Orny's Cycling Journal

The following is a transcription of a phone post that originally appeared in my main journal, here.

Hi, we're in Brewster, and it's now 7:50, so it's ten minutes of eight as predicted. Moving right along... Still pouring sweat but it's only 70 degrees, so it's kind of confortable when you're on the bike. But it's really sweaty, moist, sticky, whatever...

Making good time, averaging almost 18 miles per hour over the hills and down Route 6A, which is as congested as anything. Went by 'The Hedge' at the Cape Cod Sea Camps, and they always have a ton of campers out, so that was inspiring as always.

Still in the middle of the pack, but that's alright, no problems with that. Still hanging with Jay, as well.

Going to go over to the medical tent to see if they've got any chamois butter, because I'm getting some seat irritation. Otherwise just gonna grab some ice pops here because this is where they have them, and just keep rolling.

It's still pretty overcast; you can see a little bit of blue through it, so it may burn off. Generally doing well, just kind of showing the wear and tear of 150-odd miles in the saddle.

The next stop... If we're in Brewster, the next stop's Wellfleet, which will be the last stop before Provincetown. That'll be 9:30 or 9:15, so that's a little more than an hour from now.

Between here and there we have some of the Cape Cod Rail Trail, we go out over Ocean View Drive, over White Crest Beach, and zoom around Long Pond Road, before we wind up at Wellfleet. So there's a lot of fun riding still to go, but we're starting to see the finish line.

And the fact that I crossed the $10,000 barrier is incredibly inspiring to me right now. So I'm taking that with me, and the support of everyone who's made donations. It's really an amazingly inspiring thing to have so many friends that are so generous... some of them ridiculously so!

That's it, and we'll see you in Wellfleet shortly!

The following is a transcription of a phone post that originally appeared in my main journal, here.

Well we're now in Brewster, which is about halfway through the day. It's now 8:36... 8:35 which means I'm about 15-20 minutes behind schedule. Which isn't bad, I'm not too worried about the schedule today.

Starting to catch up with other riders. Had an awesome pull by a guy named Scott from Framingham that really moved us along pretty well.

My mechanicals seem to be all holding together pretty well, so no worries on that front at this point.

Brewster: we went past the Cape Cod Sea Camps hedge, and we're about to jump onto the Cape Cod Rail Trail briefly, then we get off it, then we get back on it again.

About 3-4 miles from here we go into Orleans, which is where the cape starts turning north at the elbow of Cape Cod. And Orleans was actually invaded by British marines in the War of 1812, and the locals were victorious, and it's also the only site in the US that was ever fired upon in World War 1, it was by a German U-boat.

And a couple miles past that we hit Eastham, which is where the first encounter between Pilgrims and Indians occurred in the New World.

So getting into historical territory, but in terms of my own history, things are going well. It's a little foggy here on the cape, misty, mid-70s. Not a lot of sun right now, but it's very comfortable biking weather, and it's not wet, so no problems, just a little moist and humid.

That's it I will talk to you next... I think the next stop is Wellfleet, which is the penultimate stop.

The following is a transcription of a phone post that originally appeared in my main journal, here.

Hi, we're now at Brewster. It is 8:30 and we've passed 150 miles. Also passed the infamous hedge, which is the Cape Cod Sea Camp, where they have all the campers line up along this hedge and I got a video of it and will post that at some point. But doing well. Hung out with Charlie and Emily and David and they're friends of his, and generally having a good time. My neck's starting to ache again, but that's expected, but otherwise it's not too hot yet and still pumping liquids but otherwise... We go up Route 6A, and 6A is very crowded and we're in the middle of a pack of 5000 riders, so it's a little jammed but it's not bad. We're making good time and continuing up the cape. Now we're well into the sandy sand dunes, and very shortly, when we leave here, we'll be going up the Cape Cod Rail Trail for a while and zigging back and forth along the outer cape and picking up the Cape Cod Rail Trail again before we hit our first real good view of the ocean which I hope to get another video of. That's it and we'll see you at the next stop.