2001 BON TON ROULET
This blog was reconstructed many years after I rode the Bon ton Roulet (Let the good times roll). I found few pix in my archives of this ride and so have inserted several Internet images. Also the blogger format has changed considerably so please pardon the inconsistent line spacing.
Jeff wanted to visit his mother in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, so the two of us drove east to my cousin John Bloomer’s Windsong Farm in Burdett, New York, at the foot of Seneca Lake. John and Pat ran a large meat-goat farm in the hills above Seneca Lake—though the goats were really Pat’s enterprise. John’s specialty was his herd of about thirty Highland cattle. Recently the two had bought three llamas to act as guard animals for the goat kids. There were over 350 kids born that season. The coyotes saw easy pickings.
After lunch at John and Pat’s, Jeff drove me to Auburn (about an hour away), helped me get set up, and then spent the night at John and Pat’s before leaving for Chambersburg and his mother’s house.
Temps were in the low 90’s on the first day of the ride, but we had a short day of only forty-eight miles from Auburn to New Haven on Lake Ontario, with a stop in Sterling at its Renaissance Festival. Joan, a twenty-four-year-old riding a Specialized hybrid, and I became friends when we stopped together as the first cyclists at the first rest stop. Both of us wither in the heat so leave as early as possible, generally at first light in the first handful of riders on the road. Also, Joan’s and my riding speeds were similar—early start, book it all the way. Even on her hybrid, Joan was faster and stronger at hill climbing than I. Though thirty-five years her senior, I was on my Litespeed touring bike and evened it out on the downhills and flats.
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| Bon ton Roulet tents set up during a ride years after mine. Our tents were not all the same and were not as crowded as shown here. I think the ride cutoff total is 600 riders each year. |
The festival was set up permanently . . . something like an Old Sturbridge Village with a knights-and- wenches theme. Our $17 admission was part of the tour package. Joan and I locked our bikes together and spent the morning watching the queen and her entourage arrive, cheering jousting knights, watching a play, enjoying a comedy act, attending an “antique” circus, and taking pleasure in wood cutting, pewter making, bread baking, and hair braiding demonstrations. We bought a big turkey leg to fuel us and foamy beer to cool us. Temps crawled into the mid-90s, and it was terribly hot and dusty, even though most events were in the forest.
Though it was a short day with comfortable, gently rolling terrain, after we left Sterling and the Faire, we had to climb three short but killer steep hills. The weather was hotter and more humid, our muscles had “cooled” in the couple of hours we had spent at the Faire, and we had all drunk several beers. But we were only five miles from the campsite, so survived.
That first night out, we were camped right on Lake Ontario, one of the smaller Great Lakes carved out in the ice age. Joan and I swam in our bike shorts and athletic bras as neither of us thought to bring a suit. The water was cold and crystal clear, the clearness of the lake wonderful to see. Years ago, when I was living near the lake in Rochester, New York, the water was murky and posted with “No Swimming” signs. I have since learned that despite its clarity, Ontario’s water might not be so wonderful. The clearness of the water is due to invasive zebra mussels that filter the water by taking up algae that they feed on. Water clarity is good for salmon and shrimp that hunt by sight, but the zebra mussel causes billions of dollars in damage to clogged industrial pipes and outlets each year.
We left the lake prepared to take showers, but the portable showers were late in arriving, so Joan and I cycled to the state campground showers about a mile away. Of course, by the time we returned, we were sweaty again. There was no getting away from the heat as few of the buildings and stores in this area of New York were air-conditioned.
The portable showers were set up in a big semi-truck on loan from a Tennessee Brush Fire group. The truck hooks to a fire hydrant or other water source and then heats the water. There were six tiny showers on the women’s side, and, I’m assuming, the same number on the men’s side. Organizers also set up a four-spigot, one-basin sink right in front of the truck. Plastic lawn chairs nearby allowed for putting on shoes. I brushed my teeth and applied deodorant for all the world to see . . . as did everyone else. The men shaved their faces and some of the women even shaved their legs at the group sink.
Modesty seems to fall by the wayside when bicycle touring. I remember a time when I was staffing for ABB, and a mixed group of riders was looking for some privacy for a bathroom break. There was no privacy. We were in South Dakota and the road spooled out ahead with absolutely nothing on either side taller than fifteen inches. One of the men laughed and told the women, who were shy about relieving themselves with no privacy, “Don’t be so modest. We’ve all seen female sex organs. They are all alike . . . just different.”
On our second day, we headed for Geneva, 72.72 miles away. What the heck? A 72.72-mile day? The proposed route for the Bon Ton Roulet laid out approximately fifty-mile days among the Finger Lakes. We started in Auburn and then were to camp in Fairhaven, Geneva, Naples, Watkins Glen (two nights), and Cortland before returning to Auburn. The posted fifty-mile day length fooled me, as it did most riders. Our longest day was nearly seventy-three miles and our shortest about forty-six miles. The terrain this day was rolling but challenging, particularly at the beginning before our muscles had warmed when we again climbed a series of killer hills to get out of the glacier-carved lake valley. We joked about the fact that if the hill had a name we were faced with a real climb—and most of the hills had names. As a matter of fact, everything in the Finger Lakes area seemed to be named Something-or-Other Hill or Something-or-Other Valley.
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| Internet pic |
The heat was wicked and energy-sapping. It was hard to keep hydrated and we sweated like Niagara. Joan was so slick that her heart-rate monitor kept slipping down around her waist. My helmet straps, watchband, and shorts turned white with salt residue. I purposely pedaled slower whenever the road was shaded just to enjoy a brief respite, and when I knew more water was available, I poured my water bottle over my head, arms, and legs. I later heard that the high this second day was 96°F with 90% humidity. Our sweat simply could not evaporate into such saturated air.
About eight miles from Geneva, Joan wanted to call the sag wagon to come and get me. She claimed that I looked “awfully red and blotchy.” As I stood at the edge of the road panting and pouring water over my head, I assured her that I was okay, and this was my usual look in hot weather. Who was I kidding? I felt half dead, but no way was I going to quit only eight miles out.
Our campground was again right on the water at the north end of Seneca Lake in a big American Legion complex that included a swimming pool and large lodge with dining room and bar. After setting up my tent, I swam in the pool, but because of the heat and humidity, my swim did not cool me a bit. Then I enjoyed a 20-minute massage. My left leg and buttock had cramped in the heat, and the massage was wonderful. After my swim, massage, and shower, I got in touch with my Stillwater friends, Sue and Roger, who were visiting Roger’s sister on Keuka Lake about forty miles away.
I could not find Joan, so picked up my fanny pack with my wallet in it and walked up the hill to the lodge to use the phone. The lodge wasn’t air conditioned, but it did provide some protection from the sun. I could not cool down and didn’t want to hike back to the campsite to tell Joan that I was leaving, so I waited in the airless bar for Sue and Roger.
The original plan was to meet and eat out in Geneva, but neither Roger’s sister nor her husband wanted to leave the coolness of the lake and get dressed for dinner. So, Sue and Roger picked me up, and we drove all the way back to Keuka Lake for dinner. While we were eating, a storm blew down the lake and cooled things off a little. However, when I saw the rain, I worried about my things back at the campsite. I had left my tent wide open, and my washed clothes draped on my bike to dry.
Roger dropped me back at the campsite about 9:30 that night. (Later I figured that by the time Roger drove back to his sister’s house on Keuka Lake, he would have driven 160 miles for this brief reunion.) It had not rained in Geneva, though Joan had closed my tent. I fumbled around in the dark trying to find my toilet kit, and then brushed my teeth and hit the sack. Joan heard me at my tent and told me in a peevish voice that she and everyone else was worried about me as I had just “disappeared.” I apologized for not telling her when I left, though I had told her earlier that I was going to dinner that night with friends. The tent was sweltering, and I had a poor night’s sleep.
Despite my swim and massage, my muscles whined loudly the following day. Joan, however, was not whining. She felt invigorated. She had worked out the kinks with a deep, thirty-minute massage, so she crowed to the world her strength and good feelings. This was a welcome change from yesterday when she was nearly in tears because she felt she should be stronger. (Privately, I think that she was embarrassed that she and I were uneven in years but about even in pace. On a road bike, she would have left me in the dust, and I told her so repeatedly to make her feel better.)
We again had several long climbs out of the lake valleys, and also unrelenting heat and high humidity. After only a couple of hours, the ride began to fall apart with many riders sagging to Naples or walking hills. The organizers had crazily scheduled the second rest stop of the day at a lake-level state park. That meant roaring off the high ground, and then immediately after the rest stop climbing back up those miles again.
Our campsite that evening, in the middle of the high school football field, was sweltering! There was nary a drop of shade and very high, hot winds. It was definitely a dragon’s breath day. Erecting our tents was interesting in the wind, also. At four o’clock that afternoon, we all headed to the high school pool and stood around in the water like a bunch of hot cattle. It was too hot to swim or even move. After this immersion, we were cool enough to brave the cafeteria, which, of course, was not air-conditioned. Here we enjoyed a good lasagna meal. Immediately after the last bite, we all trooped back to the pool and stood in the water like cattle again until they kicked us out because the lifeguard went off-duty.
Finally, the sun dipped low enough to throw some shade to one side of the tent. Like others, Joan and I sat in our little pool of tent shade and enjoyed an excellent bluegrass band. Many who had stopped at the day’s wineries, drank their bottles of wine. I waited until well past dark to enter the tent, and then waved a wet washcloth over my face to cool down enough for sleep. One mosquito got into the tent and drove me crazy until I finally located and smacked her. I had yet to so much as pull even a corner of my sleeping bag over me. I didn’t even want it under me.
The fourth day of the ride was somewhat cooler (86°F) with less humidity and no headwind. We had a long climb out of Hammondsport. I drank off one water bottle at the bottom of the climb and then stopped in the middle and chugged an entire bottle of sports drink practically in one inhale. For some reason Joan thought that hilarious and could not stop laughing. Nevertheless, my hydration system saw me nicely to the top of the hill where I downed half of my last water bottle and poured the other half over my head. I had drunk a several pints of fluid in less than five miles!
Joan and I stopped at only one winery that day, Bully Hill Vineyards in Hammondsport.
The road into Watkins Glen was a hoot, a miles-long curving downhill that ended abruptly and steeply at a stoplight. The ride was stopping in WG for a rest day, but the good times would still roll for two nights. There was a lot planned, including lake tours, glen hikes, and music, but I was going to miss all that. I was going back to Cousin John’s in Burdett for those two nights to hear about Jeff’s visit with his mother and to connect with a high school friend. So, I helped Joan set up her tent, and then called John and Pat whose farm in Burdett was only five miles away. Pat picked me up a couple of hours later. Why, you ask, didn’t I simply ride to the farm? Well, I needed all the stuff in my duffel bag, and there was a steep two-and-a-half-mile climb up the bluffs and then another climb to the top of the hill on which John and Pat lived. I just dinna want to tackle it.
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| The Glen at Watkins Glen |
Erika Scott, my friend since ninth grade, arrived shortly after I did. She brought two apple pies she had baked from her own tree apples. Erika had a three-hour drive to get to Burdett from Schenectady, but the pies were still hot. This should tell you something about the weather. We chatted and helped get dinner started, and then helped Pat with chores. We didn’t get the chores done or the meal on the table until 10:00. It was a delicious meal—but I was almost too bushed to eat it. I fell into bed about 11:00 to the sounds of gentle rain. Ahhhh, rain. The temps dropped into the seventies, and I pulled a quilt over me and slept in cozy comfort for the first time since the ride began.
On the tour rest day, it was cool enough for jeans and even a comfy sweatshirt all day! Jeff returned from Pennsylvania, and we all spent the day exploring the farm and its woods, cooking, visiting with Erika, and helping with weeding and chores.
Pat and John have three border collies: Breeze a long-haired border collie, and Gail and Tip, mother and daughter short-haired border collies. They also have a border terrier, a little, wiry, snaggle-toothed brown dog named Angus. The four dogs played a hilarious game called “I’m drowning, rescue me!” Three or four times a day, Angus would suddenly leap up, run to the farm pond, and throw himself in. He’d swim in circles, gargling water, barking pitifully, even holding his left paw up in the classic “help” signal. Gail and her pup, Tip, would run back and forth at one end of the pond, barking and egging on Breeze who streaked low around the pond exactly three times and then finally jumped in and “rescued” Angus by shouldering him in circles and eventually to shore. The border collies loved this game and kept an intent eye on Angus, their eyes asking always: “Is it time yet? Is it time? You going for a swim?”
That evening, Erika, Pat, and I drove to a nearby U-Pick blueberry farm and picked big buckets of blueberries before dinner. It was just getting dark as we came out of the fields. When we got back to the farm, Jeff, who loves to cook and bake, made blueberry cobbler. The rest of us helped put together a huge and wonderful dinner. Again, we ate late. It was nearly 11:00 by the time we found time to sit down at the table. All of us again fell away from the table and into bed as soon as we got the kitchen cleaned up.
Back on the bike the next morning, I shaved two and a half miles off the day’s 67 by joining the Bon Ton Roulet cyclists as they crested the hill near John’s house. Joan came along wearing her princess hat, which she told me later she’d spent considerable time sewing in place atop her helmet, her efforts intended to give the judges advance preview before the night’s helmet decorating contest. Though she knew I was not going to have Jeff drive me down into the valley only to climb out again, Joan was miffed when I joined her at the top of the hills. When I fell in beside her, she loudly called out, “Cheater!” The word rang in my ashamed ears. But she got over it somewhat when we pedaled through Ithaca, and she managed to ride one strenuous climb out of the gorge that I had to walk. Our route map read: “Very Steep Hill. Ride it if you can.” I couldn’t.
That night we camped on the Cortland courthouse lawn. The portable showers had been set up in the street opposite the Cortland police station. Joan and I got in just before noon and set up our tents before showering. Then we walked a couple of blocks to a deli and bought huge deli sandwiches which we toted back to the campsite. I had a Ruben’s Sister-- pastrami and coleslaw rather than sauerkraut. A first for me and delicious.
Dinner was in a community building across the square: Spaghetti, another carbo-loading meal. It was tasty and plentiful. Ironically, now that it was cooler and we didn’t need it, the building was air-conditioned. We even got chilled in the draft!
After dinner I sat in my tent and worked on creating my helmet decoration. I pulled a pair of bike shorts over the helmet, stuffed the legs with sports bras, tied the legs off with hair scrunchies, made “hair” of Queen Anne’s lace and eyes of helmet shims. I created upper and lower eyelashes of blue chicory flowers; stuck an instant tube patch on for a nose and penned in the nostrils. As a last touch, I tucked an old sock under the front band to hang down like a tongue.
There were several other contests and awards—for fastest rider, best hill climber, and so on. This last-night celebration went on until the wee hours of the morning when the last celebrants noisily went to bed in our little tent city at about 2:30 am.
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| Susan in her Bully Hills goat hat and Joan in her princess hat |
On the way back to John and Pat’s, Jeff and I decided to ditch our plans to stay overnight. We were both antsy to get on the road again. So, when we got back, I showered and changed clothes and then we packed up, said our fond goodbyes, and started for home.
My primary impression was one of nostalgia and almost homesickness for this my native state. I thought of James Whitcomb Riley’s lines: “Oh! the old swimmin’ hole! When last I saw the place/The scenes was all changed, like the change in my face.” Though I had been away for over fifty-six years, it was all so comfortable and distantly familiar. I marveled anew at the size of things: tall trees, high hills, three-story houses, giant weeping willows. I loved buying fresh-out-of-the-garden corn, tomatoes, squash and other veggies at roadside stands. I enjoyed the scenic, winding, tree shaded two-lane roads. I drank in the fragrance of fields of familiar Queen Anne’s lace and chicory and of roadside daisies and black-eyed Susans. I envied the people who lived in the tidy farms with their wrap-around porches, hanging baskets, and wonderful flowerbeds and gardens.
On the way back to Oklahoma, Jeff and I began to find air-conditioning in every building whether tin shack or palatial estate. We began to see convenience stores with Git ‘n’ Go names such as Wag a Bag, Hoot ‘n’ Toot, Sack ‘n’ Pack. We passed store-front churches, giant hillside crosses, signs advertising chicken fried steak, tin buildings, single-story houses, BBQ shacks, the Dickey Bub Shopping Plaza east of Rollo, Missouri, advertisements on the sides of barns, Wal Marts and strip malls, chewing tobacco signs. The sky became vast and encompassing, the roads arrow straight, the horizons distant. Pickups, many pulling horse or cattle trailers, began to outnumber sedans. We were nearly home.
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