First Day of the ride

I wanted to post a video and let everyone know in detail what happened today, but I’m a hotel bed after a long refreshing shower and am passing out as I type this.

The day started out late, not too much but I felt like I was being rushed to get on the road, I feel bad that there was no announcement so that Meals on Wheels people could come out and watch me ride away. Sorry.

Wasn’t even down the hill when I realized the front fender wasn’t installed right. The wind lifted it up and pushed the back against the tire. After two miles I had to turn it sideways to stop it from grinding against the tire and rode with it like that all day.

The Washington Seconday bike pathe is familiar to me and I was glad to see they finished the construction at the end extending it beyond the old 10 miles. Someday it will be 25 miles and be the longest bike path in Rhode Island.

After that I had to read from the turn by turn cue sheets provided by the Est Coast Greenway, much easier than I thought it was going to be. Before I knew it I had done 22.3 miles, 1% of the trip. All I had to do was the same thing 100 more times, easy.

But the cue sheets aren’t always easy to understand, I got lost three times and added a useless 10 miles to the days trip. Then in Conneticuit I experienced real hills, mile long monsters and for the first time had to get off of the bike and walk it up the hill. I was embarrassed.

Clear weather, great scenery. The route is more rural than I could have hoped for and for the most part the roads have decent shoulders.

Stopped in Putnam for a snack, it was supposed to be my final destination but since I had no place to stay and it was only 3pm I got out the next route sheet and started riding.

After about an hour I was finally able to get back on the route after not being able to understand exactly where to start from and not being able to find a single person who knew of any of the roads mentioned.

The guy who helped me out had lived there his whole life and looked at me like I was crazy to be going that way. “Thats a hell of a climb over all those hills.” he said sapping some of my waning energy at the thought of sweating and climbing for hours on end at 4mph.

But it had to be done so I did it.

Then I got lucky at the Hampton General Store where the very friendly owners told me about a state park right on my route that allowed free camping.

Awesome, I hate to admit it but the Hennessy Hammock/tent I brought along hasn’t been tested. There was still enough daylight to get it done with a good safety margin.

Only I missed the turn to Old Route 6 and ended up on regular Route 6. And I wasn’t climbing back up the hill to go looking for it. Later when I passed the point where I should have come out of Old Route 6 to merge with Route 6 it too was a climb back up, so I forgot about camping and pushed on to the first hotel I could find, roughly 5 miles later.

85 miles for the day and I am passing out.

Good night.