Day 38: Bradford to Corning NY

As predicted, today's 100 mile ride was a vitural repeat of yesterday's ride - same distance, nice fall scenery, lots of climbing, and lots of rain.  Fortunately the rain did not start until about 3 hours into the ride  - so at least we did not start out getting soaked.  It was still dry when we crossed into New York (our 13th state) at the 25 mile point of the ride.  Temperatures were mild, so I again battled getting soaked from the outside in versus the inside out.  I was overdressed during the morning, but happy to be wearing my full raingear when the heavens opened up during the afternoon.

In the rational world that I normally live in I would never consider doing a century ride in the rain - but I've just done two in a row and will likely extend that to four over the next two days.  Perhaps more suprisingly, I've actually enjoyed both rides.  

I again rode strong and was at the hotel a few minutes past 3pm (there was no lightning so no delays). This gave me a chance to do a bath tub full of wash, which I now have hanging all over my room.  The Trek Travel folks rinsed off all of the bikes before we brought them to our rooms and I am now using mine as a cloths rack by leaning it against the AC unit in the room. Not everything will dry overnight, so I will repeat the drying process again tomorrow night.

We were on our own tonight to explore Corning and eat at the place of our choice.  However, since it is raining heavily I had a pizza delivered to my room and passed on the opportunity to get soaked again while exploring the town.  Too bad, because our hotel is only a short walk from the Corning Glass Museum.

Tomorrow we pretty much do the same thing again - 100 miles, lots of climbing, nice scenery, and lots of rain.  The forecast is for 2"-3" of rain tonight gradually tapering to showers by tomorrow afternoon - and much cooler temperatures.  So it appears I will need full raingear right from the start. We'll see if my enjoyment of doing century rides in the rain continues.

Steve