Scratch that, still hate the hills..

So here I sit in a church in Boonville, NY. I just got in about an hour ago after a long 76 mile ride, I felt horrible the entire time because last night I slept in a tent and didn't get nearly enough sleep.

This past week has been interesting. Since last writing, we left Lebanon NH and went up Bethel Mountain in Vermont, a very easy ride considering it was a damn mountain! There is a picture of my sufferface somewhere that Sean took. Anyway after the awesome descent that followed we made our way to Rochester and found our host. After using the wifi at the cafe I discovered that Pete's Aunt and Uncle lived in this town, not only that.. but they were right across the street from the host! So I took advantage of that and went to meet them and they kindly gave me a shower, which I greatly needed!

We explored town quite extensively and found some neat places for food and drink, then called it a night after going for a walk to the river.

We woke the next day for another mountain pass, this time I was to ride sweep which entails being the last group of people to leave the host, and not passing anyone. Basically it boils down to taking your time and many many rests. Ellen and I left Rochester about an hour after everyone else, and we took it at a very slow pace taking in every detail, we stopped at a local winery for a bit to talk with one of the owners as well as sitting under many shade trees for quite some time. We then made it into The YMCA camp at Silver Bay on Lake George. We were not expecting such a huge place.. we all swam and took showers before heading to dinner where we ate until we could not eat any longer. Then it was off for some basketball/tennis/volleyball for everyone. And we got to sleep in real beds that night!

The following day was our hardest ride to date, it was to Indian Lake NY where we stayed in an RV park. The entire ride was many many steep hills and we had to take a lot of breaks, as soon as we left the camp we had a 4.5 mile climb that took what seemed to be forever, before a nice downhill and more uphills.
We made it in and started grilling food and just enjoying our time outdoors. That night we slept in tents.


Today we rode to Boonville which was not a very hard route, but was difficult because we are all tired and our bodies are sore, it was a struggle for me personally and I wasn't sure how well I'd make it. But in the end I made it with some time to spare.

Here are the rides. Photos can be seen in the right sidebar.