Day 2 Essex to Ticonderoga

Miles: 40.5
Actual ride time in saddle: 3 hr 39 minutes
Average speed: 11 mph
Max speed: 33 mph

We got a late start because the B&B we stayed at didn't serve breakfast until 8am. We did enjoy a delicious meal of scrambled eggs and French toast as we sat on the porch of the B&B and looked out at the quaint village. We had thunder showers in the night, but the morning sun was promising. We were on the road about 9:30 headed out of Essex toward Ticonderoga and immediately encountered more hills!! Did we say how much we hate hills? We have affectionately named these hills heart attack hills. Our training in Rochester was definitely inadequate. We rarely needed to use the small front sprocket prior to the trip, but found we could have used more – a little motor would have been nice. Hills after hills, and when we thought we surely must have been through with the worst, there was another. Yes, it is definite; we will not do this trip again. We’re thinking more like a leisurely bike tour through Niagara at the Lake might be nice. Anyone interested?

Although we were happy it wasn’t raining, the humidity and heat was intense and made climbing the hills that much harder. In fact, we could feel the heat from the pavement as we rode. There were a few points that we did feel a nice breeze off the lake and were able to enjoy the scenery. Most the time however, we were cursing the hills or praying that we could make it to the top.

It was a relatively nice ride from Westport to Port Henry – a lot of long rolling hills. Once we made it to Port Henry, we stopped to cool down at a picnic table in town and had a sandwich from a local diner called Helen’s Kitchen. It was fuel much needed. We realized this as we tackled a few more hills as we left town.

Leaving Port Henry on Rt 22 we found more gradual long hills, which were still intimidating in the heat, but not as bad as the steep heart attack hills. The worst was dealing with the heavy traffic which included tractor trailers and logging trucks. There were times when the shoulders were wide and it was not a problem, but there were other times when there was no shoulder at all. That was pretty frightening especially when traffic was going in both directions approaching a hill.

We missed a turn that should have taken us off Rt 22 for a while, so we probably missed a scenic portion of the route because we stayed on Rt 22 until we got to Crown Point where we could reconnect with the planned route. It seemed like a long 10 miles from there to Ticonderoga. It didn’t help that we missed another turn. (We made daily route directions and had that attached to our bike. see pic) It wasn’t so bad since it gave us the opportunity to actually ride through the village of Ticonderoga before arriving at the hotel. The only problem was the black clouds hovering over us. We tried to pick up our pace, but honestly we were too exhausted to ride fast at this point. About 1 mile from the hotel the sky opened up and we were soaked! As hot as we were, it actually felt good, but it really wasn’t safe riding. Stopping in the rain is more challenging and the rain on our glasses made for very poor visibility. I walked into the lobby of the hotel soaking wet, but luckily the hotel attendant was very pleasant and gave us rags to wipe down our bikes before we brought them into our room.

After showering away the grit of the road and warming up from cool rain, we went into the hotel restaurant/pub and enjoyed a drink and appetizer while we loaded last night’s blog (since the wireless at the B&B we stayed at last night was useless). It was pasta night so we ordered dinner– which we thoroughly enjoyed. We are so happy to be in a nice hotel and also enjoyed relaxing in the whirlpool. What adventures await us tomorrow??