Day 37: Meadville to Bradford PA

As planned, I pulled back on the throttle today and had a good, strong 101 mile ride to Bradford.  However, as forecast, it was wet - periods of drizzle and light rain throughout the day.  It gave me a chance to try out my rain gear - which it appears will get almost constant use all of the way to Maine.  Overall the gear kept me from getting soaked from the rain, but the mild temperatures combined with a lot of climbing resulted in me getting soaked from the inside with sweat.  I played around with various ventilation schemes and eventually found a good balance between not being cooked or drowned.

We started out this morning with some large "rollers" with numerous 1/4 to 1/2 mile climbs of 5-7% grade.  This was followed in the afternoon by a several mile 5-7% climb.  For the day we climbed 5400 ft. This was the first day that we were treated to brilliant fall colors - which were quite pretty even if somewhat muted by the low clouds and rain.  This is really a beautiful part of the country.

Bradford is a nice town of about 9000 people best known as the home of Zippo lighters.  It is located about 25 miles south of the border with New York.  We walked a few blocks into the pleasant appearing small downtown area for dinner - it was excellent.

We have three more consecutive 100+ mile rides ahead of us and we're told that they will be very similar to today's ride - including the rain.  Tomorrow could be particularly challenging with heavy rain and thunderstorms forecast throughout the day.  We are not allowed to ride if there is lightning in the area so it could be a day of starts and stops as we try to go 100 miles to Corning NY.  Don't be surprised if there is no blog post tomorrow - it could be a long day.

Steve