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Day’s Verse:
My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart
and my portion forever.
Psalm 72:26
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Please help me raise money for the MS Bike Tour Cape Cod Getaway. Donate today on my MS Participant page.
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Check out those awesome reflectors on my orange streamers! I like to pretend cars see it that way at night.

Those pockets held 3 Clif bars, a small tube of sunscreen, two arm warmers, and a vest. I ended up needing one Clif bar and the sunscreen.

Setting my GPS to start the route that Ian planned for me. Shorts/jersey matching is, as you can tell, low on my priority list.

Yes, I actually looked happy anticipating the prospect of riding 71 miles to Rockport. That is because I knew I would have a tailwind the entire way, and I never had to ride back against the wind. One-way trips: My new favorite thing. Too bad it involved Ian driving 140 miles over the course of 2 hours and 40 minutes, in order to make my one-way trip possible.

I have no pictures from the ride itself. I haven’t found a good way to carry my big camera on my bike yet, and frankly that wasn’t a great loss on this ride. I spent virtually the entire time on Route 62 — I hit the eastern end of 62, which means I’ve now ridden it end to end (I think) — and it wasn’t all that pleasant. Lots of strip malls, too much traffic, not enough shoulder; the usual.

A couple notable things happened, though. First, going into downtown Marlboro, not two miles from home, a guy winked at me. That may not sound so odd, but this guy was in a maroon 1990 Dodge Caravan, he looked Italian, had slicked-back hair with a little curl coming down, was probably at least 45, and he included a remarkably lascivious grin with the wink.

Second, around Bedford, I was stopped at a light, waiting in the left turn lane to (I know this will come as a shock) turn left. An SUV pulled up on my right. The driver had his window down and I glanced over. He said, “Do you have to follow all the same rules as motorcycles?” Normally I don’t have conversations with car drivers, but that’s not to say I won’t. So I said, “Well – the same rules as cars.” He made affirmatory (this is a word that means a combination of confirming and affirming) noises. Then, being a humorist, he asked, “What happens if you get in an accident? Do you have insurance?” I said I had normal car insurance; the light turned green, and we went our separate ways. Hopefully I helped educate him and the people in his car about cyclists’ responsibilities a bit.

Third, I got to pass a zillion cars all lined up as they waited for a bridge to come back down. By the time I reached the front of the line, the guard rails were just coming up and I hardly had to slow down. HA!

That’s about as exciting as it got. Ian and I met up smoothly and successfully in Rockport, my final destination. For some reason the camera’s auto white balance turned everything extremely blue, and since I shoot in JPG right now, I’m stuck with blue pictures.

Notice the smile looks a little more forced here. I felt pretty tired after my ride. The good news is that my sunglasses definitely have a much more appropriate tint now.

Never overestimate the amount of grit and road dirt that will accumulate on well-sunblocked legs after a long bike ride. My arms looked the same, only the grit had particularly accumulated in the creases on the inside of my elbow. I washed my hands and face very thoroughly before Ian and I ate lunch.

Ian says that was the best tuna wrap he has ever eaten, and that alone made the long drive worth it. At least he got something out of it, anyways.

We both ordered lemonade.

On the drive home we saw this SUV. First we roundly mocked it for having a roof spoiler since a vehicle that big has approximately a 0% chance of lifting off the ground no matter how fast it drove. Then we took in the other evidence: Extremely wide mirrors and a trailer hitch. This led us to hypothesize that the SUV often towed a large trailer and, further, that the roof accoutrement actually served as an aerodynamicizer. When we passed the SUV later, I noticed that the roof spoiler had a hinge that looked like it would lift the flap at the angle you might want for diverting air up and over a tall trailer when you straightened those hinges. Deduction. It works.