I'm not sure but I think we were melting!

Friday afternoon was a blur, the forecast for Sat and Sunday was a scorching headache waiting to explode, bike shop, grocery store, searching for maps, packing, sandwiches, on an on... Sat morn came so early. The plan was to leave at 5:45 AM head to PA by bike, be picked up by Kenny at the border and head to Scranton for a party then to Phili for the Philadelphia International Challenge to meet Team High Road.
Our ride started out great, a bit fuzzy I admit, so early in the morning. One thing about riding that early (6:30 AM- we left late) is that we witness a great deal of the animal world waking up...we started our day with 10 turkeys in the driveway, then we scared a deer across the road. We had more encounters like this for the next hour or so as we pedaled in a fog. There was one point, while going around the reservoir, where if we didn't know we were in NY we could have mistaken it for Maine. As the sun came up, the frying pan started to gain some heat, and Chris and I struggled through one hour at a time, in 15-18 mile segments. The 18 miles between New Windsor and Goshen was particularly hard, mostly unshaded false flat with a handful of major climbs, few downhills and ONE REALLY MEAN DOG, our 16 mph average dwindled quickly and the last 5 miles before town seemed to drag on forever. This was a laughable moment as I needed to cool off, I pulled over, dumped most of the contents of my water bottle over my head, cursing and grumbling about the climb in front of me, only to get to the top to find out that we had reached the Village.
It was here that I knew our ride had fizzled to an end, 20 miles short of our cross state goal. Chris was dragging and finding it hard to pull anything more out of that hat, the coffee shop visit didn't revive him, the jelly beans and sandwich in the shade of a big oak tree beside the Civil War Memorial didn't do the trick. Kenny happened to be 5 minutes away, and picked us up in no time. We get into the car to discover Chris forgot his shoes. We stopped at sneaker world before heading to Scranton. The party was great, we were exhausted from the heat, well fed, and ready to head to Phili.
More about that tomorrow...