Day 01: Revere Beach, MA to Orange, MA

Total Distance: 82.4 mi
Avg Moving Speed: 9.7 mph
Moving Time: 8:31
Elev Gain: 536 ft
Climing Elevation: 4500 ft

Route Summary:
Rt 60 W to 
Minuteman Trail to
Rt 225 W to
Rt 2A W


Well, where to begin? Here I am, on the first night of my cross
country thingymawhatsit. 

I guess I'll start with last night. Last night sucked. I couldn't
really sleep much and I was really busy panicing about the trip. I'm
still panicing a little bit, but actually completing the first day
without exploding has made a big difference. I spent the last few
hours just dealing with all sorts of random trivia I should have
dealt with earlier, but was too lazy to do. Eit. I mean, I don't
realisiticall think I would ever do anything else, but still. 

Then, bright and early at 4:15, Antonio picked me up in his truck and
drove me to Revere Beach, where we met up with a bunch of people who
all came to see me off. It was nice. I was kinda too tired to deal
with saying goodbye to people, but it was fine. After watching the
sunrise and dipping my rear wheel (a cross country tradition), I
left. Yak came along for the first twenty or so miles, and we had
breakfast in Bedford. 

Today was my longest ride ever, and had a lot of climing too, with a
load. If I can repeat this sort of performance, I'm totally set to
make it on schedule. I'm not sure if I can, but I'll certainly try. I
was going to go to a state park in Winchendon, but when I got to the
turn off point I decided I'd rather try and push further ahead so as
to make tomorrow easier. I'm gonna be staying at the house of Mike
Patton (who I really should call and confirm with) tomorrow, so the
total two day distance is basically fixed. However, Mike's place is
on top (or at least far up) a big hill, so tomorrow will have lots of
climing. Since I left really early today, I had pleanty of time to
push further and make life easier, so I did. I ended up staying in a
motel instead of a campground. My mom was right, it is much much
nicer. I had a nice shower, and have been watching TV. Unfortunatly,
it is also rather expenisve. Some back of the envelope calculations
reveal that a) I can't stay in motels all that often, and b) I'm
gonna be broke at the end of this. Fortunatly, my parents agree to at
least pay for the bike, which is a decent fraction of the
expense. I'd really like to make it all the way before asking them
for money though. 

I guess I'll say a bit more about todays ride. It went fairly well,
overall. The start was a bit shaky, since I hadn't ridden with a
trailer in a while. It makes a *huge* difference. After I checked in
to the motel, I rode back without the trailer a couple miles to the
nearest cheap food, and *wow*. Also, I ended up using the granny gear
quite a lot on the many many climbs today. If today is any
indication, the Rockies are gonna be really rough. But by then I'll
be in better shape. And actually, I didn't do that bad at it, even
today. My performance today really gives me a lot more
confidence. I'm still not at all sure what the hell I'm doing, why,
or where my pants are, but at least I have more hope I'll make it. 

The tiredness is really beginning to set in, and I still have a bunch
of chores to do, so this entry might get abbreviated. I think I'll go
deal with stuff, then reboot to Linux and maybe pick it up again.