Day 31 – Tuesday 24th May 2011 – Liverpool NY – Amsterdam NY

Our North American tour of “new” Europe continued today. Leaving Liverpool just after 7am, we headed off for Amsterdam. The sky was again overcast with a wet road after overnight rain. It was a mild 21°C as we left.

Breakfast at 6am at the hotel was another very basic affair with an unprepared hotel staff member. The cyclists arrived first and a minimal amount of food was eventually set out. This included waffles, biscuits & gravy, cereal (which was soon all gone and not refilled), yoghurt, orange juice, coffee, pastries, muffins and toast/bagels.

News on the rider injured by a car yesterday is that he has some soft tissue spine damage which meant the doctors recommended he does not ride again for about four weeks. Accordingly, he is arranging to go home.

Barely on route, we encountered the ubiquitous traffic lights which also marked a short and steep early hill. These combined to join most of the riders into one large bunch. After a few miles, the riders soon separated into small groups riding their own pace.

The road was much flatter than yesterday and much of the day we were aided by a light but variable wind. We rode through Madison County and a number of small towns before reaching the first sag at 45 miles.

From there, it was more of the same except the sky darkened and a heavy, but brief, rain shower moved over us. New York State has fine grit on the road which accumulates on your arms and legs and gets into your hair and eyes. The rain just added to the amount that stuck to you.

We passed various locks on the Erie lake system but these were not visible from the road.

Lunch was in the town of Little Falls at the Knights Inn hotel carpark which is where the Cross Country tour spends the night. There was a good descent into this which promised a climb out the other side.

After lunch, we crossed the river and climbed a gentle but modest climb which then earnt us a good long but gentle descent. A few more small climbs and false flat climbs took us all the way to town.

Patrick and I arrived at the hotel at 2:10pm. The hotel clerk was again very basic with their service – i.e. here is your key. Nothing else! We had missed most of the rain in covering 191.0km in 6hrs 19m of riding at an average speed of 30.2km/h. The temperature reached 29°C which meant we went through a number of bottles of water.

The town itself is quite old and was reportedly supported by the textile industry in its heyday but is now rundown and largely vacant. We walked around town, including Main Street, and the rundown and vacant report was confirmed. Only two pizza places and one Chinese takeaway were seen within walking distance of the hotel and very few shops. Being the USA, we did pass a number of legal firms though!

There is no rap scheduled for today with breakfast scheduled at 6:30am with rap and luggage load after that. Some good climbing is promised with some long climbs in the mix. From there, it is one more day to the Atlantic!

I took my bike to the mechanic to fine tune the gears and then gave it a clean with a high pressure hose to remove the accumulated dirt and grime.

For dinner, we went to the hotel restaurant where I had salad along with chicken with eggplant and pasta while Patrick had meatballs and spaghetti along with a pitcher of beer. The servings were large enough to ensure no cake was required or possible. The restaurant trade name was quite bizarrely Monsoon Fine Indian Cuisine as it is advertised as an American / Italian restaurant with no Indian food in sight.

Numbers for the day:

Departure time: 7:05am
Distance: 118.7 miles (191.0km)
Riding time: 6hrs 19m
Average speed: 18.8 mph (30.2km/h)
Maximum speed: 38.4 mph (61.8km/h)
Vertical climbing: 3,202ft (976m)
Temperature range: 21-29°C
Arrival time: 2:10pm
Weekly (Monday – Sunday mileage) to date: 240 miles (386km)
Total kilometres ridden to date / approximate kilometres to go: 5,200km / 386km
Rolling last seven days total kilometres ridden including today: 1,233km