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Riding my bicycle across the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route
Where’s Francis? Follow along daily on my map: https://share.garmin.com/FrancisDavis (ask me for password)
What is WarmShowers? In a word, WS is excellent. I would describe it as similar to the AirBnB platform. Cyclists are able to list a room in their house or even a back yard for fellow cyclists to stay at, free of charge. My stay tonight in Camden, ME will be my first end on the receiving end of hospitality.
Back at home, our house is located less than a 1/4 mile from the Northern Tier Route, the same route I’m on right now. We listed our backyard, and so far we’ve had 2 sets of guests staying with us. The first, Jenny and Dan were riding from Tempe, AZ all the way to Bar Harbor, ME. They were great. Most recently, we hosted four gentlemen touring around Lake Erie. We fed them hamburgers and beer, and everyone was happy! I’ve had a great time hosting, but I’m ready to be on the receiving end too!
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It was another uneventful day of sorts. The roads, as we descend from mountainous New York, are not only becoming much flatter but also trending downhill towards Lake Ontario. This is both a blessing and a curse; I prefer the mountainous landscape to looking at farmland. On the other hand, flat means fast, and easy. Mall of the cities so far in New York past Inlet have been supremely underwhelming as well. Without tourism or another apparent economic driver, these towns aren’t doing well. It’s a bummer. On to the more interesting part of the day. We had a cycling companion at the nights WarmShowers, Trip. He was interesting. He rode a recumbent with quite a bit of luggage (pictures attached). Even though he rode slow we caught up with him and passed him several times, and he zoomed by our stopped bikes as we stopped for refreshments. Secondly, the campground we stayed at was super cool. Stysh’s Brown Barn offered lawn space, a communal basement, kitchen, and showers for $7 / cyclist. It was great. Their were even arcade games in the basement. Mark, being a 90s kid, nerded out. TM: 4:13, AVS: 12.9, DST: 54.80 not too much to report from this day. Which is a good thing on the tail of the 80 mile long day. We purposely slept in, setting off around 11:30. It did rain in the morning while we rode and I dubbed Mark and myself as the “Soggy Bottom Boys”. Unremarkable diner 15 miles down the trail. Keep pedaling.
The most remarkable part of the day was our WarmShowers in Raquette Lake, NY, located on a picturesque NY lake. We were able to stay in an unoccupied for the night rental cabin, and our host, Liz, made the most remarkable chicken casserole. The night went by smoothly, perfect. TM: 3:16, AVS: 12.6, DST 41.5 It’s remarkable the distance that one can propel themselves on a bicycle in a single day. The hardest part is simply not to stop pedaling. Every second off the bike is time wasted, compounding through the day. Pushing through the physical fatigue, I find moments when I can cruise quickly, muscles working in harmony. At other times, I am struggling to maintain 10MPH on a slight downhill, or heaving air climbing a steep mountain. Either way, I made it. Mark and I set off from our campsite in Ripton around 9AM, finishing the rest of the duck eggs for breakfast. Our decided coffee stop was in Middlebury, a college town. We had a bit of a long stop. I wrote the post for the day before, and everything took too long. We set off again. We’ve been using Google Maps for mileage calculations, as it typically roughly follows the Northern Tier Trail. Google Maps plays tricks on us. At the campground in Ripton, it said that Raquette Lake, our destination for 7/14 was 80 miles away. In Middlebury yesterday, it said that Raquette was 130 miles away. So we ended up doing 80 miles to what we originally thought would be a 40 mile day, finally ending in Woodcomb, NY where president Teddy Roosevelt was sworn in on his way back from hiking Mt. Marcy in the Adirondacks. After Middlebury, there were a few coffee / gas station stops, nothing profound. We had to take a ferry to cross into New York, that was fun. The tastycakes came out, the pedaling continued. I rolled into Woodcomb behind Mark around 8:30. Pushing myself over a hill, I saw an enthusiastic Mark saying the simple words “I found dinner”. I was overjoyed. Positioned next to Mark was a mobile food truck called “Dack Dogs”. We hoovered nachos, a cheese covered soft pretzel, and two meat sauce, barbecue and fired onion laden hotdogs. So satisfying. We rolled into the campground, full and satisfied. It was worth it. TM: 7:11, AVS: 11.2, DST: 81.27 |
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