The day began with two broken spokes--but don't fret Larry--for it was not Speedy who suffered from this ailment. It was Adam's 4th broken spoke in a period of a few weeks. Adam took the wheel to a bike shop to have it re-built with new spokes, and we went to the coffee shop where our friend Kris works to kill a few hours. To our simultaneous excitement and dismay, several friends walked in and witnessed the fact that we were still sitting in the Old Port, hours after our scheduled departure time. Embarrassment aside, I felt myself growing increasingly fatigued. I had only been able to sleep for a few hours the night before, in a sleeping bag on the floor of my empty bedroom. I got up at 5:30 am, where I was met by my room mate who had not yet gone to bed after a long night of bartending. We walked to Marcy's Diner together for a big greasy breakfast of eggs, toast, and homefries. It was supposed to be my morning bike fuel, but ended up serving as my mid-afternoon bike fuel.
At 2:30pm, Piper's rear wheel was back on his bike and we were riding to the East End boat launch in the pouring rain. Trying to dip the rear wheels of two fully-loaded touring bikes by guiding them down a steep plank of wet seaweed proved to be excessively challenging. We opted for simple photos with the Atlantic as a pretty background image instead.
Somewhere along Forest Avenue, the sun came out and the rain jackets came off. We rode west on Route 302 (along beautiful, wide shoulders!) until about 7pm, at which point we pitched a tent and pulled out my camp stove. Soon we were eating pasta shells and cheddar with sauteed broccoli and garlic. At about 10pm, we finally went to bed.
