And so ......... the end! The last day was very much a dawdling sort of day, billed as 62 miles to the Rye Junior High School, where we were asked to arrive by 1130, in order that we could link up with the police cars, whose job it was to escort us to the beach for the traditional wheel-dipping in the Atlantic (for the purists: the front wheel, since it had been the rear wheel in the Pacific). Along the way my peloton of four toured the very well-heeled town of Exeter, where there was a vast manicured campus for a mere 700 prep students. A final visit to a coffee shop/bakery used up a few more of the many minutes we had to spare. One or two riders missed the deadline by a minute or ten, but it didn't matter one bit; the police cars did not seem to be in any rush. Many families and friends, some expected and some not, were at Wallis Sands State Beach to watch us arrive. The grockles on the sands also seemed to enjoy the spectacle, and could be seen interrogating riders about what they had been doing. After half an hour or so of pleasantries, seven of us backtracked a mile or so along the shoreline to a seafood restaurant for lunch. The motel was about another 8 miles or so away from Rye, in the heart of Portsmouth. On arrival at the motel, the major practicalities (boxing the bike obviously the chief among these) had to be taken care of before thinking about getting cleaned up for a bite to eat for dinner. My lot took a cab down town. Our final farewells would be at breakfast tomorrow morning, or, for those using Boston Airport, at Logan as we get off the AbB shuttle, scheduled to leave Portsmouth at 0700. Mileage today : 68 Final Total : 4075
Brattleboro was much nearer to the New Hampshire line than I imagined, so it was only 2 minutes
out of breakfast to the first photo of the day. Although Vermont was over, the hills certainly weren't, and we knew after last night's route rap that we were in for much climbing in today's projected 86 miles to Manchester. That being so, and with the memory of yesterday's rubber legs firmly fixed in my mind, I took it easy on the early rollers as far as Keene at 15 miles.
The first >10%er was due on the outskirts of Keene, going up Old Concord Road, the second was just 2 miles later. Those with Garmins were able to tell us that both were well over 10%, in fact one was 18%! Neither was short. Arriving at SAG 1, I felt utterly spent, and there was no sign of any oomph returning to the legs, so the day looked liked being an uncomfortable one! The climb of Pitchers Mountain confirmed that.
There were 2 more ups to come, the worst being Joe English Road, which I grovelled up with Fred, Jose, Don & Skip. At the top, part of the
group missed a turn and Skip & I waited for them to get back and regroup. It was at this point that one of those curious Road-to-Damascus cycling moments happened. On setting off again, at a much faster lick than I had managed all day, it became apparent that this faster pace had revitalised the legs, and the last 15 miles were knocked off in no time.
Sundry families were waiting for riders at the Comfort Inn, but no luggage truck had arrived, so Fred, Skip, Don & I went for a burger & Blue Moon at Applebee's across the street until it appeared.
I have not kept you posted about flats aggregated during the ride. I was first in that particular
competition for ages, but now Gary has caught me up, and we now share the lead on 17 each - expensive! My 17th came this morning, when Don stopped to let me use one of his CO2 cartridges, as I had none left.
Mileage today : 89
Cumulative : 4007
Only two days left after today, and we entered our penultimate state, Vermont. The 'mont' part should give you a clue - it has hills. And today was the day my legs decided to go awol. I was useless any time the road went up, almost as if my bike and I had never been formally introduced.
The day started at the by-now-earlier time of 0700, another clue that the day might be demanding, into light drizzle. After only a handful of miles, however, we were all getting wetter from the inside via perspiration, than from the drizzle, so at the top of the first hill, still in town, jackets were peeled off and stuffed in pockets.
SAG 1 was at 27 miles (<30 to me and my group, because we had already gone wrong twice) on the parking lot of a Mobil station, half way down the gradual descent towards Old Bennington. Michelle dished out some anti-indigestion tablets to me, which worked just fine for a while, but the problem came back later, after the long climb out of Old Bennington. At the next SAG (58 miles) I got a whole bagful!
Another, shorter, climb took us to the summit of Hogback Mountain at >60 miles, and then it was plain sailing as we dropped down to Brattleboro at the foot. Our first Red Roof Inn hosted us for the night. Dinner was at the 99 Restaurant, our first. Not too bad at all - pesto penne.
Mileage today : 82
Cumulative : 3918
A good, gentle ride today, much of it on a bike path (not too many tree roots pushing up the asphalt)
following the course of the Erie Canal and/or the Mohawk River. The humidity looked like threatening again, but, as it turned out, it was fairly comfortable all day. I rode with Fred the whole ride, with CJ making it a three for the early section along Highway 5 East to SAG 1 at 50 miles.
It was shortly after SAG that the bike path really came into play
and took us along the Erie Canal to Jumpin Jack's Drive-In, where we arrived at a suitable time for an early lunch of cheeseburger, fries & vanilla malt shake (not in the same league as yesterday's at Woody's, so Jumpin Jack will not be troubling the scorers). It was only 18 miles from there to the end, so we really needed to slow down, or we faced waiting a lengthy time for the room at the Holiday Inn Express to be ready. A wrong turning at a bike path junction took care of that just a little bit, but we still got there at 1300.
Indeed our room wasn't ready, but rooms for folks still over two hours away were ready. Why do motels do that? Why don't they allocate the rooms as riders actually arrive, instead of hours/days in advance, thereby ensuring that riders who need the rooms earlier get the rooms earlier and those who don't need them until later have theirs readied later? It would also ensure that their lobby would not be untidied by the unprepossessing sight to other guests of hot and sweaty cyclists sitting around waiting for up to a couple of hours. Dinner tonight was at the Old Country Buffet, another feeding frenzy establishment.
Mileage today : 79
Cumulative : 3836
Following breakfast at Denny's again, we had a very pleasant day today, in terms of both the route and the weather, although the latter was far too humid for my northern European taste. Way better than getting rained on, though. Fred & I rode out with CJ, Don, Skip, John & Amy until SAG 1, at only 25 miles today, near the Erie Canal and the town of Oneida.
The route was mainly farmland and small towns again, crossing a few times back and forth across I90 as we mirrored its progress eastwards. Sideroads are, however, noticeably busier than they were all those weeks ago, now that we are edging towards the more heavily populated eastern USA. By and large, the surfaces are better, though.
SAG 2 was at 52 miles on the edge of the town of Whitesboro, next to SubWay (I resisted.). From
Whitesboro it was pretty much a 24-mile straight shot to the motel in Little Falls, but not without first going through a settlement by the name of Herkimer, where Fred spotted an independent ice-cream place of exactly the type I had been looking for for weeks. I learned on my last trip across that such small, owner-run outlets often outdo the DQs et al in terms of the quality of their shakes. And so it proved; I had a black raspberry - gorgeous. It is top of the pile so far, and, with only four days left, it's likely to stay there.
Just got into the room in time to find Versus and see Cav get stage #4!
Today's miles: 79
Cumulative : 3757
We pedalled out to breakfast at Denny's, a mile or so away, this
morning at 0630, as the conti breakfast at the Super 8 was, to say the least, minimalist. Loading was at 0730, but Fred & I had dawdling intentions. We had arranged with Robin (another rider from 2002) that we might meet up somewhere along the day's ride, but he couldn't begin riding until at least midday, so we had time to kill.
I had arranged with Martha that I would be passing through
Waterloo at about 0845, so I had to pedal fairly hard for the first 21 miles to achieve that. Fred, after a flat, caught up a little later to chat with Martha and the Waterloo Police Chief at the office for an hour or so. Virtually all the other riders passed by while we were nattering.
SAG was only 10 miles further on, and we got there just as it started to rain heavily, so a group of us waited at the Nice 'n Easy Gas Station & Store for well over an hour for it to clear. It was only another 40 miles after SAG to the finish, so we pedalled on slowly, awaiting Robin's call. It didn't come until we were at a corner fast food place, only 4 miles from the end, so Robin waited at the motel for us to arrive. Following Route Rap etc, Robin took us out on a tour of Syracuse and to dinner at a biker (motor!) bar, which served excellent food, before we returned to see the coverage
on Versus of the third Mark Cavendish stage win at Le Tour.
Mileage today : 71
Cumulative : 3678
OK, so I lied! I said that there would be no more centuries on the trip, and, counting today, there have been 2 more already since I said it, both manufactured by going out to a lunch eaterie and/or around the block as many times as it took.
Today was due to be 94 miles, but there was construction in Hamburg on the way out of town, with virtually no signage, so by the time I'd left the houses behind and got to the green stuff, I
had already gone wrong twice, thereby knowing that a century was in the offing. Pleasant route today, with good roads and shoulders, with one notable exception, where a series of potholes nearly threw me out of the front door. That kid with the pin had been out again; we had signs for Wales, Lancaster, Corfu, Warsaw, Avon and Lima today. Better visiting one of those, though, than Hemlock.
The sun was already out at the start, and I decided to eschew the bike museum, thinking that I'd save the 60 or 90 minutes or whatever by riding on alone and thereby getting out of the midday sun earlier. As it turned out, it was not that sort of day at all. A thunderstorm hit about 20 miles after SAG 1 and I got drenched. Fortunately, the sun did return for the last hour of the ride to dry me out again, except, of course,
for shoes and socks; I've never known those to dry out completely after a soaking. I arrived at the motel at 1300 on 97 miles, and the front desk was adamant that 1400 was check-in time, so what's a chap to do? SubWay was just a mile or so back, then it was on to the lake front with Debbie and Forest to kill the remaining time. Dinner tonight was spent with Martha, a friend from Waterloo, just 21 miles up the road, the birthplace of Memorial Day.
Mileage today : 101
Cumulative : 3607
A very welcome easy day, today, just 4 score flattish miles along (but not always in view of) the south shore of Lake Erie. Just the odd glide down a slope to a feeder stream, and then back up the other side, but nothing too taxing. You may know that Lake Erie, along with the other Great Lakes, is absolutely huge. Now here comes today's fascinating fact, courtesy of Fred: if Lake Erie were to be emptied, and then the River Amazon's outflow used to refill it, the process would take just TWO DAYS! Go on - amaze your friends with that one.
We entered our 11th state of the trip today, passing
DQ was superbly situated yet again, barely 4 miles from the motel, and many bikes were soon leaning against the walls.
I reverted to cherry today.
Mileage today : 84
Cumulative : 3506
There was little chance, having been there in 2002 on my first ride across, that I would ever visit
Niagara Falls again, but Jeff suggested that the day off should be spent there, since daughter Katie had never been. Obviously, I jumped at the chance and so we set off from Erie with 3 bikes, intending to cycle the bike trail from Fort Erie along the Niagara River to the falls and beyond. Bob Evans hosted breakfast after about 30 miles on I90.
The trail was at first a mixture of road, gravel track, footpath and the frontage roads to the homes along the riverside. Later it was mostly a shared pathway with pedestrians, of which there were not many, until we got within a half mile of the falls, where it was, of course, heaving, but not as thickly thronged as it had been on my previous visit. We could, at least, get to the guardrail to take photos when we wanted to. Lots of English accents around, along with many foreign languages.
We continued northwards along the trail until the 25 miles came up, for 2 reasons : we figured the food might be cheaper further out from the falls (wrong!); we were intending to log up a 50
(that worked, with a bit of jiggery-pokery back at the finish). The
day was first-rate in every way, bar one: the Canadian immigration official was utterly objectionable. Many thanks are due to Jeff, as the trip was 100 miles each way, and the journey from home to Erie had already taken him 6 hours. I took dozens of photos, and it has been hard to choose what to put in, since this place has
to be one of the most impressive sights anywhere in the world. To use a much over-used word in a correct context, the falls are just awesome.
Mileage today : 50
Cumulative : 3422
There was rain in the air again this morning. Worse still, the Doppler screen on The Weather Channel suggested that there would be more waiting for us as we rode first north, then east, towards Erie. The light, drizzly stuff lasted about an hour or so, but then we got the real McCoy, for
about 20 minutes just like being in a car wash (I imagine!). Riders dripped into SAG 1 wondering which would be the better option, get a coffee and stay quite some time, hoping for it to clear, or assume that it was here for the day and keep going while still passably warm. Fred & I grabbed some quick food and did the latter.
The route was quiet for the most part, until the honeypot effect of Lake Erie kicked in round about SAG 2 at 70 miles, just as we turned eastward towards our destination. Car loads of day-tripping couples and families were now replacing the more workaday drivers from earlier. The nearer we got to the end, the busier it was, not too surprising since the sun was now shining and it was a weekend. A tailwind for the last 30 miles helped the day end with a smile.
It was quite a time before the luggage trailer turned up at the Holiday Inn, and hanging around in
wettish gear isn't great, but time was filled with washing and cleaning bikes and chatting with Gary, who had returned to the ride after being home since Pueblo. I was waiting for more guests to arrive, as Jeff from 2002 and his daughter Katie were to arrive for a couple of days, after driving up from Hannover, PA. Having got showered and changed and eaten dinner, we all tripped off to find the Irish bar a few blocks away for a couple of post-prandials before bed.
Mileage : 100
Cumulative : 3371
