Once again, 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 my fourteenth time out of 17 possible. I missed 2003, 2010 and 2015 (although Jane and I visited the 2010 ride for the last few days). Links to our web pages of previous rides: 2016, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2002, and 2001.

This year, there were about 100 riders with a few taking advantage of the hotel option and one  doing “Sore FANY” which is a ride to the half way point each day and then cycling the rest of the way. A number were also taking advantage of Comfy Campers which provided and set up tents, air mattresses, morning coffee or some combination. All for a fee of course.

I’ve updated my table of mileage and climb for each of the FANY rides.

With the low gearing I installed before the 2014 ride, I made it up every hill.

I followed the cue sheets (not counting missed turns or side trips) except on Thursday, I took a shortcut that saved 7 miles.

My son Jeff lives in Saratoga Springs. I drove to Saratoga on Friday and spent the night with Jeff. In the evening we wandered around downtown Saratoga in the Hats Off Party celebrating the beginning of track season. On Saturday I parked my car in the lot at Skidmore and rode the bus with other FANY riders to Niagara Falls.

After we arrived back in Saratoga on the next Saturday, I joined Jeff, daughter Amy, visiting from Connecticut and two of her friends at the track. On the next Sunday, the three of us went to Lake George.

The cue sheets were much improved this year as Karen started using ridewithgps.com to create them. In addition the tracks were available for download to your GPS or smart phone. I downloaded the tracks and just followed the black line on my GPS. Riders using smart phones could get audio cues.

Usually I make a separate photo album for each day of the FANY ride and the before and after days. However, it was very wet this year and that was a disincentive to taking lots of pictures. So, all the photos are in a single album 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. Sometimes the slide shows come up with small photos. Double clicking on “play slideshow” seems to help bring up the large photos.