The forecasted storms arrived a little later than expected, at 3:00 am instead of 2:00, but the late start didn’t matter much: it was still raining steadily when I got up at 5:15; when I walked through the mucky field to carry my duffel to the truck; when I returned to the campsite, rolled up my wet tent and carried that to the truck; when I walked to the pavilion where breakfast was being served; and when I ate breakfast. By the time I decided to mount up and hit the road around 7:00, the rain had slackened… but picked up again about a half-hour later and rained for another hour. I was soaked.
Yesterday afternoon, after I had set up my tent, I overheard a couple of riders telling one of the organizers that they were going to keep their gear on the truck and keep riding into Albany to beat the weather (and would then collect their stuff at the finish line the next day). For about one minute, I pondered the merits of taking my tent down and doing the same. It was only 1:30 in the afternoon, plenty of time to bike the final 27 miles and find dry accommodations in Albany. There were three reasons why I decided to stay put: (1) I didn’t have any way of carrying with me the clothes and toiletries that I would need; (2) if staying dry was all that damn important, I could just schlep my cot and sleeping bag to the community room of the JCC with the indoor campers; (3) I signed up for an 8-day bike ride, dammit.
So, yeah, I’ll be driving two large (and heavier) bags of wet clothes and wet gear back to Springfield tomorrow, and it’s probably gonna be Thursday before it’s all dried out and put away. But I’m glad I didn’t shortchange myself from the experience of today’s final stretch into Albany.
The full post iter analysis of the entire experience will come in a few days after I’ve given it all some more thought. Thanks for coming along with me.
Tomorrow: Drive back to Springfield.
Rideworthy 