Highlander 2009 - Ride Report: A journey of Flats and Hills

Four Long Island Riders on a road trip to Upstate New York for a special Ride: The Highlander 2009 in the New York Fingerlakes Region. Friday afternoon a 6 hour road trip to Corning, NY -- a very wet and rainy day so far -- and the next morning one more good hour drive to the Start at Bristol Mountain. All most all roads were still pretty wet and clouds sitting low in the valleys and mountains generating a from valley to valley varying drizzle like moisture, but no real rain as the day before, that was good.

Getting ready to roll. The ride was very well marked, no navigation issues at all. Starting into it with a good 1000ft climb on W Gannet Hill Rd at mile 3:

Hitting some fresh "sanded" Tarmac roads -- a nasty thick cover of little sharp gravel, covering road markings and limiting speed for safety and cornering control on turns -- more sections, a total of about 6 (not sure how many miles exactly, but several miles for sure) of that were following later. Just 15 miles into the ride -- shortly after leaving one of these "sanded" roads, Py found his tubeless rear tire getting soft... A pretty good sized cut. No sealant in this tire so far, he dumped the only can of "Hutchison Fast Air" he had into it. Messy stuff, leaking out of the cut for some time, not really holding any good pressure. It kept coming out and out, just slowing a bit -- looking like shaving foam all over :-( Well, some pressure still. Instructions say riding for a few miles and check pressure -- very funny, low already and not holding more that about 30..40psi...

OK, finally kept going carefully hoping for the best -- resisting to mess with a tube and that messy stuff all in there now. Tubeless can be ridden at low pressure...

Feeling really nice and smooth in the rear. However, a little hissing at times and more foam coming out occasionally. One more stop to add some air, attempt to ride at least to the next water stop in about 10 miles. Good traction on steeps with gravel and fresh tarmac oil.... at least one good thing.

This was the 2nd water stop Py be leaves:

Decided not to do anything, but pump it up a bit more, it seamed just to hold about 50psi now, a little white stuff came out and stopping to coming out soon. A soft ride proceeds, not too bad at all.

BTW -- This is how it looked later:

One more rider joining the LI team for a while... and pretty soon, one more flat stop -- M got a nice cut...

That fixed, proceeding to the next water stop -- they had nicely placed about every 20 miles stops, very convenient.

Proceeding the journey of hills ...

... to the next stop.

Some wait up here, J&N were some how delayed -- one more fat was the reason...

And going on with the journey of flats and hills, just starting into one more climb, N flatted his front tire on some sharp tiny rock. By now, every one of the four got a fat. And not only them -- many more rides on the road side were having the same issues -- "a wet roads syndrome".

A very nice ride along Canandaigua Lake finishing with an challenging climb on Bopple Hill Rd -- 18..23% for a good while:

Approaching the top of the steep road:

Higlander Bopple Hill, 2009 from Percy Zahl on Vimeo.

Finishing the ride with no further flats. Ride stats in brief:

105 miles, 1040 ft elevation gain, 6h36 moving time, 4 flats, very little wind, no rain but mostly wet conditions, a few rays of sun towards the very end :-)

The ride stats recorded from Satellite view and mapped: