The trip that was to take place in 2004 finally became a reality in 2005. I left on August 5th and stayed the night with friends who live in Hazelton, PA. This was roughly half the distance to my tour's start/finish in Troy, NY. The next day I drove the rest of the way to Troy, checked into my hotel, checked over the bike, and had a very good and filling dinner. The route was to be counterclockwise, riding into Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, back into New Hampshire, then Vermont, and ending in New York. My average daily mileage was to be around 50.

August 7 - I climbed right out of Troy. Today's route was on the Mohawk Trail, a scenic highway through the Berkshires. I had three mountains to climb today, which was to be my second hardest day of the tour. What an initiation as I haven’t done this since 1996. I had to remember that when standing with a fully-loaded touring bicycle, you need to sway your body and not your bicycle. The bike just won't sway. The first mountain never seemed to end. When it did, the downhill was smooth, with the last mile being a 10% grade. I was glad to be riding in the direction I was. The second climb was tough and took me to the Massachusetts line. After another nice downhill and some valley riding, I set out to tackle my last mountain of the day. While on paper it didn't look too bad, it turned out to be tough. Maybe this was due to it being my first day with about fifty pounds on my bike.

Though the first day's mileage to camp wasn't bad, I ran into what became a recurring theme - the fact that the campground had no store, there was no store before the campground, and I had to ride into town and back for any nightly provisions. Tonight's excursion added another nine miles to my daily total, albeit without much of my gear. So I spent a total of 6:06 in the saddle and traveled 66 miles.

Finally, I had been warned of bears. As such, I packed up all my food and other sweet smelling things and left them with the ranger for the night. Except for my handlebar bag, which contained my cash, camera, and a few miscellaneous items, the rest of my bags were on my bike or on my site's picnic table. Believing I was safe, I drifted off to sleep. About midnight, I heard something and shone the flashlight out the back of the tent and saw nothing. But as soon as I switched the light off, I saw a bear. I had leaned and locked my bike against a couple trees about ten feet from the tent. The bear, on its haunches about the height of my bike's top tube and about as long as its wheelbase, was sniffing around my bike. Believe it or not, the bear managed to unzip the pannier that was attached to my bike (completely ignoring the pannier just setting on top of my rear rack) and sniff and claw the plastic bags, which encased some clothes and gloves. Finding nothing good, it finally wandered off. I promptly went right back to sleep.

August 8 - This was a mostly uneventful day for me. I had a climb early on that had a nice baked goods shop just over the peak, where I stopped and partook of their delicacies. Other than that, I had a hot day. I was expecting to escape some of the summer heat that I normally have in Virginia. That wouldn't happen until late in my trip. Yesterday's climbs had me sweating. Today I ended up on a fairly flat road with no shade, so I had no relief from the heat again. My one event for the day was being told by a Massachusetts state policeman to get "off" Route 2. He was correct, of course. I should have been on the parallel road 2A, but I started on 2 before it became limited access and I figured I'd just stay on it until I had to turn off. The only reason I got "caught" was that there was construction on the road, and it seems that all construction sites are required to have police at them.

I remembered yesterday's need to ride into town, so I made sure I stopped at the mini-mart a couple miles before the campground. Today's riding was 5:11 in the saddle and 62 miles.

August 9 – Today was not to be that bad a day as it was much flatter, and actually mostly downhill. But the best laid plans…. The roads were somewhat rougher than they had been and a wrong turn cost me about an extra mile early on. Cars really watch out for bicyclists up there. I didn’t do much waiting when I was looking to cross the road while pushing my bike as both lanes stopped.

The day got worse as I missed a turn that this time ended up costing me more than five extra miles. The road signage needs to be a lot better, as my friend from Harrisburg had warned me. The nice part about the extra mileage was that it was on a well-shouldered road next to a river.

But missing my turn also meant I was somewhat lost and didn’t quite know the location of my end point for the day. I stopped twice in Lawrence before I found someone who could point me the way. By then I had a lot of traffic and the packs were growing weary. Getting what I hoped was closer to the state park, I stopped at a convenience store to be sure of my direction and the employee hadn’t even heard of the park, so again I ended up not buying dinner supplies before finishing the day’s ride. Another mistake, as the turnoff was just a couple more miles. But then I had to weave through various roads to finally come to the campground. Of course, there was no camp store, so I ended up riding three more miles (downhill) and then three more miles (uphill with groceries). That put the totals for the day at 6:21 of saddle time and 80 miles.

August 10 – After a good night’s rest, I started towards New Hampshire. After yesterday’s riding with all the traffic, I had decided to forego reaching Maine in order to stay away from the bigger towns. This would also give me an extra day for rest or rain, should I need it. I took an alternate route out of the state park, but still had a small section of yesterday’s route to transverse again. The ride north was pleasant, especially since I wasn't in the line of traffic heading south towards work.

The day was very hot again (where were the cooler temperatures I was hoping to have?!). Luckily I stopped in Raymond for lunch. The deli made some HUGE sandwiches and I sat across the street in a little town park. There I dined with a local working on the restoration of one of the town’s historical buildings - the train depot if I remember correctly. I had great conversation, but then had to pack up and move on towards my campground. That ended up being not much further away. But I saw a convenience store and pounced on it, even though my stomach was still quite full.

The turn-off to the state park was just past the store, and included some good climbing to get to the campsites. So I had a short day of only 3:45 in the saddle and 46 miles. As the day was still young and they had a lake, I walked down and did some swimming. A camp store was here, so I had ice cream and bought some drinks for supper.

August 11 – The rerouting I did actually had one drawback – I would stay in the mountains more and do more climbing. This really turned out to be the case today. I left the campsite under cooler temperatures and an overcast sky. The sun finally came out about 9:15am and by 12:30pm the temperature was 87°. Climbing up Parker Mountain, I was only going 4-1/2 mph. Then I came through a busy town on Lake Winnipesaukee and enjoyed the views from Route 11. But then I was back to climbing to Gunstock State Park on Route 11A up some tough grades to finish my day. I was not pleased with the steepness combined with the heat, so it felt good to finally finish the five hour, 57-mile day.

August 12 – Again the day started out overcast and cool, but it eventually hit the 80’s again. I suffered a rear flat at the top of a good climb. Thinking it might be a slow leak, I put in air and continued. But within a couple miles it was flat again, so I stopped at a bagel shop for a snack and a chance and place for me to put in a new tube.

Being low on replacement tubes now, I inquired as to the whereabouts of a nearby bicycle shop and got directions. This took me more out of my way than it was supposed to (it always does when given by a motorist), but the shop was friendly.

After leaving the shop, I was passed by a cyclist out for a morning ride. Somehow, though he was much faster than me, I ended up being passed by him twice more.

My goal now was a campground along the Kangamangus Highway. But my problem was that it was a Friday and the weekend was starting early for campers. Even though I was at the first campground before the workday let out, it was full. As was the second campground. But as I had already traveled a good distance, and the next campground (with no guarantee of occupancy) was twenty miles, and it was beginning to rain, I convinced the host to let me pitch my tent in an open field without the normal amenities of a picnic table and prepared campsite. Thus, I finished my day with 5:32 in the saddle and 69 more miles.

August 13 – I awoke to a lot of moisture on the tent.  After leaving the campground, I encountered about a mile of gravel on the Kangamangus due to some roadwork.  Then came the turnoff to head up Bear Notch, which turned out to be not a bad climb to do at all.  On the way down I finally saw some other bicyclists climbing the other side on road bikes.  At the end of the downhill, I took a break and ended up talking to one of those bicyclists about the area.

On my way up Pinkham Notch, I passed a triathlon that was in progress at Wildcat Ski Area.  After cresting the Notch, I stopped at the entrance to Mt. Washington for a break and caught some of the 24-Hours of Glen Falls race.  It would have been a beautiful day to climb Mt. Washington, though I did not opt to do so.  After that it was downhill to my night’s destination.  But as before, a food store was not to be found (and there really hadn’t been one since starting the climb up Pinkham Notch).  Since I had only 42 miles in my legs so far that day, I had no problems setting up camp and then riding into Gorham for some supper.  When I finally finished riding for the day, I had another 5:08 and 55 miles behind us.

August 14 – My camp neighbors had quite a loud party going last night, so sleep took awhile to overtake me.  Then around 5:30am there was a light rain shower – and this was the first night I didn’t use the rain fly!  So I rushed out to attach that.  It was just a portent of things to come.  I climbed an 8% grade out of Gorham and had some good views at the top.  At 9:15am I had a little spit of rain.  By 9:30 I was beginning to think I would skirt around it, but then it really started coming down.  After descending a nice hill, I took shelter in Twin Mountain on a country store front porch while the clouds drained themselves.  By the end of my early lunch, the rain had stopped and I was glad to be able to continue without it.

I was headed for Franconia and the rain came back about a half hour before I arrived there.  This was as I climbed a grade of about 10% by my reckoning.  I had already decided that this was my “hotel night”, so I wasn’t too concerned about the wet conditions.  Once I had checked in at the motel, though, I found out there was no laundromat in town – the closest was about sixteen miles away!  But the owner was kind enough to dry the bagful of items I handed him.

On the porch I picked up some tourist brochures and found out that Robert Frost had had a home in Franconia.      So I rode about a mile to the gravel road that worked its way up to the gravel driveway that worked its way up a path to this historic house.  After watching a short video on Frost, I toured his house.

On the way back to the motel, I stopped at the grocery store and picked up some supplies for a morning breakfast as I had a small refrigerator in the room.  Then I watched a little TV and settled into a real bed for some real rest.  With the excursion to the Robert Frost House, my total numbers for the day were 4:28 and 50 miles.

August 15 – I’ve seen a lot of kayaks and canoes on tops of cars in New England.  They really like their outdoors up here.    They also really like their Dunkin’ Donuts, seeing how they were in remote places I wouldn’t have thought to see them.  This morning’s ride went past a lot of motels and cabins.  It was cool, so a vest went over the jersey.  I had a nice, fairly easy climb up Kinsman Notch.  The downhill was a sweet 12% for two miles.  Following that I had some lunch in North Woodstock and continued towards my campground for the night, where my campsite was right beside a brook.  This was just outside Ashland.  From within this campground, I could see the top of Bridgewater Mountain.  I was getting my fill of Virginia names on this tour of New England.  The day was another short one with 4:32 and 53 miles.

August 16 – It’s finally getting a little cooler and I awoke to some fog.  The office thermometer noted it was 65°, so I started with the vest AND some warmers.  I rode back into Plymouth and then headed west, heading out of New Hampshire, but I lunched in Orford just before the bridge into Vermont.  Just as I was getting ready to leave, my front tire leaked all its air out.  So I had a delay while I fixed the flat.

The ride along the Connecticut River was nice, fairly flat, quiet in terms of traffic, and had some headwinds the entire way.  But in East Thetford I had to turn away from the river and ended up climbing a 10% grade towards my night’s destination.  I then had to climb another 1/10-mile into Thetford Hill State Park, where they had an ever so quick rain shower while I checked in.

I had 49 miles when I hit camp, but rode towards Thetford Center, where I was told they had a store.  This entailed an 8% 1-mile grade, which meant I had to ride back up this grade to get back to the park.  I got some ice cream out of it, so I think it was worth it.  And I ended the day with 4:46 and 54 miles.

August 17 – It was definitely a cool night.  Fog rolled in in the morning before leaving.  I wore a jacket and leg warmers, knowing I’d be going down that 8% grade to start the day.  Right after that I hit a steep hill through a very wooded area.  I noticed orange salamanders along the way.  Then I was on Route 132.  Here I started to climb.  It got harder and harder for me as I made my way up this grade.  On top I found out why – I had come up a 13% grade!  (I have the picture to prove it.)  I was not rewarded for my efforts on the downhill.  There was construction being done and the road surface was very bad. 

Once I reached the bottom, I stopped at a corner store in Sharon for a break.  While there I saw several cyclists heading up the same road I just came down.  Some stopped at the same store and I found out they were part of the Adventure Cycling Northern Tier group.  I talked with a couple from England.  I also met a girl that had on a JMU cycling jersey.  She was on the Montreal to Boston AIDS ride and knew our own Annie Michner.  It’s a small world!

I had another climb to go before I ended the day.  This one was on Route 73 climbing Goshen Mountain.  I had to believe some glass caused this, which was ironic as Vermont has a bottle bill (5¢ deposit).

I found a store at the turnoff to my destination and picked up ample supplies.  Then I headed into the wind towards my lakefront campsite at Branbury State Park, a beautiful place to visit if you ever get the chance.  My camp neighbors lent me a hammer to pound in my tent stakes and related that they had done some bicycle camping in the past.  I ended the day with 6:22 and 69 miles on the bikes.  But I also did a little hiking around Lake Dunmore and up a little ways into Mt. Moosalamoo.

August 18 – I had a windy night, probably from being on the lake.  It was quite chilly, about 50° when I awoke.  I rode into Proctor, where the Vermont Marble Company was located.  They had marble sidewalks in town!  The only other item of note was I got a taste of my first creamee.  I was in Hydesville, just before my destination for the night at Bomoseen State Park.  Creamees turned out to be soft ice cream, but instead of the normal 2% or 5% butterfat content, creamees have a whopping 10% butterfat content.  And they tasted very good because of it.  The main road towards the campground was closed and I was detoured up and around through some more heavy gravel.  But it was again worth it as the campground was fine, showers were great, and the lake was nice.  This was my second day under fifty miles, with just four hours in the saddle and 45 miles.

August 19 – Again it was quite cold when I awoke.  It was good to have that hot oatmeal for breakfast.  The chill stayed in the air for some time, as it was still only 64° when I reached Whitehall, NY at 8:30am.  US 4 in New York had a bike lane for almost its entire route back to Troy.  It was nice to have, though there were several places the macadam was too broken to ride on.  Though it looked like a relatively flat day on the profile map, it ended up being very slightly uphill.  And the headwind didn’t help much.  I pulled pretty strong for most of the route, but I had worn myself out (it somewhat looked like rain and I wanted to finish before it hit).  My thinking was since it was a flatter day, I could handle a longer distance.  The original plan had been for a 100-mile day.  As it was, I ended with 6:02 and 80 miles.

I arrived back at the hotel and found the car still there and my reservations still good.  I had a total of 787 miles.  I had a good shower, some rest, and then had a fantastic meal in a converted theater to congratulate myself on a great tour.