Seven Days out: Retrospective on the tour

October 25, 2019

...and bonus pictures (just because)

Some may have thought it silly; to plan a ride so hilly; but despite the rain; and the dog-bite pain; I peddled from Bar Harbor to Philly

First, my thoughts on the tour, then the tour by the numbers, and then a few random pictures that didn't make the blog. Sound good? Read on...

Introspection

So that's it, then. Another tour in the books. After a crazy"get back to work week in Information Technology" I'm hopping back into the pictures and the tour and the memories I had. A week later brings a whole different retrospective. It's good to get away from work and have an extended (at least until I retire) 2 weeks away from work. And I did have some good experiences: chilly mornings in Maine, Staying in roadside motels, Breakfast sandwiches, Long days in the saddle on bike paths (some of them anyway), Quaint seaside villages, Exploring new places, Finding unique places to eat, Stopping in CT and PA to see my family.

I'm a planner. I like to plan out the route finding bike paths and byways on my own. I plan the route alongside roadsideamerica.com and roadtrippers.com to find out what interesting attractions and points of interest are along my route, and I plan around them. I knew this route would include some of those, and because it was planned to the nth degree, there wasn't much room for bad weather. So I had to adjust and skip a lot of points of interest I wanted to see. I could list them all out here but it really doesn't matter. The storms happened, my route changed, I adjusted, and ultimately, I made my reservation in Philly with Amtrak (even if they did wrongly kick me out of the first class lounge because I had a bike (end result, a "supervisor" called and apologized and said they should not have done that, but that still left me discriminated against)).

So what next? What did I learn? To be flexible. I have no control over the weather so why worry or complain about it? I can't schedule a good weather day on a specific day so I adjust. What I might do in the future is plan a rough route but not make overnight reservations. I'll simply ride and figure out midday where I want to be. Hotwire.com is a great resource for low hotel rates. I know I ran into campgrounds which had no space for a single backpacking tent when I was on my tour last year, so if I want to camp I'm going to have to use satellite view on Google maps to find suitable stealth camping spots. Maybe it's just I plan the end destination in mind and make it up as I go along. It will be a little more out of my comfort zone, and it may be difficult if I'm traveling in high-tourist season, or if there's a convention in town, or something like that. Don't want to end up like Joseph and discover there's no rooms at the inn.

So ultimately, I'm not complaining. I enjoyed the ride. I did over 500 miles in 12 days out of a planned 750. Not the longest distance I've ever done, but hey, I still saw a lot of places I never saw before, and that's the whole reason we ride, yes?

Tour by the numbers

Miles traveled: 520; Elevation climbed over those miles: 24, 482'

Limericks written: 16 (14 in the dailies, 1 in a photo, and 1 in comment) Total guest limericks: 1 (Thanks, Greg Garceau!)
Fast forwards: 2 (Portsmouth to Boston to beat the rain and Danbury to NYC to beat the rain)
Dog bites: 1; and the necessary tetanus shots: 1. Healthcare facilities visited in search of tetanus shot provider: 3

Number of days riding in the rain: 2
Pizzas consumed: 4; hamburger and fries: 3; Tapas: 2; Tortellini; 1
Glasses of wine consumed: :-)
Pounds lost: 2.6

Random pictures that didn't make the original journal

Fresh bread in an Italian grocery shop in Boston’s North End

I really liked what New Bedford did with the downtown area revitalizing it. This is shot from across the highway that cuts between the town and the harbor

Had to wait about 7-10 minutes for this bridge to let the sailboat pass (you can see it just passing under the drawbridge) as I entered Portsmouth, NH

Downtown Providence. Riding through Providence was really quite pleasant. Moreso than Hartford, CT. There were a lot more trees lining the streets

Middle of nowhere, CT. I really liked this sideroad leading to Matt’s Veggies. This sign and the house were the only thing at this intersection.

That’s about it. I guess I’m finished with this tour. Time to work on my next one. Actually, truth be told, I already have. I don’t think I’m going to plan much of the next tour, though, taking what I’ve learned on this one and applying it to the next tour. I really like linking rail trails and roads together so it’s probably going to be something related to that.

So here’s the plan for the “unplanned” tour. My initial thought is to drive to Columbus, park my car, rent a car and drive to Wash DC, return the rental car, and drive to my car. The initial route will be C&O, then GAP, then Monogahela trail system around Pittsburgh, then west into Ohio to the rail trail going into COlumbus. And if I can step outside my comfort zone and plan ONLY that, it will be a different type of tour for me. I won’t feel as though I HAVE to make it to a certain spot each night - I merely ride until I feel like I want to stop. The only certain destination is limited by the number of vacation days and my car at the end of the ride.

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