May 21 – East to Syracuse

The ride from Batavia to Syracuse was 121 miles and for that distance a very easy ride. We started from Batavia after a breakfast at Bob Evans. They opened at 6 AM and all 28 riders were outside waiting to come in and eat. Fortunately the restaurant had been warned the night before. Standing outside in cycling clothes was a chilly experience as there was frost this morning. By 6:45 when I started it was a little warmer but not much. I rode most of the day with Ian, a rider who lives outside Boston. We both have the nice problem of only needing one plane ride to do this ride. Most riders flew to the start and then will fly from the end back home.

We set a comfortable pace on the gentle rollers that made up much of the route. We went through a number of small towns each of whom had seen better days and each with their own claim to fame. The most notable was LeRoy which claimed to be the place where Jell-O was invented. We passed through Geneva on Lake Seneca and had no problem understanding why the town was named Geneva, especially after having been to its namesake in Switzerland. Like Geneva the town of Seneca Falls has some remarkable Victorian architecture and would be worthy of a visit when I had more time to explore.

There were more chocolate chip cookies today and they were just as good today as they were yesterday.

For me the most interesting part of the day was riding on some of the roads around Syracuse. My mother lived in Syracuse for several years when she was growing up. I have no idea where the family lived, but some of the parks we went through must have been there in the 30’s when she lived there. I likely was going past places that she knew well. I will never know for sure, but there was a very strange sense of connection.

Ian and I finished the ride with AJ our lone rider from the UK. Many riders have had family or friends that lived near the route visit them during the ride. One who lives in Illinois seemed to be having a family congregation as we passed through the state. It got to the point where we would tell any slowly moving car that passed us that Rob Landis was just a little bit ahead. Many others will have friends at the end of the ride on Thursday. AJ’s wife had been in the US visiting friends in Pennsylvania for several weeks but has left of England and so she will not be at the end of the ride. It seemed like a shame to me, but I really don’t know their situation. Well today as we arrived at the motel four friends of AJ from PA were there to great him. He was totally surprised and overwhelmed. It was so nice that they came and that they surprised AJ.