about 5 minutes after we got on the bikes. It was more than enough to mess up the road and to make us wet. That said, the rain was mostly done as we arrived at Welch Allyn to meet with many of the staff. Some came out to ride with us and others came by to see us off. Welch Allyn is a great supporter of Pedaling4Paws and we appreciate their help tremendously. At Welch Allyn, we were also visited by the Finger Lakes SPCA, one of the shelters we support.

Notice the big group of cyclists! A couple rode with us for about 20 miles and then had to leave to get back to work. Others ended up turning around at mile 40 or so and a couple went the full 100 miles! Total riders in the morning: 11!! That turned out to be more than our hometown of West Chester! Way to go!!!

Once we passed mile 40, the remaining 5 of us continued on to Mexico for lunch and beyond.

Day Four begins with Blue Skies

Another huge rainstorm overnight but we wake up to a very promising site – blue skies!

With clothes all washed and air dried the night before, we sat down for breakfast at Mike’s kitchen table. It was nice to pad around in bare feet and not have to look for a restaurant and we certainly had enough in bagels, oatmeal and juice/coffee/tea.

Our bikes were cleaned up yesterday though we fully expect them to get dirty again today (even if just from the standing water of the night before). We are just about ready to head out to Welch Allyn for a visit with them and the Finger Lakes SPCA (they are visiting with us there). We are also looking forward to riding with more people today as we begin Day Four and the 100 or so miles up to Watertown.

Day 4 – The Quick Summary

Day Four includes 97.1 miles and 2,464 feet of climbing from Marcellus/Skaneateles to Watertown. It’s relatively low climbing is usually countered by winds from Lake Ontario. Once we start riding this route, we’ll be updating the blog roughly every two hours.