my longest ride yet...

...but I'm not sure exactly how long it was. I messed up my cyclocomputer so it was slightly overestimating the mileage. But by estimating based on the length of one section of the ride that I know, I'm guessing about 45 miles total. Not bad, huh?

The quality of the ride was somewhat lacking, though. I had this great plan to bike to Newport and back, but several things conspired against me. The ride to Bristol along the East Bay Bike Path flew by, I think in part because I was going faster than usual thanks to my new clipless pedals!! (These are pedals that your special bike shoes actually snap into, which means that it's way more efficient, because since your feet are attached to the pedals you're moving the gears even on the upstroke. Thus you can go faster, and going up hills in particular is much easier. So much fun!)

I stopped for lunch at this great little cafe in Bristol, then got back on the road. This was where the first big problem arose: there is no way to get from Bristol to Newport without clocking a bunch of miles on 4-lane, no shoulder roads. Fortunately most of these have a speed limit of 35mph, but it's still pretty freaky. The first big adventure is going over the Mount Hope Bridge, which is beautiful but kind of scary if you're on a bike and there's no space for people to go around you. Once you make it over in one piece, you've got to figure out how to get south through Portsmouth, which is a challenge because the only roads that go the whole way are both state highways. After attempting one plan which was aborted when it became clear that this was a serious highway, I stuck to the smaller of the two main roads until I reached the imaginatively-named Middle Road, which goes along the top of the low hill that is the Portsmouth section of the Portsmouth/Newport island.

Middle Rd, despite the name, is absolutely lovely. It's mostly working farms and old, old houses--not the kind you see on the streets of Providence, but old farmhouses with fieldstone walls along the road and cutting through the fields and woods. Made this chunk of the trip worthwhile.

At this point I was thinking I would take the bus from Newport back to Bristol, then bike home along the bike path. Aside from the annoyance of going back along those big roads through Portsmouth, biking round trip would have been in the vicinity of 80 miles, and it was getting a little too late because it had been slow going on the way there (what with stopping every few miles to look at the map, backtracking, and zigzagging to avoid big roads). But by the time I got to Newport it was officially raining and the temperature was in the 50's, so I decided to call it a day and take the ferry from Newport straight back to Providence.

Finding the ferry was an ordeal in itself. I started by looking for a library, where I could use the computer and figure out the ferry schedule and where it docks. But my map of Newport was a bit tricky to read, and Newport has conveniently neglected to put street signs on all of the roads I needed--the small streets are labeled, as are the big streets, but the middle-sized streets which are ideal for biking were not. After some more backtracking and a stop an historical society-type library with no computers, I finally I found the public library, got online, and discovered that I had 25 minutes to catch the ferry or I would be stranded cold and wet until the next one 3 hours later. I got directions from a librarian, but biked past the ferry 4 or 5 times and asked where it was another 6 or 7 times because it's a deceptively small boat that looked dark and empty, and there were no signs or ticket booths or anything indicating that this was a working public transport boat.

Finally I went back to the visitor's center and confirmed that this unmarked and seemingly uninhabited boat was actually the one I wanted, and bolted back over because at this point it was 4:53 and the ferry was supposed to leave at 4:50. I sped up the sidewalk along the dock as they were getting ready to shove off and yelled, "Hey, is this the ferry to Providence? Can I still get on?" Thank goodness, they waited for me.

5 minutes later I was snug and warm and on my way home.





Lots more thank-yous are in order:
Heather and Bruce Lane
Dan and Doreen Koretz
Kathleen Suryan and Richard Benton
Tommy Quirk
Meg Peterson
Connie Bart Kintner and Paul Kintner
Sarah Watamura
Scott Ewing
Sarah Adams and Dwight Shank
Sarah Tamor and Alex Ward
Nancy and George Schuler
Vanessa Gilbert
Jeff and Mary Jo Wood
Dooley Kiefer
Sandy Condry
Archie and Joan Riegel
Peter and Enid Littman
Eytan Kurshan (a Bike and Build alum!)
and everyone who came to the party on Sunday.
Thanks to all of you, I'm more than three-quarters of the way there!!