Rompingground

Current Location: St. Paul, Minnesota

I cheated, I accepted the fact pretty easily.  Let me explain.  Leaving Michigan gets harder each time I visit, there is certainly something beautiful about the lakes, rolling hills, fresh corn, and family there.  My cousin Jim offered to drive me from Ann Arbor up past the Macinac Bridge into the Upper Peninsula, I rationalized this offer to stay an extra day at my auntie and uncles house and not be behind in my schedule across the continent.  As a good friend asked me, ‘whats more important, peddling or people?’  An easy question for me to answer.  I’d list everyone in Michigan that I saw to thank them but then this post would get too long, suffice to say that I appreciated all the food, beer, and conversation with everyone there along with the bike rides and lawn mowings (even if I do break windows.)

Hands down Wisconsin was the nicest state to ride so far this trip.  99% of the ride through the state is done on county roads that are barely trafficked, even on weekends.  It’s all rolling hills through the state with forest on both sides of the road for a greater part.  I didn’t start seeing cows or farms until the last days ride and only one sign in the entire state for cheese for sale.  This isn’t the typical route through Wisconsin.  One guy I met said that the average population of Northern Wisconsin was 5 people per square mile.  I’m not sure where the defining line of north and south Wisconsin is but I believe it as stretches of Wisconsin were fairly empty.

While I don’t stop at every diner I see, I do treat myself once in a while just to see if I can find the diners of old. I like to find the diners where theres a bunch of old boys bellied up to a table, pancakes are the size of your plate and a no-nonsense waitress serving endless cups of weak coffee.  The old boys gab about nothing more important that whats going on in town or the weather.  It proves to me that life really can be that simple and trouble free.  It’s rare to find these establishments and I’ve only managed to find a few of them, if you stop in Butternut Wisconsin look for Jumbo’s and step into what feels like someones kitchen, it provided enough energy that day to ride forever.

At this point in the ride I’m guessing it’s more or less halfway through the ride, I could say this because I’m crossing the Mississippi or that I have about 22 days of riding left, this is a rough estimate of days left, but I hope pretty close to accurate as any longer and I’ll be riding through snow somewhere above 6000ft.  I leave the Adventure Cycling route for a greater portion of the remainder meaning I have no clue where towns, grocery stores, or gas stations are.  This gives me a little bit of anxiety because I rely on the latter two for water and food which probably means I’ll stop at every one I see to fill water.

Current Location: Ann Arbor, Michigan

Adding Pennsylvania to my list of states I’ve rolled through on this trip is something of a sham. I did manage to camp over night in the state so it counts but I think the total mileage in the state came out to just a shade over 45 miles.

Speaking of mileage, I’ve now managed to throw in 3 days of 130 miles or more. The last two days before making it to my grandmothers old farm I churned out two consecutive days of very long distance riding. This was done mostly in the hope of getting an extra day off or at least get to some good food earlier. I don’t especially like going those distances, each time I’ve done it by the end of the day it feels like all will to peddle is gone and somehow my feet keep going round in circles.

Ohio turns out to be really quite flat which kinda helped with the long distances and peddling my way through Cleveland didn’t turn out to be as hard as I had imagined. And as I was rolling through there I realized as I was going by Browns stadium that I think I had been there with some fellow UH band members when we were at either the big dance or another NCAA tournament, I can’t honestly say I remember which.

I don’t regret pushing hard the last two days before getting to Manchester (I arrived a week ago today.) After being greeted by my aunt my first question was if there was beer in the fridge. I’m glad my family knows me well and is willing to pull out the stops when I get here. My cousin had the fridge well stocked with Bells for my arrival and we got straight to bbq’ing and drinking a few beers with cousins, aunts and uncles. A great way to end the day and start a break in Michigan.

After a week off the cycle (minus a ride with my cousin through the UofM and some byways of Michigan) it’s time I get back on the cycle. The family managed to squeeze in a great bbq at the old farm with lots of people, food, and beer. I got to mow some lawns while I was here and spend a lot of time visiting people.

I’ve added a few pictures I’ve taken along the road.

Current Location: Silver Creek, New York

Time, which was my amigo is once again the enemy.  The days which were so long in Europe have become noticeably shorter here and I’ve had more than a few locals tell me that I’m headed in the wrong direction.  They go on to explain that most tourers they see this time of year are headed in the other direction just about finishing in Bar Harbor.  So I definitely feel the pressure to keep up the distance each day.

Riding along the Erie canal was a nice change of pace and gave my legs some rest after the hills and mountains of the Adarondacs.  The towns along the canal are small and quiet by 8:30p except for the trains that parallel the canal, which I think use their horn far too much.

I inquired at the state park I rode by last night what the cost of setting up my little tent would be, the answer was 26$ for one night.  I scoffed at that and rode away, so far the average across the states I’ve been has been 24$ a night.  Far too expensive for me, and a good incentive to free camp as I go along.  Along the Erie canal a few towns have embraced the hiker/biker and provide the town common for camping which I think is a great idea to bring custom to these little towns which otherwise wouldn’t see that money, if only more towns would embrace the hiker/biker they might see the benifits too.

The ride past Niagara Falls was cool, I won’t enthuse too much about it but it was a big waterfall.  I’ll give it that, touristy to the max.  Hot dogs for 5$, you must be kidding me.  There wasn’t as many people as I thought might be there which was nice, because if it was wall to wall people I wouldn’t have even bothered to stop.  I did meet a few cyclists along the cycle path and we had a nice chat, they shared some homemade cookies and told me how to best get through Buffalo.  The border crossings weren’t as bad as they were made out to be, though the guy on the American side didn’t believe the photo was me for a very long time.  I had to explain that I had been cycling fairly seriously and the drivers license looked no better.  After a while he lightened up and let me pass.

I’m just about done with New York at this point and the ride through Pennsylvania should be done in just a few hours (I think the total distance through Pennsylvania is 40 miles.)  After that it’s Ohio and Cleveland.  Another big city to navigate, I got minorly lost yesterday after going through Buffalo but some locals pointed me onto the right road and I got through with little pain.  Just a few days away from a real roof over my head again and my hammock!

Current Location: Blue Lake Mountain, New York

Friday is Pieday, thats all it took to get me into a diner in New Hampshire. I may bemoan the state of some foods in America but there are a few things we do great, and pie would be one of them. There were about 6 pies on the shelf but the girl didn’t get far past chocolate peanut butter pie. Three of my favorite things together: chocolate, peanut butter, and pie… it didn’t stand a chance.

I think I’ve got most of the appalachin mountains out of the way at this point, the title is a reference to what a guy told me at a gas station as I explained what I was doing. He was also on a bike but just said jeeze, you gotta cross the green and the white. I figured he meant mountains. I surprised myself by getting over them fairly easily, which isn’t to say I don’t huff and puff but at least I don’t stop like I used to.

The scenery along the mountain sides are remarkable and the towns are quaint enough, with a diner here and there. Though I might complain that I can never find a diner when I want a cup of coffee in the morning.

I’m in the middle of the Blue Mountain Ranges, which I belive John Denver sang about? Though I could be wrong. Nice agian with little traffic, except for logging trucks which I love so much. I start the Erie Canal the day after tomorrow which will take me straight into Buffalo basically.

Current Location: Bar Harbor, Maine

Lets forget about the nonsense I have to deal with for a while.  I’m still trying to ride hard each day.

This is certainly a different story than it was when I set off 2 years ago.  I have yet to walk my bike up any hills and I’m hitting my targets of near 100 miles a day, sometimes I get over that mark.  I do have to say that the terrain is fairly tame and I don’t hit anything over 1000ft for a couple more days, so that will be a better test to see how I handle things.

Passing through New Hampshire (the Live Free or Die state) was fairly uneventful, although people were quite proud to point out the motto of the state.  To me it seems more appropriate for Texas than rural New Hampshire, but they like it.

Getting into Maine (I’m not sure of the state motto, I’m guessing the Lobster State or the Tree State) one of the first things I see commonly is signs for Lobsters, I think I even found a chair making shop that sells lobsters.  Who here doesn’t sell lobsters I am not sure.  Another thing I found as I got nearer to Bar Harbor was signs for blueberries, I guess they are in season.  Lo and behold I start seeing blue things in low shrubs on the side of a quiet road.  After dumping the bike I gorged myself on free blueberries for quite a while.

Getting to Bar Harbor was something of a quandary for me, mostly because now that I am here I have to backtrack several days to get where I already was, but I thought it more important to do the whole ride instead of leaving off the tail.  And had I not come here, I wouldn’t have gotten a free meal of blueberries!

I have only run into one cycling tourer so far, he was on his first or second day from Bar Harbor headed to Florida, Chris is his name and I’ve linked his blog.  He is riding for cerebral palsy of which his son suffers from.  We had a nice chat and we went our ways.  A lot of the route so far has been on US1 which isn’t so much fun to ride.  I’m hoping as I get back into New Hampshire and Vermont it’ll be more back roads and rural riding.

Alrighty, enough messing around.  Time to ride over the mountain I just came over. wheeeeee.

Quick Note! I’m doing fine, I am aware of that my gmail account has been hacked. Working on clearing it up. I am not in London, I am in Maine, USA.

Current Location: Boston, Massachusetts

This is too cool not to share.  The reason I made it down to New York City instead of heading straight for the west coast is the event of having the Bride of Rock aka Janice competing in the national Air Guitar Championships.

First I have to say that I think the campaign for this years competition is genius.  It’s simply Believe, think about it a moment…  To top it off Fatima is featured in one of the posters and I believe he was also plastered to the side of a bus at some point.  You can’t tell me that after looking at that image you don’t believe he isn’t a rock star.

On to the Bride.  She took the Los Angeles regional with a stunning performance which Alastair simply summed up with “Blimey, wasn’t expecting that bit at the end!”

At the nationals I got recruited to help her to the stage, she stood on a chair while a couple of us lifted the chair to the stage.  She rocked out to Bulls on Parade and did a great performance.  Unfortunately the judges were pretty cynical and she came in 9th place out of 18 (I think she missed round 2 by just a fraction of a point.)  The plan for round 2, had she made it, would have been pretty amazing as well as it included magic tricks and doppelgangers.

In the end Romeo Dance Cheetah took the night, even though I thought Dreamcatcher was the clear winner.

New York City was crazy as is anything having to do with Fatima and Janice, the food and the people were great.  My first night there I stayed at a hostel near Bed Stuy, a somewhat notorious area which turned out to be perfectly fine.  I do have to thank my NYC hosts for putting me up as well, Dan and Liza were perfectly gracious about letting us take over the apartment.  Now, it’s time to ride.

It always seems to happen this way at the end of a chapter, things feel really rushed.  Even though I didn’t get to do much this week with my bike in the shop.  After I don’t know how many miles it was finally time to get things looked at, it turns out that almost everything that has to do with pushing the bike forward needed to be replaced.  I hope this is the only time in the next 4 months that this has to happen.

I guess it has to be said that watching Holland lose the world cup was pretty sobering.  After a very tense game losing in the last minute was pretty devastating, plans to go out and celebrate were quickly scrapped and the promise of seeing grown men cry was fulfilled.  I have to admit it was fun being in a country whose competing for the world cup,  I don’t think it can compare to any sporting event in America, and then on top of that spending it with friends in old and new dutch pubs made it way better.

How do I thank everyone that helped me out in Europe, the list is long and I’m very grateful to each one of them.  Europe turned out a lot better than I anticipated though probably not as long as I thought it would have been.  I’m quite excited to start the ride across America.  I have to confess that my trip through Europe was technically done the easy way with all the river runs I did so America will prove to be a lot more challenging.

I also have to admit there is a certain nervousness about going back to the states, I get it every time I’m headed to a new continent though I didn’t really expect it this time around since I’m sorta headed back home.  I’m sure the feeling will wear off once I get back on the cycle.  For a guy who tries to avoid big cities heading to The Big City is a little out of character but it’s for a good reason.

Got a chance to upload more pictures.

Current Location: Amsterdam, Holland

It seems I’ve chosen the epicenter of sporting at the moment.  With Holland going to the championships of the world cup and the Tour de France starting in Rotterdam this year.  I managed to get down to the southern part of Holland to catch the peloton fly by.  It was 3 hours of waiting for 10 seconds of sheer madness, totally worth it.  There was a massive amount of people along the whole 200+ km course, and the little town I was in was no exception, I guess any excuse to get out and drink is taken when available.  I must admit that my respect for the tour has grown immensely since I’ve done some of the distances these guys do, just not at the speed they do it at.  I’m not sure how it is possible for them to keep up the cadence they do day after day, to me it seems super-human.  It’s easy to wax poetic on how difficult the race can be as many authors already have and in my mind there is no competition in the world that comes close to the difficulty of the tour, how these guys push themselves to the razors edge of perfection day after day baffles me.

And then along comes the world cup, something I also have to admit not paying much attention to.  Comes with being American I guess.  It’s hard to not get caught up in it over here, wildly evident after crossing the border from Germany into Holland whole towns are festooned in orange banners, almost like Queens day all over again.  I’ve been able to catch the last 2 games, I usually don’t even know what day it is but it’s easy to figure out when the games are.  Just go through a town completely empty and you wonder where everyone is until you get to the pub, park the bike and enter the fray.  Watching the game last night in Amsterdam was pretty crazy and I can imagine things will only get better on Sunday.

I must admit being without a definite direction makes for a little more difficult cycling.  But I’ve managed to keep on the bike every day since leaving Copenhagen.  Choosing to fly out of Holland means my training for going across America I probably could have chosen a more appropriate country like Germany or anywhere else really.  Not many hills here so I’ll have to see how I do with hills in a few weeks.