Day 61: A nice recovery ride to Wellsville, NY

I left the hotel at 08:00 to try and beat most of the thunderstorms that were forecast to start after noon. The temp was about 55 F when I left and there was a light and cool North wind. It was a very heavy overcast and the clouds looked threatening even though the chance of rain was only 15% until noon. Bike route #17 continues to be a great road with a very wide shoulder and the stretch I rode today was hilly and had a couple of big hills but the gradients were not steep. Very pleasant riding conditions. After about 2 hours it started to rain intermittently…Not heavy rain but enough to keep my phone in a ziplock baggie and not available for photos. We all know that a 15% chance of rain means it’s PROBABLY not going to rain but, it COULD. This also seems like a good time to remember that statistics is an organized way of confidently making wrong decisions. The biggest impact of the rain is that I can’t take photos- but it certainly could have been worse. I found a nice picnic table under cover in one of the small towns I went through and ate my grinder which I had purchased earlier. Even with the rain I had a very comfortable ride and arrived in Wellsville well before 1:00 pm and feeling pretty rested. My WS host for this evening is an experienced touring cyclist and a very gracious host. This is going to be a nice, restful afternoon & evening! Daily mileage: 59, trip miles: 3,378.

Nice roads starting out this morning:

Some pretty old homes along the way:

I haven’t seen much farmland lately- just pretty meadows and mountains:

It is just starting to sprinkle so these are the last photos of the road leading to one big descent and ascent and just a pleasantly winding road through the woods: