The last gravel grinder ride of 2014 for
Le Gravle Randonneurs took place in Putnam Valley, NY. It was much colder than the weather forecast said it should have been. Then, on departure, Mr Murphy stuck his head in and the route on my Garmin was just straight lines connecting the intersections. Fortunately, Will had the route on his Garmin and just in I had the route on GoogleMaps Engine.
One of the risks you take in planning for these rides is if you haven't been here before, no amount of comparing different maps is going to tell you whether a road goes through or not. We found that on the
Ashokan Populaire and
D2G2 rides. Also, so that I don't run into this problem again with my Garmin, I think I have a way of vetting the course to ensure that it's going to not fail me. To do that, after uploading to the device, have to see if downloads into Training Center or Basecamp.
Despite my navigation issues, we headed west from Mahopac Falls Elementary School (pronounce like Mayo-pack) down a short connector to Route 6N called Potter Rd, which happened to be closed. It was still passable for bikes, though. Our first taste of dirt, which on the map was called Clear Lake Rd, turns out to be more of a driveway/road into a Boy Scout Camp than an actual thoroughfare. As we were riding by different groups of Boy Scouts no one paid us any heed. I asked one of the Scout Masters if it was a cold night and he said the cabins were nice and toasty with wood burning stoves. I thought back on my experiences in the Boy Scouts and we never had it this easy back in the day. In order to earn your winter camping merit badge you had to sleep outside in a tent. That's the way we did it back in the '70s.
