Day 32 – Wednesday 25th May 2011 – Amsterdam NY – Keene NH

It was another stately day as we started in New York rode through Vermont and ended up in New Hampshire.

The morning started with breakfast at 6:30am at the hotel. The staff member was keen and ready at 6am with French toast, pancakes, eggs, sausages, muffins, bagels, fresh fruit, orange juice, coffee, oatmeal but no cereal.

Route maps were given out at 7:15am which showed some good climbs on the way to Keene. Two riders left early as they are not keen hill climbers.

Patrick and I left the hotel at 7:35am under a cloudy but clearing sky with a temperature of 16°C. Straight out of the hotel carpark, the road rose sharply for around 1.5 miles at a gradient of 10% plus. Welcome to a day of climbing.

We joined up with a group of other riders and sat in the back at a good easy pace. This group was broken up when we came across one of the early leaving riders who had suffered an incident with potholes and a truck. He was grazed but o.k. and rode on.

The first sag was at 39.5 miles after crossing the Hudson River and riding through the town of Schaghticoke.

After the sag, the road began to rise as we passed through the towns of Pittstown, Boytonville and Hoosic before reaching the Vermont State border at 62.6 miles.

We then had a climb of about 5 miles at 8-9% gradient to take us to lunch at around 74 miles. Patrick saw some riders up the road and chased them down while I continued to spin up in my 39:25 gear.

Scenery for the day was plenty of trees and the odd waterway.

From lunch, there were some good straight, clean downhill runs and my speedo recorded a maximum of 61.0 mph (98.1km/h) which sounds a little excessive. A further climb of about 3 miles took us to the summit of Hogback Mountain.

We reached the New Hampshire State line at 109.1 miles and the final sag of the day. We were told the road “rolled” from there to town. This was a grave misnomer – there were in fact three easily defined hills of 1-2 miles in length and at least 8% plus gradient. The final few miles into town sloped down.

The hotel was reached at 3:59pm after 7hrs 26m on the bike over 200.8km on the road at an average speed of 27.0km/h. The temperature peaked at 29°C but had fallen to 26°C by the time we reached the hotel. The wind for the day was again light and variable but mostly aided us. Some riders reported around 9,000ft of vertical climbing for the day – about nine Te Mata Peak climbs interspersed in the 200km day.

The luggage van did not arrive until just after 5pm and this was quickly unloaded. Rap for tomorrow was still held at 6pm and the final rider arrived during this at about 6:10pm. Breakfast is at 6am at the hotel, luggage load is at 6:45am and the plan is to be at the beach around 3pm. From the beach, it is about an 8 mile ride to the hotel where we need to clean and box our bikes prior to the final banquet and wind up which is scheduled to start at 7pm. As the route is hilly tomorrow, the timeline will be tight.

After rap, Patrick and I walked across the road to Applebees for dinner followed by Dunkin Donuts for dessert.

Only one more sleep and one more day of riding to the Atlantic.

Given the tight timeframes tomorrow, further blog entries may be delayed. Watch this space!

Numbers for the day:

Departure time: 7:35am
Distance: 124.8 miles (200.8km)
Riding time: 7hrs 26m
Average speed: 16.8 mph (27.0km/h)
Maximum speed: 61.0 mph (98.1km/h)
Vertical climbing: 7,815ft (2,383m)
Temperature range: 16-29-26°C
Arrival time: 3:59pm
Weekly (Monday – Sunday mileage) to date: 365 miles (587km)
Total kilometres ridden to date / approximate kilometres to go: 5,400km / 188km
Rolling last seven days total kilometres ridden including today: 1,265km