After riding the Ride Across Minnesota five times, my friend Eric, and I decided we wanted to do our own week-long ride carrying everything we would need in bike bags attached to panniers on the bikes.
Wanting to see something other than the Midwest, we planned a week-long ride around Lake Champlain in upstate New York and Vermont, with a side trip to Lake Placid, N.Y.
We flew into Albany, N.Y. and drove to Burlington, Vt. to rent bicycles from Green Mountain Bicycles owned by Doon Hinderyckx, “The Biking Viking.” This was one of our best trips ever: we saw Fort Ticonderoga, the Olympic training site in Lake Placid where I (Eric being somewhat more cautious and sensible) rode the Olympic bobsled ride (on rollers, of course). At Mount Hovenberg. I rode it like I drive—slowly! We had a boat ride through the Ausable Chasm, swam in refreshing, if somewhat cold, Lake Champlain and, of course, rode through beautiful countryside. On the side trip to the Olympic site (home of the 1980 Olympics) we rounded a curve in the mountain road we were riding and saw an impressive site—the two Olympic ski jumps a mile ahead looming over the countryside.
One of my favorite memories of the ride was after a long ride (70 miles) through the mountains we ended the day in Elizabethtown, a town of about 800 residents. We got a room at the Park Motor Inn and asked the owner if there were perhaps a municipal swimming pool and were disappointed when he told us there was none. He thought for a minute and told us of a swimming hole down the road (just past the abandoned car) the local youth use. We rode out, following his directions, and found a small gravel parking area where, looking over the edge at the far end of the area saw, to our delight, a small swimming hole about twenty feet below. It was about twelve feet deep with water so clear you could see the bottom.
We enjoyed the cool water for a half-hour and were sitting on the bank enjoying the shade when we heard, but could not see, a car pull into the parking area above. Two car doors slammed and a moment later two figures launched themselves from the parking area and plunged into the pool. The town’s youth had begun to arrive.
