One state down...

So Fitchburg to Amherst was a hard day of cycling. Amherst to Pittsfield, as it turns out, was at least as hard. Here's the elevation chart from that day's cue sheet:
Those would be the Berkshires. Including one 1/4mi stretch of road that was a 17% grade that flattened out to an 11% grade for another half mile. For context, roads in the west are never more than a 6% grade because between building all the roads in the east and building all the roads in the west it was decided that anything over 6% was too steep. For more context for you Ithaca folks, Buffalo Street is apparently around a 10% grade.

But we killed those hills and made it into Pittsfield in one piece. In Pittsfield we stayed at the YMCA, and it was indeed fun, because they let us use their pool and sauna. I went to bed early that night despite the final championship game being on. This was a good decision. The next day was a little over 80 miles and I woke up tired and sore from the previous two days of mountains.

Pittsfield to Poughkeepsie day was way more fun, even though it was long. For one thing, here was the cue sheet for that day:
Dani, one of the riders, saw this and practically burst into tears of joy. Those first 15 miles were still pretty rough, though. But, Pittsfield to Poughkeepsie day was also awesome because less than ten miles in this happened:

New York generally provided way more photo opportunities than Massachusetts:

New York also provided a roadside farmstand where we stopped and ate an entire quart of strawberries. Amazing.

And then we got to Poughkeepsie where we had a day off to build and beds to sleep in. One state down....a bunch more to go.