Have you ever heard of the term “Prevailing Winds”? If you were to look it up, you would find out that in the mid-latitudes, where the majority of the states sit, we have “The Westerlies” where the prevailing winds blow steadily from the West to the East due largely to the rotation of the earth. That is also why P2P has always been in the same direction – you would like to have the wind at your back if you’re on a bicycle. Well, I am close to calling “horse hockey” on that whole theory because today we pretty much had Wyoming/South Dakota style headwinds all day – and we’re now in NY! In fact, I can count on 1 hand the number of days we’ve had on P2P that we’ve had any hint of a tailwind. The wind god known as Aeolus has definitely not been our friend over the last 6 weeks!
It was yet another long day with 101 miles and over 5,000 ft of climbing, but it pretty much felt like we were climbing all day with the persistent 15-18 mph wind in our faces almost all day. We rolled out from Bradford at 7:15 AM and had our first big 700 ft climb at just 4.5 miles out and it was a tough one on legs not yet warmed up. I was standing on my pedals over the last 200 feet just to clear the last 16% gradient at the top. After the descent, I was cold after sweating into my jersey and arm warmers so I put my light jacket on an kept it on all day. It probably stayed in the low 60’s all day and even when the sun was shining part of the day, the winds made it seem much cooler.
We had our first SAG stop at mile 20 and it was a short one as we had many miles to go and we wanted to get to Rest Day. At mile 25, we crossed into our 12th state – New York! Of course, we had to stop and take pictures. Little did we know that the headwinds would soon kick in and in a big way. The landscape from Pennsylvania to NY has definitely changed and in a noticeable way. No longer are we seeing the larger corn fields like we saw in Pennsylvania, now the valleys are narrower leaving less room for crop growing, but it is still a pretty countryside. It was interesting to see more Buffalo Bills flags and signs in Eastern Pennsylvania than Philadelphia Eagles swag. I guess its more of a regional identity than it is for the respective states.
In any case, the headwinds picked up when we got into NY. It felt more like the winds we fought from Kadoka to Oacoma in South Dakota. I looked at my Garmin GPS at one point and I was pushing 200 watts of power and only going about 12 mph – that is a big headwind. By the time we got to our lunch stop at mile 56, we knew the winds were not going to get any better so we just dug in and tried to keep the paceline intact so we could help each other out. And again the constant roar of the wind in your ears is one of the most exhausting things I’ve ever encountered.
We had a final SAG stop at mile 75 and we knew the ride profile after that was mostly “downward trending” as we would lose almost 1000 feet of elevation from that point until we got into Corning. We rolled into the Hilton Garden Inn for rest day tomorrow at about 4:10 PM this afternoon with tired legs after 7 1/2 hours in the saddle. It was a long day.
Corning seems like a nice town. It is known as “America’s Crystal City” because of its long history in glass science and manufacturing and as the home of Corning Glass Works and Steuben Crystal (Corning is Steuben County). But tomorrow being our last Rest Day, I will be getting laundry done and just generally resting my body. Just one week from today – we will be finished. Only 6 riding days and 1 century left – but next Sunday we’ll have a day with 8,000 feet of climbing. It’s hard to believe we’ve pedaled 3,257 miles since August 13th but here we are. I am going to miss all my riding buddies – we’ve all become fast friends and I will miss the camaraderie.
Time now though, to focus on safety and not doing anything stupid as we get closer to the finish line! Here’s hoping for good weather and the wind at our backs as we gear up for the final push to the Atlantic!
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