97km/60m, 5hrs 35mins, 17.3kph/10.75mph, 442m/1436ft of climbing.
Cumulative distance so far, 3504km/2177miles.
What's in a name? I had intended to have a shorter ride today and stay overnight in Amsterdam. It sounded nice, I thought, on the admittedly absurd basis that its namesake is such a beautiful city. However, on arriving there I found it to be a profoundly depressed little place dominated by disused, disintegrating industrial buildings; and the only hotel in town looked a bit disused and disintegrating, too. So I rode on, and got lucky, managing to find an acceptable motel in Fultonville just seconds before an absolutely dramatic and intense thunderstorm.
Actually the names round here are interesting to a British visitor. On my way to Amsterdam today I went through Northumberland and passed Galway. And while riding through Vermont I visited Rutland, Newbury, Thatcham and Bradford, among others.
Since leaving Amsterdam I have been riding the New York State Canalway Trail, which follows the Erie canal and promises to take me virtually all the way back to Canada off-road and traffic-free. And being a canal route, it is of course pretty much pan-flat. I wouldn't have known of its existence but for a chance conversation in a bar in Gorham New Hampshire with a man who worked for the National Forest service. When I described my route to him he said " well, if you're going to Saratoga you can ride the Erie Canal trail, it's very historic." So here I am. And speaking of Saratoga, I stopped for lunch at Saratoga Springs, which unlike Amsterdam, did not disappoint. A really nice town, I thought. Lots of nineteenth-century buildings, cafes, bookshops, had a very attractive feel.
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