FLCC> Sunday's Park-to-Park ride: knights in a horse chesnut tree?

[John Dennis]

OK, I know it’s perverse to take attendance at five Sunday’s rides running
and then write up the most poorly attended one. 

 

To get a grip on who’s still showing up for Sunday rides—climate change not
withstanding---, you need to know that my 15 teenage bantams—these are the
feathers down-to-the feet varieties—fall into two groups, the ones that like
to hang out in the forest and roost in the horse chestnut tree and those
that prefer the comforts of the hen house.  Amadeus was the leader of the
former group until a night-time varmint devoured most of him, strewing
entrails in Jackson Pollock style across the path to the hen house.  The
point is there can be not-so-hidden costs to roosting with the risk-takers.
But I suspect they enjoy life more before the end arrives, typically
unannounced.  Like a hooded falcon, Amadeus was remarkably docile once
nightfall had fallen.  It was as if he and his friends expected to be
carried back to the hen house nightly shortly after dusk.  For two weeks
now, we have had no women riders on the Sunday rides.  And Amadeus’ friends
have taken to roosting indoors for the past two weeks as well.

 

This past Sunday Gary Hodges, David Sahn, and I arrived at the Taughannock
Park Overlook late and over-dressed as usual. According to an unreferenced
narrative in Wikipedia, Taughannock means “great fall in the woods” in
Delawareanese (you’re kidding, wrong watershed!).  Gary spotted a retired
photographer out for a walk along the rim of the gorge who was wearing
shorts, the large baggy variety.   Until then, the three of us had thought
that even showing up with air temps in the high 30s was a roosting in the
horse chestnut kind of thing to do.  We had already assumed that we were the
only Diehards to show up when baggy shorts informed us that “about 10
riders” had left about 15 minutes earlier.  That put us in our place. 

 

So, we mounted our capable steeds and progressed up the left bank of
Taughannock Creek until we were south-east  of Trumansburg, skirting the
difficult to see margins of Podunk.  Andrejs clearly had in mind some sort
of a casual 28-mile victory lap for the season’s endeavors when he put this
well-behaved, just out grazin’ in the pasture route together.  Podunk Road
took us on a more-or-less level route due south toward Robert H. Treman
Park. [The park makes Wikipedia but poor Robert does not.]   

 

As some of you know, “Podunk” is an Americanism dating back to the 1660s
when the village of Podunk, Connecticut, was regarded as a totally
out-in-the-sticks village.  Today it is about a 10 minute drive north of
I-95, so consider the torch passed to our Podunk, lying at the south end of
Trumansburg’s Pennsylvania Avenue. Some even say it’s so empty, it’s just an
empty field with broken down fencing, but it is on Mapquest. It can be rough
maintaining a 340+ year-old Americanism.  All it would take is one McMansion
to change the ambiance. 

 

After 4.2 miles on Podunk Road—our longest one-road stand---, we turned left
onto Aiken and then right onto CR170 also known as Halseyville Road.  As we
headed due south with a bit of a tail wind, the  watershed divide sensor
next to my cyclometer went into light vibratory spasm.  As we approached
Miller’s Corners and E-W-running Rte 79, we were crossing from the
Taughannock Creek watershed into the Enfield Gorge watershed.  The route
then took use through Enfield Center, a collection of residences I had never
seen before.  All of this was happening within Tompkins County and more or
less at the juncture between Ulysses township to the north and Enfield
township to the south.  I’m sorry, Andrejs, but I’m afraid our readers want
more drama in the topography. How about a jog down the Upper Treman path
carrying our bikes and then riding out through the lower park?    

 

It is only when you get to the SE corner of Tompkins County—the SW side of
Connecticut Hill that runoff begins running off to the Cheasepeake Bay.
[You’ve seen the photos of younger run-offs on the backs of organic milk
containers…shifty, irreverent, nervous, but on the make!] And it is only
when on a Cayutaville ride that turning right at the cemetery and passing
Cayuta Lake on the west on Rte 228 that about a mile to the north of the
lake does one cross the Cheaspeake Bay-St Lawrence River divide and reach
the headwaters of Taughannock Creek.   Only half way from Taughannock Park
to Treman Park, sweat management became the order of the day with David and
I peeling off multiple layers.  

 

David: You know, with weather like this, the Diehards stand a good chance of
riding every weekend right through to the end of the year. 

 

Gary:  Gotcha, but in the meantime, maybe the lead group will have a
mechanical so we can catch up with ‘em.  

 

We turned in to the upper entrance to Treman Park and were yet again
adjusting our multiple layers when suddenly approaching us from inside the
park were Sam Kolins, Evan Palmer-Young, Steve Bowman, Stewart Wolsh, and
Steve Powell.  Half of “ten” but it felt like a undeserved home-coming.  It
seems that the group had ridden in to get young Evan better grounded in what
the preamble to Lucifer Falls looked like. 

 

We then continued east and north, Steve Bowman peeling off for home and
Steward stopping to dine with friends on Albrectsen.  Once back at the
over-look, Sam and Evan continued on back to Ithaca au velo. By this time
half the people in the park seemed to be wearing shorts!  Four of us
slackards motored back for bagels and latte at the Ithaca Bakery. Almost as
good as roosting in the hen house!   

 

 

 

 


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