Trek Across Maine 2007 Retrospective & Pictures

First, thanks again to all who supported me (with pledges and/or encouragement) in Trek Across Maine. I exceeded my goal of raising $1,000 for the American Lung Association of Maine.  This was the first time I tried any sort of bike ride of any substance, and it went better than I could have hoped. Thanks also for the good weather and of course the hundreds of volunteers who marked the route, fed us food and kept us hydrated among many other things.

This is a long post, so go ahead and click on the collection to the right if you just want to see the pictures :)

Here are my stats for the ride:

Day 1

The fist day was definitely the roughest. I got less sleep than I wanted to. It was a 1.5 hour drive to the starting line, and of course I got there later than I wanted to. Then, just as I started off what should have been a fun descent down the mountain, I instead felt a dreaded thumping from the rear wheel. I pull over but it's not flat. Start again and THUMP THUMP THUMP. So I pull off to the side and flip the bike over and finally spot that part of the tire was being pushed away from the rim, thus giving it that not-quite-round shape that you don't want to see. Luckily, my family/road crew was just leaving the mountain, and they pulled over and it was easy to re-inflate the tube using the floor pump in the car. Thanks also to the guy from the Bike Coalition of Maine who stopped to take a look.

So everything combined with the late start and mixed in with general anxiety (and combined with the actual bike riding, I suppose) had me exhausted after just a dozen miles - much less than the training rides I had been doing every weekend! By the time I got to the first rest stop at the 25-mile mark, I was feeling beat.  But after copious  drink,  and food  I was feeling somewhat better. I readjusted my clothes,  my bike - basically everything.  The next leg of the ride then felt MUCH better, and I was much relieved.

After the second rest stop was the highest elevation gain of the day, and indeed the entire ride. After climbing a while I started feeling like I was slowly but steadily making progress, but I refused to admit that I might be near the top on the grounds that at that instant I would round a curve and THEN see the actual giant incline in front of me. But soon it could not be denied that the top was near, and everyone gasped a sigh of relief.

Downhill is fun. Along with going farther then ever, I also went faster than ever: 35mph down that hill, then 38mph on day 3.

I felt fantastic and relieved approaching the endpoint of the day. I was then twitterpated to find my family had drive to the endpoint to surprise me! They helped me set up my tent and we went out for ice cream. I met some interesting folks and ran into some ex-coworkers who had a team with fancy jerseys and everything. It was great weather for camping and after dinner and some music and a visit to the campus "pub" I fell soundly asleep at 9:30pm.

Day 2

Woke up at 5:00am to the sounds of people breaking camp. Fueled up on breakfast, packed up my tent and retrieved my bike from parking. Filled the tires with air and my camelbak with water and rolled out of town about 7:30. There was a merciful mist in the air, keeping temps at a lovely 60ish degrees F for a half hour or so, before they began their steady climb towards the mid-80s.

Day 2 was my favorite day. I felt strong & fast on the bike. I suspect part of this was psychological - I had survived Day 1, which was the longest ride I'd ever attempted, and I was not in any sort of crippling pain. Plus by watching others I improved my hill-descending/climbing tactics. For a while I followed a couple of people setting a fairly rapid pace (compared to mine). It was great as it kept me focused because sometimes going through the beautiful mountain region of Maine it was easy to let your mind wander a bit and then you are wondering how long it is to the next rest stop and what is for dinner that night and your thoughts get all rambly like this sentence and then with a start you realize you are going a bit slow or that you haven't used a comma in a while depending if you are still working with the sentence metaphor or not, so then you snap back out of your thoughts and re-focus your efforts.

It was an amazing, scenic ride and you will notice I didn't take many good pictures. Either I was struggling a bit and didn't want to stop and lose momentum, or I was really in the groove and didn't want to stop and lose that. Next year, I will rig up some sort of bike-mounted camera.  I  blogged my entire ride, but the pictures were  a) taken with my cameraphone and b)  mostly from the non-scenic rest stops, so I don't know how much value they added.

About halfway through I encountered the only motorist on the entire trip who felt he had to harass the cyclists by honking and shouting things. Thus, it was quite satisfying to see him pulled over by the cops a few miles down the road.

The stop for day 2 was the campus of Colby College and after setting up my tent I had more time on my hands than the previous day. I went for a swim in the pool, took some pictures and generally wandered around. Luckily, I got on the dinner line early, because that was crazy long by the time I left the cafeteria. The food was plentiful, diverse and delicious.

Went to bed about the same time after checking out the band playing that night. Took a while longer to fall asleep as it was a bit noisier and the ground less soft.

Day 3

Woke up at sunrise to a red sky.  This being a good sign of storms for later in the day, I packed up and ate quickly and was on the road by 7am, after taking care of my rear tire, which had gone flat overnight. Unfortunately, it was already quite warm out, again heading for the mid-80s that day. I felt good - perhaps not as good as day 2, but still it was an enjoyable ride.

I liked going through all the little towns, as this approximated my more normal mode of riding (city streets, commuting). Of course, it is a bit different when you have the police out there stopping/directing traffic for large groups of cyclists.

Part of what makes this ride so enjoyable is the massive amount of work put into it by the organizers and the 300+ volunteers. The route is well marked and hazardous road conditions are highlighted with orange spraypaint. The rest stops are continually stocked with food and water. Whenever you get somewhere, you always know where to go, where to park the bike, where you'll be setting up camp, etc. They are basically a massive support crew that takes care of everything so you only have to worry about biking, eating and sleeping.

As we crossed the town line into Owl's Head I was elated and at the same time couldn't believe that it would all be over soon! I crossed the finish line with a big smile on my face and knew already I would be signing up for next year.