Herb Terns rides his bike through southern Saratoga County.

After descending a hill in Niskayuna’s Blatnik Park, I turned my bike around. A west-bound rider on the Mohawk-Hudson Bike-Trail dismounted his bike and began pushing it up the hill.

“Clearly,” the gentleman said to me, “they didn’t design this trail with cyclists in mind.”

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I waited for him to get to the top before riding again. I didn’t want to be obnoxious and also didn’t want to tell him I was there for the hill. That the ride to the hill is prelude and the ride home is epilogue. The hill is the story of the day.

The hill contains math, history, philosophy and other disciplines. We’ll get to them all.

The math first. From near the Mohawk River to the hill’s top is 100 feet of climbing and easy math. Ten trips equal 1,000 feet of climbing, 20 trips up the hill equals 2,000 feet, 30 trips equal 3,000 feet and somewhere after that probably equals a visit to a mental health professional.

We........

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