I set a goal of cycling 4k miles this year. I was holding out hope, but after this weekend I don't think it's realistic (I'll explain more below on the weekend). I have a new goal of beating last year's mileage. I've done 3,235 so far in 2009, which is 365 miles shy of the 3,600 I did in 2008. But it's gonna be tight. The days are getting shorter and the weather is getting colder. I'm going to need a lot of motivation and some luck from the weather to get things done.
This past weekend, I was scheduled to do three days of riding in the Catskills. An NYCC member put together a plan to have about 30-40 serious cyclists stay at a cheesy dude ranch (in order to keep the costs low) and ride amongst the fall foliage. He spent countless e-mails downplaying the accommodations in order to manage expectations about the condition of the property and the quality of the food (it's an all-inclusive type of deal).
All told I was hoping to get in about 200 miles over a 5 day stretch including a warm up ride on Thursday. However, early Thursday morning I got an e-mail from a company for a last minute interview. I really want the job so I skipped the warm-up ride. Fast forward to Friday night. We pull up to the ranch, which is about 2 hours from NYC, and I can't believe how hillbilly the clientele is. It's 9pm and there's a full-blown drunken Karaoke session happening just a few feet from the reception desk. I'm beside myself. I'm ready to eat the cost of the whole weekend. I can't imagine staying here much less eating all my meals here.
When we got to our room I felt a little better. It didn't quite smell as bad as I had feared and while the condition wasn't great, it was bearable. The walls however were paper thin. At this point I'm still fearing eating at this place.
We wake for breakfast and some of the anxiety has washed away. We sit with a bunch of people I know and I'm feeling better. The food is actually fairly edible. And the visuals weren't near as bad as I was expecting. I head back to my room feeling better.
The weather forecast called for 60 degrees and sunny, which is on the border for a normal shirt sleeve jersey. I debate bringing my windbreaker, which folds into a pouch, but I leave it behind thinking it is an unnecessary inconvenience. As I'm leaving my room I see everyone in cold weather gear. I jokingly poo poo them. Boy was I wrong. About 5 miles into the ride I'm feeling a chill as the sun goes away. Then we start climbing, and climbing hard, for about a mile. I ask someone if this is one of the two big climbs we're scheduled to do. Nope, just a warm up they say. Hmmmm, I'm losing my edge. About 15 miles into the ride the wind starts kicking in as we pass a reservoir. Now I'm getting cold. We make a right and head into some more brutal climbing. This time instead of a mile it's about 3 or 4 miles and steeper. I ask someone if now this is one of the two big climbs we're scheduled to do. Nope, just another warm up they say. Ok, had enough. I'm freezing and my legs are burning already. If we are doing substantially more climbing I figured it's going to get even colder. I thank everyone and turn around to head home. I feel like a bit of a wuss but the cold and climbing just psyched me out. I ended up getting 40 miles in, which wasn't so bad.
At dinner that night I learned that the second climb I did was, in fact, one of the two big climbs we were scheduled to do. Actually, it was the harder of the two climbs! No matter, I was so friggin' cold I really needed to just go back. Turns out that it got even colder at the top and people who were dressed in tights and layers with jackets were cold. I can't imagine how I would have felt in a short sleeve jersey!
Ok so long story longer the meal at dinner was actually pretty solid but the visuals were really getting to me. I can't get too descriptive for fear of being called a snob. But given that I didn't really want to ride the next day, my desire to leave the place was burning. Additionally, my elbow was hurting me for some reason. I spoke with the guy I rode up with and talked him into leaving a full day early! It certainly helped that the weather was even colder on Sunday. I went to the front desk and told them we were checking out early in the slim hopes we'd get a refund for the last day...and we go one. BONUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So I wasted two days and a couple hundred bucks. I'll never do this trip again, no matter how little money I have. Just not my thing. Now I have to figure out a way to makeup those miles.
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