Ok real quick blog post here before we take off for Europe this weekend – follow along with me as I do something possibly a little selfish & irresponsible and I get in a car with Sean and drive 5 hours north, crash in an Airbnb in the northern Adirondacks, wake up, and ride 56 miles around Whiteface Mountain which includes an ascent to the top, starting around the 40 mile mark. But first, a slight intro.
This ride has been on my bucket list list of things to do for some time now. This is the biggest vertical climb on the East Coast that you can do any time of year. Finally, a few weeks ago, I said I’m just going to do it. Sean was on board, so we lined things up and booked a room. The planned ride link can be found here. Originally we were going to both road and mountain bike but that was kinda dumb. So we single-purposed the trip and went with one huge road ride.
I picked up Sean on Tuesday at 4:00 and we drove north with the rain falling in New Jersey (as usual). As we went north it stopped (also as usual). Drive was uneventful and we talked both on & off record, as we did a podcast towards the end of the ride.
We grabbed dinner at the Noon Mark Diner in Keane Valley. The food was passable.
After dinner we drove the last 11 miles to the Airbnb, somehow missed it, stopped into another hotel, got directions, and found our home for the night. It was an old bed & breakfast converted to an Airbnb in which we had the Badger Bunk room. For $56, hard to beat.
Sean hit the hay at 10:00 and I did some work on a JORBA membership form before I went to sleep. In all, I got 7 hours and woke up at 6:30 to a blazing bright sun, which made me think I had overslept. Sean was long awake and reading downstairs. But as everyone else was still asleep in the house, we decided not to grind coffee and instead we got breakfast & coffee in Wimington, at a gas station/deli. The sandwiches were surprisingly good.
After our luxurious breakfast, we drove to the ski area, went past it, then parked at a local campground for $6. For the safety of having the car 40′ from the ranger station, we figured that was a bargain. We got our stuff ready and by 8:00 we were pretty much ready to roll.
We rode up the river to start, which was a beautiful way to kick off the ride. There was some traffic, but in these parts of the world, there’s only 1 road to get from point A to point B and both cars and bikes (and big wheels and horses, etc) use it. If I had this over, I might start the ride after 9:00 to avoid the “rush hour” which was of course no rush hour at all.
We turned a corner maybe 7 miles in and the ski jump in Lake Placid from the 1980s Olympics was standing before us. At first I didn’t know what it was but it quickly became apparent, and it was pretty wild to see something like this emerge from the total wilderness we had been riding in. Also, as you can tell from the picture below, the weather here is nothing like New Jersey.
We skirted Lake Placid then made our way to Saranac Lake, which was a nice little town but again, a bit on the traffic-heavy side at times. The roads in all were less enjoyable for a bit, and if I had to ride them every day, I wouldn’t be a fan. But this being a one-off, I loved this day and I loved the route.
Stopped in Bloomingdale to eat something, just a 2 minute pause to gobble up a Clif bar before turning off the main drag and riding the quietest road of the day. This was a nice calm before the storm, so to speak. We rounded a huge lake and eventually started to climb slowly. At one point I looked down and we were at 1111′ of total elevation.
I didn’t realize the climb started before we turned right onto the toll road, but it turns out that there are 2 base climbs to the toll booth. You can come direct from town where we had gotten breakfast, or from the side which is the way we came. This is good, as the elevation kept ticking up, and before long we were at 2200′ or more of elevation and as far as I knew, we hadn’t officially started climbing yet.
But we had.
When we got to the toll booth we learned we were well on our way up, and the guy taking our money ($11 per biker!) said the hardest part was done. Turns out that we had done the first 3 miles of the 8 mile climb, but at this point we didn’t know that. We asked if we could get water there and they said no, which is a shitty answer for something called a Welcome Center. Perhaps it should just be called a Cash House, as this is really what it was. I guess we looked pathetic enough that the woman in the office gave us each a cold water bottle, which probably saved the ride for us.
The climb to the top was another 5 miles, and we would climb to about 4500′ all told. The road up was pretty much a constant 8-10% grade with basically no breaks at all, save for one false flat around the first of 3 hairpin turns that met us towards the top. The pavement surface was great, though the climb itself was relentless. After knocking out 2 hours at almost 19 mph, this was definitely on the tough side. Our average went from 18.7 to 13.7 over the course of the climb.
It ended up taking just about 55 minutes to get to the top from the toll booth.
Once we made the goal, we got a cup of coffee, filled our bottles, and took some pictures. Then we got ready to go back down.
We clipped back in and blasted down the 8 miles all the way to town in 16 minutes. By the end my hands hurt from grabbing on to the brakes so much. The downhill was fun but damn, it was on the edge at times. Strava says my max was just about 46 mph which seems a little crazy as I sit here because deep down, I don’t trust my bike all that much. There were a few bumps in the road higher up that, at 40 mph, made me a little nervous.
Once in town, we took a slight detour to avoid the busier road which added a mile or so. In all, we did 57.4 miles and 4793′ of climbing. The Strava link can be found here.
The Relive video can also be found below, which is a recap of the ride in total. I think the Relive thing can be a useful tool for things like this and video trail reviews.
This is also a pretty awesome elevation profile. Absurd, but awesome:
We finished up at the campground, cleaned up, and took one last look at Whiteface before we hit the road to find lunch and coffee. The mountain is pretty awesome, and I’d love to come up to ski it one day.
We stopped at the same diner as the night before, and I got the greatest Reuben I’ve ever had, though I admit that this may not be the most objective assessment one has ever made. Still, it was damn good.
Then we went across the street for an espresso and a coffee at Old Mountain Coffee Company, which was absolutely fantastic. I wasn’t expecting much and this totally blew away my expectations. Really excellent stuff here. I even landed a bag of Counter Culture to bring home with me. Major score!
We sat at the window for 5 minutes while we drank the espresso and just enjoyed the scene for a few minutes before hitting the long road. Sean drove from here to his house, and for the most part it was uneventful which is always good. I then finished out the drive and got home just after 7:00 for a 28 hour journey in total.
In all, this was a great trip with a great friend, and we got in an amazing bike ride and accomplished something I’ve been meaning to do for years. The company was great, the area itself is amazing, and the biking was pretty damn good as well. I feel like I will definitely be back up here, as it is remote enough that not too many people come up here, and it’s truly a beautiful and peaceful place to enjoy.
But if I do come back to climb this hill, I definitely need more gear.
Traveling Normandy 
[…] of spending a nice quiet weekend together in the Adirondacks. I really enjoyed the area when I was up here with Sean climbing Whiteface. So I wanted to bring D up here to see what she thought of […]
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