13.2 Mile Ride Along the Mohawk-Hudson Bike Path
(& a 4 Mile Hike Along the Bike Path!)
Monday, July 23, 2007
The rain we had for much of the day caused me to drag my heels about getting outside on my bike (well, running some errands and then riding) and in the end I decided to stay closer to home rather than go over to the bike path west of Schenectady, in case it started raining hard. So in the end I headed over to the Niskayuna Lions Park and headed east on the path, even though I'd run there yesterday.
Just after the road to the Colonie Water Treatment Plant, there was a doe standing on the path... I got to within about 10 feet of her before she decided to run into the bushes. No surprise, I also passed lots o' bunnies. Big bunnies, bitty bunnies, and between bunnies. The cottontail population is booming in Colonie...
On a whim, I decided to ride past Colonie Town Park (apparently, now renamed the Colonie Mohawk River Park) and down to Cohoes Falls. Originally the water flow over the falls was impressive year-round; now, it's often non-existent in the summer, as water is diverted from the falls to run a nearby power station and fill the Barge Canal (which bypasses the falls by running northeast of the river through a fairly impressive flight of locks designed to take the canal down the escarpment.) I was a bit curious to see if the rain had provided any water for the falls, and I suspect I was also hankering to ride someplace different from my usual haunts.
They've done a lot of work to improve the Cohoes Falls overlook park - the first couple of times I went there, it was, quite frankly, a somewhat scary looking dump. Now it's very scenic, and gives pretty nice views of the falls and the gorge. There was a little water going over the falls - more than I'd expected, actually. I ended up wishing I'd brought my camera - fortunately, the USGS provides photos of the falls from their gaging station downstream, updated several times a day.
photo from the USGS gaging station
After that I ended up exploring a bit - headed up the road, rather than straight back to the bike path, and eventually found my way back to the path just before the Colonie Mohawk River Park. Along here my chain started skipping a bit, leading me to suspect that I need to make further adjustments to account for the new position of the handlebars. Annoying, but nothing I couldn't work around.
At least until I got to the bottom of the last steep hill, downshifted, and had the chain break when I cranked down on the pedals.
Don't know if the skipping was because the chain was getting ready to go or if the chain went because of all the skipping. In any case, I've no doubt it's my fault - I shortened the chain by a couple of links about a month ago, and when I put it back together the join didn't feel totally right - I suspect the rivet was slightly misaligned.
Since I don't have a chain tool in my kit, I dropped the chain in the first garbage can I found and pushed the bike the remaining 4 miles back to the car. (Well... I was able to coast along two parts that ran slightly downhill.) Annoying, but it could have been worse. I could have been pushing the bike along a road, or the chain could have snapped 8 miles from the car. It could have been raining, or warm enough that the 'skeeters were swarming. And at least I got to see a heron in the midst of a flock of canada geese on the river...
Stopped at Walmart on the way home, and the bike now has a new chain. There is also a small chain tool in my tool kit - it would have been messy reattaching the chain tonight, but it would have gotten me back to the car quicker than walking!
JMH
