Well, some of it is the end of Day 1. After a bit of blog writing and a few snoozes, Lee, JJ and I headed off to a restaurant in town where we met Terry. Terry’s (very charming) wife Ann had driven up to meet Terry and have dinner. We also met Aldo who is the bike guru in town. He runs Ride Noho with his wife. They arrange bike tours round north Massachusetts and know the area really well. He had helped out Terry and Lee in coming up with the routes for the four days. He’s also a really nice guy. If anybody is insane enough to want to do something similar to this trip then Aldo is your guy. He’s also a great advert for cycling as a way of life. He’s 55 and looks 35.
One thing that I hadn’t known about Northampton, MA is that it is the lesbian capital of the USA. No really. Number one on the list. Who knew? Anyway, as you can imagine, four middle aged guys fitted in really well at the restaurant. The food was superb especially for people who had just cycled 100 miles. My starter was a duck and bacon sausage. Battered. And then fried in duck fat. Mmmm calories….
Terry and Ann sensibly retired early and JJ, Lee and I decided to go and catch some of the Boston Red Sox baseball game in a very loud (and diverse) bar in town. This mostly involved getting taught about the intricacies of baseball by Lee while drinking and insanely large amount of whisky and beer. This was really a very very bad idea and I woke up with a rather bad hangover and no knowledge of baseball whatsoever. However, it’s the playoff season and so it’s baseball every night for us.
We got up fairly late on Friday and went to Sylvester’s for breakfast. The menu seemed to revolve around weak puns e.g. “The Lox Ness Omelette: our tribute to Scotland”. Once again, I made the schoolboy error of massively underestimating the size of the portions. My “breakfast quesadilla” was bigger than my head and came with fries and bacon. JJ had a toasted muffin and a bucket of yoghurt. Who toasts muffins? Weird.
The weather looked ok when we set out and the first hour or so was really nice. Some rail to trail bike paths but as Aldo had warned us the previous evening, it got a lot lot tougher from there. We’d planned a break in Savoy. which was 35 miles from the start and it was basically uphill all the way. Some rolling bits but mostly relentless climbing. Not especially steep but in the rain that had started to fall and the wind it was really punishing. JJ, Lee and Terry did pretty well but I just got dropped off the back. I’d like to blame the previous day’s ride for the fact that my legs felt like they were made out of cheap rubber bands but I think I just hadn’t done enough hill training. There were times when I was only managing 7 or 8 km/h in the granny gear and really really suffering.
I reached Savoy a bit after everybody else and we loaded up on peanut butter sandwiches and Snickers. We also put on our wet weather gear although in my case, I was so bloody wet already that it just kept the wetness inside. Eventually the water heated up like a wet suit but it was not pleasant. And I was completely bushed. As tired as I have ever been.
After Savoy, it was only 18 miles but it started with two really hard climbs. Guess who got dropped again. As soon as the gradient went up, I just lost it. Ugh. From the top it was a long fast descent but the rain made the roads very slippery and so it was hard to get much joy out of the descent when you were always thinking about the bike disappearing from under you on the corners. By the time we hit Adams, we were very wet and dirty. I’d been drafting Lee down the hill and although there’s a lot of advantage in drafting people (i.e. staying close behind them to get so that you don’t get as much head wind) the downside is that you get covered in the crud that gets thrown off their wheels. I was filthy, wet and had grit in my mouth. Terry turned off at the bottom to do the terrifying Mount Graylock. This seemed to me to be particularly foolish since we’re doing it tomorrow but Terry wanted to do it from the south as well as from the north. Hmmmm.
The ride into Williamstown was pretty flat and we had a nice tailwind. JJ was absolutely flying but Lee and I also managed a reasonable pace. All the roads around here have “shoulders”. Bits at the side around 1m to 2m wide. These are great for cyclists except they have the storm drains and bits of crap in them. They also have “rumble strips”. When some amphetamine addled hairy trucker falls asleep while driving his 18 wheel semi trailer and he starts to veer into the side, there are a series of brick sized holes spaced about 20 cm apart which make a big noise on the tyre and so the aforementioned trucker wakes up and can continue on his transcontinental mission to deliver Twinkies to LA (or something). Going over these brick sized holes at 30km/h on a bike is about the most painful thing I’ve ever done on a bike. It hit some sort of resonant frequency and caused considerable pain in the nether regions. Something to avoid in future I think.
Finally with the needle on empty we pulled into the Howard Johnson in Williamstown. I was completely wiped and freezing. I had to stand under the shower for 20 minutes before I could be sure that I was still alive. But, once I was sure I was alive, Lee, JJ and I went out to watch Zombieland at the local mall. Sitting for two hours in front of a mindless and lightweight movie was actually a perfect thing to do. The movie is very lightweight but Woody Harrelson is great and I did think that Emma Stone was quite fetching. So tonight we’re going to Coyote Flaco “The best mexican in Williamstown”. It’s also the only Mexican restaurant in Williamstown so it could be interesting. Restaurant review tomorrow.
So this was a really really tough day for me. I think everybody else found it ok today. The stats aren’t that impressive. 3200ft of climbing, 84km. The other guys managed a better average speed but mine was 20.4 km/h. Pathetic. Also, my average heart rate was low and the calories used was about half of yesterday. I just didn’t have the strength in my legs to do enough exercise to raise my heart rate. Not pleasant.
Tomorrow we’re going up “the steep side” of Mount Graylock. This is going to be very tough indeed. I’m a bit apprehensive about it.
Here’s the photo album from the day. I was too tired to take very many pictures.
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