Day 5 - Great Day for Up

Sunday, July 31 

During day 3 we climbed steadily along the rail trail into northern Westchester but we lost almost all that elevation when we descended into Peekskill.  After all the ups and downs of day 4, we ended the day only about 200 feet above our starting elevation at Montauk Point.  Day 5 was our day to climb up out of the Rondout Valley onto the Catskill Plateau.

I'm going to rely on Michael for pictures to go along with the day 5 ride.  Michael's day 5 pics  Note that today Michael experimented with the "Bike Cam" mounted with a liberal amount of duct tape (I knew that duct tape would come in handy at some point!).

Bike Cam

We started the day by following the Rondout Valley from Accord to Ellenville.  We were back on Berme Road (a favorite from day 4) which hugged the eastern side of the valley, offering panoramic views of the valley and the bigger Catskill mountains in the distance.  An out of place sight was the medieval looking castle of the Napanoch State Prison.

We were lucky enough to arrive in Ellenville while the Farmers' Market was in session.  This made for a nice mid-morning break.  We picked up some snacks for the road (carrots and plums) and listened to a little live country music before heading west on Route 52.  This is where the real climbing began.  I'll include an elevation profile chart for people who are into that kind of thing.

Elevation in feet versus miles of travel for day 5

The major elevation gain of the day was spread over 10 miles. We paralleled route 52 for a while on Greenfield Road.  It was quiet and shady (did I mention that we like our roads shady?)   High points go to the Google Maps cycling option for putting us on to some of these roads.  Then we forked off onto Mountaindale Road.  We were mostly riding in woods but we passed resorts and summer camps along the way.  It was hot and those swimming pools looked really inviting. 

As we passed through Woodridge and Fallsburg, the resorts and camps were almost exclusively orthodox Jewish and at most there was a great hustle and bustle of activity.  By this point, we had completed our major elevation gain but the terrain never really leveled off.  We seemed to always be going either up or down.  A passing cyclist, Andrew, stopped to chat when we were on a roadside break.  He inquired about our route and suggested a change in our approach to Liberty based on road condition (he said the Google Maps route would have had us going downhill into Liberty on an unpaved road).  He even gave us his card with phone number and said we should call him if we got stuck anywhere.

When we reached Liberty, it was time to part ways with Dan Dunmire.  Dan's daughter Ari met us in town.  After sharing some pizza for lunch, Dan went off to load his bicycle into the car and head for home.  It was great having Dan along to share three days of the ride.  A point of interest - Dan was riding the Raleigh bicycle that he bought in the 1970's.  It obviously served him well.  He had no problem with any of the hills along the way - generally whistling a cheerful tune as we climbed.

Michael and I continued out of Liberty toward Roscoe.  There is no good direct way to get from Liberty to Livingston Manor, the next town in the valley, by bicycle.  Route 17 is the most direct (and flat) route but it is not made for bicycles.  As Andrew(the passing cyclist) had confirmed, one way or another we had to get over a ridge to continue on our way.  We headed west to White Sulphur Springs, with some decent climbing along the way, and then tackled the most serious climb of the trip so far on Dahlia Road.  We picked up more than 600 feet of elevation in a few miles with most of that coming in the last steep mile.  Michael had the bad luck of getting a flat tire midway up the hill.  I waited at the top and chatted with Damon and Stephanie who were building a house at what Damon told me was the highest point in the town of Liberty. 

We flew down the hill to Livingston Manor.  As Andrew had reported, it was a good straight shot down - no tight curves or intersections to get in our way.  From there, we had only about 7 miles to Roscoe where my friend Diane and her folks were waiting for us at their house in town.  After dinner at Raimondos we went up the mountain (by car) to Lake Muskoday to spend the night.  This was a regular vacation spot for my family for many years when the kids were younger (Lee, I wish you and the kids were here to take a swim or a boat ride with me!)

Hey, we're halfway there!
336 miles into the trip.
I think we'll give ourselves the day off tomorrow.

Before we started the day, we made a little film about bicycle safety.