Cayuga Lake - mission accomplished

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The best part of this project - besides all the money for a good cause - has been getting to spend most of a Saturday or Sunday with a lot of friends and family I don't see as often as I'd like to. I haven't had a good long talk with my high school friend Buddy Nyhof or my cousin Matt Gracie for ages. John Forbush and David Riley gave me some parenting tips. My sister Laura rode up and down Skaneateles Lake in the rain without a complaint.

I guess it's pretty standard adult behavior to fall away from spending time with people you care about, and to regret it. But the most shameful example for me is that even though I live within walking distance of two of my best and oldest friends, Mark Wyand and John Fornof, I sometimes go a month or two without seeing them. It's stupid.

So, for the final and longest lake of my summer, I got the two of them to ride along with me, and to split it into two days with a night camping at Taughannock Falls State Park in between. That was this weekend. We went 93 miles around Cayuga Lake; when we finished Sunday morning, it meant the end of my little adventure.

The first day was long and hot. We broke it up with a dip in the water near Ithaca, then a great meal at the Ithaca Beer Co. brewhouse. Mark's girlfriend Zeynep came up huge, bringing our camping gear up to the site in the evening then coming in the morning with bagels and to take our heavy stuff back again.

The second day was short and rainy. I meant to jump in the lake at the end of the ride - I was soaked through anyway, and it would have been a fun video for the blog, after I bailed on my original promise to post videos of every ride. But the water up at that end was not very appealing, and we decided instead to go for breakfast at a diner in Waterloo. It was the smarter choice.

So, that's it. I finished all the lakes and I raised my $3,000 (though I'd be grateful for late donations). I'll have two wrap-up posts in the next week or two, then stop cluttering your Facebook feeds for a while.

Keuka Lake

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I'm getting toward the end of my summer adventure; on Saturday I finished my 10th lake out of 11, going 59 miles around Keuka Lake.

This was the trip I had to cancel back in June due to a family health emergency that, thankfully, turned OK. My friend John Forbush and I rescheduled for this weekend and set out from his house with the sun just barely up.

John became a dad a year or so ago, so we had plenty to talk about on the drive out to Branchport and as we began our ride. There was supposed to be heavy rain, but again I got lucky - we didn't see a drop of it.

I wonder - if there were a survey of western and central New Yorkers of their favorite Finger Lake, which would come out on top? I would guess it would be among Keuka, Skaneateles and Canandaigua, and I have a feeling Keuka would be first, for a few reasons.

It's big enough that a lot of people are familiar with it, and it has vacation cottages and permanent residences spread along a good portion of the shoreline (unlike Skaneateles or Honeoye, for instance, where they're mostly clustered at the north end). And of course, its unique Y shape means there are many more views of the water from angles you don't get elsewhere.

Put all that together with fine weather, moderate hilliness and good company, and I'd say this was my most enjoyable ride of the summer. It was long enough to be challenging but not as grueling as 80-mile Seneca Lake. The main road on the east side had a lot of truck traffic, but it is paralleled most of the way with sheltered roads for cottages that were perfect for quiet riding.

It's hard to believe I only have one more ride, but it's a big one. Cayuga Lake is the largest lake by circumference, between 90 or 100 miles depending on the route you take. I'll be tackling it in two days next weekend with two of my oldest friends.

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Hitting my fundraising goal

When I created my GoFundMe page, I wasn't sure what to set for my goal. I've never done this sort of thing before, and my friends and family seem to occupy the usual spectrum between stingy and generous. I set it at $3,000, or a little less than $300 per lake.

For a while there, it didn't seem like I was going to make it - and I was OK with that. Since the number was arbitrary in the first place, I was just happy to be contributing something, even if it was only $1,000. That still goes a long way for a young woman and baby in need.

If you look at the page now, I'm at $2,501 (thanks to Ben Jacob for the only donation not in a $5 increment). But in fact, today I went over my $3,000 goal, thanks to my job.

We have quarterly awards for various things at the Democrat and Chronicle. One of the categories is called "Making Rochester Great." It goes to people who do a lot of community service and what not.

The important thing is that it comes with a $500 donation from the D&C to a charity of the person's choice. So today, I was very proud to win the award - for the second time now - and direct the $500 to Nurse-Family Partnership, putting me at $3,001. I'm not sure if the company will agree to send it to my GoFundMe or just cut a check directly to the organization, so it may not show up, but the money is there.

I'm not terribly comfortable writing a post about winning an award, but I'm doing it for two reasons. 

First, while the award was for things I've done mostly off the clock, the most important aspect of my job is being in a position to improve my community, and to shine a light on others who do so. In the last few months, that has included writing about a program that gets city kids out into the woods; a profile of a Honduran refugee who managed to graduate high school in three years despite arriving here with no English at age 16; and an investigation into mistreatment of some of the most vulnerable students in Rochester, those with disabilities. If I couldn't write about that sort of thing, I wouldn't much like being a journalist.

Second, I really appreciate working for a company that places value in the right things. The newspaper/online media/whatever industry is a turbulent place right now - maybe you saw John Oliver talking about it a few days ago - but we're still doing important work, and the D&C and other papers like it are still informing and inspiring people in every city in the country. The D&C doesn't have as much cash lying around as it used to, but it still puts aside thousands of dollars a year to support important causes like this one.

So, thanks to my bosses for the generous donation, and to everyone else who helped me get to my goal. And if you have any extra cash left and you don't yet subscribe to your local newspaper, give it a thought.

Canandaigua Lake

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Smart cyclist that I am, I backloaded my summer of biking with a few of the more difficult lakes; Canandaigua is one of them. If you've ever been to Bristol Harbour - or Bristol Mountain, for that matter - you know the west side of Canandaigua Lake has some hills.

I went out there this Saturday with my cousin, Matt Gracie, who left his house in Buffalo well before the sun came up to meet me in the Wegmans parking lot at 7:30 a.m. Matt is not only the tallest rider of the summer - he's got me by two inches - but one of the most experienced cyclists. He does plenty of road and mountain bike riding and has commuted across the Canadian border on two wheels. I didn't even know that was a thing.

As with nearly every ride, we had impeccable weather. It was pleasantly cool to start the morning with no clouds at all. We went counter-clockwise, starting with the worst climbing of the day on Seneca Point Road. That got a little sweaty, but for the next few hours it was smooth riding. We also got a nice surprise at the end of our 42 miles, as my (our) Aunt Michelle and my mom treated us to a lunch of very good Mexican food at Rio Tomatlan in downtown Canandaigua.

I'd also like to thank Matt for his generous donation to my GoFundMe. I set my goal at $3,000 somewhat arbitrarily when I began, but now we're just a few hundred dollars away from meeting it. If you haven't donated yet and you've got a few dollars to spare, it would go to a great cause.

This Saturday I go to Keuka Lake with my good friend John Forbush. This is the lake that got derailed earlier this summer, you may remember, when my father had emergency heart surgery. He's doing great, so there won't be any excuses this time.

Otisco Lake

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In all the excitement over the baby news, I accidentally let a week and a half go by without writing up my ride around Otisco Lake.

If it was going to happen to any lake, I could have told you it would be Otisco. It's a pretty under-the-radar body of water. It's the easternmost Finger Lake and one of the smallest, just 18 miles around. Even in Syracuse, people are more likely to go to Skaneateles than Otisco. And the largest town there is Marietta, which is, well, not a large town.

Otisco is also the only Finger Lake I've never even set eyes on before this summer, so I was excited for the ride. My partner was Scott MacPherson, a good friend I met when he and my wife Kat attended law school at Syracuse University together.

Now, Scott is a staff attorney at Volunteer Legal Services Project, which is another of those crucial services that you may never have heard of. It provides free legal counsel to people who couldn't otherwise afford it. It's really good work that he's doing there.

Our weather was really good, and since it's a pretty short lake I assumed we'd just breeze right around. My map indicated one little hill, but nothing alarming. Right?

Something I've learned from experience: roads with the word "hill" in them are not kind to cyclists. Moon Hill Road at the southwest end of Otisco is a case in point. The climb was barely half a mile long but rose at an 18 percent grade, which is significantly more than I've seen on Hemlock, Seneca or anywhere else.

This is how I got up: ride for 200 feet; topple off my bike gasping for air; sit on the side of the road for five minutes; repeat. It took a lot of repetitions. So many that Scott, who had the good sense to walk his bike up, texted me from the top of the hill letting me know he'd wait for me.

Thanks, Scott!

After that little hiccup, we had a beautiful ride the rest of the way around. It was a great day on an out-of-the way lake. I hope to go back again.

Now I'm caught up on the blog, with just three lakes left. Coming up next: Canandaigua Lake, this Saturday. I can't help but noticing a lot of the roads are named after hills.