Thursday, September 19, 2013

Just Another Beautiful Ride, But I Hope Trouble Does Not Come In Three's

After a delightful breakfast at Dunkin Donuts (do not eat the oatmeal at Dunkin Donuts, it's not oatmeal), I rolled out of Rockport at about 0930. The bike was rolling nice. It's a wonder what a brake adjustment will do to reduce rolling resistance. The ride out of Bucksport to Belfast was mostly coastal with some nice ocean views. The bike was rolling so nice, I thought I had a tailwind, but then I noticed the flags were being blown right back at me. Sweet! When I got to Belfast, my route map took me off of the highway and it appeared I was going to be needing a ferry to cross the bay. What a pleasant surprise to discover I was being routed over a footbridge.

After Belfast, my route took me inland and I did some climbing in the hills of Maine. These were some of the rollers that Jim McGurk was looking forward to ... NOT! The farms were beautiful. I chuckled when I saw a large hand painted sign that said 'LOUD PIPES, RIDE SAFER - IMPEACH OBAMA'. I did not expect to see that in Maine. Maybe the Carolina's or Georgia, but not Maine. After about 20 miles of hilly rollers, I came back out on the coast at Camden. I was trying to stay in Camden, but I could not get a room for less than $159 and that is way above my budget for this trip. After I saw Camden, I understood why the accommodations would have been pricy. It is one of the more upscale, charming  tourist attractions.

After cruising Camden for a while, I headed down to Rockport, towards my sub $100 a night accommodations, which turned out to be pretty much a dump. Dennie would have made me drive on, if she was on this trip. But I digress. A couple of miles south of Camden, it sounded like my bike was missing a shift, and then I was free wheeling. I looked back and my chain was lying in the middle of the road. I hate it when that happens. Actually, this is the first time this has ever happened to me, so I got to figure it out by myself. Where is Jim McGurk when I need him. I had a chain tool, so I was able to remove the bad links. But then getting the pin back I the links took me an incredibly long time.  It was late afternoon and I was wondering if I would get it fixed before the sun went down. But finally, I got it solved. And THEN (I probably shouldn't confess this part) once I got the two ends joined finally and the chain back together, I noticed I had it routed OUTSIDE the front derailleur. Crap! So I had to break the chain again, route it through the front derailleur, and join the two ends again. The second time went much faster than the first time, now that I had some practice.

Then I was on my way again. My motel was just a mile and a half down the road. I checked in and could tell it was sketchy, but I had reservations (and now I was having different reservations) and they had my money. So I took my room and asked, "Where is the closest place to eat because I will be walking?" "Oh sir, the closest restaurant is two to three miles away because we are outside of the town limits." Yet another note to self: When making reservations in advance, always find out how far a place to eat is.


     






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