I can recall years past when my last bike ride of the season was the first weekend of October – often the MS ride in Manhattan. Once frost hit, I was done. There was a time when fall was my favorite season, but now I’m grown up enough to know that I dislike what comes after fall so fall and I had fallen out of love. After yesterday’s late October 60 degree, sunshine, fall foliage ride, I may just falling back in love.
We are fortunate to have a wonderful string of paved bike trails that span Putnam and Westchester counties, part of the rails-to-trails system, a 30 minute drive from our CT house. It is so expansive that we have yet to experience the entire trail system after 5 years of trying. Yesterday, we set out to “finally go to the end” of the southern route on a fabulous fall day. We still weren’t successful in our intended endeavor, although I did set a new milestone, not to mention reinforce some lessons learned.
We picked up the Northern Westchester County trail near Yorktown Heights and went south. “Let’s finally go to the end,” I declared. For once, we didn’t have any commitments containing our ride. About 10 miles into the ride, I realized I had forgotten to remove the granola bars from the box in the car and put them into my bike bag. No big deal, I thought – we can just pick up some food in route. About 15 miles into the ride, Mike informed me he had left his wallet in the car. Oh. Lesson #1: Always carry nutrients – and money.
We passed the southern point we had ridden to in past rides and at 18 miles came to what we thought could be the end of the trail. We were in an industrial section of a town and there no signs directing us. Strange. As Mike searched, I quizzed three riders who appeared from some undetermined direction. They gave us directions to go through town to pick up the path less than a mile away. We found ourselves on a busy 4 lane road with no shoulder and drivers turning in front of us into various stores – not my idea of fun and safe biking. Lesson #2: Consult a map.
Once back on the path, it seemed silly to just go a couple miles after all that effort so I said let’s go to 25 miles. I was also still hoping perhaps we would “finally get to the end.” Mike zoomed ahead of me as I began to realize I really needed calories. By the time he turned around, I could tell the return ride was going to be difficult. When we got back into the town, I seriously thought about begging for a free piece of bread in one of the restaurants. The thought also crossed my mind that perhaps the Sam’s Club would have free samples, but of course you need a membership to even get in the door.
“Only 20 miles to go,” Mike declared as I searched the woods for any sort of edible berry. At this point I was hallucinating that Power Bars were growing on the fall foliage and that the beautiful NY reservoirs were stocked with lemon lime Gatorade. Oh how I wished the couple with the flat tire was in need of my spare tube in exchange for fuel, but they were well prepared and mechanically inclined.
With 10 miles to go, I made my way onto the last stretch of the path only to have my eye turn dry and my contact fall out. Lesson #3: Always pack an extra set of lenses (we learned this when I had to bail out Mike on his century attempt with a contact lens). Fortunately, I caught it and reinserted it.
With 5 miles to go, I was seriously almost out of gas. My thighs were in pain and I gave myself a 5 minute break and tried to stretch and replenish whatever energy I could. I was never so happy to see the car at the conclusion of our 4 hour, almost non-stop ride.
I’m excited that I broke a record for mileage in one day, going 50 miles (technically I think I was about a tenth of a mile or so short and normally would have ridden a little extra just to be sure…but this time I’ll take a rounding up). Our long rides on Martha’s Vineyard to the other side of the Island and back are 42 miles and this year I felt my best ever completing them with all the training I’ve been doing so I didn’t anticipate 50 miles feeling so challenging. Of course, now I’ve learned what it feels like “to bonk” (aka hit the wall). This from Wikipedia:
Intense cycling or running can easily consume 600-800 or more kcal per hour. Unless glycogen stores are replenished during exercise, glycogen stores in such an individual will be depleted after less than 2 hours of continuous cycling or 15 miles (24 km) of running. Training and carbohydrate loading can raise these reserves as high as 880 g (3600 kcal), correspondingly raising the potential for uninterrupted exercise.
Despite all this, I enjoyed the ride and have been researching the trail system to plan our next ride – I’m still determined to ride to the end. Actually, I’m now fascinated at the idea of riding all the way to Manhattan (see my next blog on more information on the trail systems and bike routes). But for now, I must ignore the sore muscles and do a fall cleanup in the lawn. Oh yeah, the other adult reason why I fell out of love with fall.
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