2024 HBC Finger Lakes Trip – Let’s Do It Again Next Year!
The Finger Lakes Trip has turned into one of the highlights of the HBC. Each year we stay in Townhouse Units at Hobart-William Smith Colleges, in Geneva, New York. Every year is a little different as we explore the variety of rides and activities the area has to offer and get to know HBC members from other bicycle clubs that come to join us. The weather was spectacular – some said “best ever”
In 2024, there were 85 participants, with 53 from PA and 32 from other states (FL, MD, Ohio, VA, VT, & WV). 24 were first time HBC Finger Lakes participants.
A Welcome Reception was held on Thursday evening in the beautiful Gearan Performing Arts Center lobby, across Pultney Street from the Scandling Dining Hall where breakfasts are served. We used an Ice Breaker game to encourage interaction, which was very popular.
We also held informal social gatherings on the deck around Townhouse #38 (where check-in takes place) including the Friday Ice Cream Social and Saturday’s Wine and Cheese party, which were very well received. Brenda Bent brought a Corn Hole Game and we all enjoyed watching the intense competition. Special thanks to the volunteers for their efforts to set up the HBC canopies on the deck for our socials, as well as all the volunteers who helped with set-up and clean-up. Mr. Wonderful (a.k.a.Dick Norford) even had coffee available in the mornings in Townhouse #37 for the early risers, who came to visit regularly. Dick’s Townhouse was also our Community Center, where people gathered after riding, and to make dinner plans. Since the weather was so nice, there was less puzzle activity than last year. We all had lots of FUN!! Thanks everyone that shared pictures with us!
We are especially grateful to the many people who offered to lead rides. There were many choices for everyone on the trip, and we will continue to work with volunteer ride leaders in advance to make even more choices at varying speeds and distances available in the future. Some of the HBC members from other states gave rave reviews to our online Ride Leader training, as well as our many offerings of volunteer led rides.
We thank Marilyn Chastek for starting this trip many years ago, for updating all the bike routes in the HBC Ride with GPS Library and for preparing the cue sheets and maps for those that requested them. We also thank all the people who helped make this year's trip a success, especially the HBC website team for all they do to keep people informed and for making the HBC online registration process so much easier for everyone. We will be sending an Evaluation Survey to help plan for 2025.
SAVE THE 2025 DATES: June 12-15, 2025 (with June 10 or 11 early arrival options)
Let’s do it again!! We are making arrangements to return to the Finger Lakes on the third weekend in June 2025. Please mark your calendar now and plan to join us. We expect to open online registration in March 2025.
To see the photo album from 2024, click the button below
2024 Finger Lakes
Phyllis Zitzer, Chair Susan Tussey, Registrar
717-379-3054 814-386-8141
pjzitzer@gmail.com srtusseyhbc@outlook.com