The Tour Winds Down
Thursday June 27, 2019. Brattleboro, VT to Burlington, MA. 91 miles
Ascent/Descent= 4,518/3684 feet. Cumulative= 3,579 miles
Friday June 29, 2019. Burlington, MA to Revere Beach, MA. 18 miles
Ascent/Descent= 473/620. Cumulative= 2,599 miles
Thursday morning we learned that our hospitalized tour member was answering texts and email. His physical injuries are substantial, but it is clear that that the emotional pain of not being able to finish with the rest of us after being so close was his bigger problem. We all thought about him as we went about tackling the last big day of biking, and one of the harder days at that. Perceptions as to how hard this day would actually be seemed to vary from rider to rider. The stats on our cue sheets (written route instructions) told us that the route had 85% of the climbing we did the previous day but was 16.5 miles longer.
We biked due south for 2.4 miles befor crossing the Connecticut River and now were in New Hampshire, our fourteenth state. As we travelled eastward from the river we had a fairly steady climb, with brief plateaus or briefer descents until we reached a much more significant climb. I am not certain how long it lasted, but more than a mile, with grades generally 10% or more with sustained 12 and even 14% grades, and I even saw a brief 18% grade on my Garmin. As we crested the mountain, Tom and Rick were standing by the roadside, Tom taking pictures and Rick asking, "How'd you like that hill?", and I'm thinking maybe this is the day he said was the hardest.
By the first SAG stop we had done the worst of the climbing although there continued to some big hills, more than rollers, even as we passed on mainly residential streets during the last 20 or so miles.
We had entered Massachusetts, our 15th and last state roughly halfway into the day. When the day was done, everyone was in agreement that it was one of the harder days.
After finishing up, and cleaning up we had a cocktail hour followed by a 6:00 PM catered dinner. This was late for us, having generally finished our dinners by 6:00. We were joined by many family members of the tour, including Kathy who has been following the tour since Troy, NY, and by our son Alex who lives in the Boston area.
After dinner, each tour member was given an opportunity to introduce any guests, and to express their thoughts regarding the tour, very open ended. It was both interesting to get everyone's perspective, and emotional to hear everyone's thoughts, especially emotional with references to our friend still in the hospital, who continues to improve, but of course couldn't celebrate with us. There were presents and presentations of awards with certificates for all the member of the tour to recognize our achievement of biking across the United States together. EFI (Every Fabulous Inch) status was given (a little prematurely) to the 6 riders who still had completed EFI, even though we had 16 miles yet to complete. If you are wondering, I did achieve EFI. Emotionally, it did feel like we had finished, even though we all recognized the danger of the city biking yet to come.
Friday breakfast was served a little later, 6:30, since a later start, 8:00 was planned to hopefully miss the worst of rush hour. I noticed that I felt a little flat, a little down maybe after the emotions of Thursday night. However,when we gathered outside with our bikes, once again with nearly ideal biking weather, I felt the excitement with a little anxiety that I felt every morning of the Tour. We biked as a group on residential and busy commercial streets, with CrossRoads vehicles buffering for us where they could. The group made a wrong turn, with several smaller sub-groups traveling in different directions trying to correct. We all managed to arrive at a bike trail, leading to a Dunkin ' Donuts, which seemingly are on every corner in Boston, where we regrouped. There we posed for a group photo, and were told that there would be one last detour. It turns out that there was a movie starring Ryan Reynolds was being filmed on the north end of Revere Beach, our destination, and the access to the beach was blocked by police barricades. The CrossRoads crew explained our situation, and the police and the film crew agreed to let us use the south end of the beach. It is a 3 mile long beach after all.
So with CrossRoads vehicles leading the way and covering our backs, we proceeded the last few miles, and suddenly the temperature dropped and I thought I could smell the salt in the air, and as we crested a little knoll, there it was, the Atlantic Ocean!
So what did we do but miss our turn, allowing us to pad our total mileage total just a little more. As we passed by our final destination, the group of family members and friends that were gathered there let out a cheer, and emotions I hadn't been aware of suddenly overcame me. This was it! We had now REALLY done it. We had actually gone coast to coast. All the feelings of wanting to achieve our goal, but also wishing that there could be just a little more Touring, mixing, and confusing what this moment meant.
Along with some others' friends and families, Kathy had driven to the beach early to greet us, which was awesome. We took off our shoes and socks and brought our bikes to the shoreline to photodocument dipping our front tires in the Atlantic, almost 7 weeks after dipping our rear wheels in the Pacific. More pictures: bikes held over our heads, pretending to throw our bikes in the ocean, Peyton actually throwing his bike in the ocean, Peyton riding his bike along the shoreline and doing wheelies, group shots.
The water was surprisingly warm, warmer than Canandaigua Lake I imagine, and we all stood along the shore or in the water congratulating each other, and saying goodbyes just in case, as some were leaving from the beach to go home, although most returned to the hotel in Burlington for a last lunch together.
Everyone will be going there own way over the next 24 hours. Kathy and I will be staying for the weekend to visit with our son Alex, and his sons, Wesley and William, then we will be driving to our home on Canandaigua Lake in Canadaigua, NY, where I have not been for over 7 weeks.
This has been an unbelievable experience, exploring our country, my country, at 15 mph, more or less. It's a great way to see it. If any little part of you thinks you would like to do this, do it. You will not regret it. If biking isn't your thing, drive or take a train. If you fly over the "fly over states" you're missing a lot.
The trip is over, and the blog should be too; it probably is. I knew that some people had tried to make comments, but couldn't post them. Recently I became aware that some people have successfully posted comments and I figured out where these comments were and have read only a couple so far, I've been busy. The ones I have read were great and I thank you. I am grateful. I will try to respond to all the comments, but it won't be this weekend. If you enjoyed this blog I am glad. The positive feedback that I did receive helped me to be more diligent in posting when I really wanted to go to bed.
Ascent/Descent= 4,518/3684 feet. Cumulative= 3,579 miles
Friday June 29, 2019. Burlington, MA to Revere Beach, MA. 18 miles
Ascent/Descent= 473/620. Cumulative= 2,599 miles
Thursday morning we learned that our hospitalized tour member was answering texts and email. His physical injuries are substantial, but it is clear that that the emotional pain of not being able to finish with the rest of us after being so close was his bigger problem. We all thought about him as we went about tackling the last big day of biking, and one of the harder days at that. Perceptions as to how hard this day would actually be seemed to vary from rider to rider. The stats on our cue sheets (written route instructions) told us that the route had 85% of the climbing we did the previous day but was 16.5 miles longer.
We biked due south for 2.4 miles befor crossing the Connecticut River and now were in New Hampshire, our fourteenth state. As we travelled eastward from the river we had a fairly steady climb, with brief plateaus or briefer descents until we reached a much more significant climb. I am not certain how long it lasted, but more than a mile, with grades generally 10% or more with sustained 12 and even 14% grades, and I even saw a brief 18% grade on my Garmin. As we crested the mountain, Tom and Rick were standing by the roadside, Tom taking pictures and Rick asking, "How'd you like that hill?", and I'm thinking maybe this is the day he said was the hardest.
By the first SAG stop we had done the worst of the climbing although there continued to some big hills, more than rollers, even as we passed on mainly residential streets during the last 20 or so miles.
We had entered Massachusetts, our 15th and last state roughly halfway into the day. When the day was done, everyone was in agreement that it was one of the harder days.
After finishing up, and cleaning up we had a cocktail hour followed by a 6:00 PM catered dinner. This was late for us, having generally finished our dinners by 6:00. We were joined by many family members of the tour, including Kathy who has been following the tour since Troy, NY, and by our son Alex who lives in the Boston area.
After dinner, each tour member was given an opportunity to introduce any guests, and to express their thoughts regarding the tour, very open ended. It was both interesting to get everyone's perspective, and emotional to hear everyone's thoughts, especially emotional with references to our friend still in the hospital, who continues to improve, but of course couldn't celebrate with us. There were presents and presentations of awards with certificates for all the member of the tour to recognize our achievement of biking across the United States together. EFI (Every Fabulous Inch) status was given (a little prematurely) to the 6 riders who still had completed EFI, even though we had 16 miles yet to complete. If you are wondering, I did achieve EFI. Emotionally, it did feel like we had finished, even though we all recognized the danger of the city biking yet to come.
Friday breakfast was served a little later, 6:30, since a later start, 8:00 was planned to hopefully miss the worst of rush hour. I noticed that I felt a little flat, a little down maybe after the emotions of Thursday night. However,when we gathered outside with our bikes, once again with nearly ideal biking weather, I felt the excitement with a little anxiety that I felt every morning of the Tour. We biked as a group on residential and busy commercial streets, with CrossRoads vehicles buffering for us where they could. The group made a wrong turn, with several smaller sub-groups traveling in different directions trying to correct. We all managed to arrive at a bike trail, leading to a Dunkin ' Donuts, which seemingly are on every corner in Boston, where we regrouped. There we posed for a group photo, and were told that there would be one last detour. It turns out that there was a movie starring Ryan Reynolds was being filmed on the north end of Revere Beach, our destination, and the access to the beach was blocked by police barricades. The CrossRoads crew explained our situation, and the police and the film crew agreed to let us use the south end of the beach. It is a 3 mile long beach after all.
So with CrossRoads vehicles leading the way and covering our backs, we proceeded the last few miles, and suddenly the temperature dropped and I thought I could smell the salt in the air, and as we crested a little knoll, there it was, the Atlantic Ocean!
So what did we do but miss our turn, allowing us to pad our total mileage total just a little more. As we passed by our final destination, the group of family members and friends that were gathered there let out a cheer, and emotions I hadn't been aware of suddenly overcame me. This was it! We had now REALLY done it. We had actually gone coast to coast. All the feelings of wanting to achieve our goal, but also wishing that there could be just a little more Touring, mixing, and confusing what this moment meant.
Along with some others' friends and families, Kathy had driven to the beach early to greet us, which was awesome. We took off our shoes and socks and brought our bikes to the shoreline to photodocument dipping our front tires in the Atlantic, almost 7 weeks after dipping our rear wheels in the Pacific. More pictures: bikes held over our heads, pretending to throw our bikes in the ocean, Peyton actually throwing his bike in the ocean, Peyton riding his bike along the shoreline and doing wheelies, group shots.
The water was surprisingly warm, warmer than Canandaigua Lake I imagine, and we all stood along the shore or in the water congratulating each other, and saying goodbyes just in case, as some were leaving from the beach to go home, although most returned to the hotel in Burlington for a last lunch together.
Everyone will be going there own way over the next 24 hours. Kathy and I will be staying for the weekend to visit with our son Alex, and his sons, Wesley and William, then we will be driving to our home on Canandaigua Lake in Canadaigua, NY, where I have not been for over 7 weeks.
This has been an unbelievable experience, exploring our country, my country, at 15 mph, more or less. It's a great way to see it. If any little part of you thinks you would like to do this, do it. You will not regret it. If biking isn't your thing, drive or take a train. If you fly over the "fly over states" you're missing a lot.
The trip is over, and the blog should be too; it probably is. I knew that some people had tried to make comments, but couldn't post them. Recently I became aware that some people have successfully posted comments and I figured out where these comments were and have read only a couple so far, I've been busy. The ones I have read were great and I thank you. I am grateful. I will try to respond to all the comments, but it won't be this weekend. If you enjoyed this blog I am glad. The positive feedback that I did receive helped me to be more diligent in posting when I really wanted to go to bed.
CONGRATULATIONS JEFF ON A FABULOUS ACCOMPLISHMENT!!!
ReplyDeleteSteve S
Thank you Steve. I'm really glad you got to ride a leg of it and get a feel for what the tour was like. It was an experience like no other
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