Baldwinsville, Retain a Thought

TOP: John taking the last drop of water from Theresa's bottle, then leaving her to die trailside. What an act of chivalry...NOT!

2nd: A common site on the ride, Carl taking another non-pull

3rd: A lock detour. Carl and I had to portage the bike over the fence, through the girders, and through strands of rope. Mark and John took the detour 20 yards away, and rode right by.

4th: John climbing the biggest hill on the trail

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Our 2nd day out was most eventful. After a masterful breakfast at Denny's, we left Herkimer for a day of mostly road segments, interspersed with some nice trail. The winds were in our face, but we were sheltered quite a bit for the sections that we were "on canal". The road segments however were a different story. We made Rome late morning, and started our next leg to skirt Oneida Lake. While we turned Southwest, the trip turned south in a hurry. First, carl had a flat on his Hummer-like tires. He could have used one of those auto garage tire changing machines, as it took a while to change it. Then, while Carl was changing, John (AKA Marco Polo...see earlier postings) took what was to be his first of two wrong turns for the day. Mind you, this is on a totally straight road, next to a canal, heading in one direction. He's amazing. We found him about an hour later, riding around in a state of confusion. Then, mark's bike rack broke in two. Thankfully, he was not at full speed when it broke, as it basically just collapsed off his seatpost and fell into his wheel. He would have trashed the bike and himself, but as luck would have it, he was able to come to a stop before it wove itself into his spokes. And even luckier, I was the only one with pack space, so I got to carry ALL of mark's gear in addition to my own. Sure, give it to fat kid, he won't notice the extra weight.

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Then the day got real interesting. We got off in Oriskany (site of the famous Battle of Oriskany in the Revolutionary war), and about 1/2 mile down the detour, John (now leading, stupid idea number 42 for the day) turned down what he thought was the path. Of course, it wasn't, and after about an hour of stone trail (read: bounce, bounce, bounce), fording streams with bikes overhead, more flats, and a bungee cord breakage jammed into mark's cassette, we finally decided that we were on the wrong path. So, we got to do it all in reverse. That was fun....

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We finally found the correct trail, which turned out to be an incredible section set adjacent to the original canal (much smaller). We tooled there for an hour or two, with such incredible sights as turtle families, deer, and an old lady walking her two poodles with big plastic rings around their necks. Somehow I don't think those were natural.

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We stopped near Verona Beach for lunch at a little honky-tonk that Carl knew, loaded up on the calories, and headed out on what we expected to be a pretty tough stretch..RTE 31 along the entire base of Oneida Lake, with a brutal 20-25mph headwind, a cold chill coming off the lake, and not much of interest to look at. Well, it was far worse than that! We averaged about 9mph for several hours, swapping pulls every 1/2 mile so the leader could get a break (except for Carl, who, of course, never pulled, not once...is this a recurring theme or what?). My highlight of the stretch was when mark got off to pee (every hour, on the hour) around the back of a baptist church. I think his line was "god's pissing on me, I'm just returning the favor".

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As we're headed towards Baldwinsville, John must have asked 50 times "what town are we heading towards". I think he was delirious from the winds and cold, which only became more apparent as he sprinted to a roadside ice cream stand, and ordered a huge cone. I thought he had lost his mind. After a verrrry long afternoon in the saddle, we finally got to Baldwinsville, and found a diner to reload. And then, in an unusual circumstance, Mark found a 12 pack to bed down with. I've never seen him drink before. We talked about the mile-long Budweiser plant, which John had somehow missed in his sprint to the ice cream.

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"Baldwinsville, like the damned piano" Lumpy out