RideTheLightning

Here’s to doing it all over again.

From the Sam Woolf disposable camera catalog.

Big Thanks

To Joseph Borden for dontating to us through KIVA.

Big Thanks

To Whitney Borden for dontating to us through KIVA! She’s a quality woman.

A long time coming. From sea to shining sea.

touchdown. looking absolutely ridiculous.

A few imagined moments play on repeat when you’re riding your bike across the country. The beach moment played a lot. We would wade into the Atlantic Ocean, bike in tow, look out on beautiful white surf welcoming us to the other edge of the country and we would know that we had  actually finished what we set out for three months ago. It’s always perfectly sunny. Maybe Beach going bystanders are cheering, mothers are crying, young children extend their hands for high fives as we cruise past. You get the idea. Sunday afternoon was almost there.

We left Wellesly with only 15 tedious miles to ride on Rt 9. Traffic and potholes make us cranky and Rt 9 had plenty of both. After a couple stops in Dorchester for lunch supplies and the obligatory bottle of Champagne (for spraying everywhere in victory), we sort of just ended up by the beach. No fanfare, no screaming fans, just sort of there. So we parked in the grass for a bit, ate enough food to kill the grouchiness and had our celebration. There wasn’t any foaming surf either, but the sun was shining and the muddy beaches of South Boston seemed perfect anyway.

Back wheel in the Pacific. Front in the Atlantic. For all you heavy on symbolism...doneski.

It’s done. We made it. Didn’t learn from the hefty Oregon beach charade and subjected ourselves to the herniating experience of shouldering bikes across sand again. Worth it though. We spent the next 4 hours piled out in the grass napping and making some phone calls before riding back along the Charles to cousin Monte’s apartment in Cambridge.

We’ll spend the next week cruising around Boston doing to Dew then head our separate ways solo style for the ride home. 120 miles for Aidan. 220 for Sam. 215 for BJ. The last of the last. Clay, we missed you big time out there. We’ll get some more trip recap up in the coming days. . Thanks to everyone for coming along for the ride. We had a blast. Best bike trip across the country yet.

After about 20 minutes of self timers and failed tripoding, some nice soul took pity and took our picture.

Mmmm. Bike pushing through mud. BJ and Sam head West.

Another impressive pose. Self-timed photos lend themselves to powerful pictures.

Woooo! Brown bagging a bottle of the bubbly. Sampagne celebrating.

Big Thanks

To David Woolf and Joel Parker for dontating to us through KIVA.

We’ve officially surpassed the thousand dollar mark! Thanks again to everyone for the continued support.

A Walk in The Woods.

sunset.

If someone were to have asked us way back in Montana sometime, how we envisioned crossing into the great Commonwealth of Massachusetts, I can assure you that no Lightning member would have predicted Thursday evening’s scenario. Even as of late Thursday afternoon, we had no idea we would find ourselves ankle deep in mud, miles from the highway, pushing our bikes up a path all but lost in the woods. Then again, if there is anything this trip has taught us, it’s that anything can happen. That, and it’s going to rain. 

We have to back up a bit to get the whole story in. About 4:30 we were parked at an Elementary school just short West Lebanon, NY, looking over the remaining 20 miles of our ride. It was hot. We were tired. One route, the one derived from the “map”, formed a large triangle that led us South through Lebanon, NY  before jogging back North towards our final destination in Pittsfeild, MA. The other route was a nice  purple line on BJ’s iphone heading perfectly East to West. We needed only to make a few turns on some country roads and we would surely cut off some 5 or 6 miles. Fantastic. Let’s go for it.

By the first turn we were already grumbling. Grumbling is par for the course out here on the road though and so long as we were all in agreement we figured why not. Let’s go for it.

The second turn brought more bad news, two roads, one unmarked, both bearing the warning “Dead End’. No matter, it’s probably just a blockade for car traffic, we’ll go around and have the road to ourselves. Go for it. We even stopped to ask a father and son pulling out of their driveway. They smiled recognizing our mistake,

‘Oh yeah, that road hasn’t been there for 30 or 40 years, sometimes it shows up on people’s GPS and they have come back down.’ But, they promised us, “There is a path, I bet it would be okay on bicycles…go for it.’ 

So we did. Up Old Mtn Rd, passed the culvert, the no trespassing sign and, very quickly, the pavement. We had done gravel, what’s a little low gear trail riding. Go for it.

About 1/2 mile in we were pushing our bikes. The trail had proved too steep and too a rocky for our slick tires and 70 pound bicycles, but there were fresh ATV tracks and we were bound and determined to have our shortcut. 

The local advice we got promised the trail was no more than 3 or 4 miles.  We alternated between pushing, dragging and some nimble coasting were able to do at least 3 pretty easily. Still, no sign of the otherside and Pittsfield. Cue thunder, lightning and driving rain. Yup, the “road” we were following leveled in the bottom of the valley just as the menacing clouds that had been chasing us all day decided to let loose. It poured. And as we sloshed along in drenching rain and near darkness our trusty trail decided to fork in three different directions. All with their own logical explanations: East, down and the most well travelled. 

We stood for a  few fateful moments (just a few) and recited Survivor Man mantras and made mental preparations for how and where we would camp in the woods. Really, we would have been fine. We had the gear, the food, and the dry clothes stuffed away, but it’s hard to not flash through worse case scenarios. 

We eventually tried all the options. The first of which we actually tried twice, the second time continuing on far enough to learn it was actually the correct way.

The storm broke and we caught the sunset that opens this post. Spirits were restored. The road out grew to resemble something a little more traversable and we wound down the hill out onto pavement again. And then there on the side of the road, Lebanon, NY. We’d flubbed our shortcut somehow. Either the road didn’t go through, or, more likely, we’d taken a goat path that wasn’t the iphone road at all. Oh well. We were out and now completely soaked, muddied and half devoured by mosquitos we peddled the final couple hundred yards up highway 20 to cross over the state line into Massachusetts.

I’ve Got a Gal and Her Name is Sal…

Yup, you know the rest - “15 miles on the Erie Canal”.  Welp, for us, it was more like 400 miles along the Erie Canal.  We made tracks from Ashtabula (location of our last lame blog post sans working photos - now working and complete!) up to Erie, PA to meet up with my Aunt and Uncle.  They drove up from Butler, PA to intercept us and grace us to some fantastic company and a wonderful dinner on the shores of Lake Erie.  Great times and many thanks from us here at RTL mobile headquarters.  That night was spent in a modern day Gypsy Camp, complete with everything from permanently parked RV trailers to a cluster mess of tents on the beach nearly sharing stakes with one another.  We met some interesting folks that night, to say the least.  

Camp spot in Erie, PA. The modern day gypsy village.

We headed north east out of Erie, still following closely the shores of the great lake.  We made it to Angola-On-The-Beach, a bit shy of our goal of Buffalo, NY.  We hummed and hawed for a bit, riding some 15 miles up and down the shores trying to find a so called “campground” that allows tents, and failed to do so.  Luckily for us, a riggotta was in town and the town had OK’ed for them to tent in the park.  We cooked dinner elsewhere, waiting for night to fall, and, under the cover of darkness, slinked into the park and set up our tents.  It was a ragging party with music blaring and first-time drunkards stumbling around, but we fell fast asleep, as per the norm.  

Buffalo proved to be no different than any other urban metropolis that we’ve been challenged to navigate, complete with a flat tire, dead end roads, wrong turns, and less than 30 miles under our belt by 2pm.  But we made it thru there no worse for the wear and pinned it up north to Lockport, NY, from which the annual Erie Canal Bicycle Tour was leaving that same day.  Later that afternoon in downtown Lockport, we met up with the lagging members of the tour, managed to scrounge a map of the Canal Path out of one generous soul, and were back on our steeds in high spirits.  We began cranking down the crushed stone path, kicking up a wake of dust and dirt, covering ourselves and our bicycles in a dusty layer.  We began passing the tourers, some 500 of them, all setting out for 8 days along the canal trail (we only gave ourselves 4 days - nice planning).  We decided that we ought to see the accommodations - to get a taste of what camping with 500 people looks like -  so we rode into the tour camp some 20 miles down the canal trail.  It was tent city madness.  There was even a company that, for a fee, would set up your tent, inflate you air mattress, and pack it all up in the morning.  Now thats livin’.  Sometime later that evening, as BJ was stopped taking a pee along the trail, he spotted a rope swing, dangling some 30 feet above an algae covered pond.  With a simple hand gesture, a bit of nervous chitter chatter, it was on.  BJ first.  Sent it.  Made it.  Still alive.  Next Aidan.  Then I.  It was glorious.

Practice swing. More fun then actually dropping into the water below

The Erie Canal Path proved to be an absolute schedule saver and all around gem for us.  We made some serious mileage along the mostly flat trail, cutting nearly due East from Lockport to Albany in 4 days.  We met some characters, hung out with some modern day River Pirates (the classy folks keeping the locks in operation), and had some beautiful weather.  It was when we left the trail in Albany, making ready to cross the border into Mass (our final state), that the weather and trouble - or dare say adventure - hit…..

On the road again. IL, IN, OH. Not for the taint of heart.

UPDATED: Now with Photos!!!

I feel like every post of ours begins with some kind of apology. Well, here’s no different. The dinosaur computer here in Ashtabula, OH, won’t let us upload our pictures so we’ve only got the one (taken via iphone). Luckily it’s a keeper. Grandma Kinsey met up with us in Syracuse, Indiana, and treated us to a fine feast in the park. It was both delicious and plentiful, the latter probably being the most stringent requirement here at RTL. We were downright stuffed and happy. Big thanks!

BJ and Grandma Kinsey behind a delicious spread.

****

The past five days have been a whirlwind. We’re making decent time (ahead of our allotted 75 miles a day goal) and enjoying some hot mid-western sunshine.

The whirlwind effect has really come on for three reasons. The first, I just mentioned. It’s hot. And spending 13 hours in the sun bends anyone’s mind a little, but add in some pedaling, some marginal navigating (no names here) and the bumps and ruts that come with heavily trafficked roads and you’ve got yourself a recipe for madness. It hasn’t gotten there quite yet, but we’re bracing. The second issue facing us is one we anticipated but haven’t been able to come to terms with. In populated places you can’t sleep on the ground where ever you fall. I know it sounds unfair, we think so too.  Gone are the days of Nebraskan public parks beckoning us with their lush green grass and bountiful amenities (plugs, water, REAL bathrooms). Instead, we have been met by the law on consecutive evenings and found ourselves sleeping tentless on a tarp until dawn before slinking off to the absolute nearest available coffee where we then grace unknowing gas station attendants with our entire morning routine. It’s not terrible, but it ain’t the sheets and quilts of Glen Ellyn either.

Which brings me to the third and final issue plaguing this last stretch. We’ll call it “the softening”. The Chicago layover was fantastic. Wouldn’t have it any other way. But the effects of no bike riding for almost three weeks made themselves screamingly known the morning of our second day when we lowered ourselves into the saddle for the first time. Conditioning is still ok but the callousing gained through the Plains is long gone. Hopefully by New York we will be tough again.

Thanks to both BJ’s grandmothers for finding, and feeding, us on the road, and for hailing the local presses (we may have newspaper notoriety coming, check Edgerton, Ohio publications). Tonight we plan to ride another 40 or so to Erie, Penn, and meet up with Sam’s aunt and uncle. Maybe we’ll find a camp spot where ‘the man’ won’t hassle us.

We’ll get some pretty pictures up when technology permits. To let you know what you can expect, we’ve recently switched form corn to wheat fields (this is exciting) been graced with some Great Lake views and swim time, and of course, you’ll see all our tired attempts at “campsites.”

The photos at long last!

Big Thanks

To Herb Payson for dontating to us through KIVA.

We’re approaching the thousand dollar mark! Thanks again to everyone for the continued support.

Onward

Oh, what a time we’ve had. Glen Ellyn, big city Chicago, Indiana lake house, and feasting all the way. It’s been an amazing two-and-a-half weeks, a lifetime away from our last day riding, but the time has come again. Onward. We leave in a few frantic minutes headed East through Chicago and then eventually skirting the great lakes through Indiana and Ohio.  We’ve got exactly two weeks to make our date in Boston and a 1000 mile tab racked up. Hopefully our sublime luck continues. We will try our best to get more updates from the road despite the time crunch. Thank you all again for your continued interest and support.

Also, an enormous thank you to the Mr. and Mrs. Kinsey and the entire Kinsey clan for their incredible hospitality. The 4th in Glen Ellyn will be one to remember, even despite a little Ride the Lightning foul weather.

A Taste of Chicago/Glen Ellyn over the Fourth.