Mountain Bike Ride Around Keuka Lake

This afternoon two friends from work came by to ride mountain bikes around Keuka Lake. I had a haphazard start: I transferred the bottle holders from my road bike to my mountain bike and dropped one of the screws through the deck. With some help from Carlos and Cindy, I crawled under the deck, which was cloaked in spider webs and crawling with bugs, and in about 3 or 4 minutes located the screw. Additionally, I needed to fix a flat tire that had a slow leak, enough to completely flatten it overnight.

We got off a little behind schedule, but were soon enjoying the wonderful weather and some beautiful views of the lake. We stopped for lunch in a small park on the beach just below the chapel at Keuka College. We then continued down the bluff in the crotch of the lake with a short climb up to another beautiful stone church overlooking the lake. Keuka is the only Y-shaped Finger Lake, where the piece of land between the tops of the Y is called the bluff or crotch of the lake.

We then made a brutal climb up a hill to follow a high road above the lake. It was very hot and sunny and really sapped my strength. A short rest and some cold water and fresh grapefruit helped me recover. We then continued into Hammondsport and then back up the east side of the lake to the rental house. For those interested, here is a link showing the ride in a google-maps mashup program (it is a little slow to load, but click the "show elevation" button to get a profile of the ride).

After a short dip in the lake, we all enjoyed a pleasant dinner with the rest of the family (minus Steve and Lelia, who drove up to Lake Placid to pick up their dog, Lucky).