Biking - Indian Ladder Half Century

I feel like I've been slacking off lately, not doing any climbs and not doing any longer rides. So I created a 50+ mile ride from my driveway, extending an earlier 30-miler in a couple of places and including a lunch stop at Indian Ladder Farms. It was a windy day, but away I went.

The wind was NW15G24, so as I worked my way clockwise around the loop, it was constantly changing between head, tail, and cross. I stopped around 22 miles at Indian Ladder and had a great turkey panini sandwich and some lemonade, then continued on to Altamont and beyond to US20. At that point, I debated whether to bail out now or brave the 6 miles, and 4-mile climb with a stiff headwind, to Duanesburg. Knowing there were other places I could bail on the way, I decided to try it and see how bad it would be. Once I got started, I knew I just had to do it and get in 50+ miles, so gritted my teeth and ground it out. Ice cream at Stewart's in Duanesburg was my reward before the long wind-assisted downhill on NY7 back to Rotterdam.

It was only my second ride all year over 50 miles, and I don't feel too bad. Need to start doing more of these, with a metric century (62.5 miles) coming up in September.