I left my apartment in Farmington, Maine at about 10:30 on Saturday, October 6th, 2007 heading towards my mother's house in Peru. It was cloudy, not warm, and I was estimating that I would ride about 55 miles. This area of Maine was approaching peak foliage, so the scenery was the best I was going to be able to ride in.
I had some ulterior motives for timing the ride for when I did. Chiefly, I had to clear my head. The pharmacy where I work as a technician was robbed at gun point the previous morning, and I found myself thinking about that quite a bit. Until I had the chance to devote a span of hours to reconciling the whole event in my head, I would not be able to properly concentrate on much else. So, with a day of riding I estimated would take six or seven hours, I planned on riding most of it on autopilot over mild terrain, and get a really good night?s sleep at the end of it.
I?d driven the route many times, but grunting up the hills was a bit of a surprise. Not that they were particularly challenging, but I had planned the ride out very poorly. I wasn?t in my best shape, I hadn?t eaten enough the previous week, and had only decided to do it the previous afternoon. If it ended up being sufficient to qualify, wonderful. If not, I had no objection to riding it later in the season, when I could get points for extreme temperatures (I live in Maine, after all.)
I followed US-2 from Farmington, through Wilton, East Dixfield, Carthage, and into Dixfield proper. There was a hill in town that was pretty tough, and I was making good time, so I decided to ride a little loop, take the hill, then stop at a friend?s house. As it happened, there was a wedding in progress at the church on top of the hill. So, I said hello, posed for a picture with the bride, and continued on. I though it was neat that for the rest of her life, when she sees a unicycle, she?ll think of me crashing her wedding. Awesome.
I continued on to Rumford, to Hannaford, where my mom was due for work. I told the pharmacy, where I was first trained and certified, about the robbery, and why none of them should ever transfer to Rite Aid. After an hour of pouring as many calories down my throat as I could, I hit the road again.
While the sky had been getting progressively darker, it began showering as I left the Hannaford parking lot at 4:00. I quietly thought about Ride The Lobster, and if rain would give me an advantage. After my tour of New England, which was plagued by ceaseless rain and some of the worst flooding the north east has seen in decades, I cannot imagine many people have spend as many hours pedaling in a downpour as I have.
I crossed from US-2 to ME-108 and rode into Peru. Although the sun wasn?t due to set until after 7, it was frustratingly dark by 5. I turned onto Greenwoods rd, and grunted up a long hill as the rain picked up. I was only three miles from home, but they were the three miles in which most of my climbing and descending was focused. My legs were feeling the month of disuse I?d put them through prior to this ride, and to end the day in heavy rain after that many miles, I believed, was a mistake.
End of day 1: 72km, 347 meters gained elevation, 309 descended, 12 km in light rain, 7km heavy rain
10/07/2007
157
There wasn?t much to eat at Mom?s house, so I rode about six miles down ME-108 in the morning before I got to a gas station, and snarfed down a few Hostess donettes. I rode through Canton and got to Livermore before turning onto ME-4 and faced the solid autumn headwind which would accompany me for roughly 35 or 40km until I turned off the paved road.
I rode on autopilot through Livermore Falls, Jay, and back into Wilton. There, I hopped a ditch and utilized a gravel railroad path turned recreation trail. This trail is exactly how the robbers from the friday before had fled. Though I certainly wasn't expecting to find some smoking gun, like a dropped drivers license featuring a man in a blue bandana holding up a bottle of stolen Oxycontin, but still, I kept my eyes open. It was flat as a pancake and straight as an arrow, but the rain had left its mark. There were sections of mud and potholes, and always a nasty pair of trenches whenever the path crossed a paved road. While I was grateful to be off the busy road, on the recreation trail I had ATVs to contend with, and one in particular with a little boy on the back that drove past me five or six times, each time leaving a trail of blue exhaust that would have made Phillip Morris gag. Still, I emerged from the gravel about a mile from my apartment, and finished up the day. Looking at my GPS receiver, I cringed to see that my second day of riding was shorter than my first. I considered riding a lap around town, but I was wiped. Instead I resolved to ride a more effective qualifier a month later, for which I would prepare myself better.
However, when I crunched the numbers, I discovered, to my surprise, that my rating was sufficient to qualify, if only just barely.
End of day 2: 66km, 202 meters gained, 240 descended, 10 kilometers soft gravel, 35 kilometers strong wind.