I really can’t complain.  There are far worse places to get held back a day, and we happen to have the most gracious hosts/friends here who are kind enough to put up with us for another night.  Phil and I got off to a very late start this morning.  Or this afternoon, rather.  We are headed to Watchung, NJ, where my step-mom, Paulette, has a friend who will host us for a night.  It’s about 50 miles from Queens, but we didn’t even get out of Manhattan before Phil got his second flat tire of the trip (the first was on Friday on our way into NYC).  We spent most of the morning getting our stuff ready and getting my new bike ready, and didn’t leave the apartment until 1pm anyway, so when the flat tire held us up another 20 minutes, we decided it was probably best to stay in the city another night and get an early start on Tuesday morning.  So we rode around Central Park, bought some extra tubes and brake pads at Liberty Bicycle on 9th Avenue, and ate lunch at a Mexican restaurant before Phil realized he had another flat on the same tire.  After picking out more glass and fixing that tire, he went to get tire liners at another bike shop down the street (47th St and 9th Ave) while I had an ice-cream cone somewhere in between.  We then rode back to Central Park and stayed there until riding back to Queens.

Since I was going to be in town another night, I decided to check out the restaurant where my cousin Ari works.  I had asked Jeanne about it the day before, but he doesn’t work there on the weekends so I didn’t think I would get a chance to go see him.  Rym, Phil and I met Emily at Benoit, a fancy French bistro.  I talked to Ari about our bicycle trip, and he got the bartender, Paul, to give us some tips on navigating through New Jersey.  Thanks to Ari, we had an excellent experience at the restaurant.  The food was delicious, and we got some complimentary champagne, appetizers and dessert!  The evening wound down shortly after supper, and we hope to get an early start for take two in getting out of the city.

After purchasing my new bike from Eli in Manhattan

Over the weekend I bought a bike in Manhattan.  I believe I mentioned that on Friday we had run across a guy on a touring bike who had ridden from Toronto to Manhattan in two weeks and was selling his bike before catching a bus back to Toronto.  I test-rode it in Central Park on Sunday, and was very happy with the way it felt.  It’s a green and brown steel-framed Opus Largo, with Mavic wheels, Vittoria tires, and Shimano components, made in Canada.  I just have to switch my pedals and saddle and add my aerobars on, and it will be ready to roll on Monday morning.

Of course, I wasn’t thinking when I rode out to see the bike on my own bike, and ended up with two bikes.  I was all alone and ended up wandering around the city for a few hours trying to figure out how to get both bikes back safely.  I ended up leaving one of them at my cousin Jeanne’s apartment while I biked the new one over to where we’re staying in Queens, and then took a subway back to get the other bike.  The doorman at her apartment jokingly told me that he sold my bike while I was gone!  So…now that I have two bikes…anyone want to buy a Fuji?

I absolutely LOVE bicycling in the city.  I find it thrilling, and it just feels great to ride along with the traffic (and beat most of it) in New York City.  It’s probably a dangerous thing to fall in love with, so it’s a good thing we’re heading out of here in the morning.

We had hoped to get an early morning start and beat the rain, but when Phil’s alarm clock went off at 6:30 I could hear it downpouring.  Michael had left even earlier, at 5am, so we ended up sleeping in until 8 or so.

It rained on and off throughout the day, but it was never too unpleasant.  We stopped around 11 for food, at a place called European Deli that was clearly Polish.  One highlight of the ride was when a woman started cheering for us from her vehicle, using an orange cone as a megaphone.  Penny rode alongside Phil for a bit, and he shared our website with her.  Cheering is always wonderful motivation, so we appreciate the support!

In front of the water in NYC

The worst of the rain happened after we made it into the city, and immediately after Phil changed his socks, since the sun had finally come out.  We were on a path along the river, and the wind was pretty strong.  I wanted to take a photo of the sky, but then it started raining heavily, so we found shelter under a bridge for a few minutes until we thought it had passed.  At least it wasn’t cold.

A few miles from our destination, a guy rode by on a touring bike with a For Sale sign on the back panniers.  I asked him how much he was asking for it, and he said that he had bought it new only two weeks ago for $2000 and ridden it from Toronto to Manhattan.  He was asking $1000.  I am considering it, since the bike I have is not designed for touring, but the frame might be too large.  My first fall of the trip happened when we were heading for the Queensborough Bridge on York Ave.  I was riding behind Phil and looked down at Garmin to see where to turn, when Phil stopped and I crashed into him, knocking off one of his panniers and falling over.  Fortunately, both of us and our bikes were fine.

We arrived at Rym and Emily’s apartment in Queens around 5pm, and waited in the lobby for Rym to get home.  After Phil and I had each showered and Emily came home, we went into Manhattan to have dinner with 6 of their friends at a Korean restaurant.  The food was incredible.  We are spending the weekend in NYC, so I will be seeing family and friends (and running) over the next two days before moving on south.

Before leaving on October 13th, with Pete at his studio

In the morning, Pete and Sarah made apple pancakes for breakfast, which were delicious.  We only had to ride 37 miles to Norwalk, so we got off to a late start (around noon).  After packing up and saying our goodbyes, we were off for day four.  Phil had spent a fair amount of time figuring out how to get Garmin to tell us our route, which facilitated our navigation considerably.

We stopped once for lunch, at a sandwich shop in Stratford called Roly Poly.  The roads were pleasant aside from a bumpy stretch through Bridgeport.  Having Garmin know the route and tell us where to turn was a huge time saver.  Still, we didn’t arrive at our host’s house in Norwalk until just after 5pm.  Michael is also a triathlete and plans to go on a cycling tour himself next spring, riding out to his daughter’s graduation in California.  We relaxed in his living room, drinking Sam Adams Octoberfest and talking about bicycling, while he prepared dinner.  Since we’re expecting rain tomorrow, we’re hoping to get an early morning start in our ride to New York City.

Phil and Bobbie were kind enough to let us stay as long as we needed before heading off, while they went to work in the morning.  We had a good breakfast and ended up leaving around 9:30.  This was going to be a short day, only 41 miles.

Our first stop was the Connecticut School of Broadcasting, which we passed by before deciding to go in and see if they wanted to interview us.  After a brief interview with Art, the director, we were on our way again.  The course brought us through some scenic bike trails, and right by an aromatic barbecue place, which drew us in for a late lunch.  This day was cooler than the first two, and it started to rain a bit for the last 10 miles of our ride into New Haven.

We arrived at Pete’s apartment in the late afternoon.  Pete is a sculpture grad student at Yale, and he showed us his studio behind his apartment, where we could keep our bikes.  He had some very interesting projects going on in the studio.  Pete shares a spacious 4-bedroom apartment with Thomas, another sculpture grad student, and Sarah and Daria, architecture grad students.  Sarah is actually from Rhode Island, and Daria went to Brown, so we were familiar with the same places.  Pete found all of these connections fascinating.  While Pete was in class, Phil and I went to a Thai restaurant for dinner and Starbucks to take advantage of their free wifi.  Afterwards, we shared some good conversation and Ben & Jerry’s ice-cream with Pete, Sarah and Thomas.

This morning I awoke with numb arms, having slept on them.  During breakfast (Tina and Greg made blueberry pancakes), I embarrassingly drank a sip of maple syrup that had been placed in front of me in a mug before realizing it wasn’t coffee.  The day was off to an interesting start.

Morning of October 11th before leaving Tina and Greg's house

Greg and Gioia snapped some photos of us before we left Mansfield.  We were only 6 or 7 miles from the UCONN Dairy Bar, so our first stop was to get ice-cream.  Twelve miles later, we broke for lunch at Nature’s Grocer in Tolland.  This is a great natural foods store, where I must return some day (and of course stop at the dairy bar while in the area).  After lunch, we rode to Hartford and stopped at a park and caught up on missed phone calls while waiting for Phil, our Warm Showers host for the evening, to get home from work.  Somewhere along the last mile to the house, another cyclist, Bill, started riding and chatting with us.

Sitting on a bench in a park in Hartford

Phil was very generous when we arrived at his beautiful home in West Hartford.  He cooked a wonderful dinner while we showered, and he even drove us to the nearby Best Buy so we could buy a netbook.  Now we can finally work on getting the website filled with content, upload photos and videos, and, most importantly, figure out how to get maps for Garmin.  When we arrived back at the house, we met Phil’s wife, Bobbie, who had just started a new job.  The two of them had used Warm Showers once previously when riding a tandem bicycle in Rhode Island, and they are excellent hosts.  Already, I am definitely eating better than I ever have when I lived alone in Providence.  Both Phil and I hope that we can someday be as hospitable to other travelers in the future.

Phil and I had decided it would be a good idea to meet at a local coffee shop for an hour or so before leaving to let friends and family say goodbye one last time and ride the first few miles with us for as far as they wish.  We had a good turn-out for the send-off gathering.  After eating and making sure the bikes were all packed properly, Phil and I took off, escorted by Phil’s parents and Dick, Cameron and Adam from US Open Cycling Foundation.  It was sad to say goodbye to everyone, and I will miss the people more than anything.

We started down the West Bay Washington Secondary bike path towards Coventry and stopped for ice-cream near the end.  When we finally turned off the greenway, it was just me and Phil.  We had begun the first day of a very long journey.

The day was predominantly uneventful, aside from a pit stop at a biker bar/pizza restaurant just over the Connecticut state line, where the owner hooked us up with ice water and the regulars had plenty of questions and advice for us.  There were a few bike paths that existed in Google maps but not on the roads, so we ran into a few dead ends and climbed a few unnecessary hills.  As we neared the home where we were staying that night, the roads grew even hillier.

Tina and Greg live in Mansfield with their 5 year old daughter, Gioia.  They were kind enough to host us for our first night on the road.  They shared their delicious dinner with us, including homemade wine, homemade bread, and homemade strawberry ice-cream!  We are both very grateful for their generosity in hosting us.