Thursday September 20, 2012

Hamilton to Binghamton 75Km 350m climbed.

We had a nice motel last night, a little more expensive than the budgeted but it was the only choice. At least breakfast was included. It was a beautiful day, a cool start but sunny blue skies. We set off through the middle of Hamilton and headed south for Binghamton. We had been told to look out for the Colgate University on the way out of town. Neither of us had heard of it before but it is an Ivy League university and well worth looking at. Beautiful buildings set on a forested hillside. We rode around the campus and took some pictures and shortly before we left a student came over to talk to us. He gave us some background on the university such as: 2800 students, they are the number 2 earners as a group among US graduates, fees $55000 a year (where did I go wrong). He is there on a scholarship so we figured he must be pretty clever to be there. He has hiked across Lebanon and the Golan heights and used public transport to get from Ethiopia to South Africa, which we found pretty impressive for somebody so young. He came to talk to us because he wants to cycle across the US from Maine to Seattle or, if he can get the money for the air fare, from France to Bulgaria and he does not have any experience of long bike tours hence there were many questions. After a long and fruitful chat we had to leave and make our way south. It was difficult because we were both very saddle sore. Insufficient training and averaging over 70 miles a day was taking its toll so we were thinking about taking a day off in Binghamton. As it turned out we did not have to think about it. We made our way through Sherburne (where we had lunch), bypassed New Berlin and headed for Norwich. Norwich looked promising for an overnight stop but we really had not done enough (50km) so we pressed on to Oxford. Oxford was just as big a splodge as Norwich on the map but there was next to nothing there so on we went. We stopped on the side of the road for a break and TimB complained about his bike wobbling so we checked the steering etc and couldn’t find any loose bits so we carried on. At Greene (75km) we had to stop at some road works and Tim said his bike was worse and then he found that the down tube, just below the steering tube, was cracked three quarters of the way round. Now that was a showstopper. I can deal with a lot of technical problems on the road but I must confess to not having packed the welding kit. We pushed our bikes over the road (works) to the petrol station where TimB phoned for a taxi for the remaining 19 miles to Binghamton while I tried to cadge a lift off pickup drivers on the forecourt. TimB was more successful than I so we ended up with a taxi ride into town. Once we had checked into the motel TimB got to work with the Yellow Pages and Internet to find a bike shop in town. It is too late to do anything until tomorrow so we get a days rest anyway. I get to write the blog because Tim is still traumatised from the loss of his bike and the expense of replacing it. We will be posting bank details for generous donations to this calamitous loss.