Herb Terns’ bike leans against the guardrail near Bash Bish Brook. He didn’t camp there.
Every morning, I wake up a day older, and every morning, I’m curious what that day’s version of me is capable of.
On a recent spring morning, I pushed my bike, laden with camping gear, down the driveway of my Schenectady home. I wanted to see if I could ride to the extreme northwest corner of Connecticut and home in my 36-hour adventure window.
The rain came quickly and was my steady companion. My route was threads of the Empire State Trail and the Harlem Valley Rail Trail, braided with paved and gravel roads in Columbia County and western Massachusetts.
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With the trees leafless, the view of Cohoes from the bike path is one of my favorites. The city was spread out below like a Len Tantillo painting with Mount Rafinesque on the horizon.
The first 35 miles was a fool’s gold of easy bike paths through a gentle river valley but things got real when I left the EST near Nassau. I climbed steep dirt roads and met smiling riders doing the “Toad Strangler,” a storied Columbia County gravel ride.
On a long climb between Austerlitz and Hillsdale, the rain turned to hail. I questioned my motivation for doing this thing. It was a thing with meaning only to me and one I couldn’t really even explain — I simply needed to be out there.
It was late afternoon when I arrived in Copake. The road east to Bash Bish Falls was so steep I couldn’t ride it. I pushed the bike for a mile, then rode, then pushed the bike again as Bash Bish Brook offered a roaring, beautiful distraction.
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I turned on to West Road in Massachusetts, whose dirt the rain had turned into chunky peanut butter, and my ride became a slog. I was five miles short and wasn’t going to make it to Connecticut.
“No defeat is made up entirely of defeat,” William Carlos Williams wrote, “since the world it opens is always a place formerly unsuspected.”
I was pondering prospective places to camp near Bash Bish Brook and their legality when a Massachusetts State Trooper drove up and gently informed me that camping wasn’t allowed (the brook was loud and I didn’t hear him coming.)
Just off the Harlem Valley Rail Trail, a farmer was coming in from the fields. I considered asking him if I could pitch my tent but didn’t want to impose.
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Darkness was falling when I rode north. I knew I could put lights on the bike and ride for another hour to state land and camp at Beebe Hill State Forest. Instead, I grabbed a tall boy of Rolling Rock and a motel room in Hillsdale.
The next morning, I walked into the Hillsdale Stewart’s for coffee. Standing by the cashier was a guy wearing what I can only describe as a homemade dragon hood. It covered his whole head and part of his shoulders and looked as if it had been crocheted. I just wanted breakfast and apparently walked in to someone robbing the Hillsdale Stewart’s.
“Damn,” the man in the dragon hood said to me, “you rode a crazy long way.”
I paused. I wasn’t sure if the man in the dragon hood knew me, or I was dreaming, or there was peyote in the Rolling Rock from the night before.
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The man in the dragon hood had seen me riding the day before near Canaan (I never got an explanation for the mask and didn’t ask.) As I enjoyed my coffee, several other patrons (who weren’t wearing hoods) came over to ask about my trip and to chat. I may not have made it to Connecticut, but I’ll never forget Hillsdale.
I rode north as the brief morning sunshine surrendered to rain. I rode through the scenic hamlet of Red Rock and then watched a pair of eagles fishing in the lake at the Ooms Preserve. Back on the Empire State Trail, I paused with a smile as a group of frisky ponies bucked and zoomed with youthful zest at a nearby horse farm. I am no longer a pony, but I knew what they were feeling.
Rainy bike trip leaves rider with revised itinerary and feeling his oats
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19.04.2024
Herb Terns’ bike leans against the guardrail near Bash Bish Brook. He didn’t camp there.
Every morning, I wake up a day older, and every morning, I’m curious what that day’s version of me is capable of.
On a recent spring morning, I pushed my bike, laden with camping gear, down the driveway of my Schenectady home. I wanted to see if I could ride to the extreme northwest corner of Connecticut and home in my 36-hour adventure window.
The rain came quickly and was my steady companion. My route was threads of the Empire State Trail and the Harlem Valley Rail Trail, braided with paved and gravel roads in Columbia County and western Massachusetts.
Advertisement
Article continues below this ad
With the trees leafless, the view of Cohoes from the bike path is one of my favorites. The city was spread out below like a Len Tantillo painting with Mount Rafinesque on the horizon.
The first 35 miles was a fool’s gold of easy bike paths through a gentle river valley but things got real when I........
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