Biking Brian’s Blog

The surprising thing is that I’m the earliest riser of the three of us. But since I’m also the slowest rider, I used that to my advantage to get a head start on the others. The climb into the Green Mountains started immediately after leaving town. We got mixed reviews on the length and difficulty…

The hotel we stayed at wasn’t listed in the phone book. It’s owned by an older couple and is only open six weeks a year, during the race season at the horse track at Saratoga Springs. Despite the lack of publicity, the hotel fills up almost every night. This was Steve’s first, and probably last,…

I had a good breakfast at the B&B and I was on my way. Now that I had already made the 6 mile climb up the hill into Dolgeville, I had the choice of staying up in the hills on Highway 29 or dropping back down to 5. I saw the big climb out of…

Since the library was on the way out of town, I decided to go in to use their internet connection to check e-mail and add more dots to my map. I had remembered Miki commenting that there were very few internet cafes here in the US, so she was having trouble accessing her e-mail. She…

I found the only bike shop in town the first thing in the morning. They had mostly used bikes and new low end mountain bikes, but then again Auburn wasn’t the type of city where people would buy $1000 bikes. I showed them where it looked like the fixed cup (drive side) of the bottom…

Last night’s hotel wasn’t the cheapest, but it was the only one in the area, and there were no camping options in the area. But three miles into today’s ride, I saw two no-name hotels next door to each other, which were probably cheaper. Oh well. A stop in Canandaigua offered the first taste of…

Today I headed east, breaking off from the Adventure Cycling route. So I was left to my own devices again for my routing. My goal was to go eastbound on US 20A. The hard part would be finding it from here in suburbia. Asking locals how to get there tends not to fare well for…

PA Highway 5 had become NY Highway 5 when crossing the state line. The route had also returned to the lakeshore somewhere in PA before the state line. Dunkirk didn’t seem like a nice place to stop for lunch, so I went 10 more miles to Silver Creek for lunch. It was a nice looking…

Some of you might be wondering if I missed a state between Ohio and New York. Yes, there is a small portion of Pennsylvania in between, but it is so small that I rode all the way through it today – in fact, both Conneaut, OH and Ripley, NY are on the PA state line.…

Due to the pleasant weather I was in no hurry to leave. Nancy had already left early for work, but John cooked breakfast. We finished eating by 8:30, but I wasn’t on the road until after 10. There’s just a few more suburbs on the lakeshore until Painesville. The route then goes away from the…