One long day

Today was a state crossing, climbing, rain, a sick member of the Dalton 4 and a flat tire. It all added up to a long day.

We started out and crossed the Hudson River in Troy, NY. There were some pretty bad roads for about 10 miles.

We left NY and entered Vermont which was very pretty. Bennington was the first city we passed through and it was quite nice.

There was about 5,100 feet of climbing today. There was one uphill climb of about 7 miles through the Green Mountains. I felt pretty good and climbed at a good rate. It was sunny and there were pretty streams. Unfortunately, Alec was not feeling well today. He feels he had something which upset his stomach. He has been climbing well lately and when I looked back today and saw him struggling I knew that something was wrong. When we reached the end of the climb, we rested for awhile and then took off for the last SAG of the day. It started to get cold at the top and started to rain quite hard. We got to the SAG and rested some more. At this point Harry realized he was losing air from his tube. We found a Gazebo and Harry and I changed the tire while Karen and Alec continued on to the hotel. It started to rain again, but we were protected as we change the tube. We left and it started to really rain heavily for the next 30 minutes or so. Most of the ride was downhill and sometimes the rain was so hard it was difficult to see. I went slowly as I did not want to fall.

By the time we entered town it had stopped raining and the sun came out.

Latham, NY - Brattleboro, VT

Miles 78.961

Ave. MPH 13.7

Actual Bike time: 5:45:49

Left Hotel 7:25

Arrive Hotel 5:00

Tomorrow we will enter our last two states, New Hampshire and Massachusetts. It is a long ride filled with steep climbs.