Biking - Around Schroon Lake

Today was forecast to be a sunny day in the 70s with light winds. With no riding at all for the past week, it was time to get out for some serious miles. I had originally intended to do a 40-50 mile unloaded ride with some climbing, but a Taconic Hiking Club ride that was postponed from yesterday had much more appeal. We planned to do a 26-mile fairly hilly ride (1,400 total feet) around Schroon Lake, in the eastern Adirondacks. Because of the low mileage, I decided to do this ride fully loaded and get in some climbing.



We left the boat launch at the southern end of the lake around 1030, heading CCW, and had a pleasant ride along the east shore of the lake, with the still-snowy High Peaks in the distance.



Then the climbing began. RideWithGPS.com, the source of the map above, registered a 17.2% pitch on the first climb up from the store at Adirondack. Yikes! I was in my lowest gear, and made it up with some difficulty. Then there was some less steep and generally rolling terrain with some smaller climbs before we reached the base of the biggest one shown above. Though longer, this one was much less steep, and was not a problem at all.

Heading down the hill on the other side, we reached scenic Alder Brook. The sky was very blue, both above and reflected in the water.



At the end of Alder Brook Road, we turned south on US9 and reached the village of Schroon Lake, where we stopped at a Stewart's store and had lunch. It was clouding up now, and we all put jackets back on before continuing south. The ride down US9 was gently rolling with a wide shoulder, and was quite pleasant. We reached the cars 3.5 hours after we started, and all agreed it had been a great ride.