VTXL Day 4 riding

I was a dirty boy again today, more about that later

One of the things I learned yesterday is my tire pressure has been way too high based on the type of tire I have and the road conditions.  I have Teravail Washburn tires.  In the center of them, there's a half inch wide smooth tread which make them great on pavement.  As you go to the sides the tire gets more knobby.   Before starting this trip, I had looked up what PSI I should run the tires at for gravel road.   You input the total weight of the rider, bike, and gear you're carrying. It said 30 PSI, but at that pressure, I was only using the center of the tire.    https://silca.cc/pages/pro-tire-pressure-calculator

I've been slowly taking out a little more air out, so the tire bites better on the gravel roads.    When the roads are wet, they get more slick too.    I didn't expect that on gravel roads.   More greasy than pavement.  Aired down, I noticed it really helps a lot when climbing on the gravel roads.    I think I may take a little more air out of the rear tire because I still slip on the super steep sections when I have to stand up to power up the hill.   When I stand up on the steep hill, more weight comes off the back tire as I lean forward.    With weight off the back wheel, I lose traction, the rear tire spins out, and I have to dismount and walk until it's flat enough to start pedaling again.    However, if I take too much air out, I could damage the rim hitting a protruding rock on a fast downhill descent.   So small adjustments until I get the balance right.

I think in general though this is why I like biking.   I actually enjoy having to tweak my bike so it works for me perfectly. And everyone has different anatomy.   Different limb lengths, Different strengths, Different sit bones,  Etc. It takes time to figure out what works for your specific body.    Speaking of adjustments, I tried adjusting the seat a little more forward yesterday, but it was starting to rub my butt raw.   I realized the problem early enough to change it back, and my butt feels fine today, but in the tent last night, it felt a bit raw.   I applied neosporin to the tender areas.   I was trying to see if I could get more power by tweaking the seat position, but it's not worth a sore butt.    This morning I doubled the amount of butt butter lotion i've been using, and I reapplied halfway through the day.

 

Anyway, this morning, the ride to the Sharon trading post store is 16 miles from where I camped.   Here are some photos from the morning ride

 

  

 As I dictate this to my phone via my earbud microphones,  I'm only four and a half miles away.   The garmin's time estimate says about 40 minutes.   Looking forward to some warm food.  That's it for now

 

My legs got filthy again on the ride this morning.   I think the sunscreen attracts the dirt.

 

 

I need to take photos BEFORE I devour the food, it's hard when you're super hungry. 

 under the table I have my charger

 

For an early lunch (10:30a.m.), I had a cheeseburger, fried chicken sandwich,  and a slice of cheesecake. I don't think I'll be stopping at any stores before I camp tonight, so I'm going to get some pepperoni and cheese again for dinner

 

There's a strong 5G in Sharon Vermont, so I did some ridewithgps route planning for the ride. 

 

I think I may ditch my mini folding Bluetooth keyboard. As well as the long khaki pants I wear when biking out in the sun. Most of the time I'm in the shade and with all the climbing they're way too hot to wear. And they've gotten kind of big on me so time for new ones anyway.

 

After I let my electronic stuff charge a little bit more, I'm going to buy more food and then hit the road.   About 18 miles from here is swimming, and only about a thousand feet of climbing between here and there too. I need to wash my clothes from yesterday, not that it helps.   It ends up smelling like body odor and river water.   

 

The tale of a rage-baiting jerk 

 

An hour later after leaving the store, I've had time to mentally process things.   As I was leaving the  Sharon Tradepost convenience store, an argument started outside between a guy my age pumping gas, and a 30 something father carrying his 8-10month old baby boy in arms that had just parked behind me on the street in front of the store.  I was caught in between.   

 

The father walked over to the gas pump guy, and they were arguing back and forth.  It became obvious there was something mentally off with the guy pumping gas.    He was losing his mind, taunting and yelling, I'm recording you! with his cellphone out.   The father gave up trying to reason with the guy and just went inside the store. 

     

I found out later, they were arguing because the angry guy had been driving super slow on the highway doing 45 in the left lane on a 65mph highway in his crappy old rusted out small truck. Because he was driving so slow, a car zooming north in the fast left lane swerved around him at the last minute almost hitting the dad's truck.   The car swerving forced the dad to cut in front of the irate guy to get out of the way.   The nutjob blamed the dad for it all, because of course it couldn't be his fault for starting the whole mess by driving slow in the fast lane. 

 

At some point, when the nut realized everyone was ignoring his public temper tantrum he started going after me.   I was closest, and I was keeping an eye on him in case he swung at the dad holding the baby.    He accused me of being homeless and a drug user and that the country is going to Hell.   I just sighed and kept an eye on him.   He kept pestering, saying worse and worse things, until I finally snapped and yelled,  "Dude ! I'm just bike touring F$@k off!"    He then tried to pearl clutch about How Dare I say the f word in front of women and children in the parking lot.    I laughed, "Like you care about them,  you've been scaring everyone since you got here!"   

 

He got even more angry at the pushback and hurled more insults at me.     So I changed course, and using a loud but calm voice,  I cut him off saying "dude,  life is too short to be so angry.  How about you try being Happy?".   I'd used an exasperated,  calm,  sincere,  caring,  tone.  I remember the onlookers swiveling their heads back and forth like it was a tennis match between us and a few cocked their heads at me when I made that switch.  I made a surprise move I guess.  

 

My switch in tone got him to stop escalating.   He was still grumbling and angry and throwing insults at me but at a much lower volume.   I actually chuckled to myself when he called me stupid looking in my snoopy-ear hat (funny! and true!)   Maybe he realized he wasn't going to get the confrontation he wanted, so he left.   Didn't even peel out like I expected, but probably because his sh!tbox couldn't do a burnout.      The others in the parking lot looked at me after he left.   I shrugged, with my hands lifted halfway up and went back to packing up my bike.   People realized the show was over and moved on.

 

After he left, the father with the 1 year old came back out,  I told him I didn't think he'd done anything wrong.  It had rattled him.  I explained that the nutjob  had started calling me a druggie and homeless after he'd gone inside.   He either had mental health issues or he was trying to get a reaction that he could record and post on Tik Tok to make money.   I suspect the latter.   It was too calculated.   

 

If you google the question "why are people rage baiting in public now?"    It's a trend sadly.     The jerks have figured out how to make money verbally abusing strangers in public, while causing the scene that makes their victims look bad online.   What a world.  

 

I think the dad felt better after hearing he was a jerk to me too.    We talked about my trip for a minute and then they left.  I told him that I hoped that was the last lunatic he had to deal with today, which got a laugh.   The baby boy laughed copying his dad.   A nice baby giggle.  That's what I'll focus on remembering from the incident.   He was a cutie.   The whole thing must have been scary for the little guy, but he didn't cry.   Brave little dude. 

 

Anyhoo, enough of that,  the jerk-wad at the gas pump doesn't deserve to be a highlight.   Good or Bad.   He didn't ruin my trip in the slightest.   If anything, I feel sad for him.    Pathetic, manipulative behavior on his part.   Just a sad loser wasting his life.    Being nice to people is far more satisfying and rewarding.

 

So..... back to my biking adventure!

 

Before leaving the store,  I did throw out my bluetooth keyboard and khaki pants I wear to keep the sun off my legs.   It probably saved me at least a pound and a half.  Maybe more when the pants were soaked with my sweat.

 

Anyway, after the store, it was an uneventful 16 mile bike ride to the swimming hole spot.    The river water was bright green, so I didn't jump in.    I just wet my microfiber rag, and wiped the worst of the dirt off my skin.   I also did a bucket rinse/wash of my riding clothes from yesterday.    I scooped some water to filter drinking water too.   In my clear filter bag, the water looked far more clear.   I reapplied sunscreen and butt butt'r lotion and pedaled on.

 

My cover shorts got wet as I washed up, so I strapped them to the front of the bike to dry out.  I'm just wearing the skin tight padded cycling shorts as I pedal on, but they look like normal biker shorts, even though they're technically more like padded underwear.  I have figured out that wet clothes dry fastest on the front of the bike.   Makes sense.  More sun and wind up front.   I'm drying out my riding shirt on the back, but it's a lighter material that dries quickly.   I have my thin wool cycling socks for tomorrow on the side of the front food bag.

 

I'm now doing a four mile long climb with 1000 feet of elevation gain.    It'll be the last big climb of the day.    I have four or five shorter climbs after that but none are more than 200-300 feet.   I love how I can look ahead to see what climbs are coming using my bike computer; it's also telling me it'll take me three hours to get to camp.   Fingers crossed,  it's accurate.    It has my biking history, but with the loaded bike I'm going slower uphill and faster downhill than normal.  It throws off the estimates.

 

Back at the swimming hole I noticed that my left biking shoe's cleat was getting loose when I was putting my shoes back on.   I need to get in the habit of checking stuff like that once a day.   The bolts on the racks too.   I don't want to lose a cleat; it affects how strong I can pedal.   

I did air down the tires more and it's helping .   One of the problems I have is there's a lot of weight on the front tire with how I have the bike loaded (as you're supposed to do).  So when I stand up to pedal short steep sections, the rear wheel skids.    After airing down the front tire more, there's traction when I stand up to pedal now.   

 

I should also point out it's too humid for my long pants and arm sleeves, so I'm just using sunscreen.   In a hot dry climate, the sleeves and pants would help, but not here with the humidity.   The sweat doesn't dry off, making me hotter.  I'm carrying the sunscreen anyway so might as well use it.   I'm not throwing out the arm sleeves; they're nice in the morning when it's cold, but not cold enough to wear my goretex jacket on the early morning climbs.  Oh well, time to stop yapping, and focus on climbing.   I need to get to camp before it gets dark 

 

7p.m.   

 

I'm about 5 miles from where I can camp. I have cell signal so the voice dictation actually works pretty well. I think the one thing I keep thinking but don't want to jinx by saying it out loud is that I'm feeling super thankful how relatively good my body feels right now.   I started biking at 7:30 this morning and I go until 7:30 at night and my knees and back are fine.   Yes, my muscles get tired as you would expect, but at 54, I feel pretty damn lucky my body is cooperating with this sort of adventure.  

 

And I'm happy to report my butt is fine today.  I was worried I might have rubbed something raw when I tried to adjust the seat fore/aft position yesterday.    I was worried it would just keep getting worse, but it actually got better as the day progressed.   Weird!   Anyway, enough for now.  I still have about 700 feet to climb, the bike computer says I'll be there about 5 minutes before Sunset.   Gives me time to clean up a little, set up the tent, inhale some food, and climb into bed.   But overall a damn good day

 

 

VTXL DAY 3 Chelsea VT

Made it to Chelsea. Toughest day of climbing of the trip so far 7000ft. 50 miles. I'm still in town, but it's only a couple miles to get to where I'll camp tonight. So I'm posting now. No guarantee of cell coverage when I'm up in the hills

I'll probably just set up my tent get out of the rain. And fall asleep. I'll try to blog tomorrow if I have time

 

My camping spot for the night.   A little logging truck loading area that hasn't been used for at least 10 years.

view from the road

When I got up the next day, I wasn't that far from a few houses.   they were a quarter mile down the road.   Explained why I heard cars pass on the road a few times before falling asleep , but no one bothered me

VTXL Day three Riding

It's actually day four But my keyboard wasn't working due to the humidity.   I just got the idea that I could use my openfit2 shokz ear buds which have good microphones to do voice to text via my phone using the blogger app.    So let's give it a go I have a steep hill climb right now.

I'll edit these when i get home

Anyhoo, yesterday I did over seven thousand feet of climbing.   My Garmin Edge 1040 computer isn't recording the Ascent because I lost the bottom weather cover for it.     I bought a small pack of 10  USB C charging port rubber caps to keep water out of the charging port, so I thought it would be fine.    But, there's a tiny hole next to the usb c port that the barometer uses to track air pressure, and that's how it calculates ascent/descent.    Oh well I'll fix it when I get home, and buy a new weather cap.   

 

Day Three,  after leaving the hollow covered bridge, I was pretty hungry, but the next store wasn't until the 120 mile mark on my route, and I camped at mile 87.   Thankfully,  I had lots of Cliff bars, whole wheat wraps with peanut butter and dates,  wasabi almonds, and Protein powder.   

 

I was able to make it to the general store in West Topsham. When I got to their General Store nothing looked more beautiful to me in a long, long time.    So let me add a photo of the place so you can find the humor in that.   An hour earlier I'd eaten my last cliff bar, so I was ready to chow down!

Inside they had warm pizza,  hamburgers, chicken fingers, everything a hungry bike packer would be dreaming of.   The ride there was pretty rough.  It wasn't Class four road.  It was some old atv/jeep trail,  and I had to do a lot of "hike a bike".    Walking the bike uphill.    Here's some photos of the rough trail that I couldn't ride through and had to walk.   Later on, I figured out it was because I had to air down the tires more.

Back to the general store, I got a slice of chicken alfredo broccoli pizza, which had to at least be 700-800 calories on its own based on how heavy it felt.    I also got a cheeseburger,  small bag of Ruffles Sour cream and onion (the 3 serving size bag), and a 20 ounce coke.   Before leaving I went back in for an ice cream sandwich.    I was feeling so much better after that.    Wouldn't surprise me if I'd just inhaled 2,000 calories!    

 

In the town of Topsham, they have Hot spot Wi-Fi service, so I was able to get online.   There was zero cell signal.    Using the ridewithgps app on the phone, I plotted a better route from the West Topsham general store to the next general store in Chelsea,  about 16 miles away.  

 

During the ride I plotted, there was one brief section that wanted to take me over one of those rough trails again, but I said screw that (in my head) and stayed on the Backway road a little longer.   I banged a right on Ryder Rd, and then left onto Corinth.   Corinth was a five mile downhill ride into Chelsea which was awesome! 

On that downhill section it started to pour rain, and it's just a gravel dirt road, so by the time I got into  town from my knees to my shoes I was just caked with dirt and mud.   On the one hand it felt great to be bombing downhill to town knowing I'd be getting food again, but on the other I got soaked by the rain and coated with mud from the waist down.  Thankfully, I was just wearing my shorts instead of the long sun pants.  The pants would have been trashed.  In the store,  I bought a jug of water first thing, and went back outside.   I first filled my water bottles, and then used the microfiber rag I brought for "showers" to wash off my legs.      Stealing a photo from tomorrow, but my legs were far worse than this photo.   Bad enough I didn't even want to touch my phone which was safely stored in my waterproof frame bag.

 

When I got the gallon jug of water, I also put an order in for a small Philly steak sandwich with everything.  So by the time I finished cleaning up my legs outside, the sandwich was ready.   I also restocked on riding snacks.  Plain donuts, brown cinnamon pop tarts, cliff bars, etc.   As I was about to leave the Chelsea store around 6:30p.m., it started raining again.   Not bad, but heavy enough to make me put my rain jacket and pants back on.  

 

I was off to find camp for the night.    I had one last climb about 1 mile long with 550 feet of elevation gain to get out of town and back up into the woods.    I lucked out and found a spot for my tent for the night.   A short turnoff to logging roads, but it looked like it hadn't been used for loading up logs for at least 10 years.    A perfect spot to camp out for the night.      I set up my tent around 7:30p.m.  I turned in as quickly as possible because it was starting to rain again.   I managed to set up everything inside my small tent, out of the rain.   I didn't get my sleeping gear wet.  Major win!   I'd always wondered if I could pull off setting up the tent and getting everything set up inside without getting everything wet.   I can!

 

I was lying in bed by 8p.m. but didn't fall asleep until almost 11.  It's hard to fall asleep when your muscles are all fired up.    At some point, I figured out that if I left my bare legs exposed to the colder air, I could relax more easily.  I just had the warm goose down quilt over my butt and lower back as I slept on my stomach.  It still took an hour after that to drift off to sleep, but it was a trick I relied on the rest of the trip.    I'd usually wake up cold 2-3 hours later, rearrange the quilt to cover up, and fall back asleep cozy and warm.   Per my watch I slept from about 10pm. - 5:30 a.m.  I only got 1 hour of REM and deep sleep, so I need to be careful not to make any dumb mistakes.   My brain will be foggy with < 2 hours of REM/deep sleep.

 

 

 

VTXL day 3 morning, covered bridge

i wrote a longer post last night, but needed better cell for it to upload.   will do once I get to Topsham, or sooner.

Slept fine.   was in my tent by 7p.m. last night.  read for a bit, and then decided to try sleeping by 8p.m.  drifted off by 9 i think.

going to eat brekkie and get going asap this morning.   try to beat the rain coming mid afternoon. 

Later

 

More close ups of my water filter setup.   At camp last night, I let it filter while i worked on other things.   The previous night I'd used my lightweight polyurethane fabric bucket to wash my clothes.   The problem is how to dry things out when I don't have time during the day to hang them in the Sun.   So I figured out how to strap them to the bike.    In general I could get stuff dry during the morning ride, flipping things around every 2 hours.   In the afternoon, I'd dry other stuff. 

 

 

 

I started experimenting with strapping wet clothes to the bike so it could dry as I biked. I got better at it as I went. 

 

 

Day 2 VTXL evening camp at Greenbanks Hollow Covered Bridge

Long day, just shy of 60 miles, 59.25 and 5,000ft.   my bike computer isn't loading today's ride to the app on my phone, but I'll sort it out at home, no biggee.  I know I did it, lol

Butt is good.   really good actually, touch wood.    I felt the back of my legs and inside thigh muscles tiring towards the last couple hours of my 8 hour ride today, which is a clear sign that the seat is too high and too far forward.   I'd made those adjustments a couple weeks ago.   It's good on flatter terrain but not for all the climbing i'm doing, so I just went back to what I had marked/painted on the seatpost and seat rails, and I felt my strength on the climbs return.     easier on my lower back too.   

It did take me almost 8 hours to ride the 60 miles today.   Some of the climbs were tough and muddy.   Hopefully, i hit my groove tomorrow, or I'll have to adjust the mileage plan.   Less distance, 55miles but more climbing tomorrow, 7,000ft.   Crazy!    it'll be the most of the ride if i can doit, but i need to keep an eye on weather.   Thunderstorms and rain are coming late afternoon possibly, it could cut into my riding time, so i need to make an early start and not leave anything that makes me waste time doubling back.   Thankfully the rain that's definitely coming will be overnight when i'm in the tent.

after the lock snafu, no other incidents the rest of the day.   Recharged food wise at a nice farm stand.   got an ice cream cookie sandwich, rootbeer, and a dense heavy blondie with decadent chocolate, reese's cups, white chocolate and crushed graham crackers on top.  Hit the spot.

Dinner at camp was just cheese and pepperoni, a peach from the farmstand, the rest of the blondie and some wasabi almonds.   Didn't have time to stop at the Red Barn brewery.   I needed the time at camp to wash clothes and setup camp.   

took way more photos today, here's a sampling.   I'll review more later and post more

Pepperoni and Cheese keeps long enough over 1 day to keep for Dinner later, assuming the temps are 70F/22C or so.

Takes about 10-15 minutes to let the water filter drip fill my 1 liter bottle.

I often pulled out my ground chair and take a break and eat some snacks while filtering water.   The filter moves as the bag empties, and sometimes the bottle starts to lean.   Had it all dump on the ground once, wasting 10-15 minutes to replace it all.