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Day 21 - May 15 - Going Inland

"The hills are alive"

Hi, and welcome back to my bike blog.

The Daily Routine

Morning

If available, my day always starts with a trip to the bathroom. Before anything, I brush my teeth, and think about my goals for the day. Depending on weather, climb, and timing of my waking, I think about how much is reasonable to push for today. I also refill all water bottles at this time.

The routine is strangely similar between campgrounds and hotels. In hotels, it's just one fewer bags to pack. One of my side bags holds my tent, sleeping equipment, emergency water, and pajama pants, and the second side-bag holds the electronics, some food, and bike-repair tools. The trunk just holds clothes.

I pack my bags, oftentimes trying to wear clothes that are wet from yesterday's laundry, as they will dry off on the ride. If something is being charged, either from my external battery, or an outlet, I put it away. It used to take me a long time to pack, as I had to decide what goes where, but by now I have a simple routine. In the second pannier, it's laptop first, then bike repair tools and electronics side by side, and finally food. What doesn't comfortably fit goes in the trunk.

If the tent is wet, tough love, it will have to dry out next time I open it up. Soon, all the bags are packed and on the bike, leaving the final remnants of things that are on me or the bike. These include my phone, helmet, gloves, headphones, and more wet laundry. The wet laundry is tucked between the straps holding the panniers closed, and after a final scan of the campsite or hotel room, I'm off.

Pre-Lunch

Usually, I can bike around 2 hours straight before needing a serious break. Sometimes, if I wake up early enough, I try a 100k by noon challenge. Either way, I tend to get the majority of my cycling done in the mornings, and leave the evenings open for big pushes, or long dawdles.

There's a bit of a cycle to these long stretches. They are often on a single highway, so I don't really need to look at a map, and the only thing I need to be attentive to is water. When my bottle is half-empty, or if I feel like I should be drinking more, I like to play the gas station game, where every time I see a gas station, I finish my water, refill it and go.

Filling up water at gas stations has become second nature. I lean the bike on the building, walk inside, and make my way to the soda machines. Either they have a water lever, or there's a sink. If I see neither, I ask the cashier. At first, I felt bad coming in and not buying anything, but I've gotten used to it by now, and I figure that it's not that big of a deal for them. All in all, it takes about 30 seconds to fill water, and maybe a minute from the second I pull over to the moment I'm back on the road.

Occasionally, I might pack a piece of fruit in my handlebar bag, and stop by to eat it somewhere. Either on the side of the road, or, I sometimes wait for a railing to lean my bike against while I eat. I often use this time to answer messages, look at maps, and enjoy the scenery.

I'd say that on the bike, I spend about 20% of my time daydreaming, 40% looking around thinking about the things I see, 20% thinking about what to write about today, another 20% of the time actually thinking about Mathcamp classes and things related to work, 5% looking at the GPS and doing mental math on the stats it spits out, and the last 5% on singing along with whatever is playing. If that adds up to more than 100%, it's because I'm giving this bike ride more than 100%.

Lunchtime

Depending on location, and on the food I am carrying, I either stop by the side of the road to make my own lunch, or go buy something. I try to buy lunches only when it's something special - a chain I've never been to, a local specialty, or just an interesting-looking restaurant. More often than not, they are pretty cheap actually, usually about $10 for a solid lunch. That's the price of things in rural communities, I guess. If I make my own lunch, I try to find a picnic area to set up the kitchen. I've learned that boat launches and small towns often have picnic tables lying around. Lunch is usually sandwiches. I carry with me bread, tomatoes, cucumbers, and some kind of spread or cheese. I have a very sharp little knife that I use to cut vegetables, and stick them in a sandwich with cheese or whatever spread I have. For dessert, I have my jar of peanut butter, graham crackers, or some old trail mix.

Lunchtime can also be a time to relax a bit, and see an area from the inside. In restaurants, you can see the locals eating, and talking about their town news, or personal stories. You can see the local economy, and you can hear the accents and mannerisms. If I make my own lunch, I usually spend the time on my phone, deciding where exactly to stop, and making calls to campgrounds or hotels in the area. Lunchtime is also a great time for me to stretch, and make the transition from morning biking to afternoon biking.

Afternoon Biking

I take long lunches. Even after I finish eating, I like to lie down, or just enjoy the atmosphere. A bit of it is my body telling me that it's tired, but some of it is just the paused moment of no cars, just people, or nature.

Biking in the afternoon is a bit different from the morning. The sun is stronger, there's often more wind, and I'm usually close to my goal for the day. The afternoons are good for longer stops - chatting up people at gas stations, or garage sales, or other bike tourists passing by. The afternoons are marked by the sunscreen clock. I have to re-apply sunscreen every 90 minutes, so I work in 90 minute units. That sections off the afternoon nicely, and I can usually arrive at my lodging location by around 5:00pm.

Sometimes I arrive later, but arriving earlier is not always the best, as these places often only start reservations in the afternoons. The afternoon is when I make my pushes for extra kilometers, and where I make some final choices about what to write about in the blog. Most of my pictures are taken in the afternoon for some reason. Maybe it's because I'm not in such a rush to get somewhere.

The Evening

The moment I get to where I'll be sleeping, it's a race against the sun. The absolute first thing I do is try to find a place to charge my phone. After this, I shower. Oftentimes, I can use the dried laundry from the morning as a change of clothes, but if not, there's always more dry clothes in the trunk. While I shower, I also do laundry, which mainly consists of getting the day's clothes wet, rubbing them against each other, and squeezing until the water doesn't run grey. I'm mostly just trying to get the sweat out. After laundry, I clean myself with a single bar of soap. The worst part is the thighs. For some reason, every time I start scrubbing my legs, the pool of water under me turns a dark grey.

After getting the sweat and sunscreen off, I set up my tent, throw the sleeping equipment into it, and grab my electronics bag, and my front bag and look for a place to write the blog.

Writing the blog itself is not as streamlined as it could be. I still need to connect my phone to my computer to upload the photos, reduce their resolution, and plug them all into the right places. The GPS is similar, in that it needs to connect, download, and then I need to run my little map making script on it. Each of these things is a push of a button, but the main annoyance is dealing with the cables. Still, this is way easier than my set-up for the Boston bike ride.

I finish writing the blog, either in a cafe near the hotel, the hotel itself, or on a picnic table in the campground I'm staying at. By then, it's usually getting pretty dark, so I brush my teeth, call Sarah, and go to bed.

In a hotel, a bed is a bed. In a tent, a bed is a blow-up sleeping pad, and a sleeping bag. I take all of my valuables into the tent with me, and leave the bike, helmet, and clothes outside. The laundry I leave to air out, and the rest of the clothes I keep in a waterproof bag. The sun sets, I push my website changes to the coxeter server (sometimes using my phone for the internet connection), and put away the technology.

The Odds and Ends

Of course, there's things I do throughout the day that get tucked in anywhere. My parents often call, I text friends, and I do have to answer emails throughout the day. I check the weather often, and sometimes have to repair the bike. These are the odds and ends, and they get tucked in to breaks, lunches, or evenings.

The Image Gallery

I'll be talking about hill psychology in a later blog, but there's only so many pictures I can take of rolling hills with highway.


I really didn't see much else today, mostly because I was so focused on biking up hills, and listening to a five-part podcast series on Jonestown. I guess I did see a cute little train-car, though.


The Map

Today I biked 160km. This does not sound like much, but it was much harder than earlier days. I started late, and the entire way was hills. In fact, there was a 1km stretch of flat road, which just felt so weird, simply because it was flat all of the sudden. Anyways, here's the map:

Thanks for reading! See you tomorrow!

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