Day 2: Lots of Bike Paths

Today was about the shortest day I'll have on this journey - 45 miles to get to the ferry, plus another 4 on Block Island to get to Tom's house -which was a good thing given how tired I still was from yesterday. It allowed a nice late sleep-in until 9:00 before leaving.

Leaving Providence was really no better than leaving Boston. In the first 5 minutes one driver cut sharply in front of me to grab a parking spot, forcing me to brake hard, and barely a few minutes later a truck tried to door me. Hah! I was ready for him. No watch stress alert this time, I guess I'm getting accustomed to it.

Once out of the city, I got straight on the Washington secondary line bike trail, which ran for 12 miles and was paved throughout. A lovely way to start the day. And then for the most part, with a few ugly connectors in between, I was on lovely Rhode Island back roads for the whole day. My ride was capped off by a final 10 mile stretch on the Tip O'Neill bike path, which took me within a couple of miles of the ferry.

As will surprise no one who knows me, my timing was overly conservative and I got to the ferry quite early (almost an hour and a half to spare). But my justification is one never knows what's going to happen on the road: getting lost (I did briefly) or a flat tire (fortunately, not) can wreak havoc with timing.

Oh well, all's well that ends well, and it gave me time to put together this post.

Early Halloween decoration on the road?

 Here's a link to today's ride. And, again, a photo for those who don't want to click through.




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day 5: Back to the Big Apple

Image
TL;DR I made it home safely to West 106th street at about 2:00 p.m. We're having family over for a Rosh Hashanah dinner, so this will be a brief post. Sort of like today's ride which came in at just under 40 miles. The best part of the ride were the last 20 miles or so, when I was like a horse smelling the stable and sped up, and when a good portion of the ride was on bike paths (first the Bronx River pathway and then the Westchester South County trail). And, yes, I may have been smelling a bit like a horse then too. Making my way out of Stamford and then through Greenwich was not particularly fun. There was a fair amount of traffic, everyone seemed to be in a rush, in the city the roads were either in lousy condition or under construction, and outside the city it seemed to me that none of the drivers were paying attention to Connecticut's three foot rule for passing bikes. My feelings about Stamford are pretty well summed up in my views from my hotel. But maybe because it
Read more

Day 3: The Coastal Route was a lovely Surprise

Image
First off, a big thank you to Tom and Robin for hosting me at their lovely retreat on Block Island. Not only was it restful, but Tom, who's been an amazing cook for the entire time I've known him, made a great Bolognese (that nicely came out as "bowl of knees" when first dictated) for dinner in order to carbo load me, and then made some egg and potato tacos for breakfast in the morning, with extra strong Java, to get me going.  More importantly, it was great to see them both and catch up. Among other things they have both migrated to being amazing artists, having originally each practiced medicine for a zillion years, and I got to see their amazing photo works in one of the local galleries. Tom's elegant description of his work The doctor background came in handy as Tom met me prepared with a home covid test kit - not the easy instant kind, but an actual 30 minute PCR equivalent test (an important step because Tom basically nannies their 2 year old grandchild, The
Read more

Day 1 was Sweet!

Image
 Well, I thought riding in New York would prepare me, but Boston almost took me out twice in my first 15 minutes. First a livery turning right went right into the bike lane and almost took me down. He stopped in time, but only because I first managed to swerve away. Then, only about 10 minutes later, I narrowly missed being doored. Sheesh. More amazing, my SmartWatch, which I didn't know did such things, right afterwards popped up an alert, saying that I seem stressed and maybe I should relax and take some deep breaths. In any event, those incidents aside, it was a great day of riding. 74 miles in all, which was pretty ambitious for day 1, but I had a little bit of a tailwind for a good part of it, which helped. I rode some great empty back roads and a very long stretch on the Blackstone River bike path, which leads into Providence. I had no idea it existed or was so nice. By the way, my worldly possessions for the next 5 days are all contained in the saddle bag jotting out from un
Read more