Cranks From Cooperstown 25 Challenge

What Is This?

The Cranks From Cooperstown 25 Challenge is a series of self-guided rides or tours, coordinated jointly by the Finger Lakes Cycling Club (FLCC: based in Ithaca, NY) and the Southern Tier Bicycle Club (STBC: based in Binghamton, NY), but originally designed by bike travel advocate and longtime Cooperstown resident Dennis Savoie. The challenge is to ride 25 out of a total of 54 routes that originally appeared in printed cue sheet form in the seminal book Cranks from Cooperstown, by Dennis Savoie, (Tourmaster Publications, L.L.C., 1998), that have recently been transcribed into electronic RideWithGPS routes, and are available online free of charge.

Why Are We Doing This?

The point of the challenge is to raise the awareness and visibility of cycling in this beautiful region and provide essential information for anyone to do a single-day or multi-day tour in this region. We are also honoring and documenting the enormous amount of work spent by Dennis Savoie in producing these tour routes and related information in the publication referenced above. While we encourage people to register for the free challenge, that is not required to access all of the route details and related services information presented on this webpage and the referenced online links. Therefore, this information could be of great interest to newcomers and visitors to Upstate New York, in addition to members of the two bicycle clubs who have coordinated this effort. 

The 54 routes of the Cranks From Cooperstown 25 Challenge cover a huge area of Upstate New York, roughly bounded by a triangle defined by the towns of Sidney, Utica, and Amsterdam, with Cooperstown in the middle, as shown in the map below. The routes range in distance from 7 to 100 miles each, from easy to difficult, and with a mild 300 ft to a challenging 6000 ft of climbing. People who register for the Challenge (see the Get Started and Register section near the bottom of this webpage), and complete 25 of the routes, will receive a special patch, mailed to them at no charge. 

Examine the Tour Summary Chart

Notice below that the 54 routes (or "Tours" as Dennis Savoie originally designated them) are labeled 1 through 25, with many of them having multiple lettered versions, such as 2A, 2B, 2C, and 2D, with correspondingly increasing distances of 16 to 62 miles. You’ll only have to do one of each of the lettered versions of the 25 routes (2A or 2B or 2C or 2D in this example), to complete the challenge, allowing for people of various cycling abilities to participate. 

A more thorough explanation: To complete the Challenge one should complete the following 25 RideWithGPS bike tour routes:

Tour route (1) + (2A or 2B or 2C or 2D) + (3A or 3B or 3C) + (4) + (5) + (6) + (7) + (8) + (9A or 9B or 9C or 9D) + (10) + ………. etc…. up to (25A or 25B or 25C or 25D or 25E). 

Note: You may click anywhere on the Tour Summary Chart to view a PDF document version of the chart.

A Word Of Caution

The 54 routes were originally designed in 1998. Therefore, caution is advised while cycling at the present time, since road and traffic conditions may have changed substantially since 1998. Also some of the Points of Interest (POIs) within the RideWithGPS routes may no longer exist, but are included for historical purposes. However, a great effort has been made to provide updated information in the tables below, which contained recent information for Route Specific Services, Hotels & Motels, Camping & Cabins, and Bicycle Repair Shops. 

Note: Simply click anywhere on the tables below to view PDF documents that contain much more information than what can be displayed in the tables below. Also, there are embedded links in the PDF document that can be clicked on to view the location of the various services within Google Maps, or to view the websites of these services.

Get Started & Register

1. Browse the map, Tour Summary Chart, and other related information on this webpage.

2. Examine the 54 routes that are organized conveniently in one collection on the RideWithGPS website. This may be accessed by anyone at: ridewithgps.com/collections/8736892 . Note: You will need an account with RideWithGPS to access these routes, but there are various account options, including a basic free option. Setting up an account with RideWithGPS will also allow you to access these routes for real time navigation with your smartphone. Click on any of the individual 54 routes to view a description, map, and turn-by-turn navigation. This will work on a laptop using the RideWithGPS website or on a smartphone using the RideWithGPS app. Many people nowadays use the RideWithGPS app and afix their smartphone to their handlebars for navigation. If you haven’t tried that, then these routes provide an added motivation to get set up with the RideWithGPS app.

Additionally, if you are on a laptop, and go to the above RideWithGPS route collection link, you will see a regional map with all of the routes in a different color, similar to the picture presented earlier, above. If you click on any of those colored routes, then it will open up the description for the corresponding route, and then allow you to view each route, and browse through the routes. You can do something similar on a smartphone with the RideWithGPS app in a tabular form, and sort the routes by name, distance, or elevation gain.

3. Register for the challenge by filling our the Registration & Rider Progress Form. There is no fee for registration and people who complete all 25 rides will receive a free patch recognizing their accomplishment.

4. Update the Registration & Rider Progress Form when you have finished a ride. Rides can be done in any order. Rides done before the current year can be added as prior accomplishments. (Note: ignore Google’s "You’ve already responded" message and simply click on the "Edit your response" to update.). This is a lifetime challenge, so no need to rush and get them all done this year. But who will be the first to complete the challenge?

5. Registered cyclists that complete all 25 rides will receive a free patch recognizing their accomplishment and be added to the Cranks From Cooperstown 25 Kudos List! Just send an email message to info@cranksfromcooperstown.org when you've completed all 25 rides, and the patch will be mailed to you at no cost.

Send Questions, Comments, Or Suggestions To info@cranksfromcooperstown.org

Please realize that this is a work-in-progress, coordinated by volunteers in the FLCC and STBC bicycle clubs. We very much appreciate your enthusiasm and welcome your positive comments and suggestions regarding this initiative, submitted in the interest of improving the challenge for everyone.