the Way of the Turtle

ALMOST BEAT THE RAIN...
10.2 Mile Ride on the Albany County Rail Trail
Tuesday, June 7, 2016

Didn't want to go too far away due to the threat of a late afternoon thunderstorm, and I figured the Corning Preserve parking is probably a mess due to the construction going on... so despite the fact that the 2nd half of the ride would be mostly uphill, I headed over to the rail trail and rode it with my road bike for the first time.

Since it was the middle of the afternoon on a weekday, there wasn't a ton of traffic on the trail. The weather was great all the way from Slingerlands to S Pearl St, and with pretty much non-stop downhill from Elsmere Ave on, it's fantastically easy riding. The last time I rode all the way to the end of the trail was back in March... it definitely looks different now that everything is green and growing. The leaves do obscure some of the view of the rapids and falls on the Normans Kill, unfortunately.

Of course, what goes down must go back up... and when I turned around I could see dark clouds moving in. So I pushed up the hill (pretty much the first 2 1/2 miles on the way back, though even after that a lot of the trail is a gentle upward slope) and made it to Adams St before the first spatters of rain hit. From there I did a mile and a half sprint back to the car, and lucked out - it never really rained all that hard, so I only got a bit damp.

JMH