Let's Go to New York 

image via Flickr

Since planning a get-away/escape/vacation a few weeks ago, this is all I can think about. Escaping to New York. Not the shiny, glowing, sparkling, dirty, glassy, grimy, heavily populated city of New York but the green, brown, rivered, open road, heavily treed upper New York bit. The bit that goes through towns with names like Watertown (is it underwater or just near water?) or Syracuse (excuse the Syracuse, as the saying goes, right?) or Potsdam (damn the pots, and their holders!) and winds beyond Lake Placid (young men aren't so fond of Lake Flaccid; even less so young ladies) to Lake Champlain and Burlington until finally you sneak up on Montreal like a marauding army sulking in the underbrush waiting to pounce.


View Bicycling Directions, Generally in a larger map

This is the general plan and route as expressed by one Glenn Gobuyan, who, by dares and taunts has concocted his idea of jolly easy-as-she-goes route. Pish-posh. It's not quite 800 KM, averaging only about 100 KM per day.

"It's not really that much. Should be easy." said Mr. Gobuyan via video chat last Saturday. "I might change my bearings in my touring bike before I head out." he added casually while looking around for his tent like it was a misplaced pillow.

Meanwhile, I've been madly buying all the stock of energy bars, sleeping bags, tents, tarps and inner tubes the city has to offer in a frantic rush of fear. "You're really going to do this?" said my legs to my brain. "You don't go out on Saturday night for fear of being too far from the toilet!" said my stomach. "Not to mention your fondness for the couch, television and heating pads." my back chimed in. Screw all of you, I say. Shut up, Legs. Shut up, Stomach. Shut up, Back. We're going and you had better get used to the idea before you find yourself heading Eastward with only a bit of fabric and chamois cream between you and an aerodynamically shaped bicycle seat.