This Thursday is it! We depart for the Trek Across Maine! I have every piece in motion. I have someone to watch my house while I am gone. All my gear is on it's way to arrive via shipments. I have gathered a much useful packing list, as I am absolutely notorious for forgetting the most important of the little things.
I am nervous yet excited. Having done it once already at least I know what to expect. I am better prepared than I was last year in every way.
Memorial day we had decided on a 60 mile ride:
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This was quite a ride! The morning started out misty, wet and cool. We were all very damp, and sweating. I saw a chicken in the middle of crossing the road and yelled at it asking why it was crossing the road, of course it freaked out and went back to whence it came, it did not answer the age old question of why the chicken crossed the road! The route took us out on 137 which goes through cow country. We all almost vomited riding by the dairy farms in Thorndike. I yelled to my companions: "Shouldn't the Clean Air Act of Maine cover dairy farms too!?"
They all thought that was funny. Although on a serious note, dairy farms and cows do tend to omit a lot of methane and it does contribute to green house gasses. Why can't they harness the power of methane from cows really? I know methane is highly volatile and everything, but you'd think there would be some way to make that happen! Anyway, we continued on and ended up riding through Freedom, Maine, a sleepy little farming town. We came across the cutest mini horse I had ever seen with a fresh cut mohawk, we just had to stop and say high. We ended up on the North Palermo road, which is bumpy as hell, it would have been a road bikers nightmare! We ended up coming out on route 3 right behind one of my favorite little stores on that road, Tobey's Market. Route three was is fairly poor condition and one of our companions blew a tire and none of us had means to fix it on the spot. This was a fully un-supported ride! At one of our stops on the last 5 miles of the ride I discovered a honey bee hanging out on my camelbak lapping up my camel pack cocktail. When we pulled into athenahealth where we had parked, I discovered she was still on my saddle pack.
The new gear I got for this year is a super warm sleeping bag from LL Bean, ensuring I will NOT go cold like I did last year. I got an awesome new backpacking tent from mountain hardwear, it is super light weight and very rain proof and is a three season. I have a new battery pack for my cellphone, so I do not have to worry as much of where I am going to charge my phone ensuring that I can run my cycle meter while I am riding all three days. I have ordered a beautiful new rain proof cycling jacket in hot pink ensuring good visibility for drivers. I added a mirror for my bike so I don't have to turn my eyes away from my path to look behind me and some additional cycling clothing to supplement what I didn't have last year.
Next year, I do plan on getting a nice road bike hopefully built from carbon, then I will be able to go farther in shorter time with greater ease!
So, I hope to be blogging along through the trek at the end of our days, be looking for fun pictures etc!
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