Day 1: Rochester to Geneva
So I’m relaxing after a long day’s ride in Geneva, NY at the north end of Seneca Lake. Day one of the Finger Lakes tour is done.
The day started with a nice, big breakfast of eggs and home hash covered in sausage gravy, which was pretty tasty, but not quite as tasty as the sausage gravy at Lucky’s in Cleveland. Ah well. 😉
Getting out of Rochester wasn’t too shabby. JP, the friend who I’m crashing with there, directed me to a bike path that got me past most of the city roads without difficulty or traffic. On the Erie Canal trail this morning, I encountered a few other cyclists who were great for conversation and helped direct me around some construction detours along the path. In Pittsford I hopped up off the trail and headed down the road towards Canandaigua.
The nice thing about many of the roads in this region of New York is the wide shoulders they have. Many of these roads were not normally roads I would be comfortable biking on (in excess of 40 mph), but thanks to the nearly five feet of shoulder space I had, it was quite pleasant. I was catching a nice breeze from passing cars, but not enough to be bothered by their closeness.
So I stopped in at a park in Canandaigua for some lunch. Check out my view of the lake there. I sat on the park bench relaxing and eating assorted munchables (almonds and raisins, along with a bagel, I think), watching the clear waters and those on it. The water was surprisingly warm, given that it was a relatively chilly day in the area. I took my socks and shoes off and dangled my feet for a few minutes before riding on.
From there it was but 15 miles into Geneva. Breakfast was catching up to me in a less than pleasant way, but a gas station pit stop saved the day and I was happily on from there.
Geneva is a cool little college town. My generous host and I wandered over to an all you can eat Chinese buffet nearby, and then I got a quick tour of the college grounds. We moseyed on back, and he was kind enough to share with me a bottle of Dr. Konstantin Frank’s 2001 cabernet franc.
For a wine as old as this it was surprisingly bright and fruity on the initial taste. It lacked structure and was uninteresting on the finish, at first, but we came back to wine after about an hour, and found the tannins expressing themselves more (which I thought quite odd), and the wine far more balanced and interesting. The fruit had diminshed allowing a little more earth and character to show through.
Tomorrow, we’re going to check out a few of the wineries in the Geneva area, and then I have another 35 miles or so of cycling to put in. I’ll likely check in again from Ithaca in a few days time.
I’ve got some more pictures of Lake Canandaigua beneath the link.
