Day 83 If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere

Today Diana, George Mount, and I did a reconnaissance ride going from Ridgefield Park to B&H Camera in Manhattan. What an experience.

I've never seen so much chaos.

The ride over the Washington bridge had all of us white knuckled.

Words cannot describe it. Even George, an Olympian racer  and Italian groomed rider was shaken.

Based on this experience we quickly realized that tomorrow's (Sunday) grand finish route needed to be altered. At a minimum the ride over the bridge and along the river can not be a group ride. Anyone riding that portion needs to fend for him or herself.

We have modified the route on our webpage accordingly and now have the ride billed as the final mile starting at 56th street and 9th avenue. This seems much safer.

If you want a taste of what today's ride was like, check out this video recap (at 16X speed and slow motion for the endo I caught on tape

Ooops

as well as George clearing the bike lane and then later helping a woman straighten out her wheel after hitting a beam on the bridge... Total insanity..

If the video makes you nauseous, well you can imagine how we felt!  However, if you play it back at half speed or less, (a YouTube option) it settles down a bit..,

Day 82 New Hope to Ridgefield Park, New Jersey

Friday,  June 12

Our morning started off with a wonderful breakfast at the Pineapple B&B. It was hard to leave this relaxing haven and face the roads, rising heat, and warnings of hazardous air quality.

Morning vista at the Pineapple Inn B&B

Steve and Dave doing something

Dave S. and Diana, "you want to do what?

We hit the road on target and the ride begins. The camera crew gets some good Drone shots as we cross our first bridge.

Our second bridge crossing though is not quite so easy. Closed to traffic but fortunately they let us walk our bikes. I felt like I was walking the plank.

Quite the challenge with slippery cleats

 It's 9 am and already hot, but the roads are good

We meet Phil Kramer, a neurologist. He takes our photo and intends to get a blurb on us in the local newspaper..

The trail riding is splendid."Lovely" to quote our Irish friends!  

We received a pleasant surprise greeting by Rick Hoffman's co-workers. Ten of them came out to cheer us on. Felt like 100's of cheers. I was overcome with emotion as were the rest of us. Truly amazing. We were all very thankful they came out...Their response "hey, any excuse to get off work!"brought out a round of laughter.

Rick's Colleagues show up to cheer us on

Once we were off the trail, we faced tough roads, lights and traffic. We call these junk miles. 

Pulling in to Samsung at Ridgefield Park 

Camera crews take some photos and video

We finally arrive at our hotel. As we unpack, we meet Cedric in the parking lot and share our story. 

Cedric promises to get at least his BP checked. 

Tracy brings us some great food at the Chart House

Dave and George enjoying the views

Dave and Dennis, planning the routes

Great views

Next on our agenda is scouting the route on Saturday...I'll post of a video of this on my next blog update......

Day 81 Lancaster, PA to New Hope, PA

How to describe today? If I had to pick one word, it would be "HOT". Temperatures climbed into the 90's and it was a hot and humid experience. And 97 miles of riding...

But beyond hot, it was also a great day.

Leaving Lovelace Manor. What a great place!

The early portion of our ride took us through relatively quiet streets.

 and into Amish regions. Once again I was transported back in time.

Tiernen pointed out to me that the large farms had no power or telephone lines running into them. No wonder they looks so clean and uncluttered..

Some of the corn fields had corn that  was already shoulder high. Rick's comment that the old saying "Knee high by 4th of July" is good news, kept ringing in my ears. ..These guys are doing well.

At our first rest stop, I checked in with Tiernen to look at  his rear wheel that had been giving him trouble. I noted that it was badly out of true and sure enough a spoke was broken.

Fortunately the nipple was still in place, so repair did not take too long.  I did have to remove his cassette which basically made it a messy job. Note to self, pack more disposable gloves. The only issue the rest of us had with this repair, is that now that Tiernen was riding without his brakes rubbing, he kept wanting to race ahead. Some may be conspiring to do some more work on his bike...

Shortly after Tiernen's repair, I heard a snap on my front wheel. There it was, a snapped nipple. Number three for me on this wheel and this journey.

 This is not an easy repair as you have to remove the tire, tube

 and rim tape to repair. Fortunately the van was nearby and I was able to swap with my spare wheel. Rick, a material scientist, examined the snapped part and concluded based on grain size of the exposed alloy that the parts  were likely overheated during manufacturing. Wait to my bike shop hears this! If they don't believe Rick's assessment I might just point out that Rick's signature is engraved on a heat shield on the the surface of Mars. This is a true statement, though I'm not sure it directly translates to spoke nipples...

 More traffic as we rolled through cities...

We were not the only ones dealing with traffic

 Roads were a mixed bag. At one point, Rick managed to bury his wheel in a deep rut. How he kept the rubber side down is beyond all of us, Rick included. 

Lunch was at mile 50.  Subway.  And a hard to find one. I've never seen a Subway so hidden from view. But we made it there and ate well. No one complained.

Post lunch, David R. took a  'fail to unclip' fall that was brought about by a truck pulling out in front of him. Fortunately, he got through without even a scrape. Luck was on our side. Bottom line is that when you ride a new route every day, you just can't know what dangers lurk ahead. As much as I"m enjoying this adventure, I will be happy to get back to known territory.

The balance of our ride was on lightly traveled, bike friendly routes with a good mix of paved  bike paths.

Enjoying another pace line on a bike path

Also, the film crew was back and it was fun seeing the drone flying and buzzing around us.

We stopped often to rehydrate. I was particularly worried about our Irish friends. For them, 70 degrees is getting toasty. And 93 degrees must have felt like an oven to them. Sean seemed to take great pleasure out of pouring cold water over our heads and back. His actions were well received.

The best news is we made it to New Hope safely and in good spirits. We were met by cheers from Rick's family and the B&B owners.  This made my day.

As everyone was chatting away, I quickly went to work on my wheel and thanks to support from David and Tiernen, I was able to get my wheel back in shape in record time. This is a relief for me as on Sunday we will be using my spare wheel for new riders joining the pack.

Tomorrow's route has the most uncertainty. We expect to see many junk miles with bad roads and impatient drivers. If we hit this we plan to shuttle around them. The main goal is to stay safe.

Day 80: Hagerstown, Maryland to Lancaster Pennsylvania

It's now actually 9:10 am on Day 81. I had a great night's rest and just enjoyed a wonderful breakfast at the Lovelace Manor B&B. It's great having a rest day.

Today will be filled with  bike cleaning and repair, and restocking food and supplies. Plus Sean wants to check out a bike shop that specializes in recumbent bikes. I also have a college friend (Jim Pyne) coming to visit and dinner plans with a long time friend (Amy Serafin). So it will be a busy rest day. And I want to get this blog summary out before I forget what yesterday was like!

Yesterday morning we were all up and about and ready to roll at 7:45. It had rained throughout the night but the sky was clear. Winds were strong but favorable. Very favorable.

Rick had just finished replacing the replacement tube with too short of a valve stem he had just put on to replace the glue-patched tube from yesterday. In my book that counts as two flats, or as our Irish friends would call them, two punctures.

We rolled out in good spirits though we were all bit concerned about the 104 miles ahead of us with lots of climbing.

Ready to roll!

Early morning riding

Spectacular views in the morning...

We got about 2 miles down the road when we noticed that Rick, the wall, the sweeper, the wing-man keeper, was nowhere to be seen. Sure enough, with the wet roads he had flatted shortly after leaving the hotel and no one heard his "FLAT" exclamation.

I rode back to find him, we found the hole in the tube, checked the tire, found the glass hole (oh how I dislike "glass-holes") and put in a new tube. Actually  it turned out to be  an old vintage tube that had been resting comfortably in Rick's saddle bag for 15 years.  This tube failed to inflate. Fortunately Dennis and Sean were there so no CO2 cartridges were expended. We replaced the tube with one from this millennium and were on the road. Puncture count is now: 4.

Catching up with group after flat  repair #4

The ride was great. Tail winds pushed us up the hills and around the corners. This had to be the easiest century ride yet. I think we all felt like super heroes.  Beautiful farm lands. Great views over rolling hills.

Getting warm in the sun

Missing the storms and enjoying nice cloud cover 

  Small town riding on quiet roads

 Fun route through neighborhoods

Lunch worked out wonderfully well. We ate at the Apple Bin Grill and Bakery (Mile 51) that I had spotted while working on the route map before our ride. For once Dennis reached a place that was still in business! Lunch was waiting for us as we rolled in. It was great.

Somehow Dennis's pose reminds me of Mr. T as he protects us and the van!

Diana was feeling great after lunch and the pace picked up noticeably. I heard a bit more breathing on the climbs but no one complained.

Pulling in the miles

Riding through York was a nightmare. I got right-hooked by a car and narrowly avoided getting taken out. The driver never saw me, despite my flashing lights. Not a surprise. Minutes later, Diana and David both almost got slapped in their necks by a large pickup truck with wide trailer mirrors. How it missed them is beyond me. All of this is a reminder to us to stay vigilant, especially when riding through areas with high traffic.

Once we passed York, the route was once again very pleasant and it wasn't until we started to cross the Susquehanna River, that Rick, the wall, once again flatted. Make that count #5. This was a pinch flat. No comment! We inflated this one with a WW I era CO2 cartridge that barely got the pressure up to a pinch flat resistance level. We topped it off with my pocket pump and were back on the road.

Ricks view as his tire goes flat

Ready to roll 

(Rick's expression as I remind him that fixing flats is part of the game, might as well enjoy the break!)

We reach our B&B in good spirits. Cheered on not just by Dennis and Sean but also by the Inn owners, Lark and Michael.

Amy joined us for dinner at a great Peruvian restaurant, Serrano, and we all had a great time.

 

So now it's time to get this blog out and start working on bikes!

Cheers, Dave

Day 79 Frostburg to Hagerstown, Maryland

95 miles.... 85 miles of mostly rocky and at times muddy trails followed by 10 miles of rolling hills. 4 punctures. 3 new tubes one patch job as we ran out of properly sized tubes but that's another story.

Although most of the ride was slightly downhill, it was still tough due to the many obstacles we had to avoid...rocks, roots, suicidal squirrels, puddles, pot holes,... you name it. Although the ride was tough, it was beautiful. We had breaks from the tree cover and saw wonderful countryside views as we left Frostburg.

Here are some shots from the day...

 Early morning descent

Nice single track...but where's my mountain bike?

Views

Surprise coffee delivery (thanks Sean and Dennis)

Riding through the Paw Paw tunnel, 3118 feet long on the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal

(Glad we had lights as it is not lit and was deceivingly long)!)

Out the other side

Swampy regions

When we reached Hancock, Maryland, Dennis pointed out that there was a nicely paved bike path that had been running parallel to our rocky route for the last 10 miles. Ouch!  We quickly  switched over to that and were like kids in a candy store..or maybe more like dogs without a leash. We felt free as the wind and enjoyed the beautiful feeling you get pedaling with efficiency!

Pavement!

We even got a rotating pace line in place. This is always fun. Here's a short clip.

We pulled in to our hotel just as a some thundershowers started to come down.

David Regan being chased by storm clouds

No one complained as the humid heat prior to this was oppressive.  Lots of smiles...

Diana is describing the effect of the wind on her riding...I think

We ate dinner at the hotel, pizza brought in from a nearby gas station pizza joint. It was not bad, though as hungry as we were, I bet we would have been content with cardboard flavored with salt and sugar.