Climate Ride 2014: Training (of a sort) for Climate Ride Midwest

For those of you who have followed my bicycle travels, you know that I'm not a big fan of training for my long distance rides. Not because it isn't useful -- it definitely is -- even necessary one might say. It's just that it's....well...boring. And time consuming. And did I mention boring?

Don't get me wrong. I love biking. Obviously. But waking up and thinking, "Gosh, I've got to put in 40 miles today, and maybe tomorrow or the next day, so I can be ready in a couple of weeks for Climate Ride" does not inspire me particularly. Plus it takes a huge chunk out of the day. So what to do?

The answer, for me, was to make training a bit more fun and interesting. I like the Climate Rides, among other reasons, because they're new routes, new people, new experiences. So I figured I needed to make my training rides a bit more like that as well. Living on the Upper West Side in Manhattan, I tend to train on the same routes over and over, where I know the distances and climbs, typically going over the GWB and north on Route 9W. I could do it in my sleep at this point (that's a figure of speech, by the way, for those of you who might be a bit slow on the uptake).

So, recognizing that we were about to take a week of family vacation up in Truro, Cape Cod, before our boys both went back to their respective colleges, I decided to resurrect a ride I did in 2009 -- from New York to Truro -- with some adjustments. The adjustments primarily consisted of cutting it back from 6 days and 400 miles to 4 days and 240 miles -- otherwise I would be arriving after my family (which sort of defeats the purpose of a family vacation). I also did some small route adjustments just for the sake of variation and trying something new, but with a 5 year gap since I last rode the route this was not a particularly large concern.

And it was fun, interesting and excellent training! Maybe less so if I was training for serious climbing, as the whole route was relatively flat, but the upcoming Climate Ride is in the Midwest, after all.

I trimmed down the route this time around by taking a bus out to Peconic, LI, on the North Fork (with my bike underneath in the cargo bay). That basically cut out 110 miles and 2 days of not such pleasant riding (except, surprisingly, for some excellent Greenways in Queens!). From Peconic, I rode about 20 miles on gorgeous and empty back roads to Orient, LI, where I caught a ferry to New London, CT. And I was off!

And the timing worked out pretty well, too. I crossed the town line into Truro on my bike literally about 5 minutes ahead of Laura, Ben and Stephen in the car.

Here are the 4 days of routes, as usual, for those of you who might be interested, as well as a few photos:

Day 1 (the mileage reflects only biking, not the bus or ferry rides!):