the Way of the Turtle

END-TO-END! TWICE!
18 Mile Ride on the Albany County Rail Trail
Friday, October 28, 2016

Still pretty cold today, and this afternoon the wind really picked up... which meant riding my bike had the potential to be fairly unpleasant. But then it occurred to me that the rail trail might be a better option, since the trees would help shield the path from the wind. I originally planned to take my mountain bike, but decided instead to put the wider tires on my road bike - they worked just fine on some fairly gnarly sections of the canalway trail this summer, and they'd be a better option than the mountain bike knobbies if I decided to keep going on the paved portion of the path.

The ride out to Voorheesville was windy but fairly pleasant... and the trip back even more so, with the wind more at my back and the path predominantly downhill. The wider tires worked just as well as the ones on my mountain bike, and the lighter weight of my road bike was a definite plus.

When I got back to the parking lot in Slingerlands I decided to keep going, at least to Delaware Ave... except when I got there, I was feeling good enough that I decided to go all the way to South Pearl Street. One plus to the cold weather - there was a lot less traffic on the path than when I'd ridden it in warmer weather.

Unfortunately, what goes down must go back up... and today I was riding uphill into the wind. Slow going, but nothing I haven't done before. Still, I was glad to get past the worst of the hill and enjoyed the relatively level stretch between Delaware and Slingerlands.

I wasn't expecting the ride the rail trail end-to-end until the rest is paved... it was a nice treat today to do it much sooner than that.

JMH