Our fifth and last day of riding before we made it to our friends' house in Hancock was by far the hardest. We actually had great weather, but our bodies were tired and sore after 4 long days of riding, there were a lot of hills, and we spent a lot of time on route 1 - a busy road that isn't really that nice for biking. We'll spare you the details, but it's fair to say it was one of the more trying times in our marriage so far. But still, despite that, there were some great parts of the day.
First we started with a beautiful and delicious breakfast at our B and B. the chef was French and the food was delicious. At breakfast, we saw two gentleman ride by with panniers. We wondered if we'd see them later in the day.
Though we were tired, the first ten or so miles of the day were quite lovely. We rode into Belfast looking forward to pumping up our tires at the bike shop in town. As we pulled in, the two gentleman we'd seen that morning were just getting ready to leave. They made small talk, mentioned something about a bridge and rode off. Meanwhile, we lost air at the bike shop be wise the pump didn't work and the bike shop owner was extremely unhelpful. We left wondering why the guy ran a bike shop since he seemed to have a strong dislike for cyclists.
Fortunately, there was another bike shop a few miles ahead. We were glad we had to stop because it was the most unique bike shop and bike shop owner ever. The owner really looked like a motorcyclist who had probably never ridden a bicycle. The shop was so full you couldn't walk around in it. I thought about buying some new sunglasses since mine are missing a piece, but I couldn't actually get to the sunglasses rack. But the owner was so nice. He drove down about 300 feet from his house in the middle of his lunch to let us in and loan us a pump. Things were still looking good.
We rode on further and saw signs of a big bridge in the distance. We pulled over to the viewing point and thought we saw our two fellow cyclists - they were both wearing the fluoro-yellow jackets so they were easy to spot. We rode up to the bridge and sure enough, the cyclists were there. Except one of them had been transformed into a little child in a candy shop. He was so much friendlier than he had been earlier that morning. He exclaimed, "isn't this amazing. This bridge is incredible. I can't believe it. I can't believe they let me on it. I can't believe no one has come to get me off of it. It's so wonderful. This is amazing. We've been here for 45 minutes. Isn't his incredible." He was so happy. His friend was decidedly less so. As we rode off, the bridge lover was telling his friend that they were going to have to re- do the photo of him riding on the bridge because they needed a car-free photo. It's possible they spent another 45 minutes or more on that bridge. It is cool and goes over the Penobscot River if you ever happen to be in Verona, Maine.
We stopped alone after for lunch in Orland. We ate with a lady on a guided cycling tour through Maine. She shared some carrots with us, and then left. That's when things started to go downhill ( and unfortunately not literally). We rode through some not quite dry pavement which stuck to our wheels along with rocks. Then we rode on route 1 for a long time. It seemed impossible to get comfortable in the bike, we always seemed to be going uphill, and there were lots of cars. Somehow, we finally made it to Ellsworth - about 12 miles from our final destination. We stopped for a smoothie, gathered our strength and rode on. We stayed strong until the last few miles when we really fell apart. Thank goodness the conditions were perfect - beautiful sunny, cool weather, lupines everywhere, and the promise of great friends, a hot shower and delicious dinner just ahead.
We did make it and all of those things happened. And then we took it easy the next two days with no bike riding at all. There's more to say a out the weekend and today, but that will have to wait. The Stanley Cup is on and CBC has great commercials so I gotta go. But I'll just say we're hanging out in Bar Harbor and having a ball! More soon ...
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