Day 6

Stats
Net Elevation gain: 203 ft.
Average Speed: 8.4 mph
Top Speed: 38.6 mph
Time spent biking: about 6 ½ hours
Total time for the day's travels: about 11 hours
Miles biked today: 54.6
Total for trip: 275 miles

For breakfast this morning, we ate local flavored yogurt (raspberry, strawberry, and orange) with granola. While packing up our gear and getting ready to ride, a fellow camper, a boy of maybe eight years came over and asked Jenny, “Is that a motorcycle or a bike?” Satisfied with the answer, he ran back to tell the rest of his family (“It's a BIKE!”), who we later gave a card with our blog on it, so they could follow along on our trip. What fun! We get all kinds of questions and comments about our bike each day. It's fun that people feel comfortable coming up to ask questions and talk with us. We love it!

Getting going in the morning is sometimes slow.

Once again, it rained today. For the 5th day out of 6 so far, it has rained for at least part of the day. Since in rained only in the morning this time, much of our gear actually dried up in the afternoon while strapped to the top of the bags on the rear rack. Anything that is really damp or wet, we like to strap on rather than pack into the bags because the wet can be spread inside the bags to other things that were dry.

We stopped for brunch at a little country store. We get to see so many different versions of “country store” while passing through the smaller towns, and we enjoy that very much. This instance offered a tasty Chicken Parmesan sub! We also ate a delicious brownie and drank some mango juice from Snapple. (Side note: It is really hard to find good juice in the small towns and it usually isn't an option. Snapple is okay, but if you want something besides that or orange juice or apple juice from the soda companies, good luck!)

Today we saw another great blue heron. It flew off before we could snap a picture, but it was standing in the shallows of a river we crossed in the morning. We also saw a couple trains today! We like seeing trains; there's just something about them that is intriguing or exciting.

Jenny takes a silly picture using the bike mirror while we stop for a short rest.

The terrain today was wonderful. We were riding in the river valleys most of the day, and it makes a huge difference, especially for this bike. We may be super slow up the big hills, but we can make decent progress in the valleys, even when we're gaining elevation.

One of the many lovely views from today.

Another wonderful thing we discovered today was that singing makes the miles (and small hills) speed by! We don't always know all the words to songs, but we try and see how many of the words we can remember. We've been singing songs by Bill Staines, Billy Joel, Kate Wolf, and any other songs we can think of, like The Star Spangled Banner. This is why we wanted the tandem, so we can talk and sing together without difficulty. Of course, when we're huffing and puffing from the more significant hills, singing is more difficult no matter what you do!

As we neared Binghamton, our road turned into a large interstate highway. We decided to give it a try, and continued riding on it the few more miles into the city, instead of trying to find an alternate road that would take us the way we wanted to go. We were a little nervous at first, but the few miles biking on the highway were actually quite pleasant. We had a big shoulder to ourselves and followed a large river on our right, so the grade of the road was mostly flat. People seemed to be aware that we were there and tried to move over to give us more room.

Binghamton was not the most attractive city. Most of what we traveled through was run down and a lot of places were for sale or vacant. We were looking for a cafe to stop and rest, and hopefully be able to go on line to look up directions. We found one after coming into the city from the north and turning west on Route 17C. They claimed to have the best sweet potato fries in the city, so we got some, along with two cups of fresh squeezed lemonade. The Internet connection was slow and therefore frustrating to use, but it did eventually prove to be useful in helping us determine our end destination...and the sweet potato fries were really good.

When we left the cafe, it was after 5 P.M. and we were both feeling cranky and tired. We made one more stop before we left Binghamton, this time for some groceries. Jenny went into the store and picked out yummy food: cucumber, blueberries, granola, soy milk, avocado, and nectarine.

We were glad to leave the city of Binghampton.

The road to get to the campground went straight up. It looked like a hill that you would expect to find in Seattle, WA, or San Fransisco, CA. We went slowly, but we made it to the top. We took a few stops on the way up to talk with people out in their yards about our bike and our trip, and also just to take breaks. When we got to the top we had climbed up 400 ft in just 1 1/8 miles! Eesh.

We biked up this!

We made it to the campground and set up our tent, took a shower, made a meal, and went to bed. We had gotten a bit of sun, which might have sped up our exhaustion.

Note: We are planning to write another “Questions Answered” post to answer a bunch of questions that have been asked in the comments. We love the questions, and all the comments. They are the first thing we look at when we stop someplace with Internet! Thank you so much for all your support!

Questions answered.

Here are answers to a few of the most common questions we get asked about our trip:

How will you carry all of your stuff?

Our bike will be outfitted with four Ortlieb panniers which can carry quite a bit. One pannier holds a little over 5 gallons. We will also have a dry sack that will be mounted on the top of the back rack on the bike. We hope to be able to fit all of our gear on the bike without a problem. If we need to carry something extra, we have a few bungees just in case!

Where will you spend the nights?

We plan to do a mix of camping, staying with friends, and staying with "strangers" (couchsurfers and warmshower people). If we're in a bind, we'll ask people who look friendly if we can camp a night in their yard. We've met some really fun and kind people on past trips this way. In our experience, strangers are usually overly kind and helpful. As the saying goes, there are no such things as strangers, only friends you haven't met yet.

Can you pedal at different speeds on your tandem?

Nope. But each of us can push harder or lighter on the pedals depending on how we feel. This enables us to exert ourselves more or less, even though we pedal at the same speed. The rest is left to good communication.

Does Jenny (sitting in back) give Brett lots of shoulder massages?

Yes, she does! Brett loves it. Maybe someday we'll switch seats and Brett will return the favor.

What will you eat?

Food. More specifically we often get asked if we'll cook. Yes, we'll be bringing a tiny stove (called a Pocket Rocket) that is easy to operate and we'll bring small pans to cook in. We've been doing this for years on bike trips and hiking/camping trips. There's nothing like eating a potful of warm food cooked by ourselves after a long day of biking. Even simple meals taste SO GOOD when you are traveling.

What about the Rocky Mountains?

We get this question a lot. We know we will have to cross the Rockies at some point. There is no going around them! We've heard that the Rockies are actually easier to cross than mountains in the East because the roads through them were built with more gradual climbs and descents.
We are willing to bet they'll still be difficult, though. Or, mostly we'll climb them really slowly and ZOOM down the other side smiling the whole way!

What routes are you taking?

First of all, we plan to stay in the northern states: MA, NY, (Ontario), MI, WI, MN, the Dakotas, MT, ID, OR. Then we'll head south along the Pacific Coast into California to see the redwood trees. After that, we'll see how much time we have left and what our plan is for getting home (see below for our current ideas). We'll ride mostly on small, numbered state highways and back roads. We'll have maps with us (and a cute little compass), including Adventure Cycling route maps for some parts of the trip.

How will you get home?

We're really not sure yet, but we're sure we'll figure it out. The most likely scenario is finding someone who is moving from the West Coast to the East Coast through CraigsList and has room for a bike and two passengers. Another possibility is flying home and shipping our bike. Yet another thought is doing a driveaway (driving a car for a car-moving company). If you have suggestions, please comment!

How can we stay in contact with you while you're on your trip?

We will have our phones with us, as well as our little netbook computer. We plan to keep one of our phones on most of the time, so if you try to call and don't get one of us, try the other. We will probably not answer the phone while we're biking, but we will check messages and call you back. We also plan to update this blog regularly, when Internet access is available, and check our email. So, stay in contact! We love getting messages and email and it makes us happy to hear from you.