Distance: 79.49 miles
Elevation gain: 3,134 feet
Avg speed: 15.7 mph
Max speed: 34.3 mph
Moving time: 5:04:29
Wow. It’s starting to sink in. Well, a FEW things, actually.
First of all, I can’t believe that I’m caught up again on my blog posts. That means that after I finish writing this post I can get my stuff ready for the morning and go to sleep at a somewhat respectable time! That, combined with our scheduled late start for tomorrow means I may actually get a reasonable amount of sleep tonight! I SHOULD feel pretty good for tomorrow’s ride - woo hoo!!!
Secondly, this trip is coming to a close really soon. Including tomorrow’s ride and the ride to the beach (which at THIS point hardly counts as it’s only 19 miles long), we only have six rides remaining! On the one hand, I’ll finally have an opportunity for my miscellaneous aches and pains to heal. I’ll have a tremendous sense of accomplishment, having completed the greatest adventure of my life (so far, anyway). On the other hand, in the short time that I’ve known them, the people in this group have become like a second family, and I will miss every last one of them. They say blood is thicker than water, but I think to a large extent in my situation, chain lube is thicker than blood! We’ve talked about having a reunion at some point, and I’m hoping that comes to fruition. I have also grown at least somewhat used to the routine of the tour, and I have mixed feelings about that routine coming to an end.
Today we rode from Buffalo to Victor. I was not at all impressed with the Buffalo area, so I was happy to say goodbye to that city. I would say that Victor is much nicer, but that doesn’t really say much. Victor actually looks like a pretty nice area, at least from what little of it I got to see.
Leaving the Buffalo area, I saw lots of Buffalo Bills flags. The people around here certainly love their football team.
It seemed to me at least that in the Buffalo area, gas stations and businesses do NOT like to make their bathrooms available, whether you are a customer or not. This has not been my experience in other areas we traveled through. Fortunately, once we got far enough away from Buffalo things returned to normal in that regard.
By the way, we officially hit the 3,000-mile mark today. Just a few hundred more miles to go! Of course, we had to commemorate that milestone with a photo opportunity:
Of course, we saw lots of beautiful areas along our route. Oh, and cows. Lots of cows.
At our second SAG stop today (in Avon), we saw a really cool mural:
There was a bike repair station right at the location of our SAG stop:
This actually came in handy for me, as I discovered at this stop that my back tire was getting soft. If there is one thing I’ve learned on this trip it is that if you discover a tire getting soft, you should fix it right away as it is going to become a flat otherwise. Not sure how many flats I’ve had at this point (10? 11?), but at least this time I had a veritable pit crew to get me back on the road quickly. Thanks Dana, Peyton, Fred and Lee - you guys are awesome!
(I was not alone today in getting a flat - they seem to be making a comeback, unfortunately.)
Along the way, we have come across many interesting town names, but today we saw one that was a little worrisome:
We had a wonderful dinner tonight at Chili’s, right next to the hotel. I know, it’s a chain restaurant - but at least it isn’t Cracker Barrel! (Sorry Cracker Barrel….)
Of course, I can’t forget about today’s ride video:
Tomorrow we head to Syracuse. Wow - it’s not even 10pm yet and I’m done with my blog post! Time to get everything ready for the morning and go to bed. See you all tomorrow!
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