The Trip - By the Numbers & THANKS

Here are some numbers that you may (or may not) find interesting:

Start date: June 14

End date: August 16

Total days: 63

Total riding days: 56

Total rest days: 7

Total miles: 3749.8

Avg miles per riding day: 67

Distance walked Trikes: 0

# of flats (Jake): 15

# of flats (Rob): 2

# of rear tires replaced: 0

# of front tires replaced (Jake): 10

# of front tires replaced (Rob): 2

# of riding days with some rain: 4

# of hotel days: 12

# of camping days: 51

# of things thrown at us from cars: 0

# of wrong/missed turns: 4

# of extra miles ridden because of same: 3

# of chains replaced: 2

# of times chains broken: 2 (Jake)

# of holes in frame due to chain: 2 (Jake)

# of pedals replaced: 1 pr (Jake)

# of times trike tipped over while riding: 2 (Rob)

# of near misses with cars or trucks (that we know of): 3

# of near misses with lightening: 1

# of near misses with planes: 1

# of arguments between Rob & Jake: 0 (really!)

There are many people who I would like to thank for helping make this trip such a success. In compiling this list I'm sure that I will miss mentioning somebody, and for that I apologize. 

- The teachers, BT's, and administrators in the school districts where I work for filling in for me and for allowing me the summer off to travel with my son.

- Woody at Burrrows Specialized Bicycles in Brattleboro for boxing up the trikes for us and shipping them to Washington.

- Vicki and her crew at Sound Bikes & Kayaks in Port Angeles for putting the trikes together and for shipping back all of that extra junk that we thought we were going to need.

- Forest and Ben for being the first two bikers that we met on the trip for their enthusiasm and support at the very beginning.

- Jodi, Richard, & Colleen for agreeing to be on the Board of Giving Back, Inc. and for helping with the fundraising. And an extra thank you to Jodi for following the blog so religiously and for making all of those encouraging comments along the way.

- Ken, Georgia, Mike, Rick, Dan, Laurie, Ben, Hannah and others for taking us in, letting us stay, and for feeding us while we were on the road.

- Jim & Todd for showing us Wisconsin hospitality and for getting us in the paper in Waupaca (and to the retired cardiologist who bought us breakfast there)..

- Tom & Dave for their humor and companionship.

- Jenny & Wally for putting up with Jake being so fast and me being so slow for so many days.

- All of the people who donated from $2 to $50 during our ride (when we didn't ask for a penny). And to all of those people who will be donating once our application for tax exempt status has been approved.

- All of the people before the trip who gave us hope and encouragement and all of you who followed the Blog (Jake says that there are only two of you) and made positive comments (and to the few detractors who made us want to succeed that much more).

- To Susan and Kelsey who maintained things at home so we could make the trip and who were there for us every step (or pedal) of the way. We really couldn't have done it without you.

- And mostly - To Jake: who, at 17, was willing to give up his entire summer to spend every waking (and sleeping) minute with his dad, helping me to fulfill a life-long dream. I cannot thank you enough for this great gift. I love you and am so proud of you!

A Fundraising Note: I am working with the IRS to complete the process of getting our tax exempt number and will then be starting the fundraising in earnest. Please be patient. This is a great cause and I hope that you will all consider donating when we finally get this settled. I will post something on this Blog when we are ready to receive donations.  Thank you all.

Take care & follow your dreams,

Rob & Jake

Done & Done! (June 14 - August 16,, 2011)

WE DID IT!!!!

And almost didn't... Our last day was by far one of the more difficult we've had on the trip. The forty miles we rode from Bucksport to Bar Harbor represented more rain than we have ridden in during all our days on the road this summer. It was raining hard enough that, if it weren't our last stretch, we would have holed up somewhere for the rest of the day. The roads we were riding on were particularly narrow, with no shoulder - or with a shoulder that sloped down to the right, making us feel as if we were going to fall over at any minute trying to avoid broken pavement and cavernous potholes. The rain does not seem to bring out the best in automotive behavior either as drivers appeared to find us a greater nuisance than usual and lost all sense of how to drive safely around cyclists.

The biggest impediment to our finishing yesterday was Jake's trike. If you read the last blog, you'll remember that it was making loud and strange noises. When we pulled it into the hotel room yesterday morning before setting out for Bar Harbor, we found out that the noise was caused by Jake's chain sawing through his frame! (Effectively enough that Jake is going to apply for a patent on a bicycle-powered chain saw after we get back). When we fixed his chain the previous day, we must have done something that caused it to rub against one of the aluminum tubes, hard enough to create a hole in the tube.

After much hand-wringing and woe is us-ing, we headed off to Hannafords for repair materials. The check-out clerks thought it odd when we left with a plastic container of soup, a roll of electrical tape, and a plastic whiffle bat. With modifications that MacGiver would have been proud of, we finally set off on the last leg of the journey. While the first repair job held, the chain ripped through the hard plastic chain guard (evidently children's plastic bats are more abrasion-resistant than plastic tubes designed to resist chain abrasion on trikes) and started making a second hole in another part of the tube. Fearing that Jake's bike would be sawed (sawn?) in two, making it really difficult to finish the trip, we had to effect repairs three more times in the driving rain before limping into Bar Harbor and making our way down to the Atlantic. The last repair also required Jake to ride in his highest gears for the last five miles of steep hills, just to make it more interesting. By the time we entered Bar Harbor, Jake was like a WWII bomber trying to make it back to its airfield with inoperable landing gear, one engine out, and a ruptured fuel tank.

But, make it we did. And one might argue that the accomplishment was sweeter because of the difficulties of the last couple of days (we wouldn't, but one might).

So, Jake and I did the water thing by negotiating down the slippery slope next to the town pier to place our wheels, and then ourselves, into the waters of the Atlantic Ocean. Sixty-three days after leaving the Pacific in western Washington we had successfully pedaled our way the entire way across the United States - 3,749.8 miles. Not a bad way to spend your summer, realizing a life-long dream while hanging out on a challenging adventure with your 17-year-old son. Right now I'm feeling pretty blessed!

Susan showed up to welcome us back as did Kelsey (my daughter). We hadn't expected Kelsey to be there, so it was a very nice surprise for both Jake and me. They brought dry clothes (made from natural fibers) and snacks of bread and cheese, and fruit. We are staying in a nice hotel with incredible ocean views - where the hotel staff sent us a congratulatory basket of sparkling cider and cheese & crackers. Life is good.

Stay tuned for at least one more blog where I will summarize some of the information about the trip and try to say thank you to the people who helped us make it happen.

Take care,

Rob & Jake

Road Scholar Award Stripped!!

Hey all:

In a stunning blow to Michigan, the National Academy of Highways and Bi-ways has stripped the state of its Road Scholar award for the worst cycling roads on the Northern Tier! In a last-minute decision, the award has been given to the State of Maine for the narrow, shoulder-less, and crumbling-edged surfaces they dare to call passable roads. "This was a difficult decision for the Academy," stated Dean Walters, Academy President. "Once we give out an award we are very reluctant to take it away. But the conditions of the secondary roads in Maine, specifically those chosen by Adventure Cycling for their Northern Tier, cross-country route, were too horrendous to ignore. In the end, it was a unanimous decision to give the Road Scholar to them.To the State of Michigan we say - There's always next year!"

So, this is our last riding day. We survived (sort of) the Maine roads and are in a hotel approx. 50 miles from our final destination (Bar Harbor). It is raining, so the last ride will be a bit soggy. Our bikes are starting to tell us that, they too, are ready to be done. Jake's chain broke. We fixed it. Then Jake's chain guide broke. We fixed that. Now it makes a noise that can be heard in France and is fighting him every inch. My bike likes to throw off it's cargo every time we hit a significant bump (which is every 23" here in Maine). Gatorade bottles, pumps, panniers- all have decided at one point or another to take a dive off the back of the trike.

What a long strange trip it's been. I can't believe it's almost over. Susan is driving our Subaru from Vermont today and we will rent a trailer in Bar Harbor to get us and the trikes back to Guilford. We're going to stay an extra night in Bar Harbor, so hope to be home on Thursday. I'll blog at least a couple more times in the next few days and then again when we begin our fundraising appeal in earnest.

Thanks for following along.

Take care,

Rob & Jake

A Quick Update & Fundraising Clarification

Hay all:

Just a quick update as we are heading out in just a few minutes.

Can't believe we are almost at the end. After a couple of nights at the Middlebury Inn we stayed at a cyclist B & B in Sharon, at a friend of Jake's in Thetford, and a hostel in Conway, NH. Finding campsites has gotten more difficult as there are fewer of them and this is the high season for central/western NH and Maine. We will stay in campgrounds for three nights in Maine and then at a hotel in Bar Harbor for two nights. We did a bit of climbing yesterday going over the Kinsman Ridge and then the Kancamagus Highway in an 80  mile day. It was the most climbing we've done since the Rockies.

For logistical reasons we are having to give up Lubec as a final destination. It was proving too complicated to find a way back home from there. As Bar Harbor is the official stopping place for the Adventure Cycling Northern Tier route, we feel ok about ending there.

As many of you may have discovered, the Paypal button on this blog site does not currently allow you to make a donation. Our application is still pending with the IRS for our tax exempt status and Paypal won't let us take donations until we have that number. Therefore we will be conducting our fundraising in reverse - having completed the trip first, and then asking for donations after. We are hoping that folks will still be feeling generous when our fundraising letter arrives.

Hope you are all well and enjoying the second half of your summer.

Take care,

Rob & Jake

Where Did All These Hills Come From?

Hey all:

We realized that after climbing hills in the Adirondack's and eastern Green Mountains these last few days, our climbing legs are a little out of use. From the Rockies in western Montana through the Erie Canal Trail in Western, New York there are hills, but they are not the kind that suck the life out of you by going straight up and straight down every mile for the duration of your day's ride. Maybe I'm just getting old, but it feels as if we are just starting out again. Jake, of course, is climbing the hills quite easily and making fun of his aging father.

The Erie Canal trail was a mixed blessing. Even though the surface was mostly crushed limestone, which reduced our speed by quite a bit, the first day was quite nice. The weather was fair, the path flat and free of traffic, and the scenery was beautiful. We camped along the canal with a bunch of people who were on a boating holiday. Most of them were friends already and meet up at the same spot each year.

The second day started with heavy rain that kept us in our tent until 11:00. We then decided to bike in the rain on paths that had gotten slower and soggier. At one point, the path narrowed to a four inch strip of mud, bordered on both sides by four foot high weeds - before it abruptly ended in a wall of weeds. We had to back out into a business park soaking wet and covered in seed pods. Needless to say, we were both a little fussy! We backtracked a few miles to pick up the canal trail on the southern side, before getting a little lost in Rochester.

That night we limped into a camping area on the canal that was a little too seedy-looking even for our tastes and decided to push on to a hotel in Palmyra. When we got there (just as it was getting dark) we discovered that they were hosting a Mormon youth group and had no rooms at the inn. We prayed upon their Christian charity and were allowed to put up our tent behind the hotel, where the Mormon youth paraded back and forth all night and into the next morning (if I didn't know better, I would think that they were looking for more golden tablets).

We followed the coast of Lake Ontario for a bit before we continued east - going up and down steep hills and in and out of small Adirondack towns. We crossed paths with Wally & Jenny again and rode with them off-and-on for a couple of days. We crossed the ferry from Ticonderoga into Vermont and climbed at least 10,000 feet  into Middlebury (one of my favorite Vermont towns - and colleges). We have been holed up in the Middlebury inn for a couple of nights, in part because Jake had a mechanical problem and we had to have an idler overnighted from Oregon to have it repaired. Susan came to visit us at the inn and we had a nice dinner at an Indian restaurant with a great couple who are hiking the Appalachian Trail. It was a lot of fun trading stories with folks who weren't biking. I was jealous of the fact that they have seen bears and we haven't!

If it's not pouring in the morning we will say goodbye to Susan and head over Middlebury Gap and bike to either Bethel or Sharon. Jake wants to visit with a friend from his Ecuador trip who lives in Thetford, so we don't have to bike more than 40 miles a day for the next two days. At our current pace, we should be in Lubec by the 17th or 18th. There are, however, a few hills to climb between here and there...

Take care,

Rob & Jake

Back in the USA

Hey all:

We crossed back into the United States in Niagara Falls yesterday and it feels a little strange to be this close to the East Coast. Even in Michigan it still felt as if we were in a cross-country adventure. Now it's starting to feel like we're coming home.

We stopped off at "Uncle Tom's Cabin" the former home of Jeremiah Henson, the inspiration for Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel of the same name.

The ride through southern Ontario, along the north shore of Lake Erie has been quite nice - fairly flat, decent road conditions, a slight tailwind, and frequent views of the lake. We even dared to enter the somewhat frigid waters - something I would not have dreamed of doing thirty years ago! We went to a beach restaurant with Wally & Jenny and felt as if we were in the Keys - beach volleyball, fruity boat drinks, and Jimmy Buffet.

We continue to benefit from the generosity of others. In Port Stanley, where no one was able to confirm that there was a campground a half-mile from downtown (there was), we were able to stay in the backyard of a man named Mike, who then immediately left for a camping trip of his own.

Then, after getting into Port Dover early one evening, we discovered that it was the first day of a major three day holiday, and there was not a hotel room or campground site within 30 miles in any direction. We all set out in different directions to see where we might be able to ditch camp. Wally ran into Ken and Georgia, a lovely couple in their 80's, who agreed to let us put our tents in their backyard. Over breakfast the next morning, Georgia regaled us with stories of their 58 year marriage. When asked what the secret was for their marital bliss, Georgia indicated that she had lent Ken the $5.00 for their marriage license and he hasn't paid her back yet.

There is quite a controversy going on in Ontario around the placement of wind turbines. There are a number of wind projects already in place and more are planned along the lake shore. You see some signs in support of the projects, but far more with slogans like: "Wind turbines lower property costs 25 - 40%," and "Health studies before wind turbines." I happened to like the way they looked located in and around fields planted with corn, soybeans, and alfalfa.

While stopping at the Canadian side of Niagara Falls was nice, getting out of there was not. The Adventure Cycling maps indicate that you may cross north of Niagara over the Queenston Bridge. A couple of folks we talked to had their doubts, but we blazed forward anyway. After negotiating a section of a busy highway and a traffic circle, we noticed the no bicycle sign at the entrance of the bridge. Having come too far to turn back, we joined a very long line of cars and slowly crawled along for almost two hours before being able to cross. On the bright side, we did meet a few interesting people and made a lot of people smile (or laugh) along the way. Then, when we were just three cars back from the border crossing, two loaded cyclists came down the restricted truck lane and were allowed to cut to the front of the line and cross immediately. Once again, illegal behavior was rewarded and our lawful behavior was punished. Is it any wonder that the human race is going to hell in a handbasket?

We will spend the next week or so traveling across New York, before we get back to New England for our last 500 miles to Lubec, Maine. We will hit the 3000 mile mark sometime today and will end up with about 4000 miles by the time we are done.

Can't believe that it's coming to an end. Bittersweet.

Hope you are well.

Take care,

Rob & Jake

Canada, Oh Canada

Hey all:

Not a lot to report. We’ve made it into Canada and are waiting out the rain in an Ontario Hotel. We’ve been leap-frogging with our new friends from Wisconsin, Jenny & Wally, who are also here at the hotel. The Brits were a day behind us and entered Canada at a different point - and it looks as if they may pass us on our down day.

The riding through eastern Michigan continued to be through fairly flat farmland, making for easy riding. Our average has increased to approx. 80 miles a day (although the winds still haven't heard that they are supposed to blow from west to east).

This sign could have been placed by the Governor of Wisconsin in his effort to further break the back of labor in his state (although I think, given the economy, that he could offer less than $7500 per worker killed. I still think he'll get a lot of applications for "union" hunting licenses).

A Road Scholar (remember those?) award goes to eastern Michigan for having some of the worst roads for cycling that we have seen so far this trip. Half my fillings are gone and every bolt has come loose on our trikes (ok, a slight exaggeration – but the roads were pretty bad). Another Road Scholar award goes to those folks who design and install bike paths. I very much appreciate the money and time that goes into creating paths for folks on bicycles to get to work, exercise, or cross the country free from the dangers of riding with automobiles and trucks. 

The Pere Marquette Trail is a great example of what a bike trail should be: wide, smooth, easy to follow, with well-placed bathrooms along the way. We were able to follow this for almost 60 wonderful miles.

For the other trails builders, there ought to be a few basic rules that they need to follow in constructing these trails:

1.      You need to be able to see the signs indicating access points to the path from a bicycle traveling at 10 – 12 miles an hour from a distance of at least 50’. You also may want to inform more than 3 townspeople that there is a trail that runs through their town.

2.      There should not be a two to three inch high jarring lip at the entrance and exit points, or where the path intersects with cross streets.

3.      All places where one has a choice of multiple paths should be marked with signs indicating where each path goes.

The paths around Bay City and Marine City, Michigan fell somewhat short of these ideals and caused us to get lost for the first time on the trip.

The ferry ride from Michigan to Ontario was very short and cost $1. There were a number of Canadian foot passengers who had made the trip to the states for the sole purpose of purchasing copious quantities of beer. It seems that you can buy Canadian and American beer in the United States, and pay duty on it, for less than it costs to buy the same beer in Canada. They may do universal health care better than us, but we do beer better!!

We’ll next spend three or four days making it across southern Ontario (mostly along the north shore of Lake Erie) before we pass back into the U.S. around Niagra Falls. At our current pace, we may actually make it to Lubec, Maine a week earlier than anticipated. It would be nice to have a couple of days to re-acclimate to life off the bike before heading back to work in CT on the 25^th of August.

Hope you are all well.

Take care,

Rob & Jake