The Final Hurrah

 May 17, 2024: July 13, 2024: Fifty-six more miles under our bikes.    None more.

Today's stage didn't get off to an auspicious start. Narrow, winding, secondary road was the plan.  Turning into dirt, then very narrow dirt, was not.  Especially after several non-trivial climbs. I'll tee off on Garmin here for just a bit.  It overlays the "magenta line" on top of map details.  That means you can't see route numbers, if any.  It has no idea of road surface, or if it does, it isn't telling.  And because it overlays roads, you can't tell if the road is major, or a goat track. I use the Garmin route planner for daily stages, Ride With GPS for long range planning.  Garmin won't divulge any businesses, or road surfaces.  On the other hand, it won't, without a great deal of fighting, let you plan a route where bikes aren't allowed—which is both not always readily apparent, and important.  In contrast, RWGPS is perfectly happy to plot a prohibited course.  Consequently, there is a lot of faffing about between the two.   A...

Today's task: shift ourselves from Bennington, VT to Keene, NH.  Now with more pictures, and less blather! Good weather, great scenery, but the last 20 miles of Route 9 were busy, which also means noisy.  Lot of climbing en route, but little of it particularly steep. Brekkie Break Day's End.  Time for beers. Sixty more miles behind us.  One hundred thirteen await.

All in all, a good day.  Although, by this time, any day that doesn't involve breaking or flatting is already off to a good start. We did get some rain , although thankfully almost all the castoff remnants of Hurricane Beryl passed north of us. Ok, if you are so darn smart, you  pronounce it: Schaghticoke Lush, but with some views: Apparently, the Vermont Tourist Board won't let us leave until we see their bridges: Fifty-five jungle humid miles.   One hundred seventy three left to us.

Perhaps the easiest yet — all of it along the Erie Canal Trail.  Almost all paved, and the only way there could have been fewer hills is if we had been suddenly transported to the Netherlands. Unfortunately, as is increasingly the case, lush also means hemmed in by the lushness.  Not many photo ops, just a lot of this , and this . Knocked another sixty-six miles off the dwindling stack.   Two hundred twenty eight still to knock.

Nice weather, pastoral upstate New York countryside.  Save Ithaca, with lots of traffic and no road shoulders.  To be fair, the drivers were considerate, which made the lack of shoulders tolerable.  But the dark side of the the moon has nothing on the pavement. Not an Interstate Service Plaza Just as there isn't anything like seeing the US at 13mph, getting from main roads yields its own set of treasures.  This place was a small-town Cheers.  Everyone knew everyone else, and were happy to talk to the sweaty out-of-towners. Sixty-three more miles on tires that remained unflattened, and spokes unbroken.   Three hundred forty six left to us.  Fifty-three days ago it was ten times that.

Today was supposed to be a fairly easy stage: nice weather, light but favorable winds, and only 52 miles. Not a half dozen miles out of Sodus, I noticed another broken spoke on Susan's back wheel. Luckily, there was a bike shop right on our route, five miles short of our hotel, and, even more fortunately, they could fit us in.   So we threw additional 'trons on the fire, and booked it towards Cicero.  Well, except for the part where we stopped to fix a flat. Consequently, no pics today.   In a bid to compensate for the lack of crimes against the photographic arts, we become geese wranglers.   Fifty-two decidedly not maintenance free miles.  What are the odds for the remaining 409?

Having never ridden anything like this distance at one go, I didn't have any good idea as to how fast stuff would wear out — chains and tires chief among them.  Our patience was doing fine. Chain wear is particularly insidious.  The holes the pins go through start to oval, allowing the chain to stretch, which then makes an increasingly poor match with the sprockets.  I had been suffering chain hop in the tallest gear for a couple weeks, and figured that to be the root of all evil.  Leave that go long enough, and the entire drivetrain starts getting wallered out. Additionally, our tires were getting smooth in the center.  The odds of going the remaining five hundred miles were reasonably good, but even if they did make it, I'd chuck them as soon as we got home. So, why wait?  Especially since Bert's Bikes was right along our route in Webster.  I called ahead, and they agreed to get started when we arrived.  After all, how hard can it be? The new t...

The day after a fine, and very crowded, fireworks display, it was time to cross the Rainbow Bridge back into the US. For a very long time At least we had a view.  For a very, very long time.  Did I remember to mention how long the long time was? After having a great deal of time to thank the Federal Government for the great deal of time to watch a vast amount of water head out to sea, and sixteen miles threading our way through the Niagara Falls metroplex, we got to the Erie Canal Trail, which stretches across upstate NY. Beautiful day, and very different from road riding. A drawbridge, and a vijayo bombing. From Niagara Falls to Brockport, NY, 68 miles.   Another 518 to put behind us.

 Time to let the pictures do the talking as we make our way across eastern Ontario. Green.  Very Green. Lake Ontario.  Best view we had all day.  Damn trees. I've been having problems with the drive train for going on a couple weeks — skipping if I stand in the tallest gears.  Since I'm not nearly that strong, could only mean one thing:  worn chain.    We were finally able to find a shop that was a) along our route, and b) open.  Unfortunately, there is this little matter of c) mechanic on site.   All of which is a segue into Susan's stickers: Yes, I have no stickers.  Or personality. Susan cruising along an Ontario farm road. . Trying a trail. Trying a trial. Third time's the charm: For those who have both unusually retentive memories, and a sad lack of fulfilling things to do with their lives, we "fixed" a front flat on Susan's bike several days ago.  An essential step along the way to fixing is matching the leak against the ...

Nice day, winds mostly cross, turning westerly as the day progressed.  Very pretty scenery that included some seriously large houses perched among spacious and meticulously landscaped yards. Maybe it was the metronomic nature of cycling, but we both found we had gotten to the end of the day without taking a single picture. And Lord knows I'm not about to subject anyone to the pain my travel writing would inflict. Sixty-three more unremarkable miles, but that is not at all a bad thing, behind us.   Five hundred forty seven it's hard to imagine that doesn't seem like very many left.

Today's task was two-fold: the obvious one being to propel ourselves closer to the Atlantic; secondarily, although with the benefit of hindsight, probably primarily, was getting to a bike shop. The latter has been true for quite some time.  Since time unknown — time has a different meaning on a trek like this — Susan's rear wheel has had a wobble that at some speeds resonates with the rear rack and panniers.  I figured the problem was that of adjusting spoke tension at the wobble, pulling it back into line. The multi-tool in our kit has spoke wrenches.  Two of them.  Not three.  It needs three.  So I had to watch her bike doing the watusi and she had to put up with it, until we got to a bike shop.  Of which there have been precisely none that were a) open, and b) not wildly out of the way. The first candidate was in Sarnia.  Open, practically next door to the hotel.  Did I remember to mention yesterday was Canada Day:  The fireworks were...

Bit of a mashup here.  The stage from Evart, MI, to Bay City was long, and we had to leave later than we wished in order to get behind the rain, and catch a favorable shift in the winds.   The late-ish arrival, time well spent turning the hotel bar into a profit center, and enjoying a particularly good meal put paid to any notion of posting. Susan pondering some of the thumb A slot in the trees. Seventy-seven more miles in our six.   Eight hundred fifty seven until they all are. The last day of June    Our task was to cut the distance to the Blue Water Bridge to a manageable amount, considering that we had only a general idea how long it would take to get across it into Canada.  Cold with a low overcast en route to Sandusky.  Not sure even NatGeo photographers could make anything of it. We had laundry that needed doing.  My worst packing failure was bringing a pair of tennis shoes, in addition to my cycling shoes.  As it turns out, the cyclin...