mev

I wrote up a brief synopsis as an introduction to my bike touring book - copied it below...

Fully working brakes can't be that important. After the brakes slow you down enough, then you put your feed down to reach a complete stop. It was with this logic that I set off on my first overnigth bicycle trip at age 19.

The plan was simple: follow the Claire Saltonstall Bikeway from Brookline, a suburb of Boston, to the tip of Cape Cod. The bikeway was 135 miles in a combination of bike paths and secondary roads that connected Boston with Provincetown (P-town). From P-town there was an afternoon ferry that returned to Boston. We took our tents with a plan to ride at least half the distance Saturday and the rest on Sunday. I had organized the ride for half a dozen college friends, though this was my first overnight bike trip.

Fewer than ten miles into the trip, disaster struck. Our route crossed a park, went down a small hill and then around a bend. My bicycle had gone down the hill, but I was going too fast and missed the bend. I rode off the edge of the path and then my bicycle stopped. I went flying over the handlebars did a full summersault, landing flat on my back. My day pack took the brunt of the impact. However, on my lower right side below the pack, a rock stuck into my side and scraped my back.

A reasonable, sensible thing to do would have been to turn back and take care of the injury. However, I was 19, male and invincible. Besides I was the leader. So my friends found a nearby drugstore and purchased some large bandages. We taped up the wound and continued on our trip.

That afternoon it was hot, and it hurt as I sweat into the wound. I had a lack of energy until we found a spot to buy a banana for some fuel. What really perked me up, though, was seeing the first sign of Sagamore Bridge in the distance. The Sagamore crossed the Cape Cod Canal and was a sign that we had arrived at the Cape. Hooray!

Not much further, in Barnstable Massachusetts, we found a church that let us camp on their front lawn, "as long as we were packed up in time for Sunday services." This was not a problem, as we planned to get on the road early to finish riding to P-town. No rain was forecast, so we could lay out the ground sheets without tents. It still hurt, however, when my friends carefully changed the dressing on my wound.

Next morning, we had a beautiful ride through the Cape on sections of bike path as well as smaller roads. We arrived in P-town with time to spare and mingled with different crowds, looking at shops but also resting from our ride.

After a ferry ride to Boston, I felt triumphant cycling through downtown Boston to Brookline on Sunday afternoon. We had made it and completed the trip! Even with the fall, I had finished the ride.