It had been a while since I’d been out on my bike in a purely recreational capacity so on Saturday afternoon I headed out to tackle the ride titled “Mormon Country” in my Backroad Bicycling in the Finger Lakes Region guide book. The route was only about 3 miles from my house so it seemed like a good choice. My alternate plan was to ride to the Geneva Bicycle Center and look at bikes that I’m not ready to buy and bug the bike store people with questions whose answers I could probably find on line.
It was sunny when I decided to go, sprinkling when I got on the bike, and pouring by the time I got to the first stop sign. It was really really pouring… like standing under a waterfall. It was actually quite pleasant since the alternative was ‘hot with oppressive humidity’. By the time I was almost in to town it was raining so hard that I was having a little trouble seeing. I took most of the hill descents pretty slowly, because I didn’t really want to find out if you can hydroplane on a bike or find any hidden potholes in puddles.
Then I found myself in new territory. I kinda-sorta had the route in my head but not solidly enough that I knew whether to turn left or right at any of the turns. I just knew the road names. It was raining too hard for me to consult the book. This would be a much better story if I’d actually taken a wrong turn, but somehow I managed to get all the way to route 21 without mishap. By then the sun was out and it was hot again.
Route 21 is NOT a friendly road to ride on. The traffic is fast if somewhat intermittent. There’s no shoulder & you’re riding against a guard rail half the time without the opportunity to choose to crash in to the trees or ride into a ravine to avoid a stupid motorist. Often when I’m on a scary road I comfort myself with the thought that I could ride off the road to avoid disaster (I know I’m just lying to myself). With the guard rail there, my mind conjures up gory visuals of my legs being sandwiched between a car and the rail and the bike. I think the book only chose to spend any time on Rt. 21 was so that it would take you past Hill Cummorah.
The route went past Hill Cumorah, the Joseph Smith Farm, & the Martin Harris farm. I didn’t actually stop at any of these places. The only spot I actually stopped to look around was the Fox Sister’s House. Really it’s just the foundation of the house now. It’s supposed to be the birthplace of Modern Spiritualism. When I was a ‘kid’ we used to drive out to the site of the house at night, which was all grown over with weeds. We’d get out of the car with the intention of exploring but someone would get freaked out and start screaming and run back to the car, which usually resulted in everyone else running screaming back to the car. Now they’ve built a building over the foundation, with windows all around so you can see into it… but you can’t actually go inside. I think they moved all the cool stuff to Lily Dale (which is like the Rennaisance fair but with psyichics).
I was pretty excited that I did 34 miles with lots of hills and wasn’t really all that tired at the end of the ride. This is a good thing because I am potentially going to be doing my longest ride of the season next week. More on that later.
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