Cycling and bragging, sort of

I had a lot of goals for this summer, about fixing the house and barn, making furniture, hiking on some of the mountains we can see in the distance, reading and writing about physics, Most of these items are partially completed or not even started on, but last Thursday I achieved one of my goals for the summer. I rode from here to the top of Mount Greylock ( the highest point in Massachusetts  spelled it right on the first try for a change) and back.  It was an 86 mile trip with about 7800 feet of ascending. It took about 8 hours of ride time, but of course I stayed at the top for quite a while looking at the Berkshire Hills, the Green Mountains, the Taconic Range, and some of the Adirondacks.  It was quite a view.

I also spent some time stopping to rub sore legs near the end of the trip, but I did make it home without calling my wife for a rescue.

Today was another good cycling day. I  did a 39 mile ride today.  27 miles of it were the route for the bike portion of the Josh Billings Run Aground. This is a weird kind of team triatholon including cycling running and paddling. I am thinking of joining an over 60 team if one will have me. My time for the 27 miles ( moderately hilly ones) was a bit over two hours.  That might not sound too bad until you hear last year's shortest time was 1:04.  The guy was a lot younger, but still a factor of two in speed is hard to accept gracefully. I'll have to find a really non-competitive team.