Tuesday, 4 September 2012

Adirondack Loop - Day 2


Lake George

I managed an 8:00am start today after taking full advantage of the free continental breakfast and then reviewing my route information for the next leg of the ride. Shorts and a jersey were quite adequate as it was another warm sunny day. I was riding south along the east shore of Lake George towards Haque with The Green Mountains off in the distance to my left. After a right turn at Graphite Mountain Road the big climb of the day started. It was about 10k of climbing in all, topping out near the ghost town of Graphite.

The Graphite Mtn. Road descent to Brant Lake was a really nice stretch of road but I still had to pay attention. It had a wide paved shoulder and no traffic but there were numerous bear bombs along this stretch. I guess they like to walk along the road at night. Who knew.
I exited the park somewhere near Corinth, continued south through Saratoga Springs, and then west towards Amsterdam. At one point along county road 43 I missed a turn and got off the route. Did a little bit of back and forth and had difficulty reconciling my park map with the route map. Road numbers instead of names etc. This is when a nice navigational unit on my handlebar would have been nice. 
Amsterdam New York was my final destination today. This place made me start humming Bruce Springsteen's "My Home Town". Old houses, muscle cars, abandoned factories. I rode down the highway and got my dinner at Stewart's just as it was getting dark.



2 comments:

  1. looks like there's a nice big shoulder...

    I'd like to do some riding down there next summer.

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  2. Yes. Wide paved shoulder pretty much everywhere I went in the park. When I exited the park, afternoon of Day 2, there was not nearly as much paved shoulder to ride on and drivers noticeably less courteous to me. However, the ACA route keeps you on quiet paved roads wherever possible (only unpaved section was for construction) and some of the roads were pretty sweet, like the road around Brant Lake. Reminded me of McGregor Lake loop before they "improved" it.

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