Late start today. Again. I guess a trend has emerged. We didn't hit the road until after 10:30. It was all good though because we covered amazing ground today. We punched in 52.1 miles in just over 4 hours of riding, which I believe is our best pace we've posted yet.
Not longer after we started riding we found ourselves with some breathtaking views. Here's a panorama I took:
I wasn't aware of it when I took this picture, but the mountains of trees in the distance were exactly where we would be riding through today.
Not long after that picture was taken, we found ourselves in the middle of some gigantic valleys. Easily some of the largest valleys I'd ever ridden through in my life. We were surrounded by giant walls of trees on both sides of the road. In my opinion it was the most beautiful scenery we've seen yet while on this trip. I agreed with Owen when he said he may enjoy the valleys better than the peaks.
We also saw some what I believe to be bulls. Not sure if all of them were bulls or if only a few were, or if none were, nonetheless they were Huge. Much larger than the cows we've been seeing regularly. I could feel that these animals were beasts even riding from a good distance away.
I didn't try stopping to say hello to these fellas. I didn't want to mess around with them at all so I just took this quick video in passing and was on my way. Close enough for me. Seeing animals with so much power up close got me thinking if I'd be able to outbike them if they were ever chasing me. I feel like the answer is probabaly no. But I don't think I actually want to find out for sure so we'll just leave it there. Tbd.
We took one last stop at a Restaurant/Inn before our destination near Coudersport to refill on water. As we pulled up, we saw a biker gang outside in the parking lot near the front entrance. They were your typical motorcycle riders. Big beards, sleeveless shirts, jeans, cowboy boots, along with matching jackets- the whole nine yards. We got chatting with them and they were much nicer than most people probably assume biker groups to be. They started asking us questions, asking about the cause we were doing it for and where we're headed. When we told them how many miles we went in the last 3 hours or so (40 miles) one of them began laughing saying we cover more miles than they do. When Owen was inside the establishment one of them gave him some cash to donate to our cause. Owen said he tried explaining it could be done directly through the website but the man insisted Owen take the money, trusting he'd do what's right with it.
Both us and the bikers left the parking lot at the same time. We were exiting the valley and they were headed right back into it. They waved bye to us as they rolled out in formation, almost as if it was an ending movie scene.
This was one of the few turns on our first and last giant hill of the day. It was an over 800 foot ascent over almost 5 miles. Tough ending, but how else does one exit the valley? I guess that's the price to pay for all that beauty. It's only fair. At the top of the hill was our campsite where we're now set up for the night. In all seriousness, and this is in direct reference to Day 1, they gotta stop putting these campsites on the top of giant hills. I know most people ride in motor vehicles nowadays but there's gotta be at least some consideration for the bikers. It's an established campsite so we're not free camping tonight. At least that means we have access to water and electricity aka showers and outlets to charge our phones.
Tom's getting his bike fixed in the morning so it's looking like another late start on the road tomorrow. But hey, if you've been reading the blogs you know that "late start" and "delayed" are probably my 2 most commonly used words in these publications. So it's not anything we're not used to by now.
Until tomorrow, peace.
-mike
Stats for the day:
That elevation at the end is not pretty.
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