July 18
My chain hygiene routine on this tour, where rain was expected, was to use a wet style chain lube, not the dry lube that is now more common. Yesterday's ride had included a lot of riding in the rain, and my drill was to use my water bottle at end of day to rinse the waterborne grit off the chain, with the plan to let the chain dry overnight, and lube it in the morning. I found a nice spot to do that morning lubing on the Williams College campus. Lubed up, I rode through a corner of Vermont and then into New York State. Along the scenic and little traveled county roads in New York, I began running into road closures for bridge repairs. The first such closure I dodged around; I was riding there after end of the construction workday, so I walked the catwalk they had in place for workers. The second closure took me by surprise, and it was not as walkable as the first. I was forced to detour out of the valley -- given some extra climbing, and rewarded for it by some very nice views. As I was confirming my navigation after my improvised detour, I was approached by a passing motorist. When I told him I was headed for Saratoga, he wanted to tell me how to get there. I had to explain to him that I wanted to follow, to the extent possible, the curated backroads route I had. He did seem very knowledgeable about the roads there; it turned out that he was a retired county highway superintendent. Had he still been working, he would have been in charge of the bridge repairs I had seen.