new york is big

We managed to make it through the night in our stealth spot without getting hasseled. A woman in the church opened the window to the corridor we slept in and the first she asks is ' do you guys need any money?'. Today was the first day I was able to hold a mean 15Mph cadence for like 80% of the day. We played a little muscle recruitment game where you trick your fast twitching muscles into they aren't fatigued by tweaking the gears and cadence.I read an article that said that if a 150 lbs man bikes 15 mph for 90 minutes he can refuel with a large oreo blizzard from dairy queen. This awesome information prompted us to stop for lunch at the first dq we saw. Our appetites are definitely soaring as we trek through.at one point when I was going down hill a bee flew into me, hit the center of my collar bone, died on impact because I was going so fast and fell into my sports bra. Good times.we are clean fed and about to pass out.
Song of the day: 'before we crazy, before we explode, there' somethin' bout me baby you ought to know. I get off on 57 chevy's, I get off on screamin' guitars, I've got a rock'n'roll heart. - mr. Eric Clapton, if you haven't heard this song its amazing.
Quote of the day:
You mean to tell me you've pumping yourself with some type of rocketfuel crack every morning to get yourself going while I suffer to wake myself up naturally!? WTF! Me to goat as he drank his pink morning drink

avon, ny i ran the race, i kept the faith

This morning I woke up well rested on a wrestling mat of the gym we slept in, we met the pastor at 6am for some breakfast and he told us about the town and we discussed the virtues of youth and how we are able to do this now. We stayed for his sermon and then hit the road which was so kind to us today. We were able to consistently average like 12-15 miles the whole day, much better than the agonizing 5 mph we were pulling in the beastly hills yesterday. We stopped at a walmart to resupply some dinners, cookies and gatorade. We passed like 5 walmarts today, which is good because I was afraid america didn't have enough, we cruised past some of the wine country and fingerlakes. After taking our afternoon break for a lemonade slushie we continued pedaling until a crazy storm unleashed its fury on us. We pulled over to a gas station and passed some time talking with a couple motorcyclists.as the rain died off a bit we decided to hit the road again, my adrenaline started kicking in and I went from being scared of lightening to singing bill withers at the top of my lungs while goat and I muscled our way up the last hills getting drenched by every car that passed. We stopped at a memorial for a cyclist who had been killed, they had painted a bike white and put his jersey up with a sign reminding people to be cautious and share the road, goat and I looked at eachother and got chills as cars sped past us. We are currently stealth camped in avon, ny under the cement overhang of a church. We are full of rice, contemplating chocolate protein powder and question whether biking cross country or hiking the AT is more demanding on your body.
Tomorrow we hit up lake erie.
Song of the day: if there's a driver on the road then let him have my load 'cause tonight I'll be staying here with you- bobby d
Quote of the day;I ran the race, I kept the faith.

3 flats in 18 hours and beastly climbs

Well today started out strong, we patched up our tires, had some delicious donuts and I was able to rock out to the local motown station that central new york has to offer.we checked the weather to find lightning bolts across the screen for the rest of the week and the weatherman actually said 'bombs away to new york' when describing the weather coming through. We made our way through the infamous pompey hills and this was honestly some of the hardest climbing I've ever experienced. You had to dig deep to make it up these hills. I'm usually able to play mental games and tell myself that I can do it because there's no way it can be harder than some of the toughest AT climbs. Today it was harder, I had to convince myself that every hard workout, all the months of training and pushing and sweat led me to this moment. Today we climbed to test our worth. I questioned several times whether or not I had it in me. On my way to the top as I teetered between feeling like I could prevail and feeling like I just maybe wanted my mom and a bath , a car drove past with one of those 'this car climbed mt. Washington', those stickers have always sort of pissed me off because they should say,' this lazy jerk forced his metal box up an amazing part of nature while his exhaust caused havoc on an already faltering eco-system and the whole time the kids are wondering where the next fast food joint is', maybe I'm bitter, but neither here nor there. Maybe I'll propose that they make one that says this cars owner used his heart and soul to climb mt. Washington. We made it to the finger lakes and the beautiful town of auburn where they just so happen to have a wegmans which is like crack to a hungry cyclist. We got giant sangys and are sleeping inside one of the local churches, the pastor is letting us use his shower and offered us some hot coffee in the morning. Not a whole lot more we could ask for.
Song of the day: stairway to heaven
Quote of the day:
Me: do you ever scared when we go down hill?
Goat: every single time, I pray for my life.

day 5 new york is still hilly, people are awesome

Slept alright in the pavillion last night except that I had afew anxiety dreams about town drunks coming and harrassing us and a dream where I was hanging out with my friends but I knew that I really had to get my bike tuned and I couldn't find the number to any of my favorite bike shops. I woke up and planned on riding a bike shop about 11 miles in the next town over, two miles from said shop I of course got a flat, I contemplated just walking to the shop but figured I'm going to have to do this at some point on my own anyways, in the process of changing the tire I found out I had the wrong size tube, a woman pulled over and offered to drive me to the shop, I piled into her back seat with my trailor and all and we made our way to the shop run by a guy named paul. He quickly got to work and fixed my gears. I asked if he had a rest room and to which he said we do but its really dirty, before I could say that I haven't showered in afew days and am happy just to not have to squat in the woods,he took me outside and gave me the keys to his car and told me to drive to the quick mart. I was beside myself. A person I had met only 5 minutes ago gave me the keys to his car. we're so ingrained and taught not to trust people and to always be skeptical and I've always been more inclined to give people the benefit of the doubt (this adds a layer to a personal conundrum I have with whether we either inherently good or capable of pure good but that's adifferent talk for another time) this guys gesture rekindled my faith in humanity. The rest of the day consisted of some more relentless climbs and a lot of sun.I found two ticks on me and managed to get another right at the end of the day. We are currently camped in a really nice little town called casenovia.its the kind of safe bubble town where kids get bmw's and jeeps on their 16th birthdays and are sent to private schools to secure their spots at ivys, which isn't at all a bad thing, but its not the kind of place that wants dirty cyclists camping out on public property, we tried a bunch churches to no avail and finally found a place on the outside of town.
Quote of the day: mmmmm chamois butt
Song of the day: yoshimi battles the pink robots- flaming lips

day 4 new york has mad hills and orange salamanders.

Tonight we are camping under the local farmers market pavillion of a charming little town called richfield springs. When I asked some locals where the local police station to ask if we could camp, I was told that there is no local police station so I could ask the mayor or a man by the namr of john who is one of the trustees for this town. John was thankfully all for it. The first 30 miles of our day were in a semi chilly rain up and down relentless hills. In MA my philosophy with gears was to always leave myself an out, see how long I could push in like the 1/3 range and crank it out, new york has forced me to abandon this plan. These hills require the highest gear unless you want to blow out your knees or quads. We stopped for lunch at a local deli and refueled on some amazing grilled cheese. When you're biking cross country it important to sample each counties flavor. A woman was selling homemade fig newton type things and they were so good. We passed a lot of sheep and farms, a walmart distribution centers and a bunch of mobile home dealers. Mobile home dealing seems like such a strange business, its gotta be a ridiculous operation.treking up these hills has made me appreciate (sort of) the amount of energy it takes for trucks to carry mobile homes across the country. Anyways. I saw a mom and two baby deer run right in front of me and sign at a barn selling good luck summer kittens for 10$, it was very difficult for me to not go and look at the kittens and recruit a cuddly route 20 crusing sidekick, but that would have been a bad idea.we should out of the hills and into relatively flatter land as we head towards the lake.
Quote of the day: you guys are biking to oregon and the next 150 miles are going to be the hardest- the local deli guy

Think about your hardest climb on the AT and know that this isn't as bad as that YOU CAN DO IT! GRILLED CHEESE CAN HELP- me to goat as we crawled up a beast

Song of the day: it ain't no use to sit and wonder why babe, given you don't know by now... I gave her my heart but she wanted my soul, don't think twice its all right- bobby d

day 3- our first state crossing

So we woke up at the birdcage said farewell to all the thruhikers and made our way west we climbed up mount lebanon (it took us each one donut to successfully make this climb) and we sped down hill into new york. I knew I was truly in new york when I saw a stewarts convenience store. I was first introduced to the magical delicious that is stewarts by my all time favorite trail angel paddy-o. Stewarts makes all sorts of incredibly good juices, milks and cookies. Anything that you could possibly want when you are beating the crap out of your body on a daily basis, stewarts has. We rode into albany and somehow missed the pedestrian/cyclists path and biked illegally on the bypass into the city, I was chased by my first dog and almost took out a guy in a motorized wheel chair. The sun was definitely beating down on us and we already have some nice awkward tans. I decided I don't really like biking through big cities. As we made our way up a ridiculous hill looking for a place to camp we rolled right into a giant church with a very promising pavillion where I am currently sitting getting to feast on a lipton noodle packet and some protein powder. The pastor is this young guy and the youth band camp is currently rocking out providing a nice ambiance to our meal.
Song of the day: david bowie- space odditity and the horns in the bridge to the black crowes welcome to the good times.
Quote of the day: you're such an american asshole, who asks someone from england if they're familiar to rowan atkinson.

day 2: lateral release of the junk

Today started out with like 40 miles of crazy beautiful rolling hills. Our first pit stop was at small bakery that could have been on a food network special of america's best kept secrets. We passed through all these small charming towns that made me think about how there is much that america is made of, I know so many people who can't handle the thought of not being in a big city, or prefer nyc over boston because its always awake and hustling, but when you break it down, america is huge and there's so much unique aspects in every town. We passed a funeral home called beer and story, which seemed oddly appropriate for a funeral home because sometimes when you lose someone you get together to drink beer and tell stories. The last 20 miles of the day were a relentess uphill in our granniest of granny gears. Chafing is definitely making an appearance and my fancy lady parts are not at all feeling fancy anymore. On each uphill goat and I question our ability to have kids after this ride. Tonight we are sleeping an AT hostel called the birdcage and it was awesome to swap stories with thruhikers. A van full of us went to old country buffet for dinner and we all ate so so much. Ocb is now called ocd in my book b/c there is so much going on there. We clocked in about 85 miles today and got as fast as 30 mph on this one down hill, which when you have a 65 lbs trailor on your butt can be a little crazy.
Song of the day: she woke me up with a bang bang turning over cross eyed had a hunch that world was a big lie,went over to the wayside looking for a high tide... - dispatch
Quote of the day: MY GOD IT FEELS SO GOOD, IT FEELS SO GOOD WHEN YOU SIT BACK DOWN

day 1 .... 65 miles in the rain

So we got on the road around 7 and the first 15 minutes of the ride consisted of me cursing the trailor and its ability to make moving and falling over incredibly awkward and frustrating. We had rolling hills through wayland and waltham, it started raining on the way through waltham and route 20 essentially became a river, to the point that I questioned at what point your bike stops working when its submerged in water. We had lunch in front of a giant mall and were approached by aguy who has done 4 xcountry rides and was fond of saying, 'that can kill you by the way', he gave us some good pointers and then got a little awkward as it became apparent that he was going to tell us about every single storm he went through. As we were coming towards the park we planned to camp in, I stopped to check the map and we saw that we were right across the street from a giant church, not wanting to spend money on a wet campsite, we figured we had nothing to lose asking if we could camp there. We talked to this guy Tim, who called his supervisor to see what our options were. He then told us that for liabililty reasons, we couldn't really camp there, but they weren't going to call the police or chase us off, if we caught his drift, which we did. We sat and talked with him for a bit and then out of nowhere he said that the church would be happy to put us up in a motel, but we had to be in separate rooms since we aren,t married. I was speechless. We rode 4 miles down the road in torrenrial downpour with SUVs covering us from the head down in water as they sped past. I don't think I'll ever be so grateful to the welcoming red sign of an econo lodge as I was tonight. I've heard stories of people getting free rooms and stuff but never ever thought it would happen to me, and on the 1st day of this trip no less. Crazy. Also e.l fudge cookies might be my favorite riding fuel
Song of the day; elias by dispatch
Quote of the day: jesus saves, baby!

Team Presta/Shrader - Shrader/Presta

So, funny thing about leaving on the 19th.... its hard to do when your cycling buddy does not have a bike because the gems that work at the Amtrak in D.C refused to take it, despite the fact that the amtrak website states that it does in fact allow bicycles and that they will even package them for you. I currently have a few bones to pick with Amtrak, not to mention the fact that it was a 3am train, its not like it was rush hour and the train was packed. Big bummer. We are now waiting for the kind people of fed-ex to safely deliver the beloved Trek 2200 to the Boston REI. Patience is a virtue.
But its probably just as well because now we will be leaving on the first official day of summer which is also the longest day of the year and is know to AT hikers as 'naked hiking day'. Our first day will put us in at about 65 miles to the national park located in sturbridge.
We found out that one our favorite AT hostels, called the Birdcage, is located just off of route 20 in pittsfield, which also just happens to be 85 miles from Sturbridge, when you know that you will be sleeping in a real bed with the possibility of a shower, the day takes on a new awesome and positive ambiance.
Also, in the AT culture there is something known as 'slackpacking', this is when someone either a hostel owner or friend or whoever offers to hold a bunch of your gear so that you can cover your days miles with just the bare essentials, this is an awesome break for thruhikers because you can usually cover much bigger days and you literally just have snacks and water for the day. That concept being introduced, we invented and became very excited about the concept of 'slack biking', this came about when we started recieving calls from friends telling us about their friends who lives in towns we will be passing through.
So, waiting for the bike, very ready and excited to pedal my heart out of here, to partake on one more epic adventure before I have to come kicking and screaming into a steady job and the 'real world'. I was flipping through an old journal and found two quotes that I wrote down years ago, that are oddly appropriate for this trip, so I'm going to be cheese ball and leave you with them, hopefully the next entry will be from the road:

'every school child in America is taught to identify with those enterprising men who, for better or often for worse , plunged their various flags into this land so many centuries ago...And even though we've heard phrases like 'last frontier' and 'final frontier' and 'last best place' for ages, we all still carry some frontier within us. That's the reason that no matter what direction I, and the other people like me, are traveling in our city-hopping lives, we're always headed west'
-Uneasy Rider

'I often come across some variation of the phrase "I went there to find myself', and I always suspect that the opposite was the case. Wilderness shows us by its very essence precisely what we are not and we go into it to escape precisely what we are: social creatures bound to grand systems that we must engage with or be ruined by'
-When We Were Kings

Route 20, Boston MA to Newport OR- 3,365 miles of awesome

Well team, on wednesday I am hitting the road and taking off on a trip I have been anticipating for quite some time now. I have pretty much all my gear in order. All I can hope for is decent weather, no huge mechanical issues with my bike, and that I won't get run off the road by some aggressive trucker as I muscle through the corn fields of Ohio. I would like to take this time to give a huge thanks to everyone who has supported me and helped me out with all of the tiny meticulous details that I required in gearing up for this trip. And a special thanks to one Geoffrey Carlson, who's dedication to detail and incredibly generous disposition to help a complete stranger essentially made this trip safe and possible for me. Geoffrey, if I ever write a book on this, you will get half of the profits.
The route:
Ever since I got back from hiking the appalachian trail in 2005, the idea of biking cross country consumed me. I loved the idea of seeing the country east to west, moving quickly and not having to carry all my necessary supplies on my back. I also fell in love with the physical challenge of it all. I considered a bunch of different routes until a friend suggested route 20, I learned that it is the oldest east-west highway, it starts within one mile of the pacific and ends within one mile of the atlantic, the idea of taking one road the whole way was very appealing. And the fact that it conveniently happens to start in boston a few miles from where I live pretty much sealed the deal for me.

I will be riding a Novara Safari ( or the safairy) , which is a little heavy and maybe the equivalent of trekking in a toyota 4 runner as opposed to a fast and efficient honda civic, however, it's rugged, comfortable and I know that I can load it up and give it a good beating and it will still ride smoothly. It is one of my most favorite toys.
I went with a bob yak trailor which is called little boo, I decided I liked the idea of having everything behind me instead of right on me with panniers. My tent is a big agnes seedhouse sl1, sometimes referred to as aggie.

As for training, whenever preparing myself for something of this magnitude, I spend a whole lot of time on endurance and recovery, and getting my body to a point where i can push hard till near exhaustion a few times a day and then be able to wake up the next day to do it all over again. You don't really have to be a great athlete to do anything like this, its really all about you tolerate/trandscend pain and discomfort and what you can push yourself through. However, I am a complete sucker for endurance athleticism, testing human potential and pushing my physical limits. That being said I will leave you with a quote from Dean Karnazes, I was reading articles about him in runners world before he made it big and signed with north face and all that good stuff. But his drive and words speak volumes to me and capture quite well the passion I feel about life:

The human body has limitations, the human spirit is boundless. Your mind is your most important muscle, Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention to arrive safely in a pretty and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming: Wow!! What a ride!

It is approximately 3,365 miles from boston to newport, oregon, if I want to get there in 35 days I need to average 96.4 miles a day. We'll see what goes down.

I am incredibly lucky and fortunate to be at point in my when i have the means, health and support to be able to attempt this endeavor. To my friends and family, thank you again.