Closing Comments
We finished our tour on Saturday, but, we still had some tasks to do to get home. The plan on Sunday was to get up early, ride to the bus stop in Portsmouth, take the bus to the Dover train station and then take the train to Boston. We were also trying to beat the leading edge of hurricane Henri, which was expected to hit around 10:30 am. We got up early and made it to the bus station early to catch the first bus at 8 am. We waited for the bus and after about 15 minutes we realized that the buses do not run on Sunday. The only problem is that we had stuffed our front panniers into the duffel bags and Ross had completely emptied all his panniers into his duffel bag. Not much of a problem for Janet and I because we just took out our panniers and clipped them on. Poor Ross had to ride the entire 12 miles (and it was hot and humid), with a 40 LB back pack. Fortunately the rain held off and we got to the train station in plenty of time and fairly dry. We took the train to Boston and then got a hotel for a couple of nights. When the hotel staff found out we had completed a cross country bike tour, they gave us an excellent room on the 12th floor with a view and a complimentary bottle of champagne. Very nice. The next couple of days we took Janet and mine bikes to a bike shop to ship home, walked around downtown Boston, ate a lot of good Italian food and lounged around the hotel. Ross took the train to Philadelphia to pick up his van at a friends house and continue on his adventures. Janet and I flew back home on Wednesday and got home safe and sound around 11 pm that night.
I want to give some summary comments before I close it out.
Since we concluded the adventure I have received many comments from readers of this journal indicating that they enjoyed reading the journal and keeping up with our adventure. I really appreciate the comments and really enjoyed writing the journal entries every day. Some days it was difficult to keep the journal going. Some days I was tired after riding and did not particularly want to write an entry. You can tell these days because my grammar was not good and an entry was close to non-readable. The journal forced me to stop every so often to take pictures, which was good. Some days it was hard to think about what to write about, (I didn't want to keep writing we got up, we rode, we ate, we rode some more, we stopped each day). For years I have read many bike touring journals and some are almost like a literary work and some are hardly readable. I knew I couldn't do the former and I wanted to avoid the latter. My son Rylan gave me a great compliment and encouragement early in the trip. He said that "my voice" came through in the journals. That is what I was striving for, to make the journal sound like I was across a table from you telling you about the ride that day. I hope I achieved that and to me the journal was very worthwhile because of the readers and their comments at the end of the trip was very satisfying.
Our bikes performed remarkably well. We had one flat the entire time. If you think that we almost rode 4000 miles and 3 bikes have 2 tires each then that is almost 24,000 tire miles with one flat. That is pretty remarkable. Btw: our tires were Schwalbe Marathon Plus bike tires. We made 3 trips to bike shops. 2 times to have a slight adjustment to Janet's bike and one time to get Ross's bike back cassette hub replaced (this was a potential big problem that the Freewheeler bike shop in Grand Rapids, Mich took care of in a fantastic way). My rear disc brake pads broke a couple of days before the end and I rode the last 2 days with only a front brake, no problem. We had what we think is a funny occurrence happen a couple of times. We would be in or near a town and meet a local person and start talking about our trip. They inevitably would tell us where the local bike shop was and how good it was and how they can take care of all our needs. We didn't have any needs for a bike shop and we were not looking for a bike shop. We thought it was strange that they wanted to make sure we knew where the bike shops were located.
I feel the Metal Hip Club team performed absolutely fantastic during the entire trip. Ross was the leader of the team. He did a wonderful job guiding us and navigating us through urban areas and across the country. He got us on some fantastic roads and bike paths for riding. At first it was weird for me to have Ross lead. For the last 30 years I have been the leader of every ride I have been on. I have organized many bike trips and guided Janet and others that joined us on these trips. I have organized group rides and set the route and lead others on them. There can be only one leader on any given ride. It took me a while to give up the leadership mantel and become a follower. I can say that I am not a good follower but I worked on it and tried to improve over the trip. The other dynamic was that Ross is my son and I am used to providing and protecting him. On this trip more often than not, Ross provided and protected Janet and I. That was a new dynamic in our relationship. I must tell you that I am extremely proud of Ross and his maturity and everything he has done to take care of and guide Janet and I on this trip.
My brother Doug wrote me that "Janet was the star of this trip" and I agree. She had the most to overcome to be able to complete the trip. At the beginning she was really not in as good of physical shape as Ross and I. She had the hip replacement last August and was really just starting to be able to train when the trip started. Therefore she struggled quite a bit for the first 5 weeks. That physical struggle lead to some emotional and motivation struggles. I am so proud of her to overcome these difficulties and stick it out for the entire trip. This trip was not high on her list of things to do. She wanted to come mainly because I wanted to do the trip. She knew it was going to be a once in a lifetime experience and she wanted to make sure she shared that experience with me. Janet and I do everything together and we take the words life partners very seriously. There was no way she was going to miss out on this. In a physically demanding trip like this that is not exactly great motivation to get up every day and put up with the demands of the day. She did it and I will forever be grateful that she did and I love this woman with all my heart.
This trip was a lifelong dream and goal for me. I have been thinking about it and planning it for 35 years. Ross asked me several times on the trip if we have done everything that I dreamed about. Well the things I wanted to do on this trip were:
- See a bear, elk and moose. I got to see 2 out of 3 so I am happy.
- Ride mountain passes and Going to the Sun highway. I wanted this trip to be a challenge. I wanted to ride the difficult roads. I wanted to see if I could handle the physical and mental demands of a difficult journey. This trip met all those wants. I was a bit surprised that the physical part was less difficult than I thought and the mental part was much more difficult than I thought it would be.
- I wanted to ride an unsupported tour with camping gear. When Janet was having hip problems the past few years, we were talking about her supporting our tour by following in a car. While I would have done the trip that way, it is not the way I would of liked to do the tour. I have thought about why an unsupported ride was important to me. I came to the conclusion that what I really wanted to do was turn back the hands of time. I have been touring for over 40 years. When I started out I did unsupported tours and most of my tours have been unsupported. It is a familiar way for me to tour. But more than that, on this tour I wanted to go back to the early days when a bunch of us kids toured. My brother Doug and friends Buzz and Steven and Ken and Ralph would tour for a week or 2 every summer. I think I was hoping to capture the magic of those early tours in this tour. And I think I was successful for some periods of the ride. Riding in Michigan with Doug really brought back that feeling. The day we raced down the bike path definitely was a magic day.
- I wanted to ride my bike for a summer. I love riding my bike. I don't think in my journal entries that I adequately captured the feeling I get when I ride my bike. For me, riding my bike brings serenity to my soul. I love climbing hills and listening to my measured and rhythmic breathing. I love coasting down a hill and feeling the wind in my face. I love riding on a lonely road in a forest and smelling the pine needles. I love going down a road with a babbling creek near by and hearing the rapids descend down. I love riding on a bike path through a tunnel of trees. I love going past a farm and talking to the animals (its always "Hello Cowsies"). Janet's nephew Michael was talking about motorcycle riding. He said that driving a car is like regular TV and riding a motorcycle is like a 1080 TV. Well to me riding a bike is an 8k TV. It stimulates all your senses to the extreme and I love that.
I have been a bit melancholy since the trip has ended. I loved being on this trip, sharing it with Ross and Janet, riding every day for a summer. I have dreamed about it for so long and the experience was so great for me that now there is a missing piece. I will get over it in a few days as I start to do things that I normally do and participate in my daughters wedding this fall. But I will always miss being on this trip.
Before we left Ross ran into a person who did this trip a couple of years ago and asked him for some words of wisdom for this trip. He said two things that both turned out to be very true: watch out for mosquitoes and keep pedaling. I have a couple words of wisdom of my own. If you have a dream or a goal in your life, by all means try to achieve or execute on it. Never give up on it, try to figure out a way to do it. It can be so rewarding and something you can be very proud of.
Whenever you ride your bike under an overpass or in a tunnel, shout as loud as you can to see if it echoes. It is very therapeutic.
I will leave you with my 3 favorite pictures from the trip.
Safe Travels!!!
Metal Hip Club (Terry, Janet and Ross)
| Rate this entry's writing | Heart | 11 |
| Comment on this entry | Comment | 4 |
We are glad we got to meet you on this trip and wish all of you the very best in your future adventures.
3 years ago
Who did you guys use to sip your bikes? Was the bikeshop associated with bike flights? What did they charge to package the bikes? We will likely do the same once we reach Boston.
Tailwinds!
3 years ago
We used a bike shop called Urban Cycle. They were affiliated with bike flights. They charged $20 for each bike box and $80 for labor on each bike and added that cost on top of what bike flights would charge. For us the total for each bike was $260.
It was great to meet you two and ride with you for a few days. We go through Boise in early December on our way down to Arizona. We will give you a call and we can meet for dinner.
Good luck on the rest of your trip.
Safe travels!!
MHC
3 years ago
3 years ago