Thank You

I'd like to thank everyone who helped with this adventure.

Thanks to all the supporters of the Achievement First Bridgeport Academy. This school is making a real difference in lives of many young people. Your generosity is making it possible. Between the website and checks you've sent in, we've raised about $30,000.

Thanks to the scholars at the Bridgeport Academy. You guys really inspired me when I visited. I thought of you often during the ride and hope to see you all again soon.

Thanks to everyone who has read the blog and commented or sent emails. It's nice to know someone is out there reading. It also was one of my few connections to my "real" life and friends.

Thanks to Steven, for inventing the hairy challenge and being so generous. Here's the final pic:

The beard actually came in much better than expected. I last tried this in grad school, and the results were truly pitiful. I guess I've gone through puberty since then.

Thanks to all my fellow tourers and the staff at Crossroads. You are truly an exceptional group of people. I hope to see you all at a reunion. Stay safe and keep riding.

Thanks most of all to my wife, Peggy, for letting me do various crazy things, including this trip. This one's out of my system now but I've been thinking about....

Hello Atlantic Ocean!!!

Here I am at Revere (pronounced locally as Ra-vee-ah) Beach just north of Boston. It's all over. 3481 miles, 42 days of riding, lots of new friends and countless memories. I'm feeling lost right now. Getting up in the morning and heading east on the bike is what I do. My fellow tourers are a closeknit team. You get to know people pretty well when you ride with them for several hours a day, share meals, stay at the same hotels and work towards a common goal.

Here's the whole gang.

Congratulations to everyone. There were about 15 of us who went coast-to-coast, with some others doing segments, and about six who are "EFI" riders, riding Every Inch of the way (some took the SAG occasionally). I am younger and a more serious cyclist than most in this group. For some, it showed incredible determination and mental strength to make it. Of course, Roy is a whole story on his own. The story will be told in his commitment papers.

There was some confusion at the beach.

Here's Roy, Stu, me, Greg and Sandy. When Stu got to the beach, he thought it was a triathlon and started swimming to London. A local fisherman found him and returned him to Revere.

I'm honestly in a bit of a state of shock. A way of life has come to an end. I'll put up another post tomorrow, once I've had a chance to reflect some. Maybe I can pretend to have deep insights on life.

AND... THE FINAL PHOTO OF THE HAIRY CHALLENGE.

We can smell the Atlantic...

I'm sitting in Burlington, MA, a mere 18 miles from Revere beach, where we will ride to tomorrow. It's hard to believe we've come this far.

AND ROY MADE IT!

Today's 92 mile ride took us through three states and lots of classic New England terrain. There was also lots of steep climbing on old New England roads, with grades as high as 12%. However, we could smell the barn at the end of the road. Greg and I powered through the route, our determination evidenced by no stops for coffee or pastry. Since we were in tourist country much of the day, the temptations were many, but we persevered. We also passed on homemade ice cream, "mile high" apple pie and numerous other forms of cardiovascular stimulants.

The quick ones among you already figured this out - since we were in three states, there were two state line crossings today.

New Hampshire is still sticking with their classic "Live Free or Die" motto. Most people assume that this goes back to the revolutionary war. Actually, it wasn't adopted as the state motto until 1945, although it is a quote from a toast in 1809 written by General John Stark, a hero of the battle of Bennington. So it's some fairly recent new Hampshirans who thought this was a good way to promote their state. Don't hire them for your own marketing campaign.

Massachusetts wins the award for plainest sign. No imagination whatsoever. Even the font screams "we're boring".

I have a suggestion for the Massachusetts government. Add the following motto - "Live free but die if you try to ride a bike here". The roads are narrow, the pavement poor, and the drivers clearly consider cyclist endangerment a sport. It was "interesting" getting to Burlington. Maybe it was appropriate for our last big day.

Please refer to blogs from the Midwestern states to understand the difference between folks here and there. Simply insert a negative and apply it to the drivers of Massachusetts.

This makes a total of 15 states visited on our tour. 35 left to visit by bike some other time.

Here are a few shots of typical New England scenes. This is from Brattleboro, VT last night.

And this is from Ashuelot, NH today.

We also pedaled through Concord and Lexington today. We made sure to point out to the Brits on tour how badly they got their butts kicked. I think we don't appreciate what's nearby, opting instead to go to Italy or France to cycle. There's lots to see right here in New England, and it's different when you see it by bike. Having said that, I hear that Montenegro is a great place to cycle...

Wretched Excess

Since we're approaching the end of the tour and should be in great shape by now, it shouldn't surprise you that Greg and I set not one, but TWO personal bests today. We consumed FIVE pastries and made THREE separate stops during the ride for coffee.

The pastry extravaganza started with a Dunkin Donuts doughnut at the first SAG (accompanied by coffee, of course). Seven miles down the road we passed Crazy Russian Girls Bakery.

They had a sign out front saying "free coffee for cyclists", so we had to stop. I had a cinnamon raisin scone. This place was indeed run by crazy Russian girls, although they really were part Russian, part Swiss. Crazy Swiss Girls would only confuse people, I guess. Crazy Swiss girls is definitely an oxymoron.

At our second SAG, we were greeted by Vera, the Strudel Queen. I kid you not. That's her license plate. She's a friend of fellow tourers Sandy and Stu, and lives nearby. Her strudel is to die for:

Apple rhubarb raisin strudel, homemade by Vera with the fruit grown on her property. Unbelievable. Note also the chocolate chip cookies at the upper left, supplied by Janie's sister. That brings our total to four, counting cookies as pastry.

Finally, after a tasty sandwich in Brattleboro, Greg and I stopped in Mocha Joe's for a latte. I couldn't resist the coffee cake, bringing us to FIVE. I believe we have set the bar high for a standard of wretched excess.

We also had a fine selection of critters today, including crawfish

and a few strangely painted moose.

When we weren't eating or drinking, we did manage to take in some of the best scenery of the tour.

The Green Mountains in Vermont match anything we saw in the west, although in a more subtle way. This is great biking territory. We had a lot of climbing today (6000 ft. in 80 miles), including one sustained climb of 1600 ft. out of Bennington, but we stopped and enjoyed the scenery, the pastry and the coffee. One of the top days of the entire tour.

We only have one more serious day of cycling. It's hard to believe.

A Hotel With Extras

Three cracked ribs weren't enough to keep Roy down today. Here he is heading off on today's 71 mile ride.

He took it slower than usual, but still finished at a decent time. Way to go Roy!

Our hotel last night in Little Falls, the Knights Inn, came with some unanticipated extras. The hallway to my room smelled heavily of cigarette smoke, but my room smelled more like old, damp rags. The hallway smell made the room smell good. Very clever and much appreciated.

It was clear that they had been saving this room for me for quite some time. Also appreciated. They didn't make a big deal out of it, but the  secret slipped out when I spotted a large spider web spanning the headboard to the bed spread, complete with large spider.

Maybe best of all was the view.

That's a train rumbling by. They did their homework, obviously reading this blog and knowing how much I enjoyed riding along the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe in the southwest. Did you know that freight trains run all night and are capable of shaking teeth right out of your jaw?

The riding today was  mostly through the Mohawk River valley.

This was quite scenic, but the real reason to include the photo is to show off my bike jersey. Peg brought three fresh jerseys when she visited. This is my favorite jersey in my extensive collection. I was the envy of the entire tour. Note that it's an overcast day, appropriate for a sun absorbing black jersey. Points for style and function today.

We're definitely back on the East Coast. Here's a shot just outside Schenectady.

Everything has become older. Also, riding along the Mohawk River, we saw lots of old mill towns that have seen much better days. There were plenty of run down towns in the west, but not with the same old feel like these.

I must be getting close to home...

The Heart of a Lion

My buddy Roy took a fall today. It happened 12 miles into a 78 mile ride. He was taken to the hospital to get checked out, but seemed in pretty good shape. When he left the hospital, he was taken back to the point where he fell, and continued the ride. As of right now, he's out there determined to complete every inch of our cross country adventure. As I've said before, he's an incredible person. His courage and determination are an inspiration.

GO ROY!

I'm still in shock from the surprise Fathers Day visit yesterday from Peg and Michael. I'm even more impressed that Michael got up this morning at 6 a.m. this morning to have breakfast with me and see me off. What a great kid!

The visit limited my blogging yesterday, so I'll catch up on two days riding here. Yesterday, we rode by a few of the finger lakes and had a beautiful day for riding. Along the way, we saw the following sign, hearing gun shots as passed by. Notice that the sign has several bullet holes in it. At first I was confused, since gunshots and a wildlife refuge don't seem to go together. However, it all make perfect sense. This is the Clara M. Stevenson Wildlife Refuge Memorial. It's NOT the Clara M. Stevens Memorial Wildlife Refuge. Just read the sign. This means it is a memorial to a wildlife refuge, hence the gunshots and bullet holes. It's not a memorial to Clara. Not knowing if homo spandexus was in season, we quickly left the area.

This memorial was near the famous Erie Canal. Here's the canal. Kind of pathetic, huh? You have to use your imagination to think of this as a major thoroughfare.

Today, we had 79 miles of fairly flat riding through more of scenic upstate New York, ending in Little Falls. A short walk from our hotel is a lock on the New York State Canal System. This system replaced the Erie Canal.
This engineering marvel lifts boats 40 feet, allowing them to navigate around the not so little falls on the Mohawk River in Little Falls. I didn't realize canals like this were still used. The operator of this lock explained that the canal system is like a highway, with exits along the way to various bodies of water.

This morning at the hotel, we all got excited when we spotted this:

We thought this was the food for our SAG stop, but that would have been udderly ridiculous.

However, it did provide inspiration for Greg and I. During the ride we stopped at a Dunkin Donuts and had coffee and glazed apple fritters.

Note that the fritter is about the size of Greg's head. It was also quite dense, like my head. The Dunkin Donuts website claims these mutants are only 400 calories, but I find that hard to believe.

About 3 miles down the road we caught up with a few of our fellow tourers. They invited us to stop for lunch with them at a pizza place. So, about 20 minutes after coffee and fritter, I ate a giant slice of garlic pizza and a 20 oz. pepsi. It all seemed to make sense at the time.

The Best Fathers Day EVER

Guess who showed up and surprised me at lunch today in Syracuse. Peg and Michael! This is my best Fathers Day ever.