Day 6 - Tuesday August 18th

45 miles
3:45.53 hours
37 mph Max
11 mph Avg

Today was a light day. I ended up spending the morning at the local library in Lyme printing off little cards to hand out to people with all my information on them so that I did not need to stop and write it all down every time. Since I had to purchase a roll of packaging tape when I mailed my computer home I decided to laminate these cards as well. This took me a lot longer than expected, it is the perfectionist in me, and I didn't get riding until around 3:00 pm. I was shooting for 40 miles and ended up being motivated to do more due to meeting three cyclist along the way.

I met these three cyclists on a large hill just over the boarder in VT. They are 26,28 and 32. It is an interesting group of guys that I fit in very well with. I was mid climb when one of them flew by me on the hill/mountain. He said a couple words, something about can't stop to talk, I had no idea what he was talking about. When the second one caught up with me he was not short of breath and talked to me a little on the way up. As I got to the top, I talked to these two guys for a couple min before the third showed up. They were doing a 400 mile loop of VT and NH, a route they got off of AdventureCyclist.com, the same site I was basing my route off of. Lucky for me, they were all heading towards Ticonderoga, NY and loved company. This meant that the next two days I had people to ride with and converse with!

There were a few setbacks in riding in a group: they convinced me (I allowed them) to spend more money than I normally would have on lodging and food, it prevented me from getting an early start every morning, it made it difficult at times to stop and take pictures while enjoying the scenery, I was not able to bike as far as I wanted and go at my own pace (if that be faster or slower). Along with the setbacks there were some advantages to riding in a group; it was never boring during the ride, we could travel faster than I could solo, I did not have to worry so much about planning my route because they had detailed directions from adventurecycling.com, they provided extra motivation that made travel easier.

Overall, I am very glad that I got to meet these three riders. This experience is more than just riding across the country to raise money for great organizations but it is also to get out in the world and hear different peoples stories. In each and every story there is wisdom to be shared and a moral to be gained. It is great to experience a wide range of perspectives by people within diverse cultures/areas/lifestyles.