Today’s ride marked the first time that I’d ridden this far on seven consecutive days; my previous adventures on the Grand Illinois Bike Tour all ended after six days. The one week tally stands at 374 miles; with a 27-mile milk run into Albany tomorrow, I should just break 400.
The day began wet: it rained yesterday afternoon during dinner, then cleared off for a cool, beautiful evening, then rained again overnight. The morning was cool, humid, and foggy. Ordinarily, that wouldn’t be so bad, except that it frustrated the one goal I had for the morning: to take a picture of “The Noses,” a geological formation created by that retreating glacier I mentioned yesterday. (It’s basically a valley formed by two cliffs facing each other, like noses.) I was looking for it, but never saw it through the fog.
The title of today’s post comes from (of course) the song lyrics, but I’m using it here with reference to the many and various people you encounter on these rides. With 750 riders, it’s weird: there are people camping near me tonight whom I hadn’t noticed for six days; there are other people whom I seem to see several times each day. Every day, you find yourself riding alongside someone, maybe sharing a few words about the trail or about each other’s bikes, if you ride together for more than a couple miles, you might get around to hometowns, but then you never see that person again. Maybe a slightly smaller group would be better, because you would bump into the same people more often and have a chance to carry on multi-day conversations. So far, I have not had the great coincidental good fortune that I had last year on the GIBT, when I found myself going to lunch in Pontiac with someone (Hey, Stacy!) that I went to junior high with.
It’s a very sunny and hot afternoon in Niskayuna, a suburb of Schenectady, where we are encamped at the local Jewish Community Center, and where the showers in the men’s locker room had no, zero, cold water, just hot. (The bathroom sinks had cold water, but not the showers. I mean, c’mon: hot and cold pipes is Plumbing 101.)
Thunderstorms are forecast for later tonight and throughout the ride tomorrow, but there is a feeling of celebration, not foreboding, in the air today. We’re almost there.
Rideworthy 