This year I decided to do things a little differently and start the ride from our house in Littleton. My friend Pete was able to finagle a hotel room for Friday night in Sturbridge, MA (not an easy thing to do). I usually have to get up at 3AM and drive my bike down to Sturbridge, then leave the car there for my in-laws to pick up later. Now, however, I was free to simply ride my bike from Littleton to Sturbridge during the day on Friday (no car logistics!), enjoy the Friday night ceremonies in Sturbridge and get a decent night's sleep before the ride. Hence, my 2-day, 192-mile ride became a 3-day 242-mile ride. You can view my GPS track logs from this year's PMC online at http://ridewithgps.com/trips/82726. It's an interactive map so you can zoom in/out and follow along watching speed, elevation etc.
Friday ("Day Zero")
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| Locked, loaded and ready to roll... |
I rolled out of the driveway at our house at about 8:50 AM on Friday for Sturbridge. [ Previous readers of this blog may recall my accounting of my last ride to Sturbridge -- aka "The Fiasco Semi-Century Ride". ] This time, however, I planned my route a little differently around Spencer (to avoid some of the more ridiculous grades) and things went much more smoothly. I only stopped in Holden at around 11:30 for about 15 minutes -- long enough to restock fluids and have a Snickers, then off again. I ended up in Sturbridge a little sooner than I needed to, at about 1:45. Since PMC registration didn't start until 3PM, I biked over to the hotel for a shower and a short nap.
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| Hotel room. (Check the wallpaper!) |
The hotel certainly wasn't anything to write home about, but it was clean and passed my bed bug inspection, so no big complaints.
Friday evening, I ran into Peter and his ROAG (Roudenbush Outdoor Athletic Group) riding buddies at dinner outside the Sturbridge Host Hotel. They did their "Day Zero" ride, too. Some biked down from NH, and the rest started at the MA/NY border that morning.. They're all really nice guys, and there never seemed to be any shortage of stories around the table... ;-) The "opening ceremonies" later that night were entertaining and inspiring. You can see photos of them from the PMC web site in the 2010 photo gallery under "Friday Sturbridge Opening Ceremonies". After the show, I hopped on my bike and headed back to the hotel to try and get as much sleep as possible.
Saturday (Day 1)
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| Early Saturday AM at the Sturbridge Start |
The ride started promptly at 5:30 AM with the "fast rider" section spilling onto Route 20 Eastbound, completely filling the lane. About 9 minutes later, my section rolled out and I was on Route 20 as well -- somewhere in the middle of that rolling lycra throng of about 3000+ other cyclists. The ride was now on..
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| The rolling lycra throng... |
My favorite memory from Saturday was getting to ride with my friend Dave, whom I used to work and bike with at General Dynamics in Taunton. Over the last several years, I've managed to meet up with Dave near Dighton (where the lunch stop is). This year, I arranged to meet up with Dave and he rode "bandit" with me all the way from Dighton to Wareham. Dave's a really nice guy, a former PMC-er and has always supported me on my ride. We caught up on work gossip and just enjoyed the day. I waved goodbye to Dave in Wareham when he had to meet up with his wife. I continued on to Bourne, where I would meet up with mine -- somewhere at Mass Maritime Academy.
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| The Big-Top at Mass Maritime Academy! |
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| Sandy, Ben and Brian: volunteers! |
Sunday (Day 2)
Woke up Sunday about 3:30 AM and tried to gather up my stuff without waking anyone else up. I was afraid that it would be cold and clammy in the early morning and was a little mad at myself for not even thinking about bringing a jacket or long sleeve T-shirt for the early morning. Imagine my surprise when I set foot outside the ship, only to find it about 68F with a very gentle breeze. Absolutely perfect. The volunteer "elves" had been working overnight cleaning up the mess from Saturday and the big tent was set up with plenty of Dunkin' Donuts coffee and just about any sort of breakfast food you could want. I was able to have a leisurely breakfast and a couple of cups of Dunkin', then it was off to put my luggage on the truck to P-Town and meet up with Glenn and Terry to start the day's ride.
True to their word, Glenn and Terry were on the tandem and ready to roll at 4:30 AM. Since I had my "Fist Of God" headlamp operational I "rode point", lighting the way in the pre-dawn stretch. We ended up having to loiter at the bottom of the Bourne Bridge to wait for them to finish putting down the traffic cones. (They dedicate a section of the Bourne Bridge to PMC bike traffic until around 8AM.) After a few minutes, they told us that we actually could walk our bikes across the bridge as pedestrians using the sidewalk area. That was just fine with us, so we dismounted and started walking. By the time we'd gotten to just about the peak of the bridge, they told us we could go ahead and ride the rest of the way across since the cones were all in place. So we mounted up and the ride re-commenced.
It turned out to be a really good thing that I had such a good headlamp that morning. Once on the other side of the canal, the PMC route continues for a few miles along a bike path that runs the length of the Cape Cod Canal. Access to that path from the road is blocked from cars by a steel pipe gate that hangs about 3 feet off the ground all the way across the access road. Had I not had such a good headlamp, I might not have seen that this gate was CLOSED (and locked) and run into it at about 15 mph -- not a great way to start your day. However, thanks to the F.O.G. headlamp, we saw the gate in time and were able to walk our bikes around it on a little footpath. By 4:54 AM we were cruising down the canal bike path with the moon still hanging in the eastern sky, orange from the soon-to-be-rising sun...
One of the reasons that Glenn and Terry (my tandem riding partners that morning) like to get such an early start on the Sunday leg of the PMC is the little stretch of the ride near West Barnstable along Service Road. Service Road runs parallel to Route 6 for about 5 or 6 miles starting at Route 130 until Route 149. This stretch starts off with a nasty little 350-foot ascent that's "hidden" behind a curve. Many cyclists who aren't ready for it will do a panic down-shift and fall victim to "chain suck" from shifting too far under too much torque. When that happens your chain gets a wedgie and you stop. Suddenly. Ungracefully. However, once you get past that little bit of Service Road, the terrain changes to a pretty thrilling set of rolling hills. Tandem bikes (and recumbents like mine) can build up a really good head of steam on those hills by parlaying your downhill momentum into speed to help attack the following rise, ad infinitum. However, if you're sharing the lane with lots of other cyclists, you really can't "open it up" on the downhills -- it's just not safe in close quarters -- so you end up getting get robbed of that momentum you would have otherwise had and end up dragging yourself up the hill... So, getting on the road early means that you'll be out ahead of most of the other cyclists, and subsequently have plenty of room to rock and roll on those hills. I have to tell you that it's a genuine pleasure to be able to "rip it up" on that stretch of rollers when you have enough room. I ended up with a several peaks up to around 40 mph that morning on Service Road..
I made an unscheduled stop at the dunes in Wellfleet. On that particular stretch, there's a really protracted up-hill grade. With that kind of hill, I've learned to simply 1) be patient, 2) gear down and 3) just keep pedaling. Eventually, you will get to the top. (It's true. It always works!) But this hill isn't just some ordinary hill: on this stretch the dunes are all around and to your right they just drop away leaving you with a breath-taking view of the ocean. So even as you're slogging your way up the hill there is this gorgeous seascape next to you, and (if you're lucky) a little breeze off the water to cool you down. Anyway, at the top of this hill, I made an unscheduled stop at a little lot on the right where cars can pull off, park and admire the dunes and sea. I got off my bike to stretch, have a drink and then made sure that the right side of my bike was angled so that Bob -- one of my passengers -- would get a really good look at that stretch of beach. I know that Bob enjoyed being at Wellfleet while he was alive, and standing there that morning next to the ocean, I could certainly see why. We hung out there in the quiet for about 5 minutes, then saddled back up to finish the ride.
The rest of the Sunday ride went pretty much like clockwork, and I ended up rolling into the "Family Finish" in Provincetown at 9:55 AM, giving me plenty of time to reunite with my luggage and shower before watching and cheering more riders as they arrived. After a leisurely (albeit early) lunch, I headed down to the docks and was seated on the "fast ferry" back to Boston by 11:38. As it turned out, Pete had been able to get onto the noon fast ferry and boarded soon after I did. It's a good thing that we didn't dilly-dally getting aboard: the ferry was scheduled to leave at noon, but they actually pushed back from the dock 10 minutes early! Sandy and Barbara (Pete's wife) were there to meet us at the pier in Boston and we all carpooled back to Littleton.
Thus ended my 7th PMC weekend, and thus ends my 7th PMC trip report. For those of you still reading, God bless you. I hope it was at least a little interesting for you. It's almost impossible for me to pick and choose what to write about -- there is just so much, and I can only procrastinate so long. :-) As usual, I'll be following up with an email later this year when the final results of the 2010 PMC fund-raising are announced. (Which probably won't be until some time in October, based on past years.)
Finally, I will be riding in the 2011 PMC next year, so you'll be hearing from me again in 2011. (As always, if you'd prefer not to get my PMC emails, just jot me a quick 'please stop' email and I'll promptly remove you from my email list.)
Thanks one last time to each of you for your support, comments and encouragement.
/doug
