Month: September 2010

Took the ferry out of quebec city (after cleaning out the local patisserie). Despite our late start, we managed 60 miles anyway due to an awesome tailwind. Staying in a town park near a rock that has some legend about a woman selling her soul that we can’t fully translater.

We miss Sarah already. She got her bike boxed and shipped, and we left her to wait for the train with a belly full of crepes. It definitely seems like the transition from st. Laurence river to ocean has begun…the coastline is very rocky and briney and covered in fried seafood stands. Somehow we’ve gone from the temperature being in the 90s to the 50s.

Climb that hill!

After we said our goodbyes to sarah, we rode straight into a headwind. That plus the cold and rain drove us to shiver in the shelter of the first tim hortons we could find. I,ve never been happier to see a chain food restaurant. As we ate donuts and attempted to translate the newspapers we plotted our evening and decided to find a motel. We spent the night at the le beach watching bad crime drama tv and trying to dry out our socks. We quickly went from mouillex to sec. The weather improved the next day except when greg broke a spoke as it began to pour. We hunkered down under one of canada’s many lovely covered picnics tables to install the kevlar spoke that has saved us so many times. We camped at la martre that night where we saw the first of many phare. The next day started off with an awesome tailwind and lots of flat riding next to the picturesque seaside. The second half of the day included some of the steepest hills i’ve ever ridden my bike up. The grades ranged from 8 to 15 percent. all the people who told us that gaspe is ‘illy were not kidding. After the second day of short but gnarly hills we decided to rest our muscles at the gite blanchette. This mignon b and b had knit cozies for everything: our feet, the kleenix, the extra tp. After yummy whole wheat pancakes and way too much coffee we rode into gaspe so greg could get his wheel fixed. We put in a few miles for a short day until we again got caught in cold cold rain. We are now holed up in the dinner hall of an rv park, surrounded by other people,s pictures of xmas in august. When we said we,d pitch the tent wherever the drunk proprieter told us, you sleep inside, no problem. He then lit the wood stove and wandered out into the night. One last note before i go to bed: don’t buy cheese on special at the marche, even if it’s greatly reduced. That’s probably becuase it tastes like socks.

the rumors are true. Greg had an epic bike failure. His dellaireur est completement casse. Totally detruit. We are not really sure what happened, but think it has to do with not tying off that kevlar thread properly. He had broken a second spoke but had fixed it with the thread and was riding into a thirty mile crosswind. Something didn’t feel right and he realized that the difficulty was not from le vente. It was because his derailleur was in his spokes. It was unfixable. Both the cage and hanger were bent like pretzels. We walked the seven miles to barachois where we were lucky that there was a train station. We rode the rails to the next town with a bike shop. The train ride was gorgeous. The tracks run super close to the water and the large waves seem as if they’ll overtake the train in places. We stayed at the new richmond hotel where the curtains are brocaded and the are old typewriters and phonographs for decor along with calendars of scantily clad women. The only mechanic in town fixed greg’s bike by welding metal to his frame then re tapping the hanger. Awesome. So, we are back on the road and just made dinner in the mess hall of the swankiest provincial park in new brunswick.

We’ve successfully repatriated and made a smooth transition from vachon snake cakes back to little debbie. We’re conducting a survey of maine homes to determine the barn star to eagle house decoration ratio (barn stars are way ahead). We’ve been putting in lots of miles to get to bangor on time, but it’s hard as the days get shorter and mornings get colder. We should make it tomorrow, and I’ll trade megan for jeff g – not really a fair trade, but I take what I can get.

Jeff and I are screaming through maine as we continue our haddock-fueled quest for Boston. I think we’ll make it tomorrow. Jeff saw his first alpaca today. I reached 20,000 career touring miles this morning! We are machines that turn pie into hills.

Here comes the rain again

2000 miles!

We made it to boston fine, though I nearly killed jeff with 90 mile days. Had a great stay with dan, consisting mostly of tasty food, playing illuminati, and watching jeff nearly beat zelda before the nes glitched. Nick and I made quick work of mass and now are dashing through ct, having realized everything sounds better with a new england accent. Unfortunately, I’ve got more bike troubles, and probably need a new rear wheel. Luckily there’s a bike shop about 1/2 mile from the roach motel we’re staying at.

Greetings, bum-lookers. We’ve been busy screaming down the east coast, and a lot’s been going on, but let’s try to give you the highlights. We found the sweetest bike shop in Connecticut, Amity Bikes, and they hooked me up with a new wheel on the super cheap. Nick and I ripped off a 100 miler to cruise into brooklyn and meet up with Issac. We got sloppy with Xtian in jersey city, then stacey reintroduced us to vegetables in princeton. We played frogger all the way down to Karp’s temple in philly. The mighty karp regaled us with daft tales of shooting fish with modified ranged weapons whilst rejuvenating us with heap plenty yuengling. Today nick, in an inspired moment of greggery, demolished his deraillieur hanger and was made to slog through god’s peaceful valley on a hastily configured single-speed. Huge greasy-fingered ups to tom at cycle circle in lancaster for staying late to help a nerd in need. Its also worth noting that the day did include amish boys and girls on special bike size scooters and fresh homemade rootbeer from a farm we stopped at. So al in all a decent time had by all.
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