Day 52 -- Manchester, NH to Portsmouth, NH

Miles: 67.65
Total Miles: 4000.76
Time: 4:57
Average Speed: 13.8 mph
Max Speed: 35.3 mph
Flats Today: 0
Total Flats: 15
Elevation Gain: 2602 ft
Weather: Slight tail winds around 80 degrees
Before I talk about today, I want to talk a little bit about last night. We had our official goodbye ceremony, we got t-shirts, and we all got to say what we wanted to in front of everyone. It was a great and very emotional night because it was our last dinner together. We're all going to miss one another tremendously, and most of us won't see each other ever again. It's sad to think about, but it's amazing to think that we made it coast to coast with all of these guys. Anyway, today was the last official day of riding on our trip. It was a very ceremonial day and it was filled with bittersweet feeling of sadness and excitement. It was sad to ride with those guys for the very last time, yet it was very exciting to reach the Atlantic Ocean. We woke up at 5:30, ate breakfast at 6:00, loaded at 7:00, that started the beginning of the end. All of us decided to ride out together in a huge pace line since we started the first day the same way. The pace line was the longest I've ever seen, and it was great for photos. The line stayed together for the first 15 miles, then we got into some steeper hills and it started to break up. We generally all stayed together for the entire ride to the sag stop, but there was a little bit of separation. Also, during the entire ride to the first sag stop, there was more awesome scenery, great shade, and beautiful small lakes. We all eventually arrived at the only sag stop for the day, which happened to be the very last sag stop of the ride. It was packed since everyone was there at the same time, so we didn't eat as much as we usually do, and we didn't stay as long as we usually do. Once some people started leaving, everyone started heading out in a group again. We followed that group out and stayed with them until Freddy started getting a flat in his rear tire. By the way, Freddy was crowned the flat king last night because he had 15 flats on the trip, which was the most out of everyone... and he had 3 of those today. Anyway, it was a slow leak, so he rode slow and waited for one of the sag vans to come along so he could change it then get a floor pump to pump it up all of the way. We stayed with him until the sag van came, then we continued the ride. Only about 2 miles past where he stopped with the sag van, we stopped at a cafe. I decided to try another capuchino. Fran said this one was better than the last, but it still wasn't very good. We finished off our capuchinos, then we rode the last 5 miles to Rye Junior High. That was where all of us met in order to ride all together to the beach and dip our wheels. By the time we got there, most people were there already, and they had bikes hanging in a tree. We soon realized why they were there because about 15 minutes later we took our final group picture under that tree. It was a pretty good picture, but they only took pictures with the staff's cameras to save time. We did get a good picture with Wade and the young guys on the trip and one with me and the staff.

Once we were done with all of the pictures, we lined up in rows of 4 across and got behind some police cars. We had a police escort for the last 3 miles to the beach. It was the most emotional, exciting, and coolest part of the trip. To be able to ride with Wade, Fran, and all of the riders and 2 police cars in front of us with one behind as well was absolutely amazing. I can't explain how I felt at that time or how I felt any part of this last day, but it has been emotional in every sense of the word. Anyway, Wade got some great pictures while riding with the group and having the ocean off to our right. It was beautiful, and we couldn't have asked for a better day. We eventually made our way to the beach where we were dipping our tires, and it was awesome. There were people's families lined up cheering them on, tears streaming down people's faces, and a lot of pictures. Fran's family was there to cheer him on and they even made a banner for him to ride through. When we got through the parking lot of the beach, we took off our shoes and socks and went down to the water. We dipped our front wheel in the water, got someone to take pictures of us doing it, got some pictures with other people, then the ride was officially over. We made it from the Pacific to the Atlantic, and we did "Every Fantastic Inch" EFI. It was really starting to hit us at that point that our ride across America was over. After the hundreds of pictures at the beach, we rode out with Cindy, Freddy, Joy, Carolyn, good looking Larry, and Don. We all rode together for about 5 miles all the way until we reached a bridge that we crossed over to get into Maine.

When we got into Maine, we took pictures by the sign, then we rode about a mile and a half down the road to make sure we would have enough miles to reach 4000 miles for the whole trip. After we got done with the 3 extra miles, we stopped and ate some ice cream in Maine with those guys that we rode over there with. When we were done there, we went across the bridge, but only half of us got across before the bridge had to go up to let an oil tanker go through. We originally waited for the other, but it was taking awhile and we had to get to the hotel in time to get our bikes to the bike store to get shipped. We rode the rest of the way to the hotel with Joy and we had to stop about a mile short of the hotel to take a picture of an important mile mark. We reached exactly 4000 miles in the middle of an intersection, so we went just past it, and we got Joy to take pictures of us holding up 4 fingers. We made it to 4000 miles for the trip... just barely. We rode the rest of the way to the hotel with Joy, and we let her lead us in because she had to get rid of her bad rap of getting lost. We made it without getting lost to the last hotel of the trip. We checked in, then we brought our bikes around back, loaded them up on Judy's husband's truck, then he took us to the bike shop. We gave our bikes to the bike shop, paid, filled out some order forms, then came back to the hotel. At that point, we realized that our biking was over. It was sad, but at the same time it was weird to think that the trip was over already.

Since this is our last blog entry, we decided to sum up the trip. It has been one of the greatest experiences of both of our lives. This is something that we will never forget, and something we can reminisce about for years to come. We have successfully ridden every miles from coast to coast, reached 4000 miles in 52 days, climbed through the Sierra Nevadas, Rockies, and Appalachians, pace lined our way through crazy head winds, and did it all with the greatest amount of enjoyment. It is amazing how quickly this trip went for us, and it seems like just yesterday we were starting out in San Francisco. We made some very strong relationships with most of the riders, and they are people we will never forget. It was truly more than I could have ever expected, and that is all due to the great people we had the privilege of riding with. Wade said it best when he said, "The saddest part is that we are such good friends with these guys now, yet most of them we'll never see again." It's a sad thing to think about, but that is why the trip was so great. We got into a routine of just waking up, biking, and eating, but now we have to go back to reality. This blog has been a really enjoyable experience, and a great way to share our adventures with you, but to us it was more than just that. This has given us memories to look back on for years to come. It is something we will always have to remember our great adventures and amazing friends. Not many people get to ride across America on their bike, let alone ride with their son. I will cherish forever the time that Wade and I have gotten to spend together over this summer. It is something that will remain in my heart for eternity. Thanks for going on this journey with us.

THE END

Day 51 -- Brattleboro, VT to Manchester, NH

Miles: 93.94
Total Miles: 3933.11
Time: 6:46
Average Speed: 13.7mph
Max Speed: 49.9 mph
Flats Today: 0
Total Flats: 15
Elevation Gain: 6003 ft
Weather: Tail winds around 80 degrees
Today was another great day of riding and another great day of scenery. Also, there was a lot of climbing today, so Wade took a bunch of pictures while we were riding. There was a lot of shade since we were climbing through wooded areas, so the temperature stayed rather low. Today was also Fran's birthday, so we tried to make it a little special for him. We woke up this morning at 5:30, ate breakfast at 6:00, loaded at 7:00, then began our second to last day of riding. Not even a mile into the ride, we crossed the Connecticut River and arrived in New Hampshire. Since there was no one to take a picture of both of us yesterday, we took another picture with the the Welcome to New Hampshire sign today. The picture didn't turn out that good since the sun was behind the sign, but it's still good enough to read. After the sign we immediately started up a big climb. It was a pretty gradual climb, but it was relatively long, so by mile 5, I was already starting to get tired. When we reached the top, my tiredness immediately went away because of the great downhill that we got to glide down. I got going 49.9 mph and Wade only got 48.9 mph, so I beat him today. When we told each other how fast we got going and compared, Wade immediately says, "Well you still aren't good enough to get over 50 mph like I did yesterday." Anyway, we rode that downhill all the way to a round about, then we made a turn into a town and stopped, so Fran could take some pictures of the downtown.

After we got through the downtown part of the town, we got into some construction, and it was really neat. A lot of the curb out here is granite and they even had it for around a radius and that is what I was looking at in the picture. I thought that would be cool in some of our streetscapes. I tried to talk to some of the workers about it, but none of them gave me any useful information. After the construction, we made a turn and began the steepest climb of the trip. It was a back road that went through woods and up to the top of a mountain. The grade of the hill started out at only about 10 percent, but it eventually made it all the way up to a 24 percent grade. I had it in my lowest gear the entire way up, and most of the hill I was looking for a lower one. We were just slowly moving up the hill, and some were moving slower than others... but I not going to say how slow I was. At the beginning of the hill, Wade saw Joy's light on the back of her bike, so he decided to go beat her up the hill. About a half of a mile later, Fran decides to go after them too. At this point and for the rest of the hill, I was the slow one... but I didn't care, I just wanted to make it at that point. Wade and Fran ended up both passing Joy, and Wade beat everyone that was in sight up it as well... he's not competitive at all. Once we got to the top, and my heart stopped trying to bust out of my chest, we got to go down. The worst part was that we couldn't go over about 15 mph down the hill because we were riding in gravel almost the entire way.

When we got to the bottom of the hill, we turned onto a different road, climbed just a little bit more, then arrived at the first sag stop. We stayed a very long time, ate a bunch, then headed out to do more climbing. It was relatively flat for almost a mile, then we began to climb uphill again. It was less steep than the last one, but it was still long, so we just took our time and got to the top. When we got there, there were some great views, so we took some great pictures then began our descent. This downhill wasn't quite as fast as the last one, but it was good enough to get a little bit of a rest from it. After we reached the bottom it was just long rolling hills that were too big to get enough momentum from the downhill to get very far up the next hill. Also at the bottom of the hill was a bunch of small lakes. We took quite a few pictures with some of the lakes, and I even practiced my wheel dipping at one of them. With the practice at Lake Erie and here, I'm going to be the best wheel dipper in the whole group tomorrow. We basically rode through that kind of terrain and a few towns all the way to the second sag stop. They had Panera Bread bagels for us at the sag stop as well as fruit, so we stayed a really long time, ate a bunch, then eventually headed out.

After the sag stop it was gradually downhills with some rolling hills all the way to a town that was about 10 miles from Manchester. When we got through that town, we turned and went straight up another hill. This climb was steep but not near as bad as the one we did earlier in the day, so we weren't complaining. We slowly made our way up the hill, then when we reached the top, we made our way into Manchester. We got about 0.2 miles from our hotel, then instead of going there, we turned and went to downtown Manchester. It was a pretty big city, so we rode through some traffic to get to the city, but it was worth it. We got to see the downtown, got our extra miles that we need, and I tried my first capuchino with Fran. We treated him to a cafe for his birthday, and he was appreciative, but he said the capuchino wasn't that good... at least I'll know what a bad capuchino tastes like though. After we were done at the cafe, we rode through some more of Manchester to get some extra miles, then we went to the hotel. It was definitely a great second to last day of the trip.

Day 50 -- Latham, NY to Brattleboro, VT

Miles: 86.75
Total Miles: 3839.17
Time: 6:07
Average Speed: 14.2 mph
Max Speed: 49.1 mph
Flats Today: 0
Total Flats: 15
Elevation Gain: 5416
Weather: Tail winds around 80 degrees because of the overcast
Today was an amazing day of riding, and it had a great amount of scenery. We, and by that I mean Wade, took a record number of 74 pictures today. Most of them were of me riding up hill and around great scenery, but we saw a lot of interesting things as well. Most importantly, today started out great for Wade. Last night at a ceremonial t-shirt exchange type thing where everyone brings a t-shirt that reminds people of them or about a significant ride they've done, Wade ended up with a XL jersey that wouldn't fit anyone but Big John. This morning, Wade went over to Big John and gave him the jersey. Big John took it, then since he's such a great guy, he went over to his suitcase, put the jersey in it, then grabbed out his Holy Cross Basketball shirt and gave it to Wade. It's the shirt of the team he played division 1 college basketball for. It was really cool for Big John to do that... I compared it to the Mean Joe Greene commercial. We woke up at 6:00, ate breakfast at 6:30, then loaded at 7:30 and headed out. We rode out of the hotel and didn't have anything to take pictures of until about 10 miles in. We were in a big group of people and we came up to a bridge that went over a river. We looked down on our cue sheet and saw that it was the Hudson River, so we stopped and took a few pictures. Right after the bridge, we came upon a tunnel, so once again we stopped and took a few pictures. At this point we had lost the group because they didn't take as many pictures as we did. We just rode at our own pace with Fran through forests for quite awhile. It was a great morning because it wasn't hot and it wasn't raining. I started singing about what a beautiful morning it was and not but a few minutes later, our misfortunes began. We turned the corner to get onto Route 7, which is what we took all the way to Brattleboro, and I heard a bang. I immediately thought it was a flat, but after some examination, I realized it wasn't. I once again broke a spoke on my rear wheel. There has been 2 broken spokes on this trip for the entire group... both of them have been mine.

We called the sag van and they said they would come and get me to bring me to the first sag stop so that Gerard could put a new wheel on for me. I said, "NO!!!" I'm not riding in that van. There's a thing that they call EFI, "Every Fantastic Inch," and it means that you ride every inch of the trip without getting in that van. I am what they call an EFIer. I refused to go in the van, so we walked a little ways, then Gerard came to me, he took the wheel off his bike and put his wheel on my bike, and he took the van and we went from there. Also, while Gerard was changing out my wheel, Fran got a flat. It worked out great because he changed it the same time I got my wheel changed. By the way, that's 8 for Wade and Fran, but only 7 flats for me... Wade claims that I'm losing, but I don't mind losing this battle. After our disaster, we rode the next 5 miles to the sag stop without any more problems. At the sag stop we ate about 10 apricots each, 5 brownies each, and a bunch of oranges too. We definitely got our fill, then we headed back out onto the road.

About a mile past the sag stop, we crossed over to Vermont. We took a picture with the Welcome to Vermont sign, then we continued on our way. It was great riding again and we went through some cool towns, then we came upon a really old town with a really old congregational church. There were other riders stopped there, so we decided to stop as well. It was neat because the church was so old and there was a graveyard where Robert Frost was buried. For those of you who might not know, like me, he's apparently a famous poet. We took some picture in and outside the church, which by the way had a weird design on the inside. The pews were in squares for families to sit at, and the seating was made so that the parents faced the front to see the preacher. It was definitely interesting, and we learned a little bit. After that, we went to the graveyard outside the church and looked at Robert Frost's grave stone, then looked at some other older ones. There were people who fought in the Revolutionary War buried in that graveyard. We could have stayed and looked at many of the graves, but we had to keep going.

Almost immediately after the church, we started our first climb. It lasted 8 miles, but it wasn't very steep for the first 4 miles. We were following Fran, and he really went up that hill quick. Wade took quite a few pictures of me riding up that hill, and the best part about the climb was that we followed a river up almost the entire way. At one point on the climb we stopped and took a picture of the river because it was so beautiful to ride next to it. After some pictures and some more climbing, we eventually reached the top and started on some rolling hills that were at the top. After about 4 miles of rolling hills, we began our descent. It was a steep downhill for 4 miles. Wade told me before we began the downhill that he wasn't going to break... and he did just that. He ended up hitting 51.9 mph going down that hill. He checked the max speed on his speedometer when we got to the bottom, and he was so happy when he saw that he got over 50 mph. I didn't get going that fast, so that's why the max speed at the top isn't over 50 mph. Anyway, at the bottom of the hill we took some more pictures of the river and Wade took more pictures of me and Fran riding with large hills in the background.

Not too much further past the end of the descent, we got into the town of Wilmington where our sag stop was at. Just as we got into town, I saw a sign that had John Wright's name on it. Wade didn't want to stop, but since it had John's name on it and an association between him and dolls, I had to take a picture and put it on the blog. After that picture, we went the rest of the way to the second sag stop. It was a very good sag stop with a lot of food for us to eat, so we ate... a lot. While we ate at the sag stop, Fran headed over to a deli to get a sandwich. After we were done eating, we went over to wait for Fran. When we got there, he had just ordered and the lady said he would have to wait to get his food, so he told us to just go ahead without him. We figured that we could do our extra miles that way too, so we went ahead. About a mile past the sag stop, we started our second large climb of the day. We climbed a little bit steeper of a hill for 3 miles, then we reached the summit of Hogback Mountain. It was extremely beautiful up there, so we took quite a few pictures, then began our descent. This descent wasn't as fast, so Wade didn't hit 50, but we still went rather fast. After we hit somewhat of a bottom, the terrain became more rolling for awhile, then it began to go down again. Once that downhill, began, it was just a slight slope and a nice tailwind that carried us the rest of the way to Brattleboro. When we got to main street in the town, we turned the opposite way we were supposed to go to our hotel, and we went across a bridge that went over the Connecticut River. On the other side of the bridge we were officially in New Hampshire. The route for the trip doesn't take us into New Hampshire until tomorrow, but we decided to hit it a day early. We rode our bikes in 3 states today.

After we took the New Hampshire photo, we rode down to a marina and took some pictures there. Wade even got close enough to feel the water, and I got close enough to a tree to go to the bathroom... we both got to do what we wanted. Anyway, at the marina there was a peach tree, and there were some good looking peaches on it. I was too scared to take one, but Wade went ahead and picked the biggest one. After we got done there, we went back across the bridge and rode through town for awhile to get some extra miles. We eventually made our way to the hotel, but before we actually went to the hotel, we decided to get some ice cream and cherries. We got the ice cream from McDonalds, and that was kind of interesting. We first tried to go through the drive-through on our bikes, but the lady on the speaker thing wouldn't let us. Instead I went inside and got us each an ice cream cone. We finished those up on our way to the grocery store, and I got some cherries there. After that, we finally went to the hotel. At the hotel, we ate the cherries, which were good, and Wade ate his peach. He let me have a bite, and it was absolutely amazing. He claims it was one of the best peaches he's ever had. Anyway, today was quite an awesome day, and I hope tomorrow is just as great.