FANY Ride, July 20-27, 2013
Once again, Jane and I participated in the FANY ride. FANY stands for Five hundred miles Across New York, but is pronounced fanny as in what hurts after FANY. This makes our eleventh time out of 13 possible. We missed 2003 and 2010 (although we visited the 2010 ride for the last few days). Links to our web pages of previous rides: 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2002, and 2001.
This year, there were about 130 riders with a few taking advantage of the hotel option and a few (actually just one, since a couple canceled) doing “Sore FANY” which is a ride to the half way point each day and then cycling the rest of the way.
This year’s ride had the day with the most climbing I’ve ever recorded on the FANY ride. On Thursday, we went from Hamilton to Cobleskill and picked up over 7000 feet of climb, far exceeding the record we set in 2009 at 4756 feet and essentially tied in 2012 at 4645 feet of climb. On the first ride we rode a similar route, Sherburne to Cobleskill, and the climbing that day was tough, but my GPS was broken on the way to Sherburne, so I didn’t get a recording of that day.
I’ve updated my table of mileage and climb for each of the FANY rides.
Jane drives our van while I cycle. This has the advantage that we are not limited to two bags, so we can have a comfortable camp and other amenities! Also, we go out to dinner each night rather than use the meal plan. This is important because I’m so slow, that sometimes I don’t make it in time for the meal plan!
On Thursday, July 11, I went around a corner about a half mile from home. I heard a ping and the handling became squirrelly. I thought I’d broken a spoke, so I just continued home. When I got home, all the spokes were fine. On Friday I did a more thorough inspection and found that the right chain stay was completely broken through just in front of the dropout. I went into semi-panic mode. We planned to leave for the FANY ride in just 8 days!
Earlier in the summer I had done a little research on a new bike when I thought a shot bottom bracket might not be able to be removed from the frame. That crisis passed, but when the frame broke, I knew what I wanted and where they carried it. I went to Jay’s Cycles and they had a Trek 520 (the Trek touring bike) in my size. I had it by the end of the day and spent the next week dialing it in. My saddle, pedals, bags, water bottles, and mirror were moved from the old bike. Blinkies, computer, GPS mount, and frame pump were purchased new. The new bike did fine on the FANY ride. It’s a triple with a 9-speed cassette and so has slightly lower and higher gearing than my old 7-speed 1998 Bianchi Volpe.
On the very first FANY ride in 2001, there were a group of four riders: Anne and her daughter Annalise (just 13 at the time) from Fly Creek, NY. Bruce, also from FLy Creek, and Anne’s sister, Patti from Michigan. On later FANY rides, Patti was joined by her husband Bob and friends Paula and Mike. Patti’s daughter Jaimie, with her children Sam(antha) and Zach drove their support van on the ride. (Sometimes daughter Kelly with granddaughter Justice did the support van.)
Tragically, Annalise died in a skiing accident last year. This year’s ride is dedicated to Annalise and the donation to the Double H Ranch will be in her memory. Also in memory of Annalise, Patti, Jaimie, and Paula returned to the ride this year with Bob, Sam and Zach driving their support van.
The rest of the story is in the albums linked below. Clicking on a picture sends you to the album. Within the album, clicking on a picture brings up a larger photo. You can also see a slide show.
