ES11 - In Boston with less than a week to go

The ES trip has not started but my journey has begun. Yesterday I flew to Boston to spend a few days with my daughter, Jen, her husband, Doug, and my grandson, Jack. Jack is as cute as he was in August when he visited me for two weeks.

Thought I would give you a bit more information on the route of the trip. We start in Portland ME on the 22nd. From there we go to NH, MA, CT, NY, NJ, and DE. This will be 9 days of riding and probably the hardest terrain in terms of elevation gain. Yes we are going north to south, however, there will be a lot of ups and downs along the way. In DE we have a much needed rest day. From there we go down through MD, VA, and NC. Originally we were going down the outer banks, but Highway 12 no longer is in tact because of Irene. I am sure Crossroads has plan B and plan C in place, however, we have not been told what they are. Another rest day after only 4 days of riding. We will hardly be warmed up by then! On to SC and GA, spending one night in Charleston. Since it is a Saturday night, I will round up a group of riders to hear Robert play jazz at the Mercado. Of course Norm will join us for the night and Catie, and Charlie, and Jill will greet us as well. That stretch will be flat as will the rest of the trip. We have a rest day in Savannah, having ridden 5 days to get there. Then sadly it will be only 4 days down to Daytona Beach, FL, where the ride will end. The total trip is around 1600 miles and we will average 80 miles a day.

Because I plan to continue doing biking trips, I purchased a hard case for shipping my bike. This was my first experience at packing the bike myself and I was a bit nervous about it. Taking the bike apart is easy: remove the wheels, take the seat post out, remove the pedals (the hardest part if the last mechanic was a weight lifter who torqued them on), and remove the handle bars. The trick is to get all the parts protected against anything rubbing against them. This took me several hours, pipe insulation, bubble wrap, zip ties, tape, and finally extra towels. I don't think anything moved after I was done! Since it was my first time, I chose to ship it to the bike shop and have them assemble it. Yesterday I learned all was fine....a relief to me. Next time I will be brave enough to assemble it myself.

We were told to ship our bikes to arrive a week before the trip. After much grumbling because of being without a bike for two weeks, most of us followed the rules and sent them off. Unfortunately one of my friends found out the hard way why this is a recommendation. Her bike shop packed the bike in a cardboard box (standard practice) and sent it off in plenty of time. Tuesday it came back to the shop with a big gash in the box. They unpacked the bike, put it together, checked it out (no problems), and sent it out overnight delivery. Of course it did not arrive as promised and finally was delivered yesterday. The bike shop in Maine unpacked it and the derailleur hanger was cracked. This is not something the shop has lying around so it had to be ordered and should arrive in time to assemble the bike on Monday. Murphy's Law in practice.

I am getting very excited about the trip. When I rode LA to Boston, I was the slowest rider and always the last one in for the day. This meant lots of hours alone on the road...something I had to overcome mentally. So this past year my training has had a lot of focus on speeding up. Note I said focus, it remains to be seen if I achieved the goal. I especially struggle on the hills because of lack of areas to train...but I know how to ride on the flat into a headwind...lots of practice there. No matter what I will enjoy the trip and take it as it comes.

Here in Boston a cold front has come through, high of 64 today. The forecast is to warm back up later in the week. I think the knee warmers and arm warmers may see a lot of use on this trip.