The Tour de PDS: An Educational Endurance Adventure in Two Stages

It all started in mid-April at my school's annual auction when I made a pledge to cycle to every single town in which one of the students in my school lives in the shortest time possible. Poughkeepsie Day School is a small, independent day school that draws families from all over the Hudson Valley. After ten years of serving as middle school director, I figured it was time for me to see our broad expanse of geographical diversity up-close. Little did I know (when I made my pledge) exactly how many miles I would be riding. Our admissions director soon let me know I would be cycling to 47 towns and villages.

A map of the 47 towns and villages in which PDS families live.

After plotting the zip codes onto a map, I consulted our 2nd and 3rd grade mathematics students who made a wide range of estimates of the shortest route between all of these points. Taking their input and looking carefully at the map, I decided to break the tour into two stages, one on the east side of the Hudson and the other on the west. The former would amount to 177 miles and the latter 154.

To prepare my white Indy Fab for the journey, I attached my trusty Detours seatpost bag (for provisions), a Kinesis toptube bag (for camera and phone) and a Garmin eTrex GPS (to help me stay on track). On a dry, sunny Monday morning in mid-July, I rolled out of campus at 6:30am heading south to begin a large loop that would take in 25 towns as far south as Cortlandt Manor and as far north as Tivoli.



Up next: Stage 1 up-close.

My Newest Commuter Upgrades

Working at my children's school comes with blessings too numerous to count. One of the less convenient aspects of the relationship though involves commuting by bicycle. Since we live 15 miles from school, the shared bike commute is pretty much out of the question. Sure, my son has humored me once or twice, but this is not a sustainable solution. As a result, riding into work often involves me arranging to pawn the kids off either on one of my colleagues or my wife. The loose ends generally come in the morning, since they have reliable bus transport in the afternoon if necessary.

When morning rides for the kids are arranged successfully, everything generally works out, but other issues arise, such as how to transport my laptop bag to and (more importantly) from school in the evening. On at least one occasion, my kids have actually forgotten my laptop bag by the kitchen door which is NOT GOOD. It's also generally a hassle to arrange to have someone drop my bag off at my house in the evening. So, needless to say, a more sustainable solution was needed. Enter: Ortieb.

After doing a little research I found that the Ortlieb "Office" pannier would perfectly suit my needs. This large, spacious bag comes highly rated and includes flexible internal paneling to help organize a laptop, papers and assorted smaller objects like chargers, phones, keys and pens. It's completely waterproof which gives me great peace of mind as far as my laptop is concerned. I also bought a sleek laptop sleeve to ensure that my precious cargo would have a little extra padding for the ride. This particular model from Timbuk2 even has interesting vent holes to aid in laptop cooling after a hard day of work.

Since panniers don't hang by themselves, I also needed to install a rear rack on my old Bianchi to round out the picture. I chose a Topeak Explorer rack since it looked pretty darned solid, was not too heavy and was priced considerably lower than the high-end touring racks I might have used if money was not an object. Finally, I added a Busch & Muller Toplight to the rear rack for early mornings and late afternoons in the fall and winter.

The attachment hardware is ingenious. Here's a video from Ortieb showing how it works.



With just two days under my belt, I already love the arrangement. The bag is spacious enough to fit my work materials, a few personal items and a change of clothes. I even packed and successfully transported a bottle of red wine to an evening potluck on Friday! The best part, though, is my total self-sufficiency as a commuter. Now that summer has arrived and my kids no longer need to travel to and from school with me each day, I can really see what it's like to live the bicycle commuter lifestyle.

School + Hudson Valley + Cycling = ADVENTURE!

Most great ideas come to me when I'm riding my bike. This was certainly the case in mid-April when I was riding one of my 200K permanent routes rather than completing the Princeton 200K after being asked to serve as the master of ceremonies at the school's annual gala auction. As I stepped up to the microphone that evening, I announced my plan: this summer, I will ride my bike to every town in which a student from my school lives, in the shortest amount of time possible.

How better to combine my love of long distance riding with my love of the Hudson Valley and my love of Poughkeepsie Day School, where I have worked for the past 10 years as the head of middle school? Some kids live right around the corner from campus while others spend over an hour and a half on the bus in the morning AND in the afternoon. As you can see from the map above, the school draws students from over 50 towns, cities and villages in five counties and two states. While the greatest number of families live close to campus in Poughkeepsie, others are spread more or less evenly up and down both sides of the river.

The questions at this point are: how long will this adventure take? and what is the best route to use? I asked a few math teachers at school for a little help with route planning and found out two important things. 1) My journey is a close approximation to the Traveling Salesman Problem that has plagued mathematicians for years. Apparently there is no straightforward algorithm that works to determine the shortest distance between so many points. There are simply too many variables to consider.  2) There is a willing group of young people around just about every corner in my school, so today the second and third graders and their teacher helped me begin to measure and strategically design my route using maps cuisenaire rods. Here's a brief film of their work. I'm eager to see what they come up with.

With a goal of completing this ride in one or two days, I have my work cut out for me, but if adventures were easy they wouldn't be adventures, now would they.

More soon!

The April R-12 Ride: A Change of Plans Keeps me Local.

After planning for several months to initiate my 2012 brevet season with the Princeton (NJ) 200K, I sadly had to "switch gears" and ride a local 200K instead. When I was asked to serve as the MC for my school's annual gala auction on Saturday night by the generous and hardworking chair of the auction committee, I knew that the only appropriate answer was "of course." Originally, I thought this would still allow me the time to ride in the scheduled brevet, drive back to upstate NY, shower, dress and put on my game face. What could go wrong, I asked myself. Wait a second, that's probably not the best way to plan. With a margin that tight, I decided to stay local, eliminate the travel time and still get in my scheduled April R-12 ride.

So at 5:30am, I rolled out of bed, brewed some coffee, suited up and hit the road. The forecast was for midday showers and scattered thunderstorms, so I was sure to ride the new bike with Honjo fenders firmly in place. I also packed my new Showers Pass jacket eager to give it a try. Since one of my permanent routes starts a few miles from my door, I just clipped in a rolled out the driveway as the sun rose over the river. I designed the "Keep the River on your Right 200K" as a way to log winter miles in anticipation of my R-12 attempt. The route basically hugs the Hudson River on both banks, covering well maintained primary roads with very little altitude gain.  It's very hard to ride 200K without hills in this area, but many of the roads I typically cycle on would not be suitable to winter riding after a snow storm.

The downside of a basically two-directional route is that wind often makes one of the legs considerably less pleasant than the other. Yesterday, we had a steady 10-15 mph wind out of the south so the large middle section from Hudson to Beacon was slower and less pleasant than it might otherwise have been. The two river crossings in particular were blustery. It's a good thing there are secure railings on those bridges. Phew! Despite unpleasant winds, the rain never appeared so I was dry throughout the entire day.

In addition to the breathtaking natural beauty, the Hudson Vally is rich in history. On this particular ride, I passed the Vanderbilt Mansion, FDR's home in Hyde Park and the site of New York's first public school. I also rode past Hudson River School artist Frederic Church's home "Olana" and the outstanding modern art museum Dia: Beacon. I wonder how riders would respond to passing through an art museum to find answers for an information control?

Since I had the school's annual auction on my mind as I pedaled through at least 20 towns in which our families live,  it occurred to me that I should really plan an endurance trip taking in every town that sends a child to our school. Not sure how long that one will take, but seeing as we draw from a 30+ mile radius, it will be a good workout for sure.