Weekend riding: Foliage, wind, and a rainy century

Here's a partial map of the Lake George Century
This is how I spent the first part of Saturday
The route takes you damn near Vermont

Although it would be nice to have the Monday holiday off from work, I'm pretty happy with this weekend. Most importantly, I didn't race, watch a race, think about racing, or sleep in a strange bed. This is the first time I can say that of a weekend since the first weekend in August. Wow.

As with that weekend back in August, I spent the weekend as any non-racing bike racer would: getting up early and going for a bike ride.

After a chill evening at home on Friday evening, during which I enjoyed a delicious burrito from Esperanto, I woke up at 5 a.m., drove to Lake George, and participated in the first-annual Peak Season Century, a brand new charity ride started this year to benefit the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, by Saratoga-area developer Gary Olsen.

I didn't know anyone else participating in the ride (other than Gary), and I wasn't sure about the weather, which was rainy and cool. The route went around Lake George via Route 9N to Ticonderoga, then south on Route 22, west on Route 146, and back to the Village of Lake George on Route 9L. We lucked out with a tailwind coming down 22 through Whitehall and Ft. Ann.

According the Gmaps, the route (pictured above) is about 96 miles, mostly flat with a moderate climb up Tongue Mountain on the Western Shore of Lake George, followed by some rollers while heading south. The roads don't all have the best shoulders, and it was cool and rainy for most of the day, but the foliage was pretty.

Only about 12 riders turned out, and I would up riding the whole thing with Saratoga builder John Witt, of Witt Construction. For a guy whose longest previous ride this year was 50 miles, I think John did an admirable job on this long tour -- of course, I think the rollers in the last 30 miles hurt him a little more than they hurt me. Our ride time was about 5 hours, 25 minutes. On the whole, I think Gary has put together a nice event, and I hope he's able to grow it in the coming years. He's recruited Dieter and Anthem Sports to organize next year's ride. There was a gathering afterwards at Gary's house on the lake, but I wasn't able to stick around, as I was due at Blue Sky Bicycles in the afternoon.

So that was Saturday, a rather full day of bicycle-related activity.

On Sunday I did something I haven't done since last winter: slept until 11 a.m. Now that my day is winding down and I've only been awake for 10 hours, I am reminded of why I don't like sleeping in. Oh well, good to do every once in a while, I suppose.

After eventually waking up and getting myself sorted, I compensated for my sloth with a mid-afternoon ride, on which I had the chance to enjoy some more foliage, this time without rain -- although the wind was up and roaring, conspiring to strip the leaves from the trees before we hit peak foliage. So it goes.